YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

TEN YEARS

IMPERIALISM IN FRANCE

TEN YEARS

IMPERIALISM IN FRANCE:

IMPRESSIONS OF A "FLANEUR"

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLXII

PREFACE.

In offering his Impressions to the public, the " Flaneur"
must apologise for his foreign name, and explain its
meaning. His apology is that no word exists in the
English language which would convey a correct idea
of a Flaneur. He is not an '• Idler," as is generally sup
posed ; on the contrary, intense activity of all faculties
is one of the most necessary qualifications of a Flaneur.
Nor is he an "Observer;" for this would imply the
concentration of his faculties towards a definite aim
and in a certain direction.
The true Flaneur has a horror of all definite aim ; he
never seeks — he trusts to chance. His mind is like a
sensitive blank photograph plate, ready for any impres
sion which may present itself.
The internal state of France has attracted consid
erable attention of late, and rather unsettled ideas
about Imperialism. Some impressions fresh from the
spot may therefore not be without interest at this
moment.

C 0 N T E N T S.

rAriic
I. NEW PAULS...  !
II. WHAT IS THE COST, AND WHO PAYS?  14
III. LUTETIA PAEISIORI'M,  28
IV. GARRISON AND CAMP,  52
V. TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE AND ITS DRAWBACKS,  72
VI. TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE AND ITS ADVANTAGES,  89
VII. THE IMPERIAL FERTILISING SYSTEM,  106
VIII. MONEYMANIA,  120
IX. THE FIRST OF OCTOBER,  134
X. SOCIALISM,  151
XI. DEATH AND RESURRECTION,  169
XII. BODY AND MIND,  ,  186
XIII. GOSSIP,  200

TEN YEARS OF IMPERIALISM IN FRANCE.

CHAPTER I.

NEW PARIS.

Among the many clever rhapsodies of Edgar Poe, there
is perhaps none which exercises more attraction than
his 1002d Arabian Night, where he takes up the old
favourite Sinbad the Sailor and sends him on a new
journey. He goes westward instead of continuing his
explorations and adventures south and eastward, and
relates what he has seen in this age of railways, steamers,
and telegraphs. The story is so incredible that the
Eastern monarch, who has taken so piously all the for
mer stories of Scheherazade, begins to suspect her game,
and ends the Arabian Nights in truly old Oriental
fashion, by cutting off the head of the fair story-teller.
This rhapsody always recurs to my mind whenever I
visit Paris, after even a short absence. Sinbad the
Sailor, like a true Oriental, takes his hirf between his
journeys, and allows an interval of several years to
elapse between each of them. What would be the
effect on this simple-minded traveller if, after some
A

2 NEW PA EIS.
ten years of absence, brought on from Marseilles by the
express train and packed into one of the monster omni
buses, he were set down on the Place du Palais Eoyal ]
A traveller of modest means, in search of gain and
curiosities, he would probably look out for the Eue des
Quinzevingts or Beaujolais, to take up his old quarters
in one of the many hdtels garnis with which these
streets abounded ten years ago. Stunned by the rapid
pace of the railway train which brought him from the
south, and made drowsy by the omnibus journey over
the smooth Macadam, so different from the old orthodox
Parisian Barricade pavement, he would think himself
under a hallucination, owing to the mischievous designs
of the lord of the fiery steeds, or else of the ugly wizard
perched up on that uncouth construction which he has
just left. He would rub his eyes and try to awake, but
would only become more and more confused. There is,
indeed, something which seems like an acquaintance, the
Palais Royal, or rather the Palais National as Sinbad
remembers it ; but what are all those huge palaces with
their colonnades, that still more magnificent palace tower
in front, that endless street of palace-like bazaars which
extend eastward, that new tower to the left looking
down on a new square of equally palace-like buildings,
that other graceful tower further down which stretches
its stone lacework high up in the air 1 Poor Sinbad is
bewildered, and expects every moment to be taken up
by some bright Peri, or frightened by the appearance
of some winged colossal Gin.
He is, indeed, seized hold of by the arm, and starts ;
but it is neither Peri nor Gin who takes that liberty;
it is the good-natured Arab who keeps the shop of
mauresque finery at the corner of the Place du Palais

NEW PARIS. .'}
Royal, and who, seeing the colour and garb of tho
traveller, forgets for a moment that he is a French
citizen, and takes pity on the troubles of his kindred.
Let us suppose the traveller fairly housed by his care :
and, having made his toilet in the Bains Chinois, sallying
forth, accompanied by his cicerone, to see the marvels
of new Paris. The cicerone, who has considerably im
proved and refined his own Oriental imaginative power
by contact with his new compatriots, is proud to show
off the glories of the country which has adopted, or
rather annexed, him. Seeing the dispositions of his
companion, he conceives the idea of astonishing him
by showing him new Paris. Having taken him all
about the new Louvre and the Place Napoleon III.,
Sinbad, like a good Mohammedan, rejects the offer to
see the galleries which are filled with representations
in stone and on canvass of animated beings, and the
couple, passing over the new Bridge of Solferino, pass
along the Quay d'Orsay to the Boulevard de Latour
Maubourg, which runs along the western outskirts of
the Invalides. The cicerone does not neglect to draw
the attention of the traveller to the magnificent new
facing of stone with which the banks of the Seine have
been protected, as well as to the broad paved towing-
paths and wharves. Having taken him to cast a glance
at the Church of St Clotilde, he leads him into the
Boulevard de TAlma and across the Pont de TAlma
to see the Palais de lTndustrie. Then, going through
the Arc de l'Etoile into the Avenue de lTmpcra trice, he
passes by the new quarter which has arisen there to
the Bois de Boulogne. In coming back they turn to
the left into the Boulevard de Monceau, and having
looked at the glittering cupolas of the Russian Church,

4 NEW PARIS.
go through the newly-laid-out Pare de Monceau into the
Boulevard Malesherbes. Passing down the Rue Royale
they get into the Rue de Rivoli, and proceed along it to
the Place du Louvre to look at the Tower of St Germain
TAuxerrois, then on again through the same street to
the Place du Chatelet and the Avenue Victoria to see
the new theatres, the Fontaine Birague, and the Tour de
St Jaques de la Boucherie ; then crossing the new Pont
au Change to see the Palais de Justice and the Sainte
Chapelle, they go up the Boulevard de Sebastopol to
the Hotel de Cluny. Turning into the Boulevard St
Germain, they go back by Notre Dame and the Pont
dArcole to the Place de l'Hotel de Ville. Following
the Rue de Rivoli eastward, they saunter to the Place
de la Bastille, and thence to the Boulevard du Prince
Eugene. At the end of it, passing the great infantry
barracks on the corner of the Boulevard du Temple, they
get into the Boulevard de Magenta ; from thence into
the Boulevard de Strasbourg, and back by the Boule
vard de Sebastopol into the Rue de Rivoli.
"And where is Parish" asks Sinbad. "This is new
Paris," is the reply. I don't happen to know what the
politics of the Arab shopkeeper at the corner of the
Place du Palais Royal are — whether he is a supporter
or an adversary of the Imperial government, so there
are two versions of the account which Sinbad the Sailor
might give of what he saw in Paris.
The first is as follows : —
" While drinking one evening sweet Shiraz wine with
some of my boon-companions, and relating to them my
past adventures, I was seized with a violent desire to
see the wonderful things which had passed in the land
of the West called Frengistan since I had been there

NEW PARIS. 5
and of which I had- heard, through divers natives of
those regions, who are to be recognised by the strange
black felt tubes on their heads, and by coats cut away
in front and hanging down behind like swallow-tails.
Having heard, likewise, that the mighty King of Freng-
istan had given orders that the Sea of Yonistan should
be allowed to flow into the Sea of Arabia, I took my
ship in that direction ; but finding that the orders had
not been yet executed, owing to the cunning devices of
a neighbouring mighty island queen, I continued my
journey into the great ocean of the West. After many
days' and months' journey, and many perils, I arrived at
the chief port of Frengistan, called Marsilia. Having
disposed of my vessel, which was bought up to be shown
for money to the natives, I proceeded to the capital of
the country, which lies many miles inland, on the banks
of a muddy unwholesome stream. By the aid of the
genius of fire, which a great wizard called Fulton has
subjected to his power, I was carried by fiery steeds in
a few hours to the capital, or rather to the site where it
formerly stood.
" When I was last in that place the whole country
was under the rule of a bloodthirsty foreign tyrant
called Liberty, who kept the people in dingy, high, and
narrow houses, from which he drove them forth from
time to time to wage war against each other, in order
that he might feed on their corpses and drink their blood.
At last the scion of their good old Padishah, who had
ruled over many seas and lands, came back from across
the water, where he had been driven by the tyrant.
He assembled his followers and struggled with the op
pressor until he drove him away. There was great joy
among the people. Having thus come to the throne,

6 NEW PARIS.
the new Padishah sallied forth with a numerous host to
wage war in the east and south, and even in the far
land of Tshin, bringing back great glory and treasure.
After this, in order to make the return of the tyrant im
possible, he destroyed his den, the dingy old town, and
built another town, opening out large roads, protected
by huge fortified places called barracks, and flanked by
trees. Alongside of these roads are magnificent palaces
for the people to dwell in, and all over the town delici
ous gardens with fountains, lakes, and kiosks, destined,
above all, for women and children. He cleared the
river by building huge walls alongside of it, and threw
bridges across it. Being a pious man, he built great
mosques ; and for his people, who like mummery, he
built large halls in which they can indulge in that pas
time, and his people are the happiest people of the
earth." Now for the other version : —
" A great calamity has befallen the capital of Freng-
istan since I had last seen it; the country was then
governed by a divan of the wisest in the land, who
were called up from all parts to assist with their
counsel to make the people happy. Since then the
nephew of a great tyrant and warrior, who had already
tried several times to seize the crown, introduced him
self into the palace under the pretext of contributing to
the same aim. The people, being themselves true, be
lieved in his word; but they soon repented, for' one
night he seized hold of the wisest and most influential
men in the country, shutting them up or driving them
out of the country ; the people who came to their as
sistance were destroyed by his troops, and he became
the ruler of the country. To punish the people for

NEW PARIS. 7
their hostility, and to secure his dominion, he deter
mined to destroy their old town, which they had learned
to fortify and defend. He summoned workmen and
cunning artificers from the whole country, and con
structed for himself and his favourites a city of palaces
fair to behold and easy to defend. In order to carry
out this plan he taxed the people heavily, and kept up
a large armed force of foot and horse ready to obey his
slighest wink. The country has a heavy time of it."
It is difficult to say which is the greater marvel — to
look, after some years of absence, at the result obtained
in building this imperial city, or to watch the process by
which the old town of Paris is transformed. The first
intimation which the Flaneur gets of the impending re
volution, are a number of placards over the shops of the
doomed quarter, informing him that, " pour cause de de
molition," the business is transferred to some other place.
He had better seize the opportunity, and cast a last
glance on those gloomy shops, dark alleys, damp walls,
and impress himself with the life which animates those
abodes ; for axe and hammer, as handled by the JSdilitS
of Paris, are like death : they wait for no man's pleasure,
and strike suddenly. Another week or two, and another
leaf will have been torn out of the book of historical
Paris. When he returns all will be changed. There
will be still the placards and the houses, but lifeless,
almost like a plague-stricken quarter ; most of the shops
shut up, doors closed, the windows bare, and without
any of those appendages of clothes hung out to dry,
flower-pots cunningly hidden, housewives cleaning the
rooms or adorning themselves — all of which give those
streets their character, and suggest frequently a romance
for every flat. Only here and there a last trace of the

NEW PARIS.

life which is gone : an occasional window displaying
still its curtains, or a solitary shopkeeper showing his,
or probably her, face at the unusual apparition of a
human being ; for, as a general rule, women seem to
stick to their old haunts far more tenaciously than men.
In this case, at any rate, the resemblance to cats, which
is uncourteously attributed to them, is fully borne
out. Another week or so, and the doomed quarter is
hidden in a dense cloud of dust, and closed by palings.
Behind this paling the work of destruction is going on
merrily. It seems almost as if there was a good deal of excite
ment in such work, for it does not proceed in that quiet
machine-like way which becomes a second nature with
the day-labourer, but by fits and starts. The roof seems
evidently an impediment to the merry work, for there
is a remarkable hurry visible in getting it off. This
once gone, as well as the uppermost storey under the
mansarde, which is of frail structure, mostly wooden
frames filled out with lath and plaster, the excitement
begins. Old as the houses are, they are often very solid —
above all, the oldest of them — the main wall being inva
riably of cut stone. As there are almost always lookers-
on, there is considerable emulation in the destruction of
the upper floors which are visible. The removal of a
window-lintel, of a stone larger than the rest, and, above
all, the crash of a whole block of rubbish, are so many
triumphs. In this way a few days suffice to raze a block
of buildings to the ground. The whole south-western
face of the Tuileries, about one-third of the whole build
ing, disappeared last autumn in a couple of weeks. It
is true, there was an unusual interest in the case, for
one after another, the most important epochs of French

NEW PARIS. 9
history which had left their traces on the surface of the
walls were laid open in reversed chronological order.
From eagles and bees, through fleurs-de-lis, back again
to eagles and bees, and through Phrygian caps and fasces
of lictors, back again to the original fleur-de-lis. It was
a practical course of French history for tho last eighty
years, and one after another these emblems of the past
went clown to swell the mass of rubbish below.
Fast as the old houses disappear, the material of which
they were constructed disappears equally fast. It is usu
ally bought up by the builders engaged to construct the
houses on both sides of the thoroughfare. Consisting
almost always of more or less regularly cut stone, it is
available for foundations and partition walls, but scarcely
ever for the front, wliich is built of large cut blocks. As
soon as a little space is gained, the material is ranged
in layers ready for use. The thoroughfare is scarcely
traced out, when right and left the foundations are dug
for the new houses. Much depends, of course, on the
locality, for all are not equally favoured. Thus, on the
Boulevard Malesherbes opened last summer, while the
houses towards the Madeleine were ready almost as
soon as the Boulevard itself, those higher up towards
Monceau are only just beginning to show above ground.
The raising of the new structures goes on at the same
rate as the demolition. As all houses must be built
according to one model, varying only in some of the
smaller details, a skill has been acquired by the masons,
stonecutters, and even the common workmen, which
reminds one very much of a manufacturing process.
There are the same square pilasters piled up on the
ground-floor, to serve for the large open shops ; they
are connected and strengthened by iron bars of the same

10 NEW PARIS.
pattern ; over these come cornices, windows, flats and
roofs of equal height. Still monotony is cleverly avoided
by the disposition and ornamentation of the windows
and balconies, and the effect is one of general harmony.
The numerous chalk-stone quarries in the basin of the
Seine offer inexhaustible stores of building material
within easy reach. These yellow square blocks, and
iron, cast and wrought, enter most largely into all these
constructions. The returns of the taxes levied by the
town of late years on building material, will give the
best idea of what has been built. Since the large works
began, each year from 800,000 to 1,000,000 tons of cast
and wrought iron, from 40,000 to 50,000 tons of cement,
4,000,000 hectolitres of lime, and 400,000 steres of stone,
paid duty. The transport of these materials required a
permission each year for above 3500 waggons and above
10,000 carts.
A striking instance of how quickly this immense mate
rial is worked into shape was visible last summer in the
large block on the Boulevard des Capucines fronting the
site for the new opera-house, and destined to serve as a
monster hotel. Its area is considerably larger than that
of the grand Hotel du Louvre. In July the frontage
towards the boulevard was above the ground-floor only,
and by the end of October the building was under roof.
Quite as quick in proportion were the western front of
the Bibliotheque in the Rue de Richelieu, and the Jeu
de Paumes in the Garden of the Tuileries, run up. And
yet, in spite of this rapidity, the style of building is not
only solid, but almost what might be called monumental.
An English builder accustomed to leases of ninety-nine
years, must be quite shocked at the waste of labour,
cost, and material. Setting aside, however, the orna-

NEW PARIS. 11
mentation, it is not so great as it appears. Tho
quarries are within easy communication by rail and
water ; the stone is soft, ancl cuts easily; and although
the simplest kind of cranes and windlasses are used, a
smaller number of workmen seem to be employed, com
pared with what a building in brick would require. It
must be remembered that the works have been coing
on for years, and that they are in the hands of a com
paratively small number of entrejtreneurs, who have
been able by this time to organise a complete staff of
skilled workmen, who have attained a high degree of
perfection. The demolition and reconstruction of houses, the
building or repairing of churches, towers, palaces, mar
kets, and barracks, and the opening of new streets and
thoroughfares, represent only one side of the labour and
cost bestowed on this work of regeneration. There is
another which is equally important, and which comes
under the general denomination of " travail des ponts
et chauss^es." It comprises the construction and re
construction of bridges and quays, new pavement, trot-
toirs, plantations, squares, and the extension of sewers
and water conduits. Three new bridges have been
thrown across the Seine — the Pont Napoleon III., high
up towards Charenton ; the Pont de Solferino, opposite
the Garden of the Tuileries ; and the Pont de l'Alma,
connecting the boulevard of the same name on the two
sides of the river. Nineteen millions of francs were
required to redeem the tolls on nine bridges where they
still existed. Most of these bridges have been repaired ;
some of them, like the Pont au Change, the Pont St
Michel, and the Pont d'Arcole, have been almost rebuilt ;
while those leading from the Cite" into the Isle St Louis

12 NEW PARIS.
are still in course of reconstruction. Great part of
the embankment on both sides of the Seine has been
renewed from the Pont de Constantine down to the
Pont de I'Alma— that is, well-nigh seven kilometres of
walls, varying from fifty to eighty feet in height — and
provided with wharves and broad towing-paths. The
new thoroughfares have been provided with a complete
system of sewerage and water-conduits ; besides which,
new main sewers have been laid down in several of the
old thoroughfares, nominally in the Quartier du Louvre.
To this must be added the metamorphosis of the Bois
de Boulogne, of the Champs Elysees, the Avenue de
lTmpe'ratrice, the planting of trees on the new boule
vards, and a number of smaller squares opened out and
converted into gardens.
A length of about 20,000 metres of thoroughfares
had been opened from the heart of the town in every
direction. As on both sides of the Seine the ground
rises gradually towards the outskirts, the opening means
not only the clearing away of the old houses which are
in the way, but considerable cuttings, and in some cases
almost levellings of intervening hills, as, for instance,
in the higher parts of the Boulevard de Sebastopol,
especially the southern side of it towards the Barriere
de l'Enfer, and in the Boulevard Malesherbes, where
the houses on the left side lean on a hill as high as they
are themselves.
Other 10,000 metres are already marked out for
further openings. Indeed, as for plans, there is no
want of them ; the town has not in vain £50,000 to
£60,000 for plans and alignements on its budget; the
portefeuilles are full of them, and others are daily
spoken of.

NEW PARIS. 13
Augustus found Rome built of wood, and he left it
built of marble. The Emperor Napoleon, who is often
accused of a predilection for Roman Ctesarism, i.s in a
fair way of effecting in his capital a change scarcely
less complete than that accomplished by his prototype
in Rome.

CHAPTER II.
WHAT IS THE COST, AND WHO PAYS 1
These are two questions which must disturb the equa
nimity even of the flaneur, and excite his curiosity.
The second question, the more difficult at first sight,
is as yet easier to answer than the first. There seems to
be a temptation in building and making improvements,
quite as seductive as in the search after gold, curio
sities, and old books. Every lady and gentleman who
has had the good fortune to inherit an estate will sub
scribe to this — above all, if she or he did not much expect
the good fortune. Some have strength enough to resist
the temptation, and these often fall into the opposite
extreme; but if they once yield, it is difficult to say
where they will stop. At first there is to be only a little
alteration which is absolutely required; but soon it is
perceived that the old part nearest to it looks very bad
beside it, and cannot remain; and so it goes on in an
ever-increasing proportion.
Something similar has taken place in the good town
of Paris, since the Imperial Government has directed its
destinies. Every new improvement suggested others on a
larger scale; and, as the schemes expanded, the adminis
trative organisation was found insufficient to carry them

WHAT IS THE COST, AND WHO PAYS 1 15
into effect. At first it was attempted to supply this defect
by introducing new wheels into the mechanism. The
result was such complication and confusion of accounts,
that at last a special service had to be created for these
undertakings, and an Imperial decree, of the 4th Novem
ber 1858, established the Caisse des Travaux de Paris,
under the guarantee of the town of Paris, and under the
authority of the Prefect de la Seine, which is intrusted
with the financial service of all the works begun since
that period, leaving only the works then in process
of execution in the hands of the town. As some of
these works are not yet finished, and their definitive
amounts not made up, no correct idea can be formed of
the total cost. Nothing gives a better idea of the con
fusion which prevailed before the establishment of the
Caisse des Travaux than the different accounts in the
budget of the town. There were general funds, special
funds, supplementary credits, extraordinary expenses,
implying a number of diverse operations, chiefly caused
by the purchases and sales of ground, and by the uncer
tainty of the contribution paid by the state each year
for the different works. All this together makes it rather
difficult to know the cost, although these accounts them
selves throw considerable light on the modus operandi.
If one looks over them, one is involuntarily reminded
of the fable of the monkey trying to divide the bit of
cheese equally between the two cats, one-half becoming
somehow or other always too large and the other too
small. First comes the project of the budget, which
balances tolerably. But it is found that reality surpasses
expectation, and larger works are undertaken than were
projected. The expense of these likewise surpasses ex
pectation, and supplementary credits are decreed, which

16 WHAT IS THE COST, AND WHO PAYS?
again leave a surplus. These are absorbed by fresh ex
penses, and so on; and, at the end of the year, the budget
is no more to be recognised. Thus in 1858, the original
budget shows 70 millions of francs for the revenue, and
72 millions for the expenses; and the final account 109
millions revenue, and 85 millions of expenses. In 1859
the original budget is 83^ millions for revenue, and the
expenses 77 millions; the final account, on the contrary,
108 millions for revenue, and 90 millions for expenses.
The secret of this power of expansion is, that the
resources of the town are great, and that they are a
strong temptation to expense. Since 1852 the ordinary
revenues have been each year surpassing the ordinary
expenses in a greater proportion. Thus, while in the
first of these years the ordinary revenues exceeded by
17-jj millions of francs the ordinary expenses ; in 1859,
the last year before the extension of the barrieres, they
exceeded them by 30 millions; so that, in this space of
time, about 184 millions of francs were disposable for ex
traordinary expenses. General causes, like increasing
population and prosperity, influx of strangers, &c, had
no doubt the greatest share in this result, but something
is due likewise to the revision of the tariff in 1854 and
1855, which raised the tax on coal, candles, grease, meat,
cattle, fruits, vegetables, hackney-coaches, and omni
buses, and established new taxes on iron used for build
ing, ice, gas, besides an entrance-fee on the Bourse.
Since 1859, a great change has taken place in the
financial situation of the town, which tends still more
to increase the resources. A law of the 1 6th of June of
that year incorporates the banlieue with the town and
thus extends the limits of the latter to the fortifications.
Paris, which had until then 1,174,346 inhabitants, on a

WHAT IS THE COST, AND WHO PAYS? 17
surface of 3402 hectares, found itself, on the 1st of
January, with a surface of 8502 hectares, and 1,525,9 12
inhabitants and taxpayers. The two years which have
elapsed since this incorporation are scarcely sufficient
for appreciating the whole financial importance of this
measure ; but, from the results which were obtained
in 1860, and from those anticipated for 1861, some idea
of this may be formed. In the first year, the newly-
annexed suburban part added 15 millions to the revenue,
while it increased the ordinary expense only by 11^
millions ; so that the ordinary revenue left a surplus of
33 millions of francs. Adding to this 6-^ millions of
extraordinary revenues, arrieres, &c, we have almost
40 millions available for great works. If we get only as
much for the year 1 S61, although the valuation is higher,
we have 80 millions, which, with the 184 available since
1852, make 264 millions of francs, or £10,416,000.
But this sum represents only a part of the total ex
penditure of the town on the new works. Besides this
sum there are first the four loans : the first, of 25 mil
lions, in 1848; the second, in 1851, of 50 millions, for
the opening of the Rue de Rivoli, and the construction
of the Halles Centrales (the chief market-place) ; that in
1855, of 60 millions, for the termination of the Rue de
Rivoli, the Boulevard de Sebastopol (right bank of the
Seine), the Avenue Victoria, and the opening of the ap
proach of the Hotel de Ville ; lastly, another loan of 60
millions, authorised in 1860, on account of the 180 mil
lions, according to the arrangement of the 3d May 1858,
of which more by-and-by. Such was the credit of the
good old town in the beginning, that the first two loans
were issued at a premium ; but, as the other two were
issued under par, we may keep the round numbers, and
B

18 WHAT IS THE COST, AND WHO PAYS?
add 195 millions more to the sum, which thus swells to
£18,216,000. To these must be added the sums which have been
realised from the sale of ground which remained after the
laying out of the thoroughfares, and the sale of material
gained by the demolitions, as well as the subsidy paid
by the State for some of the works. As the accounts,
as well as the works, are far from being completed, it is
impossible to estimate the amount ; but, according to
the Annuaire du Credit Public, by M. Horn, for the
Rue de Rivoli and the Boulevard de Sebastopol (right
bank of the Seine) alone, from 1851 to 1857, 25 mil
lions of francs have been realised by the sales, and
38^ millions, in round numbers, paid by the State;
while for the others, up to 1859, the sale realised 6
millions of francs — in all, 69^ millions. To this must
be added the 19 millions inscribed on the municipal
debt as the price at which the tolls over nine bridges
were bought in by the town, and 7-ij millions inscrib
ed as subsidy to the Company of the Boulevard de
Strasbourg— total, £21,766,000. But it may well be
questioned whether even this sum represents the whole
amount actually expended by the town. The decree,
namely, which established the Caisse des Travaux de
Paris in 1858, authorises this institution to issue bonds
within certain limits, fixed after deliberation of the
municipal body, and sanctioned by the Emperor. There
is no doubt that this power has been largely made
use of, for out of the last loan (1860) 40 millions
are expressly destined to buy up such bonds ; the
question would be only to what extent it has been
used, and this probably few people could answer.
Equally difficult, if not altogether impossible, it would be

WHAT IS THE COST, AND WHO PAYS? I!)
to calculate what the State has spent on its own account
on public buildings, and what the share of private spe
culation was in the cost of the transformation of Paris.
The works undertaken by the town are of two sorts :
those of which the town has to bear the whole cost,
such as the construction of the Halles Centrales, or the
portion of the Rue de Rivoli extending from the Place du
Louvre to the Hotel de Ville ; and those towards which
the State contributes, in a greater or smaller proportion.
At the outset, when the first experiments were tried,
this proportion varied according to circum stances. Thus,
in the portion of the Rue de Rivoli from the Place du
Louvre to the Rue de la Bibliotheque, the State paid
one-half ; from the Passage Delorme to the Rue de la
Bibliotheque, two-thirds of the expense. The reason
was, that the original plan, according to which the co
lonnade was to stop at the Rue de l'Echelle, was changed,
and the colonnade was continued all along the Louvre to
the Rue du Roule : while to the rest of the works the
State contributes one-third. Indeed, since the arrange
ment of the 3d May IS. 3 8 regulated this point syste
matically, one-third of the cost is the invariable rule.
The treaty and the institution of the Caisse des Tra
vaux de Paris may indeed be said to have first reduced
this colossal enterprise to a system. Before that the
thing was in considerable confusion. At first, when the
plans were in embryo, and the desires still moderate,
the work was left in the hands of the municipality, and
a special fund was created to defray the expense.
This special fund, supplied by loans, contributions from
the State, and the sale of surplus ground and material,
was kept completely distinct from the general budget,
which had only to provide for the premium, interest,

20 WHAT IS THE COST, AND WHO PAYS?
and redemption of the loans. These special funds
were at the same time destined for specific operations,
like the opening of the Rue de Rivoli, the Bois de Bou
logne, the Halles Centrales, and the Boulevard de Se
bastopol (right bank of the Seine); but long before
these works were completed the desire arose for new
ones, for which credits were granted to the town on the
budget, and the effect of which was in a few years
hopeless confusion.
It was necessary to put an end to this confusion,
especially as still greater works were under considera
tion. It was therefore resolved to let the works carried on
by special funds be completed as they had been begun,
namely, by the municipality ; but for all the others to
reverse the process — to establish a special institution
to carry on the works, and to restrict the municipal
administration to supplying the funds, by special credits
allowed yearly for that purpose, which, however, form
part of the general budget. Besides this, all the pro
duce of the sales of ground and material are likewise
paid into the Caisse des Travaux, which out of these
funds has to pay all the cost of dispossession and in
demnities, and that of the works. It is scarcely neces
sary to add that the bonds which the Caisse issues are
on account of the town.
With this new machinery the Government hopes to
carry into effect all the great works ordered by the de
cree of the 11th August 1855, such as the Boulevard
Sebastopol on the left bank of the Seine, the Boule
vard de St Germain, the Boulevard du Nord, &c; the
works ordered by the law of 1857 ; and, above all, the
thoroughfares which were the object of the arrange
ment of 3d May 1858 between the State and the town.

WHAT IS THE COST, AND WHO PAYS? 21
Ten years are allowed for the completion of this last
category of works ; the State pays one-third of the total
expense, which proportion is, however, not to exceed 50
millions. The subsidy is only to be paid in proportion to
the works executed. The expenses incurred each year are
to be submitted to the control of a special commission,
composed of a Conseiller d'Etat, an Inspecteur-General
des Finances, and an Inspecteur-General des Ponts et
Chausse'es. The payments by the State for former works
are to be, in 1859, 2 millions, in 1860 4 millions, and
in 1861 6 millions, which amounts figure above among
the extraordinary receipts in those years. The 50 mil
lions is to be paid in equal proportions in seven years,
beginning from 1862.
After all these large works completed, or in course of
execution, and after the large sums expended, it might
be a matter of curiosity to know the financial situation
of the town. The ordinary receipts for the year 1861
are estimated at 101 millions of francs in round num
bers ; the current expenses, including the interest for the
new loan, at 68 millions. The debt of the town is taken
at 168 millions, representing in interest, sinking fund,
&c, a charge of 18 millions. The new loan, comprised
in the debt, represents already a portion of the outlay
of 180 millions to be spent in the coming seven years ;
but as the works always cost more than the estimates,
we may suppose the whole sum added to the present
debt, which swells thus to 248 millions, or two and a
half times the present yearly revenue. When the works
are finished, and if the ordinary balance is not disturbed,
there wTould be at least 33 millions of surplus each year,
which would pay back the whole debt in a few years.
Thus, for the present, the situation is by no means bad ;

22 WHAT IS THE COST, AND WHO PAYS ?
on the contrary, all depends, of course, whether still
further works will not be found necessary.
It cannot be expected that so complete a revolution
can be effected without causing considerable outcry.
First, there are a number of private interests which
must be sacrificed. A law of dispossession for public
utility must always raise adversaries, and in this
case there are several circumstances which consider
ably aggravate it. The law of 1852 on this subject
orders the dispossession to take place by a simple
decree. As in all official matters, great secrecy pre
vails in this respect ; there is no public discussion
which might throw light on the subject, and at the
same time prepare people for the contingency. The
object of the secrecy is no doubt to prevent jobbing,
which would take place were the matter divulged and
discussed beforehand ; but people feel nevertheless the
hardship of the measure, and consequently attribute the
worst motives to this secrecy. There are plenty of in
sinuations as to the great prophesying power of people
in favour, who somehow or other always contrive to
buy cheap in those unfashionable quarters destined for
destruction. Then there are complaints about the arbitrary man
ner in which the authorities proceed with disposses
sions and indemnities. These are fixed either by mutual
understanding or else by jury ; but as all is done under
the authority of the Prefet de la Seine— that is, the
party interested — there is an impression that the mode
of proceeding opens a door to favouritism on one side,
and injustice and annoyance on the other. The open
ing of the Boulevard de Malesherbes became, above all,
an object of complaint and criticism. Many private

WHAT IS THE COST, AND WHO PAYS? 23
h6tels of wealthy people not exactly conspicuous for
their adherence to the Imperial Government, had to be
razed to the ground, to the great inconvenience of the
owners. They could afford to make more noise than
the inhabitants of the poorer quarters, although the
hardship in this latter case was far greater. The minor
industries of Paris are very stationary, and become soon
acclimatised to the quarter in which they are once estab
lished. They have their regular clientele, which belongs
likewise to the quarter. All this is of a sudden dis
persed in all directions. It is more than a simple
change of quarter ; it may be sometimes ruin.
To these specific complaints comes the general one of
dearness. The new houses, built in an expensive manner,
and opening out on the fine new thoroughfares, could
not be let at low prices ; and all other houses followed
their example, and raised their rents in some places
to double within the last few years. This told most
heavily on Government employes and others having
fixed salaries ; most of these have had to migrate to the
villages in the vicinity of Paris.
The raising of house-rents, together with the in
crease of the taxes on articles of consumption, has ex
tended this dearness to all provisions and necessaries.
To the last two complaints even the stranger will sub
scribe. There is full equality in this respect, and every
one has to pay for the transformation of Paris.
Politicians and national economists have complaints
of their own : these relate not merely to the present but
likewise to the future. The first is, that Paris has be
come a pashalik with which the Prefect of the Seine has
been invested. It is a municipality merely by name and
courtesy, and is administered by a commission named

24 WHAT IS THE COST, AND WHO PAYS ?
by the Pasha. It acts under the guidance of the
Government, and is free from all responsibility or con
trol of the people. It may and does commit injustice ;
it may and does squander the resources ; it may and
does impose charges as and where it pleases. A regime
like this, if it lasts, cannot but extinguish all municipal
traditions, of which the town has so much reason to be
proud, and ruin the finances of the town.
The great demolitions are a wanton destruction of
capital, and thus there is a double waste ; the unnatural
fostering of the building industry, and the changes con
sequent on it, tend to disturb all healthy development of
the town. The situation is artificial ; to keep it up greater
sacrifices are daily required ; the time will come when
these are no more possible, and then a crisis must follow.
As usual in such cases, there is much exaggeration
and a good deal of truth in these complaints.
The rights of labour and ateliers nationaux are not an
invention of the Imperial Government ; it has inherited
them from its predecessor, the Republic. The principle
that it is the duty of the State to interfere in the rela
tions between capital and labour in favour of the latter
as the weaker of the two, was not only avowed by the
Government of 1848, but acted upon, although, as every
one knows, with little success. The arguments of brute
force used in the days of June to prove the fallacy of
these socialistic ideas, although overpowering for the
moment, were triumphantly refuted by the masses on
the 10th of December 1848, when Cavaignac, the
champion of these arguments, had to make way for
Louis Napoleon; and on the 2d of December 1851,
when these selfsame masses applauded the application
of similar arguments against their adversaries and

WHAT IS THE COST, AND WHO PAYS? 25
insured the triumph of their own ideas, by the election
of Napoleon III. as Emperor of the French.
To solve practically this social problem, and to heal
the breach between bourgeois and ouvricr, became
thus one of the most arduous tasks to whicli the new
monarch was pledged, and on the success of which
his own safety depended.
The transformation of Paris represents one side of
this solution of the social system, the failure of which
overthrew the Republic. It is the most important one,
for Paris was the cradle of the system ancl its battle-field.
The extreme solution of the problem by the establish
ment of the ateliers nationauxhas too signally failed for
its renewal to be attempted ; aud the only way out of the
difficulty seemed some compromise by which both antag
onists, capital and labour, might gain, and the Imperial
Government have the credit of the whole transaction.
The gregarious habits of the Celtic race, so conspicu
ous in their great capital, offered an opportunity for this
compromise, and the great resources of the municipality
the means for it. The impulse once given in this way,
the imitative French nation could be easily enlisted to
assist the Government in the work, and help, almost
unconsciously, to carry out the ideas which it had once
taken up arms to resist.
The city of Paris had a large surplus revenue every
year ; what was more legitimate than to apply it to
works of public utility ? Relieve the crowded town,
open out thoroughfares, offer a profitable investment to
private capital, set in motion every trade, repair and
redeem bridges, construct quays, make the capital into
the finest city in Europe; it was doing the public good,
assisting capital, supplying labour, improving the habits

26 WHAT IS THE COST, AND WHO PAYS?
of the people, flattering national vanity, preventing the
renewal of the sad conflicts between classes, and pro
viding good lines of defence for possible emergencies.
To leave this work in the hands of the municipality
would have been to leave free scope for narrow and in
terested ideas, and to open out the old struggle. It
could be carried out only with a high hand by the
Government and its agents. Individuals may complain,
but the great majority will profit. Besides, it is the
very principle of the Imperial Government to be the
initiator of all measures ; it alone can be the impartial
and competent judge between conflicting interests, and
has to maintain the balance between them.
There can here be no dispute about the principle —
the right or wrong — for the French people have long
sanctioned the interference of the Government in the
private relations of the people for the general good;
the whole reduces itself, therefore, to a question of
measure and calculation.
The supporters of the Imperial Government point
triumphantly to the success which has attended the
efforts of the Government. The general and daily in
creasing prosperity of the city, those hundreds of new
houses which private enterprise has constructed, the
wellbeing of all classes in spite of the dearness, the un
diminished resources of the city in spite of the heavy
expenses, the labourer better fed than ever, are all facts
which it would be difficult to deny. To any objections
about so artificial a fostering of industry the reply is,
that it is a natural development which in France requires
the hand of the Government to impel and to guide ; if
one hints at a possible crisis through circumstances which
cannot be controlled, the answer is that the harvest failed

WHAT IS THE COST, AND WHO PAYS? 27
in 1856 and that there was a monetary crisis in 1857,
yet everything went on well. If one speaks of tho
future, of the great influx of labourers from all parts of
France, attracted by the high wages, of the impossibility
of going on thus for ever, of the consequences of a tem
porary interruption of the works, the answer will pro
bably be less confident. Still people -will try to prove
that, in a large city like Paris, which is growingricher
every day, there will be always a good deal of activity ;
that the impulse given by the Government has reacted
already, and will still more react, on private enterprise
and speculation ; that it is impossible to say how far
activity and prosperity can increase.
To a new problem like that tried in Paris and France,
the old standard cannot be applied, and time alone can
decide whether the calculations will prove right or
wrong in the end. What has been already effected is
so extraordinary that the future defies calculation. One
fact will prove this better than anything else. Since
the year 1851, the exports and imports of France have
doubled. The means may have been artificial, but the
result is as real as anything can be. If this hothouse
system of production, as the adversaries, and manuring
system, as the supporters, of the Government call it, has
added so much to national wealth, who can say where
it will stop ?
In the mean time, volcano or not volcano, it is plea
sant to lounge about it. This is the feeling of the Flaneur
himself, and if one is to judge by countenances, it
is likewise that of the busy crowd which jostles him.
It may indicate carelessness of the future, but it looks
very much like tolerable satisfaction with, and enjoy
ment of, the present, and it is pleasant to behold.

CHAPTER III.

LUTETIA PARISIORUM.

It would be a faithless desertion of an old friend to
say so much about new Paris without taking a stroll
about that dear quaint old mud city which has made
so much noise in the world. It is rather at a discount
just now with the sightseer, and the young and brilliant
rival is daily more encroaching on its domain ; but
however presumptuously the intruder would jostle it
aside, and however superciliously he looks down upon
it, he has actually made but small progress, and the
Old Town is still the heart and centre of Paris life,
to which the Flaneur resorts, who wishes to partici
pate in this life. After pacing up and down those
large wide thoroughfares, a feeling of weariness comes
over him. Those endless straight lines, those broad
boulevards which seem empty in spite of the crowd,
that general resemblance of houses and shops so well
calculated to strike at first sight and impress with an
idea of grandeur, all contribute to benumb every sense
after a short time, and to produce a kind of half-con
scious stupor equally unfavourable to receiving impres
sions or making observations. Almost without per
ceiving it, the Flaneur branches off into one of the side

LUTETIA PARISIORUM. 29
streets, and a feeling of relief comes over him instantly.
There he is again on true Paris ground, not the drab-
coloured mud of the macadam or the adhesive surface of
the asphalt, but on genuine slippery blackish-grey mud,
which has merited for the city of the Parisians its name
of Lutetia. The crowd is the same which elbowed him
in the showy new thoroughfare, yet somehow or other
it has become different in character. The difference
reminds him of that between the French soldier on
parade and in campaigning. The contact wTith the old
Paris mud seems to have renewed the myth of Antaeus.
That crawling pace has given way to the true Parisian
tripping swinging gait. Unlike the stolid crowd, fouling
each other continually in the wider thoroughfare, every
one pursues his way, daintily avoiding, by clever steerage
and rapid tacking, the obstacles which he may meet
with. A bright smiling expression animates every
countenance instead of the former placid and insipid
listlessness. The assumed constraint is dropped, and
the true lively nature reappears again.
Let us then leave large new thoroughfares to sight
seers, and take a stroll through genuine old Paris mud.
Where shall we go first ? Nowhere in particular. This
is our privilege as Flaneurs.
As we wander thus from street to street, from the
north side of the water to the south side and back again,
an exuberant flow of animal spirits is the first thing
we become conscious of. It is the reflex of the life and
movement which surround us. For miles and miles
nothing but shops with greater or smaller pretensions ;
and a bustling crowd moving to and fro, rushing in
and out, — the narrow streets can scarcely contain the
double current of passengers. Is it a great market and

30 LUTETIA PARISIORUM.
shopping day? No, it is the same every afternoon all
the year round.
And wonderful, truly, is the animation of the whole
town about that time, for it is not confined to one or
more of the chief arteries of communication, or to one
or another class of society, but a general mania of
locomotion seems to have taken possession of the po
pulation, and seems to drive it about in every direc
tion. That compact mass of promenaders which haunts
the western portions of the old boulevards, from the
Rue Vivienne to the Madeleine, and that never-end
ing string of carriages which turns down by the Rue
Royale towards the Bois de Boulogne, are equalled, if
not surpassed, by the Chiaja of Naples, or by Picca
dilly, Bond and Regent Streets, on a fine summer's
afternoon. It would be hopeless perhaps to single
out one spot which could be compared to Cheapside,
the Strand, or Oxford Street, at certain periods of the
day ; but for general intensity of life over the whole
town, old Paris has no parallel. Highways and by
ways participate in it, as well as the higher and lower
classes. Nor is that difference in the crowds so marked
as in other towns ; and although one stratum of
society may be more prominent in one or another spot,
it is never to the exclusion of others, and it would be
difficult to find a place which is monopolised by one
class of society. You may stroll about in the most
remote quarters without attracting observation, and
without feeling that loneliness and almost embarrass
ment which overcomes you if you attempt this in any
other capital. It is this mixture of the whole popula
tion in Paris mud which gives such life to the crowd,
and such character.

LUTETIA PARISIORUM. 31
This mixture is explained by stopping at tho corner
of any of the cross streets which lead into the larger
arteries, and looking at the houses and their inmates.
The corner house, near which we are standing, is
perhaps a demure-looking hotel of a millionaire, shut
out as much as possible from contact with the outer
world ; and its next neighbour, probably a narrow six-
storeyed house, telling garrulously its own tale, with
a grocer's shop occupying the ground floor, the first
floor adorned with all the insignia of a tailor, the se
cond informing the world where the best articles in
"bonneterie" are to be found, the third floor, with its
clean windows and pretentious curtains, probably har
bouring the retired bourgeois and proprietor, the fourth
looking dusty and dismal, and revealing the abode of
some hard-working ouvrier in precious stones or metals,
while higher up you may suspect the abode of the family
of that workman in the blouse, or of the clerk in the
dingy coat, who has just passed you. In vain do we
search for those silent squares and rows of mansions
which reveal in other capitals the choice quarter of the
aristocracy : the most select spots of the Faubourgs St
Germain and St Honore* have been defiled by the intru
sion of shops and lodging-houses let in flats. Indeed,
the inquisitive stranger who would seek in silence and in
absence of shops an indication of the aristocratic quar
ter might make some strange mistakes, for after search
ing a long time he would most probably fix on the neigh
bourhood of Notre Dame de Lorette, which, although on
the slope of the hill of Montmartre, can scarcely be said
to be tenanted by those highest up in the social scale.
If an inference were to be drawn from silence and absence
of shops, it would have to be the very reverse of what

32 LUTETIA PARISIORUM.
we have experienced in other capitals — namely, that
such here denotes poverty and decline of the quarter.
These endless rows of shops are certainly one of the
most astonishing features of Paris. Yet they existed
even at the time when Frenchmen were scoffing at the
" nation of shopkeepers." Not only is it quite an after
noon's business to find a street without a shop, but in
most of the favourite places there are several in every
house, and sometimes more than one even on a single
flat. Who has not asked himself, Where do the people
come from? how can they all live? Paris is probably
the most populous town for its size in the world. There
is little doubt that it was so until 1859, when it was
extended to the fortifications. Its limits had remained
until then as they were under Louis XVI. in 1789,
when it had a population of about 600,000 ; while at
the time of the annexation of the Banlieue, it reckoned
not less than 1,174,346, or double that number. This
vast number was crowded into 3402 hectares, or
6804 acres, giving 345 inhabitants to the hectare and
140 to the acre.* A child of habit and of truly gre
garious disposition, the idea of escaping from this
human hive never occurred to the true Parisian. He
tried, if he could afford it, to have a country seat for the
summer months in the vicinity of his dear city ; but
as to choosing there his dwelling permanently, and com
ing only to town for business, as so many Londoners
do, he never dreamt of it. Even now that the limits
of the city have been more than doubled, and that
large thoroughfares, flanked by magnificent houses, have
* Even taking the new area of Paris, 7802 hectares, with 1,525,942
inhabitants, there are 195 to the hectare and about 80 to the acre while
London gives scarcely more than 32 to the acre.

LUTETIA PARISIORUM. .'):!
been opened to the very outskirts, he subjects himself
only in extreme cases to what he considers as a ban
ishment. His chosen spot is near the most popu
lous centres ; he leaves them with a sigh when his
means will no more allow him to pay the high rent.
Although one of the great objects in the transformation
of Paris was to put an end to this unwholesome crowd
ing of human beings, it will take a long time before the
tastes and habits of the people in this respect arc
reformed. While every new building rising in the
centre of the town is taken as soon as it is finished, if
not before, the squares and detached "hotels," which
have been erected to tempt people to migrate further
out, remain unoccupied. There is something quite
poetical in this fond attachment of the Parisian to his
city, and to the Hfe and animation which are peculiar
to it. The fondness of the Swiss for their mountains,
which has been so oft the theme of prose and verse,
and which, by the by, exists now more in romance than
in reality, was probably never stronger in its palmiest
days. The true sound of the Parisian R, which is as
characteristic in the language of Lutetia as the letter
H in the precincts of Bow-bells, produces on the
Parisian abroad the effect which the cowhorn is said
to have on Swiss mountaineers in foreign parts. It
makes him yearn more than ever after his dear Paris,
out of which he only vegetates ; and this attraction of
Paris is not confined to the born Parisian ; it soon
extends its sway over the new-comer, and makes him
often more fanatical than the native.
Such clinging to the old place, and crowding within
such narrow limits, are in themselves sufficient to account
for the unparalleled animation of the town, and for the
c

34 LUTETIA PARISIORUM.
number of shops. A million and a half of people
live closely packed together, who have to be provided
with necessaries and luxuries, besides from 70,000 to
100,000 strangers, who arrive within the year to swell
this number. But Paris provides not only for those
within its walls. It is the greatest manufacturing
centre in the empire ; and, if value is taken into con
sideration, it produces considerably more than one-
third of the whole industry of France. Parisian in
dustry has a peculiar character : it does not, or at
any rate it did not until lately, comprise large manu
factures, but consists principally of industries which
may be carried on most advantageously in small ateliers,
employing each a few workmen. This subdivision of
each branch of industry offers a far wider field for the
exercise of the individual taste and skill of masters
and workmen than can be the case in large factories,
and probably accounts, in a great measure, for the
noted superiority in finish, elegance, and taste which
distinguishes Paris articles. These small ateliers are
dispersed all over the town, and in most cases have
their retail shops in the same building ; and these
shops provide a considerable portion of France, and of
the civilised world, with articles of dress, jewellery,
bronze-work, embroidery, shoes, hats, carriages, gloves,
furniture, pianos, — in one word, all articles which
derive their greatest value from the taste displayed in
their construction. Already, in 1847, the value of
these productions exceeded £2,400,000, and the new
census taken last year will probably show an increase
of at least one-third. The movement and shops of
Paris represent thus likewise the stir caused by this
production and exportation. Besides this, Paris is the

LUTETIA PARISIORUM. 35
central depot for the most notable portion of the import,
export, and transit trade in France.
If to all this be added the lively sociable nature of
the people, and a climate so favourable to out-door life,
the unrivalled charm of the streets of Paris will be
fully accounted for. Days and days may be passed in
mingling with their life, absorbing it as it were, and
still it will retain its novelty ; nay, it will gain in in
terest, for while at first we are scarcely able to take in
the ensemble of this life, by degrees we enter into its
details : something like a person who comes into a
glaring light of a sudden, and only by degrees accus
toms his eye to distinguish the objects which surround
him. The first thing we see in this case is, that the frame
work which encloses this living picture of Paris is as
attractive as the picture itself ; ancl yet in vain do we
search for those fine architectural monuments which
adorn so many ItaUan towns, or those curious remains
of the middle ages which lend such a charm to some
German towns, like Nuremberg, for instance, or Prague ;
we perceive only scattered traces of them, faint and far
between — a little turret at the angle of a street, or per
haps a carved window or door, so disguised that in
most cases it escapes our notice. As for the rest,
nothing but a succession of streets more or less narrow
and crooked, enclosed on both sides by a succession of
high houses, bare and without ornament, and having
an average frontage of three or four windows — archi
tectural paupers, with not even an attempt to disguise
their destitution ; and still for picturesqueness few places
in the world can be compared to these narrow crooked
streets.

36 LUTETIA PARISIORCM.
What the proprietor and architect have neglected, the
inmates of the houses have supplied, and each in his
own way and according to his own taste ; as each house
harbours two and three shopkeepers, one above the
other, and as the object of every one is to attract the
notice of the passer-by and customer, all vie with each
other in ornamenting and giving the greatest possible
prominence to the portion occupied by them. The
true orthodox beginning in this respect is to paint the
walls in a colour different from those which surround
them ; then, if possible, some alterations are made in the
windows, either by panelling around them or by dis
guising one of them, so as to obtain another point of
difference from the neighbours. This basis being laid,
the large signboard is affixed, redundant in colour
and in caligraphy, and around or below or above it
are placed such articles as may be best calculated to
show the stock in trade. This good old habit is still
faithfully adhered to in many places, and contributes
not a little towards adorning the houses and render
ing them picturesque. The effect of these individual
efforts is greater than any ever achieved by the most
original architect. The houses themselves seem ani
mated, and to partake of the life which is going on in
and around them ; that mixture of colours and that
variety of invention become an endless source of
pleasure to the eye and of amusement to the mind.
Whoever wants to enjoy the full effect of this original
style of ornamentation, let him take a stroll to the
north side of the Halles Centrales, the great market
place of Paris. From the Church of St Eustache and
the corner of the Rue Montmartre a row of old houses
has been uncovered in the direction of the Rue

LUTETIA PARISIORUM. 37
Rambuteau. Exposed to the public gaze, and brought
almost into contact with the pretentious line of new
buildings which have been erected on the east side of
the market-place, the inmates of the old houses seem to
have determined to take up the gauntlet thus thrown
down, and to eclipse those huge masses by their gay
and original style of ornamentation. Whoever has an
eye for the picturesque will not hesitate to award the
palm to them ; and even the dullest passer-by will find
his eye fascinated, while he will probably pass their more
pretentious rivals almost without casting a glance in
their direction.
But we have been wandering about so long in this
picturesque maze that we begin to feel quite at home.
The confusion gradually assumes shape ; we single out
the more prominent features of each locality, observe
the recurrence of some and the absence of others, and
thus are enabled to follow more closely the currents of
this exuberant life, its rise and changes.
We are in the Cite, the island cradle of Paris, the
favourite scene of sensation novelists of the romantic
school, the traditional haunt of the outlaw, and the do
main of the jail-bird, who shares the island with the
Palais de Justice and Notre Dame, its archbishop and
chapter : a strange neighbourhood to choose, but still
convenient from its isolation and the intricacy of its
streets. The novelists of the school of horrors will soon
have to look out for other scenes, for imperial govern
ment seems decidedly averse to this kind of romance, and
probably no other place has been so severely handled
as this little spot. What with the enlargement of the
Palais de Justice, the junction of the two sides of the
Boulevard Sebastopol, and the clearance of the pre-

38 LUTETIA PARISIORUM.
cincts of Notre Dame, little enough remains of the old
place. Last autumn the block between the old Marche
aux Fleurs and the Morgue was still standing, but
doomed ; you could pry into the Rue aux Feves, the
theatre of the exploits of Maitre d'Ecole, Chourineur,
Fleur de Marie, and other heroes and heroines of the
' Mysteres de Paris ; ' and nowhere probably could a
more appropriate scene have been found for such ex
ploits. A dark labyrinth of lanes, passages, and alleys,
without issues apparently, but all more or less con
nected, so as to form a human warren. Most of the
lanes are altogether inaccessible to vehicles, and some so
narrow, that by extending the arms the walls on both
sides may be touched, and, in case of necessity, a leap
taken from the windows of one into those of the other
side of the lane. In spite of this proximity, the houses
rise high up in the air, and cast a gloom and mystery
on the whole place, such as fully harmonises with the
idea of crime hiding itself. What is strange in the
picture is the solidity of the houses. As far as dark
ness, faded colouring, and damp allow us to distinguish,
they are built almost exclusively of cut stone, and here
and there worn traces of stone ornaments are visible,
all probably the remains of the times when the Cite'
was the residence of kings. Shops, which have in
truded everywhere else, have not spared even this dis
mal quarter ; not only wine-shops and eating-houses,
wood and charcoal shops, but boot and clothing stores,
even one or two modistes and a coiffeur, have had
the courage to seek here for customers. Whatever life
there is, is quite in harmony with the entourage. Silent
figures slipping along in the dusk and disappearing in
some narrow passage, here and there a woman standing

LUTETIA PARISIORUM. 39
before the door and eyeing the stranger, or a head peep
ing out of the window at the sound of an unknown
step. Not a trace of children or of household occupa
tions, which are so prominent everywhere else among
the dwellings of the poorer classes in Paris. There is
material for a romance then and there.
The danger is, however, lest it should be all romance
and no reality; for what with the air and light which
have been let into the Cite by the late demolitions, what
with gas-lamps and gendarmes, probably little more
remains than the shell of the old horrors, and this shell
has been filled with squalid unromantic misery. Men
and women who have given up struggling in the mud
of Babel, and have resigned themselves to sink in it,
provincials, friendless and helpless, and any other misery
which seeks a hiding-place.
A few steps, and we are out of gloom and silence,
once more back among brisk life and noise. We are in
the Rue de la Cite, one of the most important links be
tween the two sides of the Seine. With the Faubourg
St Jacques to the south, and the Marais to the north, it
unites the greatest manufacturing centre with the
chief quarter of the ouvrier; and perhaps no other place
offers such an opportunity for seeing the latter : a walk
over the Petit Pont brings us into the Faubourg St
Jacques. Although dispersed all over the town, the manufac
tures have a tendency to become localised. Thus, for
instance, Paris articles, bronzes, metal-works, and jew
ellery, are concentrated about the Temple and in the
Marais ; carriage-building, saddlery, modes, and confec
tionery, group themselves on both sides of the old
boulevard from the Madeleine to Montmartre. Right

40 LUTETIA PARISIORUM.
and left from the Boulevard Montmartre to that of St
Martin, is the chosen spot for tailors and shoemakers.
The vicinity of the Halles Centrales serves for all stores
of food, drugs, distilleries, &c. ; the quarter between
the Hotel de Ville and the Rue de la Bastille, for cot
ton and silk manufactures ; the Faubourg St Antoine
for furniture, wood-carving, manufactures of machinery,
chemical produce, &c. ; St Jacques for leather, brushes,
sugar-refineries, and so on.
The ouvrier endeavours as much as possible to adapt
himself to this localisation, and those narrow high
houses of old Paris greatly facilitate this process. Most
of the uppermost storeys and attics all over the town
are occupied by the labouring classes, above all, that
portion of them which works at home, and which con
stitutes not less than one-fifth of the whole. But neither
can all ouvriers find room round their ateliers, nor can
all afford the furniture required ; and the great mass of
these have taken refuge on the south side of the Seine
in the Faubourg St Jacques, and all around it towards
the Observatoire and the Luxembourg.
There, on the slopes of Mount St Genevieve, the
patron saint of Paris, the artisan and student dwell
side by side, representing the vigour of mind and body
not only of Paris, but, it might almost be said, of France.
This was always the hotbed of those ideas which have
changed the aspect of France more than once.
Close to the Seine is a small irregular place, sur
rounded by a maze of narrow intricate streets, and the
only open spot in the neighbourhood before the muni
cipality took to demolition. It is the Place Maubert,
the Pnyx of the ouvrier of Paris, to which he has re
sorted ever since he played so prominent a part in the

LUTETIA PARISIORUM. II
history of his country. It has been respected, although
all around the axe and hammer have gone mercilessly
to work. It seems almost as if the object had been to
cut off the feeders of this centre of hotheads, for by tho
Boulevard Sebastopol it has been isolated from the
populous districts to the west, while the Boulevard St
Germain cuts it off from those to the south. Still so
strong is habit, and so powerful the sway of tradition,
that last autumn, when the rise in the price of bread
caused considerable excitement among the working
classes, the Place Maubert was again resorted to as the
arena where to vent the feeling of discontent. This
circumstance will probably contribute to hasten the
construction of the other thoroughfares, which are
marked in this densely-populated neighbourhood. Al
ready, by the demolition of the Rue de la Harpe and a
portion of the Rue St Jacques, the Quartier Latin has
been forced to migrate further west towards the Rue
de Seine, while the ouvrier class itself has been con
siderably thinned, and pressed out towards the outer
boulevards. But nevertheless enough remains for the
study of the ouvrier at home for whoever is inclined to
stroll about the Rue Calandre, the Rue de la Montagne
St Genevieve, and others in the neighbourhood. The
whole population seems to be living out of doors, and
nothing can be more interesting than the scene pre
sented by this quarter on a summer evening.
We cross the Boulevard Sebastopol and are in
classic land, the heart of the Quartier Latin, another
favourite spot of the romantic school, from Balzac to
Murger, the home of the student, the artist, and the
grisette, immortalised by Be'ranger, the land of songs
and youthful lightheartedness. Science and art, and all

42 LUTETIA PARISIORUM.
the occupations to which they give rise, or with which
they are connected, are concentrated here. From the
Luxembourg to the Seine, nothing but colleges, schools,
ateliers of artists, printing establishments, lithographers,
engravers, booksellers, curiosity-shops, manufactories of
colours and brushes, cafes, and, above all, hdtels garnis.
The Quartier Latin is the real home of the " maison
meublee." The streets swarm with them. They are
recognised by a low wooden railing, painted in red,
brown, or green, before the door, with Hdtel Meuble
painted on it in yellow. Behind this railing is a dark
passage, and a precipitous slippery staircase like Jacob's
ladder. It leads to the loge of the concierge, adorned
with its brass candlesticks, and a regiment of keys,
ranged according to their numbers. Another flight of
stairs, and a landing paved with bricks, walls supposed
to be painted white, and three or four doors painted
yellow. If you enter one of the doors, you find four
walls, a low bed, a table, a chest of drawers without
locks, two arm-chairs in faded velvet, three chairs with
horse-hair covering, an old-fashioned clock under a glass-
case, and a Liliputian wash-hand basin.
But little does this matter; for indoors and outdoors
there is more life centred in this district than in any
others of Paris, and life too of a different character
from any other. A great proportion of the inhabitants
being youths in the prime of life, full of illusions, light-
hearted, and naturally gay, they infuse a spirit into
everything around them, which forms a charming con
trast with the worn-looking and antiquated exterior of
houses and streets. It is like a swarm of bees in the
decayed trunk of a venerable old tree.
But we must not tarry, for we have yet far to go.

LUTETIA PARISIORUM. 43
In returning towards the Seine we just stop for one
instant to cast a glance into the four parallel streets of
Grenelle, St Dominique, Lille, and de FUnivcrsite, which
comprise the Faubourg St Germain, properly so called.
We are not much tempted to lose time in them, for
it is life we seek, and not the shells which contained
it once. Claims and pretensions of a small number,
however respectable in themselves, lose considerably
in interest if there is no vitality and energy to sub
stantiate them. Holding aloof and sulking are signs
of impotence, and France is just now in a " go-ahead"
mood. So France goes on and leaves the small clus
ter of Legitimists behind. So do we flaneurs with the
Faubourg St Germain, its dull streets, wretched shops,
and half-deserted hotels, remarking only that the ex
terior faithfully represents the popidation which the
quarter harbours.
As we have nothing to do with public buildings and
ministries, with the Corps Legislatif or Legion of Hon
our, we do not stray to the Quay d'Orsay, around which
a great portion of official Paris is clustered. Little great
men and hosts of toiling clerks under different denomi
nations, with larger or smaller salaries, and all more or
less pompous, important, and narrow-minded, they are
what bureaucrats are all over the world, as any one may
convince himself who thinks it worth while to walk
about the groups of public offices when office hours are
over and employe's go to their homes. These employe's
feel, perhaps, most keenly the changes which have come
over Paris, for the increase in house-rents has driven a
great number of them out of Paris to those charming
little villages in the neighbourhood, easily accessible by
rail or omnibus. They feel this as a hardship, although

44 LUTETIA PARISIORUM.
many might think a few hours in the country rather a
treat after dull long office hours.
While making this reflection, we have passed through
the lively Rue du Bac, and, resisting the attraction of
the best confectioner and pastry-cook in Paris, we cross
by the Pont Royal, the Gardens of the Tuilleries, and the
Rue de Rivoli, into the Rue St Honore. The eastern
portion of it, where we find ourselves, has fallen off since
the new thoroughfares were opened. But the falling off
is, perhaps, more apparent than real ; for, with the old
tenacity of the Paris bourgeois, many of the best traders
have remained faithful to this, the Bond Street of old
Paris. To the north of it is a curious cluster of streets,
little, known and visited, such as the Rue St Anne, Rue
des Frondeurs, de l'Eveque and de la Michaudiere.
Surrounded and intersected though they are by some of
the busiest shopping streets, such as the Rue Neuve des
Petits Champs and the Rue Neuve St Augustin, they
belong to another world ; and the only connection kept
up between them and those thoroughfares seems that
they are occasionally used as short cuts between two of
the busy points. The impression produced by them is
that of respectable misery, something like poor relations
near their rich friends. The streets are not more irre
gular, and scarcely narrower, than their neighbours, nor
are their houses smaller or uglier, yet they have not
prospered. They cannot afford the luxury of smooth
Macadam, and must content themselves with the old
pavement, full of holes, in spite of an occasional patch
ing up. As if anxious to hide these defects, they avoid
sweeping as much as possible. Instead of following the
example of their more fortuuate neighbours, the shop
keepers seem more inclined to hide than to proclaim

LUTETIA PARISIORUM. 45
their existence to the world. The houses themselves
seem to press more closely against each other, as if to
hide their nakedness and poverty. The whole reminds
one of a threadbare coat in a brilliant company — of
poverty which is ashamed of itself.
The effect is decidedly unpleasant, so we turn our
steps eastward in the direction of the Halles Centrales.
West, east, and south of them, towards the Seine, is,
perhaps, the dirtiest and gloomiest quarter of the whole
town, and yet it is one of the busiest. It is the great
food store of Paris. Grain, flour, wines, beer, oils,
liquors, fruit, salt, potted meats, &c, are heaped up
in its dingy courts and magazines, a trade which
occupies 50,000 persons, and may be valued at 300
millions of francs a-year. It seems almost incredible
how it can be carried on in such a locality. Demolitions
have cut it up, but could scarcely thin the traffic. As
many parts are too narrow for the passage of two carts,
there is a constant blocking up ; no spot, therefore, is so
calculated for studying vernacular French. There you
see likewise the finest specimens of the working classes.
Square-built and heavy as they are, they seem quite a
different race from those who work in gloomy ateliers.
We are now in the heart of old Paris. As its centres
may be taken the Halles Centrales and the H6tel de
Ville, and from these centres it spreads out, fanlike,
towards the Boulevard, from the Place de la Bastille
to the Boulevard Montmartre. Ever since Julius Cfcsar
extended the limits of the town beyond the island, its
original site, this has been the real home of the Paris
bourgeois, and so it is still, in spite of the prolongation
of the Rue de Rivoli and the opening of the Boulevard
Sebastopol which intersects it.

46 LUTETIA PARISIORUM.
In this vast region is concentrated most of what
remains of historical Paris, and most that constitutes
the wealth and power of modern Paris. Every step is
marked with the traces of the gradual growth of the
" bourgeoisie," until it asserted its undisputed supre
macy over all other social elements, and transformed
the once fashionable Marais into the seat of Paris
industry. Confined at first to the vicinity of the
river and the neighbourhood of the Hotel de Ville,
the bourgeois town burst its limits to the north, and
forced the aristocracy which had settled there to give
way. This latter has wandered across the water
to the Faubourg St Germain, and has spread to the
west of the Tuileries ; but its traces are visible from
the Place Royale by the Rue St Catherine and Francs-
Bourgeois towards the Rue Rambuteau. Where once
Mademoiselle de Scuderi wrote down her gossip, and
wThere the wits under Louis XIV. and XV. disported
themselves, thrifty Paris bourgeois manufacture bronzes,
perfumery, gloves, pianos, jewellery, and all the differ
ent articles for wdiich Paris is justly famed. In these
same hotels, where once money was squandered, now
money is made ; in the salons where bewigged dandies
turned compliments, skilful hands now turn out taste
ful bracelets or fans; and in the gardens where beauties
lisped, steam-engines puff loudly.
Whatever is not available for ateliers and factories,
is occupied by the workmen who are employed in the
neighbourhood, and the by-streets and lanes which
crowd about the larger thoroughfares are like so many
dependencies of these latter. Many a little turret peeps
out of some of these by-streets, and is inhabited by the
modest ouvrier who works in one of the hotels close by;

LUTETIA PARISIORUM. 47
and more than one Gothic doorway has been converted
into a shop entrance. Past and present are brought
into close contact, and form a contrast not easily to be
met with elsewhere.
West of the Rue du Temple these traces of the past
disappear ; we are in full view of the nineteenth cen
tury, in the great clothing establishment which provides
not only Paris, but sends its produce to all parts of
the world, and imposes its fashions on the majority of
civilised nations. Thirty thousand masters — tailors,
boot and shoe makers, hatters, furriers, dress and linen
makers — employing above a hundred and twenty thou
sand men and women, and doing business to the value
of about three hundred millions of francs per annum.
Four large arteries run across this quarter from south
to north, and are continued across the inner boulevards.
They are the Rue St Martin, St Denis, the Boulevard
de Sebastopol, and the Rue Montmartre. It is around
these that the great clothing industry of Paris has
settled down. The south side of the inner boulevards
has been long insufficient to contain its growth ; it
has crossed over to the north side, and now extends
well-nigh to the outer boulevards, while its radii stretch
west and east towards the Madeleine on one side, and
towards the Temple on the other.
As for the western portion, nothing need be said of
it, for it is the lounging and shopping place of the
stranger, and may be said to be his quarter. It is far
more so than he is perhaps aware of. Those splendid
shops, if not for his exclusive benefit, are at any rate
there chiefly to tempt him. The true Parisian has no
shopping quarter ; he has his purveyors all over the
town, and some of the best in places where the stranger

48 LUTETIA PARISIORUM.
would never dream of seeking them. The fact is, that, to
the Parisian, shopping is real serious business — finding
out the best article at the most moderate price, and he
or she goes all over the town to discover the places
renowned for some particular article. It is quite asto
nishing what a number of elegant equipages and fine
ladies are thus met with in the most out-of-the-way
places. But if the stranger knows the western portion towards
the Rue Castiglione and the Rue Royale, he knows pro
bably very little about the eastern portion of the great
trading quarter of Paris — the neighbourhood of the
Temple. The precincts of the Temple preserved their
privilege as an asylum and refuge for all those who
were persecuted, long after Templars had disappeared.
Under the shelter of this privilege a large floating popu
lation collected there — the weak to seek protection from
the powerful, the guilty to hide himself from justice,
the vagrant and vagabond, the adventurer, Jews and
gypsies. It is long since gendarmes have ceased to
respect asylums and refuges. Paris industry is no
more afraid of the neighbourhood, and has nestled
within the precincts of the Temple ; but the place still
retains a good deal of its old character, as a centre of
the floating population of Paris — of strangers and pro
vincials in quest of fortune, and of industries which
cannot always be avowed.
To accommodate this floating population, the Temple,
from time immemorial, has been the repository of old
clothes and other articles laid aside by the inhabitants
of Paris. Although the whole quarter is more or less like
a rag-fair, the Marche du Temple and the Rotonde are
the great centres of the trade. There have been consider-

LUTETIA PARISIORUM. 49
able clearings round them, so as to form the Jardin du
Temple, planted with trees, and laid out with grass plots
and walks, and a large washing and bathing establish
ment has been erected ; but the Rotonde still has its
arcades, and the Marche its wooden booths. These two
spots are more particularly devoted to the sale of old
things, while their collection goes on in the ding)- houses
and courts situated in the by-streets. They are the re
source of Paris in distress. Strange and diverse are the
customers which they attract ; but the Lorette and her
"bonne" are the most frequent and prominent. Accus
tomed to the ups and downs of life, they feel none of
that attachment to old things which induces the artisan
and ouvrier to prefer the Mont de Piete, where he has a
chance of getting back the articles he has pawned.
It would be useless to follow the bourgeois across the
inner boulevard to the Faubourgs Montmartre, St Denis,
or St Martin, for in general features he is the same as on
the south side of the boulevards, and we have no time
to see him in detail. But we should miss an important
feature of old Paris were we to omit crossing the Place
de la Bastille into the Faubourg St Antoine, of famous
memory in all the popular (mieutes, which have succeeded
each other since the destruction of the Bastille. With
the exception of the old main street, the Rue du Fau
bourg St Antoine, this quarter looks as if it scarcely
belonged to Paris. It has more the character of an
unusually lively and industrious country town. The
houses have diminished in height and increased in
width. Instead of being like so many caravanserais
harbouring inmates from all parts, and with all kinds
of occupations, most of them are devoted to one kind
of industry, and apparently inhabited by one or per-
D

50 LUTETIA PARISIORUM.
haps two families, with now and then a lodger in a
spare room. Intermixed with these small houses are
seen from time to time large enclosures, with blocks
of building and high chimneys, the unmistakable evi
dence of manufacturing on a large scale. Through this
external shell we can already discern the life of the
Faubourg St Antoine. It is divided between the largest
manufactures and the industries which are carried on in
small ateliers, where master and workman still keep up
more or less the relations which existed before guilds
were abolished.
The large manufactures are chiefly devoted to ma
chinery, or materials connected with building. The
small industries are cabinetmaking, upholstery, lamps,
bronzes, wood-carving, gilding, &c, all industries which
require space, and admit of little subdivision of labour.
The skilled labour and exercise of the inventive powers
which these industries demand, produce a more intel
ligent class of mechanics than other trades, where the
subdivision of labour has reduced most of the work
men to mere machines. If we remember, besides, that
the large manufactories have an element of intelli
gence not to be despised in their foremen and me
chanics, and of muscular strength and energy in
their workmen, it will be easy to understand why the
social and political theories of the last thirty years
found so fertile a soil and so powerful a support in this
same faubourg. The municipality has done its best to
cut up this dangerous ground, and already several large
thoroughfares have been opened, while others are pro
jected, which will subdivide the whole quarter into small
isolated blocks of buildings, and thus make any com
bined resistance difficult, if not impossible.

LUTETIA PARISIORUM. 51
We are at the end of our stroll. We could do no
more than cast a hasty glance at the different centres
of Paris life, which daily and hourly interchange their
currents. But even this hasty glance sufficed to show
that, however cut up those centres may have been by
the recent demolitions, as yet the currents have been
only slightly diverted, while the sources have been
little affected. This can only be the effect of years.
The commencement is, however, made. Air, light,
space, and cleanliness are beginning to be appreciated.
They are as yet dear luxuries ; but perhaps on that
very account they are every day more in request, and
ideas, tastes, and habits are being gradually modified.
Another ten years such as those which have passed,
and a stroll through old Paris may be like an anti
quarian research, a ramble among ruins.

CHAPTER IV.

GARRISON AND CAMP.

Constantinople enjoys the official title of Mahruse
which means the " well-guarded." Many people may,
think that this title might be claimed with more justice
by Paris. Nor, perhaps, would they be wrong. The many
broad thoroughfares lately opened are so many military
lines for acting with large bodies of troops and cannon.
They enable these troops to maintain sure communica
tion between each other, and to isolate the number of
small " quartiers " into which the town has been broken
up by these arteries. A number of barracks, and other
strongly-built and detached public edifices, are dispersed
all over the town, forming so many points for concen
trating the military force in defensive positions. The
fortifications round the town, above all, the forts outside,
are in first-rate order, and have been increased; lastly,
a corps d'armee, of three divisions, called the Army of
Paris, is kept up " en permanence," besides the Garde
Imperiale, a complete corps d'arme'e in itself, of foot,
horse, and artillery.
And yet nothing can be farther from truth than the
usual notion that it is impossible to take one step
about the town without meeting two soldiers. Indeed,

garrison and camp. 53
the reverse is the case. The soldier, except on festive
occasions, when he forms an indispensable part of the
pageantry, is as great a rarity in Paris as he is in
London ; and he who should come to this place with the
idea of seeing something of French soldiers, and of the
French army, would find himself greatly deceived. He
might hunt out barracks and public buildings in order
to study the sentries at the doors ; he might go to the
Gardens of the Luxembourg, and see recruits going
through the manual and platoon exercise, under the eyes
of a smart young sergeant, who tries to amuse the lookers-
on at the expense of the dozen uncomfortable-looking
individuals before him. If he lives in the Rue de Rivoli,
every morning at eleven he would see pass before his
windows a few detachments of some regiment of the
Garde, led by a magnificent tambour-major, making
wonderful exercises with his cane; or he may occa
sionally be attracted by the martial sounds of a military
band, and feast his eyes with the sight of a weak bat
talion of young soldiers belonging to some line regiment,
sauntering along with a shocking disregard to time and
measure. This is all the chance he has of seeing a mar
tial display, unless, indeed, he enjoys and appreciates
National Guards.
The only branch of military organisation which he
can study here with advantage is military music. If
he go diligently in the afternoon to the Garden of the
Tuileries, to the Place Venddme, to the Luxembourg,
or to the Palais Royal, he may form a tolerably cor
rect estimate of the power of lungs, of the compara
tive efficiency of ophicleides and saxaphones, and
of the more or less sentimental, martial, or dancing
disposition of the band-masters of most regiments of

54 GARRISON AND CAMP.
the Garde Imperiale, and of the corps d'arme'e of
Paris. It almost looks as if it were by premeditation that
this most attractive feature of the terrible god of war is
by preference shown to the public. There is no neces
sity, however, for suspecting such cunning devices; for
the truth is, that, what with the number of detached
forts outside, the number of men required for public
buildings, barracks, &c, and a population of 1-| millions,
50,000 soldiers cannot make much show. Moreover, of
this number several thousand must be subtracted for
Versailles, St Cloud, Fontainebleau, Compiegne, each of
which requires several battalions, or sometimes several
regiments. But even of the corps d'arrne'e of Paris it
self, only what is absolutely necessary for service is kept
in the town; and most of the cavalry and artillery, for
which there is little want, for which there is not much
accommodation, and still less forage, are dispersed in
the neighbourhood of Paris ; so that the barracks in town
are at times only half filled, or even empty. This is very
different from what existed in other times, and shows
that the situation in this, as in many other respects, has
been wonderfully changed by ten years of Imperialism.
The imposing military spectacles, at one time so frequent,
have also fallen off lamentably. Formerly, during a
short trip to Paris, a review was calculated upon as
one of the lions sure to be met with ; now long stays
may be made without the good fortune of falling in with
this almost extinct leonine species. Unless some soldier
playing Continental prince or sovereign happens to
grace the Tuileries with his presence, there is little hope
of seeing such an exhibition. Now that these impres
sive and brilliant arguments in favour of Imperialism can

GARRISON AND CAMP. .55
be dispensed with, it has been found out here, perhaps,
more than anywhere else, that reviews are " bores " for
every one, soldier, officer, and reviewer, and form one of
the greatest miseries of military life. They represent,
for all but novices, a great deal of extra work, extra
trouble, and extra ennui.
Paris in 1862 is simply the most agreeable garrison
in France, and hence the most cherished dream of every
regiment in the service. It includes extra pay for officer
and soldier, the permission for the former to go about
in mufti, the distractions of the capital, abundance of
peaceful conquests, brilliant cafes — all pleasure and little
work. As such a promised land Paris appears to those
who have not been there. But it is not always regretted
as a lost paradise by those who have left it. Most of
the officers and men find out very soon that there are
tempters and forbidden fruits in plenty in this paradise.
Extra pay is insufficient for extra expenses. The sweets
of small garrisons have been exchanged for the tantalis
ing sight of pleasures beyond reach ; there is rather more
work than elsewhere ; and the uniform is less made of
in Paris than in any other garrison town ; so, one by
one, all the pleasant illusions disappear; and many are
rather glad than otherwise when the time comes for
leaving the paradise. For married officers, above all, it
becomes quite a hardship, residence there absorbing all
they may have formerly saved, and sometimes more ;
so that the unpleasant consequences of a Paris garrison
leave their traces in the regiment for years.
With the regiments of the Garde Imperiale it is diffe
rent, for everything in their establishment is calculated
for a stay in the capital : they are far better paid ; they
have, like English regiments, their mess ; they have good

56 GARRISON AND CAMP.
quarters; the pleasantest posts, and only those; they are
petted especially when they are on service during the
Emperor's stay in one of the country residences ; the
officers are invited to dinner and to shoot ; in one word,
they enjoy privileges which do not fail to excite some
jealousy in the mass of the army. The feeling of
equality, that great shibboleth of the Frenchman, is
hurt by the distinction which "ces Messieurs" enjoy.
And yet nothing can be fairer than to distinguish a
corps composed exclusively of picked men, furnished
by all regiments. According to the regulations, a soldier
must have served at least two years to be admissible ;
but in reality the great majority of the men are old
soldiers who have served their time and re-enlisted.
There is scarcely a man among them without the medal
for the Italian war ; more than one-half exhibit the Cri
mean medal, and a great proportion the medaille mili-
taire, or some other distinction.
The establishment of the Garde Imperiale has been
ridiculed as the revival of defunct traditions. It may
be a revival, but it is the revival of great traditions,
based on never-changing human nature, and especially
adapted to the genius of the country. As such it has
a deeper meaning, and must be looked upon as one of
the means for producing a complete revolution in the
French military system, and for transforming a popular
into an Imperial army.
The political movement from 1815-1848 exerted its
influence on the army as on everything else in France.
Although, perhaps, more disposed than any other class to
isolate itself from the rest of the population, and nour
ish an exclusive feeling of caste, the French army could
not resist the stream which carried away the nation.

GARRISON AND CAMP. 57
Above all, after 1830, the current notions of citizen
kings and citizen soldiers penetrated within tho sacred
precincts of discipline, and destroyed, by degrees, the
barriers which separated the army from the people.
The wars in Algeria counteracted in some measure tho
influence of these ideas, but they were on too small a
scale to destroy it. Politics were the stepping-stone to
greatness ; officers became politicians, and had their opi
nions, which were taken from the ' Journal des Debats,'
the ' Presse,' or the ' National,' as the case might be.
As for the soldier, he began to look upon his calling
less as a profession than as a sacrifice wdiich he, the
citizen, must make to his country ; and he waited
with impatience for the moment when it should cease,
and when he would be allowed to return to his home
and calling. Only a few of the most adventurous
youths, attracted by the romance of the wild life in
Algeria, and having a taste for razzias, re-enlisted in
the Zouaves. The result of this transformation was
seen in February 1848. The popular army joined the
popular cause.
The circumstances attending this event were, how
ever, so humiliating for the army that they at once
roused the dormant class feeling, aDd from this moment
a reaction set in, especially among the officers. It was
so sudden that, if there had been a resolute man among
the members of the fallen dynasty, he might have
turned the tide of revolution. All the long-suppressed
animosity against the scribblers and talkers who had
ruled the destinies of France for the last eighteen years,
burst out in its utmost violence, and desired ardently
an opportunity for revenge. The occasion soon pre
sented itself ; and in the Days of June the army took

58 GARRISON AND CAMP.
its revenge on one portion of those who had humiliated
it in February. Scribblers and talkers fell into the back
ground, and generals became masters of the situation.
Cavaignac, Lamoriciere, Bedeau, Changarnier, Charras
— these were the names which eclipsed all others. The
representatives of military politics took the frightened
bourgeois by the hand, and led him on the path of reac
tion to the 2d of December, which ended the game for
bourgeois and generals. These latter had become, in
their turn, cunning politicians and talkers ; and while
they came forward on this new battle-field, a bold man
of action stepped in, and carried the military reaction
which they had begun to its natural conclusion.
The work was done ; the army had recovered more
than it had lost ; and it was cured of those confused
political notions with which it had been infected.
There were, indeed, traces of these remaining, but disci
pline and military spirit had reasserted their sway.
The problem now was to strengthen the revived class
feeling, and secure it for him who had contributed so
much towards its revival.
The seven years of service fixed by the conscription
were scarcely sufficient to wean the soldier from home as
sociations ; especially as, except in times of war, several
of these years were spent on furlough. To increase
the time of compulsory service was out of the question;
so means had to be found to make the service attrac
tive, and raise thus a taste for professional soldiering.
These means were found in the revival of the Impe
rial Guard, and in the Dotation de I'armee, two contem
poraneous measures which complete each other.
It is difficult to say which of the two feelings is the
most predominant in Frenchmen — the rage for distinc-

GARRISON and CAMP. 59
tions, decorations, and uniforms, or the fury for equality, j
Probably the former, as the older of the two, and the
latter is only a reaction against it. The first is, at any
rate, the earliest which is instilled into the Frenchman ;
he learns it in his school days, where medals and uni
forms constitute an essential part of the system. Hand
in hand with this weakness, goes an inordinate passion
for ruling and exercising authority ; the smaller the
sphere the more absorbing is this passion, which ani
mates the last Garde Champetre as well as the Minister.
The beginning of Imperialism was more than usually
favourable to the growth of these tendencies in the
soldier, but as civil government again reasserted its
sway, it was found that one sou per day clear, no
windfalls, and no prospect for the future, were consider
ations to which the strongest natural tendencies must
yield ; and already the next year, 1853, the voluntary
engagements and re-engagements, which were consider
able in 1851 and 1852, fell off lamentably, leaving little
hope for the formation of a reliable military class. The
pressure of the Crimean war became an additional
motive for planning a reform of the whole system.
It was the first war on a large scale since the Empire ;
and, in spite of the goodwill and natural capability of
the French soldier, it showed the drawbacks of a military
system based almost entirely on conscription : young
soldiers, weak in body, were found even in the best
case but poor substitutes for trained troops, in the
strength of manhood.
On the 25th of April 1855, therefore, a law appeared
which modified considerably the position of the soldier,
and which is tending to alter completely the character
of the French army.

60 GARRISON AND CAMP.
According to the law of 1832, which regulates the
conscription up to this day, the annual contingent is
furnished by all young men having completed their
twentieth year. The repartition of the contingent on
the different departments and cantons is proportionate
to the numbers inscribed on the lists. All those who are
inscribed draw lots ; but the law establishes exemp
tions, and these are replaced by the following numbers
until the contingent is complete. Exempt by law are
those who have not the standard height of 1 metre 55
centimetres, those incapacitated by infirmities, the oldest
of orphans, the only son or eldest son of a widow or of a
blind father of seventy years of age, the eldest of two
brothers who are both liable to serve in the same year,
all who have a brother already in active service, unless
as a substitute, and those whose brother may have died
or been incapacitated in the service.
Besides these cases exempt by the law, every one was
allowed to find a substitute at his own expense. This
system had great inconveniences for the families as well
as for the army. The remplacement became a trade of
the worst description, in which all kind of devices were
practised to defraud the families ; there was fraudulent
substitution of names, or the substitute deserted, or
was found incapacitated for military service, and the
family, which was responsible to the State, had to pay
the fine several times over. On the other hand, this
system brought into the army a number of scamps who
were difficult to manage, and exercised a pernicious in
fluence on their comrades. This was so generally the
case, that a substitute was almost always looked upon
as a suspicious character.
The law of 1855 abolishes substitution altogether,

GARRISON AND CAMI\ Cl
and substitutes exemption. Every one who is called
to serve can secure exemption by paying the sum fixed
by Government, and the family is relieved from all re
sponsibility. The money is paid into the Caisse de la
Dotation de fArmee, which takes upon itself to supply
the corresponding number of men by voluntary enlist
ment and re-enlistment of old soldiers. Soldiers actu
ally in service can likewise get discharged by paying
the sum fixed by the Government for each remaining
year they would still have to serve. The sum fixed for
exemption from the whole seven years of service, which
was 1500 francs, is, siuce 18.39, 2000 francs,* and 200
francs, formerly 150, for each year, or fraction of a year,
which the soldier has still to complete. The bounty for
enlistment is likewise 2000 francs, formerly 1500, but
for re-enlistments of less than seven years, 280 francs for
each year — 150 before. These sums are paid, one half at
the time of enlistment, and the other half when the time
is completed ; for the latter half the soldiers receive an
annuity representing the interest of the sum due to them.
In order to favour still more the re-enlistment of old
soldiers and non-commissioned officers, they receive
additional pay (hautes payes), increasing from 10 to
50 centimes a-day, after the second and third re-en
gagements. To this must be added, that the time of
service which entitles to a pension has been reduced
from twenty-five to twenty years ; that every year ol
campaigning, or garrison in Algeria, reckons for two
years' service ; and that the medaille militairc, founded
in 1852, for soldiers and non-commissioned officers and
sergeants, gives an annuity of 100 francs.
* It has been raised a few weeks ago to 2500 francs for the seven years,
and 250 francs for each year wliich the soldier has still to complete.

62 GARRISON AND CAMP.
To these advantages is the prospect of being received
into the Garde Imperiale. This must be considered as
a kind of advancement, securing a privileged position,
good quarters, comfortable service, a distinctive uniform,
and more than double pay — all so many points of
attraction. For the generality of workmen, artisans, and labourers,
who feel a vocation for military service, the army now
offers the means of retiring between thirty-five and forty
years of age, with a competency sufficient to live upon.
Voluntary enlistments are accepted at eighteen, so that
a man can have finished three terms of service before he
is forty ; but there have been wars for four years lately,
besides the certainty of passing several years in Algeria,
so that every term must be reduced at least by one, if
not two years. At thirty-six, then, the man may have
his capital of 6000 francs, besides his pension. It would
be almost a wonder if he were not made a sergeant in
the end ; and if his conduct has been good, he may like
wise get the medaille militaire, so that altogether it is
reckoned he may have his 700 to 800 francs a-year.
Still in the prime of manhood, if not incapacitated, he
has the chance of a post in the gendarmerie, or some
other employment, where steady and reliable men are
wanted. Of course, he may likewise spend his bounty,
but still the possibility of doing so well is a great
attraction. Numbers will prove this best. According to the
report of the Caisse after the close of 1859, the volun
tary enlistments since its establishment amounted to
62,398, and of re-enlistments to no less than 81,212 ;
of these latter 51,850 re-enlisted for seven, and the
rest for less than seven years. As for the enlistments,

GARRISON AND CAMP. 63
no doubt the wars contributed to swell the number ;
but in the re-enlistments there is a steady progress,
which would be still greater were it not for the temp
tations which the two last years on furlough offer.
In these last years, nevertheless, an average of one-
fourth of those discharged may be reckoned to have
re-enlisted. It need scarcely be remarked how much this tends
to alter the French army, which loses every year more
its character of a conscript army, to become one of
volunteers and professional soldiers. The army is, of
course, too large to rely exclusively on voluntary en
listment for maintaining it ; but the strong mixture of
this element contributes not a little to raise its value in
the field, and its reliability at home as a pillar of the
Imperial Government. The difference already appeared
in the war in Italy as compared with that in the Crimea,
and will every day make itself more felt.
There is a curious circumstance which tends to faci
litate this process ; and this is, that since the new law
was introduced the number of those who redeemed
themselves from military service has incredibly in
creased. Formerly, where there were so many drawbacks,
and such difficulties for the families in finding substi
tutes, and in escaping all the trickeries practised, com
paratively few availed themselves of the permission.
Only the rich could afford to run the chance of paying
twice. But now that, after the payment of the compa
ratively small sum of 2000 francs, all responsibility
ceases, every year the proportion becomes greater. From
16 per cent in 1856 and 1857 it rose to 18 in 1858,
and to 27^ per cent in 1859 ; or out of the 140,000
men who were called out in that year, not less than

64 GARRISON AND CAMP.
38,325 were exonerated. In single departments the pro
portion was far greater than the general proportion ; in
some as many as 48 per cent, or almost one-half, paid.
In Corsica the proportion was smallest ; it amounted
but to 4 per cent.
Immense as this change is, it is not all the work
that has been done in the last ten years for the forma
tion of an Imperial army. Dress, armament, drill,
material, have all been reformed and improved. Modern
inventions applied to warfare, and the experience of
past campaigns, would have been in themselves suffici
ent to suggest great changes ; but there was another
consideration in this case, which hastened the process.
To form an Imperial army, it was important to efface
as much as possible all that could recall the old
African army, nourished and fostered with so much
care by the Orleanist dynasty. When the latter rose
to power, it found itself in a more difficult position
than the Imperial Government in 1852 ; for it was not
through, but in spite of, the army that it ascended the
throne. In one respect, however, the task of the
Orleanists was easier, for they had no traditions to
efface. Those of the first Empire had been carefully
weeded by the Restoration, and the Restoration itself
had supplied none in their place. As in politics, in
military matters likewise, the Restoration mistook the
spirit of the age ; and, carried away by its predilec
tions for the time before 1789, it tried to create an
army of mercenaries, officered as much as possible by
members of the aristocracy. Popular indignation,
which broke out in 1830 against the whole political
system, turned with double violence against this anti-
national military system, and assisted the new dynasty

GARRISON AND CAMP. 65
in its endeavours to reconstitute the army on alto
gether new principles. The ground was cleared, and
the building commenced at its verv foundation. Tho
system of conscription was again introduced ; dress,
drill, armament, discipline, regulations, were all succes
sively changed, and in eighteen years, or wellnigh three
generations of soldiers, favoured by a three months'
campaign every spring in Africa, an entirely new army
had arisen. There had been no great and brilliant
wars and victories ; but those continual campaigns were
for conquest, and received an additional interest from
the peculiarity of the country in which they were
carried on. They led to the establishment of special
corps, influenced the manner of fighting, marching,
camping ; in one word, gave the army an individual
character more stronglv marked and more lasting than
short wars on the largest scale could have conferred.
Absinthe, coffee, palm-trees, swift Arabs in bournouses,
razzias, Zouaves, Chasseurs d'Afrique, &c, paltry as
they seem singly, formed a strong chain of traditions
in the life of the French soldier.
No changes external or internal in organisation
can efface the power of such traditions; they can
only be dimmed by fresher and more brilliant ones.
Imperialism has not been slow in supplying these plen
tifully : long-coated Russians, tight-trousered Austrians,
frightful Chinese, not to speak of English allies and
Turks ; Stambul, Milan, Pekin, Sebastopol, Alma, In-
kerman,Tchernaya, Magenta, Solferino, Crimean winters,
passages of the Alps, and Italian summers, Savoy and
Nice. No wonder if Arabs and Kabyles begin to look
small ; if Isly and Constantine are forgotten ; if African
bivouacs have lost their interest and Algeria its charms.
E

66 GARRISON AND CAMP.
Moreover, the spring campaigns having gone out of
fashion, Algeria sinks down to an uncomfortable garri
son, which has only this advantage left, that the time
passed there is reckoned as a campaign — that is, each
year as equivalent to two years' service. There is a talk
of depriving it of this last glory, and then little will
remain of African souvenirs beyond absinthe, coffee, and
the newly-introduced Zouave trousers of the infantry.
The result of all this is a new army, as different in
outward appearance, material, and spirit, from the
army before 1848, as this latter was from that of the
Restoration. It is an imperial army. All the springs
of human action have been set in motion-: interest,
class feeling, glorious traditions, esprit de corps, and
habit, have all been appealed to to attract it to the
dynasty. Human nature is full of riddles, above
all, the French species of it ; yet, unless we are pre
pared to admit that all the known laws of human
nature will be upset just at the critical moment, or else
that there is in Frenchmen an innate aversion to dyn
astic feelings, which overcomes every other instinct, we
have every reason to suppose that the army can be
depended upon under all circumstances.
But, dynastic or not dynastic, the army is a magnifi
cent legacy which Imperialism will leave to France. It
has cost much, but the French cannot complain that
they have not their money's worth. There may he
other armies superior in one or another peculiar quality;
but, taking it all in all, there is no military organisation
in which, the existing material has been turned to so
good an account. It is this which makes the French
army what it is, and not some innate disposition for
soldiering, as is usually supposed.

GARRISON AND CAMP. 67
In spite of exemptions, and voluntary enlistments
and re-enlistments, there are annually from 60,000 to
70,000 young Frenchmen called upon to march on tho
road to glory, most of whom would prefer following
the plough, or sitting quietly in their workshops, en
gaged in the useful arts of peace. The light-hearted
youth of the towns, whose delight it was, in his gamin
days, to admire the gilt cane of the tambour-major,
and keep step with every marching body of soldiers,
accepts his lot with tolerable equanimity ; not so the
conscript from the country, whose whole existence has
until then been centred within the narrow sphere of his
village. Those who know conscription only by name,
have no idea of the tears, heartburnings, and misery
which the system causes every year to many thousand
families. There is the preliminary wretchedness of
suspense when the time for drawing lots approaches ;
then there are the six months' delay which intervene
between the drawing of the bad number and the join
ing of the depot. The author of the ' Derniers Jours
d'un Condamne" ' might write a scarcely less distressing
diary of these six months. The silent resignation
to inevitable fate often gives way at the last mo
ment to a fit of temporary and impotent rage, which
ends at the departure in an outbreak of false gaiety
produced by a reaction of vanity. The first days in
barracks are days of despondency and prostration,
under the sway of which the recruit still is when he is
taught the first arduous steps in the path of glory.
The time seems scarcely well chosen, for if we behold
at drill a couple of these terrified wretches, red in the
face and sweating, looking in their ill-fitting clothes and
strained attitude like puppets dressed up and every

68 GARRISON AND CAMP.
moment in danger of falling, we cannot persuade our
selves that they will ever bear the faintest resemblance
to that smart wiry little fellow, in full possession of all
his muscles, and set off by his well-fitting uniform, who
bullies them to his heart's content ; and yet, probably
not more than two years ago, that tyrannising, self-
contented individual was looking as uncouth and un
happy as number one or number two, on whom he
practises now; and certainly no one would recognise, six
months after, our two miserable conscripts in the two
troupiers sauntering along the Garden of the Tuileries
with conquering airs, and eyeing the bonnes with smil
ing looks.
This rapid metamorphosis is the finest result of
the esprit de corps which animates the French
army. There may be a more jealous feeling of esprit
de corps in the single English regiments. Austrian
officers may carry the idea of comradeship to greater
refinement; but nowhere does esprit de corps pervade
and unite all grades and ranks of the military hierarchy
as it does here. Soldat Francais is a title of which
a Mare'chal de France is proud. The action of this
agent in the transformation of the recruit into a soldier
is powerfully assisted by what might be called a free
masonry of "chaff," which is a peculiar gift of the
French soldier. The French soldier never sulks ; he
revenges himself on his superior by a joke or a song.
Volumes of time-honoured jokes and books of songs
could be collected, which swell every day, and are ap
plicable to almost any circumstance. Joke and ridicule
are the arms against the superior, and they are likewise
the sharp tools which shape the conscript into a soldier.
The process resembles somewhat that which is in vogue

GARRISON AND CAMP. 69
at an English public-school with good traditions, the
difference being, of course, that the tone with armed
men must be slightly altered. It is a good-natured
chaff which stings and rouses, but rarely wounds. This
system of tutoring contributes not a little to impart
to the French soldier that elasticity of spirits which
serves him so well to face the ennuis aud hardships
of a campaign.
In general the French soldier is not seen to greatest
advantage in garrison or on parade ; it is in the field
alone that he can be appreciated. There is something
depressing and uncongenial to his expansive nature in
garrison life. It is no doubt due to the comparative
isolation in which he lives, and which produces some
of the bad features of monastic life. Compared with
other armies, the French officers and soldiers have little
contact with the other classes of society — they live in
their own little world. The best sides of our human
nature are rarely developed within such narrow limits,
for they require freedom and space. That continual
brooding over the paltry details of his garrison and regi
mental existence brings out into relief the little weak
nesses of every one, and breeds that narrow-mindedness
and morbid susceptibility with which the military in
France are so often reproached. Campaigning breaks this
narrow circle ; it opens out to him a wide horizon, and
brings him into contact with the world. No wonder
that the French soldier looks upon it as upon a holiday
which liberates him from his prison, and gives full scope
to that lively nature of his which has been compressed.
A new spirit seems to take possession of him : that non
chalant, almost slovenly, gait which is visible at
parade, gives way to an animated light step, which

70 GARRISON AND CAMP.
enables him to accomplish with comparative facility
forced marches. He has been fitted out and prepared
for this contingency ; everything superfluous — tunic,
shako, &c. — has been left behind. Even on parade he
is never expected to carry his burden in a stiff unnatural
manner, which must break down in long marches ; and
the latitude allowed to him in this respect teaches him
the easiest way of carrying what is necessary. The
idea, early instilled, that he must consider himself as
independent of all means of transport, is a stimulus of
exertion instead of depression ; it becomes a source of
emulation and rivalry, and to be a good campaigner is
a question of amour propre not less than of comfort.
The tente d'abri and the mess system have their share
in this ; but here too the chief agent is esprit de corps,
which stigmatises the helpless, desponding, and slo
venly. The closer contact and almost familiar inter
course between the subaltern officer and soldier in camp,
checks in a great measure the overbearing dispositions
of non-commissioned officers, which is not uncommon
in barracks, and never allows the idea to grow up that
the soldier is abandoned, badly cared for, and uselessly
harassed. Common danger and common sufferings
become a means of union instead of isolation, as is
often the case in armies where there is less harmony.
It may be a sign of individual weakness and of want
of self-reliance, but the result of it is a more intimate
comradeship, and consequently strength. No ill-temper
and unsocial disposition can long resist where every
one is good-natured and accommodating, and where
any pretension to singularity is punished by ridicule.
AU bragging, quarrelling, and boasting soon disappear,
and a light-hearted bonhommie succeeds, which largely

GARRISON AND CAMP. 7l
aids in bearing the fatigues and privationsof a campaign.
This happy change reacts for some time after the cam
paign, and the beneficial influence of the two last wars
is still felt. They have polished away the rust of gar
rison life, and cured in a great measure that morbid
susceptibility which formerly distinguished the French
officer. But, whether in camp or garrison, the French soldier
has one imaginary enemy who disturbs his peace of
mind, and with whom he is constantly at war. It is the
Intendance, his providence. The most violent invec
tives and the most stinging satire are reserved against
this hard-toiling body of functionaries. And yet how
little do they deserve them ! It is their care in peace
which contributes so much to metamorphose the weakly
recruit into a square-shouldered muscular little soldier ;
and their organisation and efficiency in times of war
have been often an object of admiration and envy to
other armies. But such is human nature. Were it not
for this imaginary enemy, the French soldier, taken all
in all, might certainly be looked upon as the happiest
of his class all over the world.

CHAPTER V.

TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE AND ITS DRAWBACKS.
With the exception, perhaps, of the Celestial Empire,
there is no country richer in proverbial wisdom than
"le beau pays de France." The conclusion drawn from
this exuberance might either be that Frenchmen act so
wisely as to have found out by experience infallible
rules of action in all the varied circumstances of life,
or else that they act so foolishly as to require constant
words of warning and advice. Were I to judge by one
of the greatest favourites among these proverbs, I should
certainly incline towards the latter conclusion, and set
down French proverbs as rules written down to show
how Frenchmen do not act.
" Aides-toi et Dieu t'aidera" seems indeed a charming
satire, where every one hopes and trusts in Government
initiative, Government employ, Government patronage,
Government encouragement, Government subvention,
and Government monopoly.
The rivers are periodically flooding their banks ;
swamps and marshes wait to be reclaimed ; railways
are to be constructed ; roads are wanted ; ports require
improvements; agriculture demands draining, irrigation,
and a better breed of animals ; storms, hail, and drought

TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE. 73
injure crops ; fire consumes buildings ; boats ancl nets
are lost in fishing ; manufactures and commerce are
suffering from a crisis ; the people have neither work
nor bread : and the Government is expected to remedy
all these evils and shortcomings, besides thousands of
others. It is to act the part of universal Providence,
charged to help, to encourage, and to do the work of
everybody — an impersonation of the god Vishnu, with
numberless eyes, hands, and feet — or a revival of Figaro,
the renowned barber of Seville. There seems a charm
in its very name which is promise and encouragement.
It is so strange that this Oriental notion of the attri
butes and functions of Government should have taken
strong root in the minds of those who claim the leader
ship in the civilisation of the West, that we may well
ask the old question, "Whether it is the Government
which fashions the ideas and character of the people, /
or whether the Government is merely a reflex of the !
nature of the people ?
There has been a succession of Governments in
France, bearing the most different names and titles,
but all of them animated by the same jealousy against,
individual freedom, and equally bent on centralising/
and meddling with everything. It is easy to under
stand that such a system of tutelage, long continued,
has contributed to weaken individual energy, and to
efface by degrees, in the minds of the people, the line of
demarcation between individual exertion and Govern
ment interference. But either this line of demarcation
must have been originally rather faint, or the indi
vidual energy weak, and consequently the idea of a
tangible Providence on earth very attractive ; for in all
the violent changes within the last eighty years, we

74 TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE
never see the slightest trace of a reaction of individual
feeling against this system of tutelage.
The rage is not against the pretension of the Govern
ment to act the part of Providence, but against the
manner in which it has discharged this duty — against
the favouritism which it showed for one class of the po
pulation, and the injustice which it committed towards
another. Those who think that they have not their
due share in the boons of terrestrial Providence, rise in
arms to assert their claims. It is always " Je"rome Pa-
turot in search of the best of Providences " — one which
should be even-handed, and find the means of satisfying
everybody. The task is not easy, and all those who have tried
their hands at it successively have failed. Good-natured
paternal kings of the old school, assemblies of the Tiers
Etat, national conventions of the people, consuls and
emperors by the power of the sword, aristocratic kings
by the grace of God, modest bourgeois kings by the will
of the people, constitutional doctrinaires, philanthropic
poets full of enthusiasm, democrats, socialists, commu
nists, stern republican soldiers, king logs and king storks
— and all in vain. Too much in one direction, or too
little in the other : — no one has found the true equili
brium. The last ten years have witnessed another effort to
realise this ideal of a Government so long sought after
by Frenchmen. It is on an unprecedented scale, and
very different in its nature from any efforts made before.
There is no blind feeling about, or wild rushing after,
theories and plausible illusions. There is no shirking
the task, or shrinking from consequences. It was from
the beginning a premeditated and avowed determina-

AND ITS DRAWBACKS. 75
tion to undertake the task of French Providence, and
make Frenchmen happy in spite of themselves.
There is a curious and little-known document extant
which will be the astonishment of future generations,
and an invaluable source of information for the histo
rian of Imperialism. It is the ' Bulletin des Lois,' the
list of laws and decrees made within the last ten
years. Each year forms several large volumes, and
adds hundreds of decrees and laws. The mass is so
astonishing, that one scarcely knows whether to
shudder at the work which was thought necessary to
make Frenchmen happy, or to admire the fertility
and zeal displayed in carrying out the colossal task.
The united fertility of all the legislatures in Europe,
taken together, has not been so productive in the last
ten years, and how far more have they remained be
hind as to quality ! Those little mendings and patch
ings of theirs seem wellnigh ridiculous by the side of
such radical reorganisation. Great as the metamor
phosis has been in Paris, it gives but a faint idea of
the demolitions and rebuildings which have taken place
in the remodelling of France. There are plenty of streets
and quarters in Paris where axe and hammer have not
yet penetrated, but there is no side of social existence
which has been left untouched by these laws and
decrees. Government, administration, system of edu
cation, arts, sciences, means of communication, army,
navy, agriculture, industry, commerce, colonies, have
all been more or less radically reformed, to make them
fit into the new system of happiness devised for France.
No regime ever watched with such anxious care the hum
our and disposition of this fantastic race, so easily tired.
It forced upon them new ideas, showed them new pur-

76 TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE
suits, excited new or revived old feelings, and thus kept
them in a continual state of excitement, leaving them
time neither for ennui nor for reflection. Nay, it even
finds time to give a considerable share of its attention to
the affairs of private individuals, and of the smallest com
munities, endeavouring thus to extend its sphere into
the smallest details of everyday life. A kind of Rodolphe
of the ' Mysteres de Paris,' on a grand scale, only recog
nised and authorised, but nevertheless not altogether
despising mystery and disguises.
He who should look upon all this as a mere applica
tion of absolute government in its extreme form, would
have but a one-sided idea of the system. The political
part is by no means the most prominent, the founda
tion of it being the solution of the social and econo
mical problems which have agitated France for the last
thirty years. The dreams of Phalansteriens and Icari-
ans have been reduced into a practical shape, and the
principle of association applied in a new way and on an
immense scale. " The interests of the individual are iden
tical with the interests of the community" is the general
axiom, and the collision between the two arises only
from misconception of this axiom; hence a superior
power is necessary to direct and guide individual
efforts, to assign his place to every one, to encourage
and help the weak, and to restrain the strong. All
waste of labour and energy will thus be avoided, the
total production greatly increased, and the share of each
individual considerably augmented.
Whatever may be the opinion about the truth or
fallacy of the theory, it would be difficult to deny that
it has done wonders for France. It has placed the
country on an eminence which it never before occu-

AND ITS DRAWBACKS. 77
pied, and has procured for the mass of the population
an amount of wellbeing such as they never before pos
sessed. Indeed, so patent is this fact, that the question
is only whether too much has not been done, and that
too much too hastily. To act the part of Providence
on earth is an expensive pastime ; and in this case the
funds must come from those for whose satisfaction they
are to be employed. The fears which were entertained
in this respect, and the sinister predictions which were
made, seem to have found an official confirmation by
the late disclosures in financial matters, and the changes
made in consequence.
In a social and politico-economical problem like that
tried here, arithmetic was necessarily of the highest
importance. The State undertook to lay out a part
of the social capital as an investment for the com
mon good. All depended on keeping the balance
between this outlay and the productive power of the
country. A retrospective view in this respect offered great
temptation. From 1830 to 1847 a steady progress is
visible, leaving little doubts about a regular develop
ment of the productive powers. With the exception
of four years, — 1831, the year after the Revolution of
July; 1841, that of the Eastern complication; 1847,
that of the great financial and commercial crisis ; and
1848, that of another revolution — all epochs when
the normal state of the country was disturbed, — the
ordinary revenues show a yearly increase of from 20
to 30 million francs, while the external commercial
movement shows a corresponding augmentation of
wellnigh 100 million francs a-year. But even the epochs
of crisis seem an advantage rather than otherwise,

78 TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE
for immediately after, the development becomes more
rapid ; and all this takes place at a time when produc
tion is hampered by narrow-minded legislation, by im
perfect means of communication, by old sluggish busi
ness habits, and a proverbial timidity of enterprise.
The field of activity offered for a government with
unlimited powers seemed almost boundless. Another
crisis, more violent than any before, had just passed, and
no one was left to thwart or to retard the Government ;
it could sweep away all obstacles — heal, help, and sti
mulate national production.
There was, nevertheless, one feature in the financial
tables since 1830 which was calculated to lead to
reflection, and to counsel prudence. In spite of the
constant increase of the ordinary revenues of the State,
there are during the whole period only six years which
close with a nominal surplus ; while all the others, up
to 1851 inclusive, show a more or less considerable
deficit. From 1840 downwards the deficit has become
the rule, which shows not a single exception. But
even in the years when there seems a surplus revenue,
it is owing to extraordinary resources arising from
loans, increase of the floating debt, and other similar
expedients. There is not a single year during the
whole period in which the expenditure does not sur
pass the ordinary resources, so that at the end of
eighteen years the Government of July left a charge of
42 millions of Rentes more than its predecessor, be
sides a floating debt of nearly 500 millions of francs.
The second Republic could not but follow the
example — it issues 54 millions of Rentes more, re
presenting loans, consolidation of the floating debt,
purchase of the railway from Paris to Lyons, and

AND ITS DRAWBACKS. 79
colonial indemnities ; but as it suspends the action of
the amortissement and annuls the Rentes beloncinc
to this fund, the active Rentes are in the end rather
diminished ; yet, in spite of the consolidation in 1848,
the floating debt rises again to 614 millions.
This perverse tendency of the expenditure not only to
keep pace with the increase of the ordinary revenue, but
even to surpass it, seems, however, to have made little
impression before the wonderful elasticity, which not
only the revenues of the State, but likewise the national
production, showed in the very first year of the Empire.
The former, which, through the crisis of 1848, had sunk
from 1351^ millions to 1207 in 1848, and had only
reached 1273 in 1851, rise at once to 1336 millions,
or almost to the sum of the most productive year be
fore the Revolution, showing in one year an increase of
63 millions. Next year they reach the sum of 1391
millions, another increase of almost 60 millions, and
higher by 40 millions than any year before.
On the other hand, the amount of foreign trade,
which had reached its maximum in 1851 — namely,
2787 millions — attained in 1852 3120 millions, oran
increase of 333 millions in one year.
This astonishing result, which appeared almost before
anything could be done to remove obstacles and give
fresh impulse to activity, was of a nature to justify the
boldest calculations. A few years of deficit seemed of
little consequence when the resources increased at such
a rate, especially if a large portion of the deficit was
owing to outlays on works of public utility, which
could be considered as a more or less profitable
outlay. Indeed, unless we assume some such blind and un-

so

TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE

limited faith in the elasticity of the resources of the
country, the financial administration becomes totally
unintelligible. Nothing can give a better idea of this
strength of faith than a comparison between the esti
mated budgets, as submitted to the Corps Legislatif,
and their definitive settlement : —

Estimates.

Definitive Account.

Revenue,
Ordinary and
Extraordinary. Millions.

Expendi ture.
Millions.

Millions.
Revenue,
Ordinary and Expendi-
Extraordinary. ture.
Millions. Millions. Millions.
1852.
1450
1503
—
53
1852. 1487 1513 — 26
1853.
1451
1485
—
34
1853. 1524 1547 — 23
1854
1520
1516$
+
3i
1854. 1802 1988 — 186
1855.
1566
1560
+
6
1855. 2793 2399 + 394
1856.
1601$
1598
+
3*
1856. 2307| 2195$ + 112
1857.
1709
1698
+
11
1857. 1911$ 1872$ + 39
1858.
1737
1717
+
20
1858. 1890 1859 + 31*
The years 1854, 1855, and 1856 were extraordinary
years of a great and long war, the expenses of which
were not included in the estimates, so that the difference
between these and the definitive settlement may be up
to a certain point explained ; but there are four ordinary
years which are far more startling in their way. To
appreciate them fully, a look at another table of figures
is indispensable. This is the table of Ordinary Revenues,
representing the resources drawn every year from the
country by taxation. It is as follows : —
1852. 1336 milli
1853. 1391
1854. 1417$
1855. 1536
1856. 1637
1857. 1683
1858. 1748
ons, in round numbers
> in all, 10,728,500,000 francs.
If we compare this sum with that of the expenses
* For more ample information, see the 'Statistique de la France com-
paree avec les autres Etats de I'Europe,' par Maurice Block. Paris, 1860.
AND ITS DRAWBACKS. 81
actually paid, 13,374 millions, the difference between
the two is 2,625,500,000 francs. The accounts of 1859
are not yet definitively made up, but includiug tho
reserves of the Fond d'amortisscment, the ordinary
revenues will probably have yielded about 1830.1, mil
lions, while the expenditure is calculated to amount to
2257 millions, leaving a deficit of 42o'.\ millions, which,
with the rest, makes 3052 millions, or £122,080,000
sterling, in eight years.
The first idea which suggests itself is of course to
seek the cause of the deficit in the two great wars.
For each of these special resources were voted by the
Legislature, for the first, three loans— one of 250
millions (March 1854), the second of 500 millions
(December 1854), and the third of 750 millions (July
1855) ; and for the second war a loan of 500 millions
(May 1859). The loans of the first war yielded in all
1,535,100,000 francs, and that of the second 524 mil
lions, together 2,059,100,000 francs, leaving thus about
1000 millions of the deficit still to be accounted for.
But there is no doubt that the loans contracted for war
purposes not only covered the expenditure incurred, but
left a considerable sum for other purposes, and were
the cause of the nominal surplus which figures in the
definitive accounts of the budgets from 1854 to 1859.
Monsieur Fould in his report estimates the expenses
of the Crimean war at 1348 millions, which gives a
sum for other purposes of 187 millions.
And the traces of this surplus are equally found in
the general Budget. The 394 millions of surplus in
1855 represent the remaining portion of the loan of
750 millions. By their assistance, 1856 leaves a sur
plus of 112 millions. This surplus is assigned to 1857,
F

82 TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE
a year of complete peace, in which they dwindle down
to 39 millions; this sum goes again to 1858, diminishes
to 31 millions, and disappears in 1859. In the extra
ordinary budget of public works of 1860 there are 31
millions distinctly mentioned as remains of the loan of
1859, showing that something remained likewise from
the Italian war.
Taking all these signs together, it is not too much to
assume that the war loans left at the least 200 mil
lions clear, not reckoning the indemnity of 60 millions
from Sardinia, which is destined to pay a portion of
the great works projected for 1860, 1861, and 1862. But
these 200 millions which remained from the war loans
are not the only extraordinary resource which has heen
used up. There are first the reserve of the Fond d'amor-
tissement. From 1852 to 1859 756 millions of this
reserve figure among the receipts of the ordinary
budgets. Then come 100 millions owing to the con
solidation of the Bank capital, 135 millions due to the
consolidation of the Caisse de la Dotation de l'Armee,
130 millions so-called obligations trentenaires, destined
for the completion of railways — in all, 1321 millions of
what might be called extraordinary resources. To this
must be added the floating debt, which in December
1859 was 921 millions, 307 millions more than in the
beginning of 1852. Another item which must be
specified is the Rentes issued for other than war pur
poses : 4,403,000 issued to facilitate the conversion of
the 5 per cent into 4^ (1852), which necessitated an
outlay of 74 millions ; and 1,000,000 for the Palais
d'lndustrie, Legion of Honour, &c, and representing
some 100 millions more of extraordinary financial re
sources. Lastly come the sums paid back by the railway

AND ITS DRAWBACKS. S.I
companies for advances made by the State. In the last
years these show a sum of 1,300,000, but were much
larger in former years ; still even at this rate it would
be 13 millions more for the eight years — together, 1 741
millions; and if we add the indemnity from Sardinia,
the total of extraordinary resources applied to the
exigencies of the ordinary budget amounted already at
the end of 1859 almost to the same sum as the real
expenditure for the Crimean and Italian wars.
There is as yet no possibility of estimating the ac
counts for 1860 and 1861; but there are several circum
stances which made these years more expensive and less
productive than those before them. First, the new com
mercial tariff, from which a loss of 90 millions was ex
pected for 1860. It was, up to a certain point, dimin
ished, but not compensated, by an augmentation of the
Excise on liquors, and in the price of tobacco. On the
other hand, the annexation of Nice and Savoy, the Chinese
war, the expeditions to Syria, Cochin-China, and Mexico,
and the increase of the garrisons at Rome, formed ex
traordinary expenses. The report to the Senate, on the
2d of December, estimates the deficit of the two years
at 300 millions; but this scarcely includes the extra
outlays on account of the dearness of provisions and
stagnation of trade, and goes only down to December
last, so that from 400 to 500 million francs will be
much nearer to reality.
The accounts of extraordinary resources used up
in ten years of Imperialism, give thus the following
result : —
Cost of Crimean and Italian wars, . 1859 millions.
Extraordinary resources and " passiva," 2160 „ in 1861.
4019 millions.

84 TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE
Of these 2,059,100,000 are covered by war loans.
74,000,000 (for conversion of the 5 per cents) by Rentes.
25,000,000 (for Palais d'Industrie, &c.) by Rentes.
Up to 1861. 835,000,000 by Fond d'amortissement.
60,000,000 by indemnity from Italy.
100,000,000 by Bank capital.
135,000,000 by Caisse de la Dotation de l'Arniee.
130,000,000 by obligations trentenaires.
3,418,100,000 covered out of 4019 millions.
Or 611 millions of "passiva," which, added to 743 millions representing
the "passiva" of the Treasury in 1852, makes 1354 millions floating debt
and arrears still to be paid.
This total, however respectable in itself as a specimen
of ten years' financial administration, is less embarrassing
to the Government than might be thought. The Trea
sury is merely a kind of general cashier and banker for
communes and public and private establishments, which
are under its guarantee; they deposit their money,
receive a certain amount of interest, and have an ac
count-current. Thus, on the 1st January 1861, the floating debt was
811 millions. Out of these : —
241 millions from communes and public establishments.
belonging to army and navy.
account-current of the Caisse des Depots et Consignations.
from the Bank of France, but exigible at the rate of
5 millions a-year.
advances of Receveurs Generaux.
Caisse de la Dotation de 1' Armee.
Bills of the " directeur comp table" of the Caisse Centrale.
of Saving Banks.
Credit foncier.
Different Accounts.

So that there were only 74 millions in Treasury bonds.
These latter have probably been largely increased last

5

>?

62

»

35

?'

65

»

13

)>

25

j?

154

>J

54

>J

74

JA

728 millions.

AND ITS DRAWBACKS. 8.")
year, and may cause a momentary embarrassment, but
the whole sum of "passiva" is not very formidable, if wo
consider the regular increase of revenues and trade. If
we take the most productive year before the establish
ment of the Empire (1846), and compare it with 1858,
the last year the accounts of which are settled, we find
an increase in revenue from 1351 to 1748 millions, or
almost 29 per cent. But the revenue had fallen off con
siderably, and was only 1273 millions in 1851 ; so that
the real increase was almost 35 per cent. The trade
returns, again, which show the highest sum in 1851 —
namely, 2787 millions — reached, in 1859, the last year
before the new tariff came into operation, 4904 millions,
or an increase of 35 per cent.
It may not be superfluous to remark, that the increase
in the revenue is in a great measure owing to the in
crease of national wealth, and only in very few cases to
increase of taxation. Thus the direct taxes, which are
voted en bloc every year, have increased since 1851 by
50 millions only, and this increase is almost exclusively
on the portion affected to special purposes in the de
partments. It is in the indirect taxes that the great
augmentation takes place. Comparing the last year
before the new tariff with the most productive year be
fore 1852, they show an increase from 827 millions to
1059 millions, or 232 millions difference. There was an
extra tax on spirits and wines introduced during the war,
and an additional tax on beetroot sugar in 1 852 ; but the
produce of these accounts for scarcely more than one-
tenth of the total increase. In 1860, the Customs reform
necessitated some changes, and in consequence the price of
tobacco was raised by 25 per cent, and the tax on spirits
and alcohol by 25 francs the hectolitre. Thus it may be

86 TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE
safely said, that nine-tenths of the increase in the revenue
is owing to the development of national prosperity.
It is not the past expenditure ancl actual deficit which
are alarming. The danger lies in the financial system,
or rather want of system, which has hitherto prevailed.
It can be best characterised by saying, that the right
hand did not know what the left hand gave. As there
is no solidarity among the Ministers, there can be, pro-
perly speaking, no question of a regular Budget. Each
Minister makes his report direct to the Emperor, trying
naturally to show the increasing wants of his department,
the Minister of Finance like the rest. These conflicting
demands are brought into some sort of shape, and sub
mitted to the Conseil d'Etat, so as to be presentable to tbe
Corps Legislatif, but this was hitherto the least import
ant part of the business, and the influential Ministers,
above all, reserved their powers for the struggle which
began after the Budget had safely passed.
The Senatus Consultum of the 25th December 1852,
gave, namely, to the Emperor the power to order and au
thorise, by simple decree, all works of public utility and
enterprises of general interest, and to assign extraordi
nary credits for this purpose. The same decree gives,
likewise, the power to transfer the credits voted for one
department to the necessities of the other. It was to
avoid supplementary credits that the Senate conferred
this power, and limited, likewise, the extraordinary
credits to works which were directly undertaken by the
State. But this power was too elastic, and offered too
many temptations, not to be soon abused and applied
to all departments and all purposes.
Immediately after the voting of the Budget, the race
began between the Ministers to get the largest shares

AND ITS DRAWBACKS. 87
in these credits. Every one had one or more pet pro
jects which he submitted to the Emperor. AVhen the con
sent of the latter was obtained, it was, as a matter of
form, presented to the gentlemen in the Conseil d'Etat,
and it became quite a triumph to surprise less fortunate
colleagues in the ministry by the appearance of the decree
in the 'Moniteur.' No one wanted to be worse off than
his neighbour, and the surprises became every day more
numerous. As experience showed the convenience of
improving a Minister's department in this way, the taste
for extraordinary and supplementary credits daily in
creased. Above all, since the Crimean war, these credits,
which, until then, oscillated between tens of millions,
began to move among the hundreds of millions. It
seems almost as if the large credits required during
the war had familiarised people with large figures.
The last two years may serve as a specimen. In the
Bulletin des Lois for 1860 there are 36 supplementary
credits, amounting to 46,171,568 ; 46 extraordinary cre
dits, 191,154,817, besides 15 transfers == 11,000,000 ;
in all 248,000,000 in round numbers, in a budget fixed
at 1,824,000,000. In 1861 there are 47 supplementary
credits = 34,823,967, and 51 extraordinary credits =
238,306,762. Then there are extraordinary exceptional
credits for six Ministers = 45,000,000, and special cre
dits for public works of 10,941,997— in all, 329,172,726
francs, in a budget estimated at 1 930 millions. It is true
that sometimes one or another of these credits is again
annulled, but these cases are comparatively rare ; and
M. Fould himself admits in his report that 115 millions
were used in 1860, and 200 millions in 1861, which
sums, however, do not include those required on account
of the dearness of provisions. Such easy play with

88 TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE.
millions must have defeated all attempts at regular
budgets, and it was high time to renounce such a per
nicious practice. It seems that after what has been
done in "works of public utility and enterprises of
general interest," the exceptional power of supplemen
tary and extraordinary credits may be given up without
restriction, especially if the power of transferring the
credits of one department to the wants of the other is
kept up. In a large budget like that of France, this
power is sufficient for any emergency which might arise
between the meetings of the Corps Legislatif.

CHAPTER VI.
TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE AND ITS ADVANTAGES.
Having set forth the " petites miseres," to which those
who undertake the part of Providence on earth are sub
ject like other common mortals, it is only fair to cast a
glance on the sunny side of the pictures, and enumerate
some of the sweets which are reserved for those who are
bold and powerful enough to aspire so high.
Nothing is probably more calculated to make us so
conscious of our power as an occasion to exert it for the
relief of misery, or for conferring happiness in indivi
dual cases. It is, as it were, trenching more directly
on the province of Providence. The means for such
occasions have been amply provided in the second
Empire by an increase of the civil list from 12 to 25
millions of francs. A bourgeois king, walking about
with his umbrella, was compelled by his position to be
stingy ; and any attempt on his part to deviate from this
line would have been regarded with suspicion, and set
down as corruption, although his large private fortune
might have been sufficient to excuse any little deviation
from this constitutional maxim. In the present case the
obligation lies in the opposite direction. Nor can there
be any charge of remissness in the performance of it, as
the numerous visits and journeys to the different parts of

90 TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE
France can testify. East and West, North and South,
Algeria, and even the lately annexed provinces of Nice
and Savoy, have all had their share in the private boun
ties of the Empire. But, more than any other, those
places where the Emperor or Empress has made a more
or less prolonged stay- — such as Biarritz, Plombieres,
and their vicinities — have enjoyed this advantage. The
Imperial privy purse is always open to all cases of
calamity and distress, and is appealed to by depart
ments, towns, villages, and individuals. The Rhone
overflows its banks, an accident befalls a mine, a storm
has ravaged the coasts : Imperial liberality is always
the first to mitigate the misfortune. Besides this, at
every moment the 'Moniteur' informs the world of
some grant, now for a school, now for a church, pro
menade, or some charitable institution, or as a reward
for some case of devotion, or as support to a distressed
or bereaved family. The wonder is how so much can
be done with so little.
After punishing enemies, rewarding friends is one
of the sweetest privileges of Imperial omnipotence.
Among the friends, the Senate and the Corps Legislatif
stand out foremost. Times are changed from what they
were when Government was looked upon as the natural
enemy of the people, and when "Pairs" and deputies were
set up to act the part of fierce watch-dogs. It is true
means were even then found to tame them by throwing
before them morsels on the sly ; but it could not be
allowed that he should feed them against whom they
were set up. Now it is the Elect of the people who
rules and governs, and senators and deputies have be
come friends, assisting instead of opposing Government.
They cost about 7 millions of francs a-year.

AND ITS ADVANTAGES. 91
Another set of friends, far more sure and reliable,
deserved to be remembered, and these were the em
ploye's — that faithful phalanx which, free from politi
cal prejudices, toiled along the narrow beaten path of
routine, and had served with equal devotion the dif
ferent governments which had succeeded each other in
France. A great deal could and required to be done
in this respect. The complicated system of centralisa
tion, which has been prevalent in French administration,
necessitated a great number of employe's ; while the
jealousy with which this host of devoted agents of the
Government was looked upon, since 1 S 1 4, allowed little
to be done for the amelioration of their position. The
prices of all necessaries of life had largely increased the
rate of all other labour, and while wages had adapted
themselves everywhere to this increase, the employe" of
the Government alone had been forgotten. To improve
his condition was almost an act of justice, or, at any rate,
of charity, while it was likewise a measure of policy.
All the ministries show strong traces of this work.
The Ministry of Justice, which figured in 1846 with
23,000,000, receives now 28,000,000 ; the surplus is
explained by the conversion of the fees into regular
higher salaries, and by the increase of the salaries of the
Justices of Peace and of the Greffiers,
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs shows an increase
of 2,000,000 above the ordinary years before the Em
pire. This increase also is owing to an increase of
salaries. The Ministry of the Interior shows 1,305,000 in
1859, against 900,000 in 1846, for Central administra
tion, and 10,000,000 for Departmental administration,
against 8,000,000 in 1846 : the Ministere des Cultcs
46,000,000 against 39,000,000 in 1847. In the Ministry

92 TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE
of Public Instruction the increase must have been even
greater; but it is so mixed up with the changes intro
duced in this department, that it would be difficult to
ascertain how much of the surplus of 6,000,000, which
this department shows since 1844, is due to this cause:
but judging from single instances, a general increase of
20 per cent in the salaries is rather below the average.
This is more or less the case with the other ministries,
that of Colonies included. The Ministry of Finance
alone shows a peculiarity which is decidedly a great
improvement. The salaries have been raised in an
even greater proportion ; but the number of employes
having been diminished by 550, the total expenses of
administration have been reduced by 2,000,000. This
was done by simplifying the financial organisation, and
by seeking safety from fraud in a smaller number of
better paid employe's, rather than by trusting to a larger
number of ill-paid functionaries.
A government which was the impersonation of the
Parisian bourgeois of the old school, had to affect a
cynical disregard of appearances : not so a government
personifying the majesty of the people and popular
sovereignty. The Prime Minister of the former, the
man of all work, was no longer dignified enough for the
occasion; and he was replaced in 1852 by the Minister
of State and of the Imperial household. He is the
visible representative of the Emperor, the organ of
communication with Ministers, Senate, and Corps Le
gislatif. All the brilliant parts of public service — such
as public buildings and monuments, archives of the
Empire, museums, fine arts, theatres, fetes, the direction
of the ' Moniteur,' and the Conseil d'Etat — have been
united to adorn him. The bourgeois government could

AND ITS ADVANTAGES. 93
never get more than from 4 to 5 millions for all the
splendour. The Ministry of State began with 8 mil
lions of ordinary expenses, which, owing to national
fetes at the occasion of the Crimean victories and other
solemnities, rose, in 1854-58, to 15 and 13 millions,
until they seem to have settled down at 10 millions
a-year. But these represent merely ordinary expenses,
and do not comprise the large works which this minis
try has accomplished since its erection. The credits
allowed for these works from 1852 to 1860 inclusive,
amount to rather more than 70 millions of francs, and
they were applied to construct the magnificent range of
buildings which unite the Louvre to the Tuileries, and
to the building of a portion of the Palais de l'lndustrie.
After the completion of the works, the credits had
diminished from 23 millions in 1854 to 1,500,000 francs
in 1860 ; but they will probably figure again high, as last
year a large portion of the Tuileries has been pulled
down to be rebuilt. Indeed, the Bulletin des Lois for
1861 assigns 9 millions of supplementary and extraor
dinary credits to this department.
This expensive splendour, wdiich would have caused
indignation among a more sober and calculating people,
was here a well-devised means of gratifying a national
propensity, while it was at the same time one of the
means of employing a large number of workmen. To
turn to account a national weakness, and make it co
operate in the solution of the great social question, was
a measure which showed an intimate knowledge of the
people. This weakness had no occasion to manifest
itself under a government in which the masses were
taken no account of; but it seems so naturally in
herent, that even the calculating bourgeois, who seemed

94 TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE
formerly to despise all these appearances, now forgets
the cost while beholding the splendour.
Another of these weaknesses which had been long
neglected has likewise found ample satisfaction during
the Empire. It is national pride. Louis Philippe, by
his narrow-minded and reactionary policy abroad, had
done perhaps more to undermine his throne than by
the analogous system he pursued at home. France, ac
customed so long to the lead in Continental politics,
found herself in the wake of others, and ended by de
spising the Government which had so far humiliated
her. Those angry debates about the policy of the Gov
ernment in the Sunderbund question, have only re
ceived their true interpretation by the days of February,
and by the enthusiasm which has hailed every step
of the Imperial Government in the opposite direction.
In this respect, the feeling is as unanimous as it can
be in a country. France has vindicated her true posi
tion in the world, and never grudges the cost.
The discussions raised this year about the reductions
of the army, showed no trace of any dissatisfaction with
the expenditure incurred for carrying on the two great
wars. They had merely reference to the military estab;
lishment in normal years of peace. And even in this
respect the suggestions never went farther than to
diminish the cost without impairing the efficiency ; that
is, to keep the " cadres " intact, and send a larger pro
portion of the men on furlough. A few statistical data
will place this question on its true merits.
Up to 1853, the beginning of the Eastern war, the
annual contingent taken by conscription was fixed at
80,000 men. The necessities of the war led to an in
crease of not less than 60,000, making in all 140,000 —

AND ITS ADVANTAGES. 95
a number which was retained till 1855 inclusive. In
1856 it was reduced to 100,000, which has become, it
seems, the standard for normal years, such as 1857,
1860, and 1861. In anticipation of the war in Italy
alone, the contingent was exceptionally raised in 1858
to 140,000, and kept up at that number in 185!).
Leaving out the exceptional year of 1848, when the
institution of the Garde Mobile and other circumstances
increased the effective force of the army to 400,000, the
yearly contingent of 80,000 men gives an effective force
of from 330,000 to 370,000 men in the years froml846 to
1853. The exceptional contingents of 140,000 raise it
to 550,000 or 570,000 men, while the present contingent
of 100,000 gives an effective of from 390,000 to 460,000,
or from 30,000 to 90,000 men more than before 1848.
The Budgets for 1860 and 1861 estimate the effective
force at 392,400 men. The Government has considerable
latitude in raising or diminishing its amount. Al
though the contingent is voted by the Corps Legislatif
as a maximum, an Imperial decree settles the propor
tion which is actually called out. In ordinary years
seldom more than one-half of the contingent is ordered
to join, the rest forming the reserve, liable to be called
out should it be required. This, combined with the sys
tem of furloughs, makes it possible to have a war estab
lishment ready, without overburdening the budget too
much. Thus, for instance, the report of the recruit
ment on the 1st of January 1858 gives an effective
of 538,952 men; while the financial account of 1857
shows 415,200 as the average of the year.
In spite of the improvement in the soldiers' con
dition, and the great changes in arms, accoutrements,
and material, the cost in ordinary years is proportion-

96 TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE
ately less than what it was before the Empire. The
improvement in the soldiers' condition is mainly owing
to the new system of exemption, and to the Caisse de la
Dotation de l'Armee, of which I have spoken in another
place ; while most of the changes in arms and material
were effected during the wars, and figure in those
budgets. Thus in 1859, when the rifled guns were
introduced, the material of artillery cost 23 millions
instead of 7-j millions in 1858, and the remounts 44
millions (6 millions in 1858).
One million of francs for each 1000 men is about the
average cost beforel848. TheBudget of 1847 gives 349-|
millions as the cost of the army; but from this sum 16
millions must be deducted for civil government and other
expenses in Algeria, which now figure in the Budget of
the Colonies; so that 333 millions remain as the cost of
337,000 men, which was the effective during the year.
The Budget of 1 858 shows an expenditure of 377 millions
for an average effective of 415,000 men; and even these
377 millions include 11 millions of arrears of former
years, so that properly only 366 millions apply to the year
itself, showing an increase of 33 millions above 1847.
Thus, at an expense of from 30 to 40 millions of
francs a-year more, France has the satisfaction of
knowing that she is able to go to war almost at a
moment's notice. Whether this satisfaction is in itself
worth anything, it is for Frenchmen to decide ; but if
efficiency is compared with the increase of cost, they
cannot complain of not having their money's worth.
The financial report lately presented to the legislative
bodies announces a notable reduction in the effective of
the army. The average, which was 476,000 men on the
1st January 1861, has been reduced to 446,000 in 1862,

AND ITS ADVANTAGES. 97
and is to be farther diminished to 400,000 men. From
what was said above about the elasticity of the furlough
system, and the latitude the Government has in calling
out whatever proportion it deems fit of the contingent,
it will be clear that this economy can be effected without
impairing the efficiency. The cadres are kept intact ;
and a larger number of men are sent on temporary fur
lough, or a smaller number of the contingent are called
out. But they must be ready to join at a moment's
notice. The only permanent diminution is in three
regiments which have been dissolved, namely, the 1st
regiment of the foreign legion, and the 102d and 103d
Savoyard regiments, which were almost entirely taken
over from the Italian army when Nice and Savoy were
annexed. In the navy this comparison between efficiency and
cost, since the beginning of Imperialism, is still more
satisfactory. There is a strange perversity in human
nature which makes us undervalue, in a great measure,
whatever we possess, and aim at things which experience
has shown to be either altogether beyond our reach, or
in which we have at any rate little chance of ever attain
ing excellence. This morbid tendency bears a good
deal of analogy to the fantastic predilection of cats for
birds and fish, both of them so rarely within their reach,
and is probably the mainspring of the passion of the
French for being a naval nation and a naval power.
This weakness is not of yesterday, ancl, in spite of many
failures, is stronger now than ever. It would be a mis
take to seek hidden aims and secret objects in this yearn-
ino- ; it is a mania like any other— for instance, that of
sailors for going on horseback.
The Restoration, and the Government of July during
G

98 TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE
its first ten years, had other things to do than to encour
age manias ; and the French navy, under the pressure for
economy, sank down to comparative insignificance.
The first Eastern complication in 1840 produced a re
action, by showing how France had remained behind
other nations in this respect, and how she would be
still more distanced if she did not make an extraor
dinary effort at a moment when the application of
steam-power was daily more tending to transform the
naval system of former days. The old weakness, as
sisted by the satisfaction of having a new colony in
Algeria, overpowered economical considerations. The
dynasty which saw, in a transformation of the navy,
another means of strengthening its position, lent a
willing hand to the satisfaction of this weakness.
With the view of identifying the army and Algerian
conquest with the dynasty, the Due d'Orleans, and
later the Due d'Aumale, had been sent to Africa ; and
the Prince de Joinville received the task of doing the
same service to his family in the navy. It is the
dynasty of July, and not Imperialism, which has the
credit of having led the French into this path. Impe
rialism has only continued the work, and, it must be
admitted, successfully.
There were powerful considerations which urged it
in this direction. The Prince de Joinville was far more
successful with the navy than his brothers had been
with the army ; and it is a matter of history, that in
no class of the population was the Orleanist feeling
stronger and more lasting, than in the navy and the
maritime populations. To destroy this feeling, the
work of creating a new navy had to be continued and
surpassed. The advances made in nautical affairs, and

AND ITS ADVANTAGES. 99
the two great wars, gave the welcome opportunity for
attaining this object.
However successful the Prince de Joinville may have
been in instilling dynastic feelings into the navy, ho can
scarcely be said to have been equally happy in his efforts
at creating an efficient one. He worked during a time
of doubt and transition, when even the best authorities
were at variance about the general introduction of steam
as motive power. The screw-propeller, which settled the
question as regards men-of-war, had scarcely been in
vented ; and everything was as doubtful as it has been
lately about iron-clad ships. Yet the experiments were
costly enough.
Before 1840 the Budget of the marine department
varied between 60 and 70 millions of francs. After that
year till 1847 it varies between 116 and 134 millions
of ordinary expenditure, so that the total amounts to
966 millions. Besides this, from 3 to 19 millions a-year
were spent for extraordinary works on the naval harbours
of Brest, Cherbourg, Toulon, &c, giving a total of 42 mil
lions ; in all, above a milliard of francs for eight years.
The first year of the Republic kept up this scale ; nay,
in order to give work to those who were clamouring for
it, it had even to increase the expenditure for extraor
dinary works to 21 millions of francs. In the years
between 1848 and the beginning of the Crimean war,
both ordinary and extraordinary expenditure diminishes
by wellnigh 30 millions a-year ; so that, with all the
cost of preparation for the impending war in 1853,
they scarcely reach the lowest figure between 1840 and
1848. The Crimean war changed matters. It settled one
disputed question and raised another. It left no doubt

100 TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE
about the inferiority and comparative uselessness of sail
ing vessels, and witnessed the first successful trial of an
ironclad ship. The lesson was not lost ; and already, in
1857, a large project was devised by which the French
navy is to be completely transformed in fourteen years
— from 1858-1872. The project comprises three points,
1st, To form a " transition" fleet, by giving auxiliary
screws to all line-of-battle ships which are not too old;
2d, To build and arm gradually 150 rapid steamers, of
different sizes, and of the best models known; 3d, To
complete a transport fleet of 72 ships, partly by trans
forming the sailing frigates into steam transports, and
partly by building new ships. To carry out this project,
the Budget of the Marine Department is to receive an
augmentation of 1 7 millions a-year, for fourteen years.
With this increase the yearly ordinary expenditure of the
navy reaches 122-124 millions of francs, or almost 5 mil
lions sterling. The large increase in 1861 and 1862, to
168 millions, is exceptional, and accounted for by the
expeditions to Syria, China, Cochin-china, and Mexico.
This is 1 0 millions of francs less than was spent dur
ing the last years of the July dynasty ; and yet what a
difference in the result ! Frenchmen have had the satis
faction of taking, for the first time, the lead in naval
matters. Their floating battery Avalanche was the only
one at Kinburn, and the " Gloire " was the first ironclad
frigate afloat. Imperialism has given them what they
have long been sighing for in vain, and at a less cost
than they paid for the experiments of its predecessor.
That 3 milliards of francs, 120 millions sterling, which
the navy has cost since 1840, is not too much for such a
triumph over all rivals, is, I believe, the opinion of the
great majority of Frenchmen.

AND ITS ADVANTAGES. 101
Satisfaction of national pride, and the indulgence of na
tional weaknesses, however gratifying in themselves, are
expensive luxuries ; and, after a time, they woidd have
seemed barren and hollow, even to Frenchmen, had not
measures been taken to enable the nation to bear, almost
without feeling them, the sacrifices which these luxuries
demand. Of all the triumphs wliich the Imperial regime has
gained in its ten years of existence, the most wonderful is
the unprecedented growth of material welfare, and of the
prosperity of all classes of society. There have been
great wars, there have been failures of harvests, there
have been commercial and financial crises, there has been
lavish expenditure on the part of the State, and fabulous
squandering on the part of individuals ; and yet all
these things seem scarcely to affect this growth, and
France more easily bears her increased burdens than
she did the smaller ones of thirteen years ago. This
success is well worth studying.
The secret of it is to be sought in that clear apprecia
tion of circumstances, and in that intimate knowledge
of French character, for which the Imperial government
is so conspicuous.
The materialistic tendency which seized Europe some
thirty years ago, encountered great difficulties in France
— a national character little given to individual enter
prise ; a government watched with suspicion, and having,
therefore, little power to supply this want by its own
initiative; prejudices of long growth in the people; and
narrow-minded views in the legislation. With such ob
stacles in the way, material development could not make
the rapid progress which otherwise might have been
expected from the natural resources of the country, and

102 TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE
the position of the people in the scale of civilisation.
Indeed, so far did France remain behind, that the idea
more and more gained ground that Frenchmen, however
brilliant in other respects, were unfit to keep their place
in the industrial and commercial race of nations. This
idea, already strong before 1848, seemed only confirmed
by the Revolution of February, and the three years of
political agitation which followed.
The crisis led to exhaustion ; and the nation, weary of
politics, turned its attention to material interests, which
had been so much neglected. This was understood;
and when the political arena was closed in 1851, a large
field of industrial and commercial enterprise was opened
as a compensation, and the Government undertook to
guide the people on this road.
There is an impression prevalent that this interference
and assistance of the Government in works of public
utility, and in industrial and commercial enterprises,
dates from the beginning of the Imperial regime. No
thing can be more erroneous. There is not a year since
1820, in which extraordinary works do not figure in the
Budget with sums varying from 25 to 170 millions of
francs, which were employed in the construction of
canals, roads, and railways, the improvement of rivers
and ports, erection of lighthouses, and other works.
Above all, the last years of the Government of Louis
Philippe show sums which have never been reached since
1852. This was owing to the first impulse given to
railways, and to the fortifications of Paris. The Impe
rial Government, therefore, in this respect, only followed
its predecessors, with the difference, however, that it had
the skill to see their mistakes, and at the same time the
power to carry out its own views.

AND ITS ADVANTAGES. 10:J
With a people having so little power of initiating indi
vidual enterprise, Government encouragement and assist
ance could not be dispensed with, only it had to be regu
lated so as to be a stimulus, and not to act as a narcotic,
on individual enterprise. Neither the Restoration, nor
the Government of July, kept the proper limit in this
respect. It was not so much their fault as that of the
prevalent popular prejudices which found their expres
sion in the Chambers, and to which the Government was
obliged to yield. As the chief prejudice was that the
Government could not do too much, the interference
was such that it left little scope for the exertion of indi
viduals, and made capitalists more timid than they had
been before.
The Imperial Government followed another plan.
It used its power for the industrial and commercial
education of the people, for eradicating those prejudices,
and for removing those obstacles, legislative and others,
which have so long stood in the way of material deve
lopment. Government assistance was to be only the
leaven to call forth individual enterprise. The difficulty
was not so much to lay down this rule as to apply it in
a systematic and successful way. It was impossible to
adopt a general formula : each case had to be judged
separately ; its influence on other branches of industry
and commerce had to be taken into account ; and the
resources of the Government so apportioned that each
should receive its fair share. The large view taken by the
Government in this respect enabled it to give that general
impulse to the material prosperity of the country, which
has been a matter of astonishment to the world.
The most curious feature in this undeniable success
is that the Government obtained it at a less cost than

104 TERRESTRIAL PROVIDENCE
its predecessors had incurred for the same purpose.
Strange as this may sound, it is borne out by figures.
During the eight years from 1852 to 1859 inclusive,
435,211,635 francs, or about £17,500,000 appear in the
Budgets for Extraordinary Works ; wiiile in the eight
years before, from 1844 to 1851, 861,573,248 francs, or
£35,000,000, figure in the Budget ; but even in the eight
years before that, when no fortifications of Paris or rail
ways were built, 412,201,149 francs, or £16,500,000,
were spent for extraordinary works. Thus in the eight
years immediately before the beginning of Imperialism
the expense was double, and in the eight years before
little less. It is true that from 1858 the remaining
portion of the liabilities of Government towards railway
companies, amounting to 1 6 0 millions, was converted into
30 annual payments of 6 millions a-year ; but while the
Extraordinary Budget was thus relieved by 35 millions
a-year, several items for making roads, improving rivers,
&c, which formerly figured in the Ordinary Budget,
were transferred to the Budget of Extraordinary Works.
At any rate, taking all this into account, we have the
statement of the Emperor himself, in his speech opening
the Legislative Session, that in ten years only 622 millions
were spent for this purpose, or 240 millions less than
had been spent in the eight years before 1 852. As the ob
ject of this statement was to prove that the money was
well spent, no one will doubt that the sums spent for
works of public utility have been liberally added up.
The expenses caused by extraordinary works do not,
however, represent the whole outlay of the Government
in promoting, encouraging, and helping individual
enterprise. There is, besides, the Budget of the Ministry
of Agriculture and Commerce, and the ordinary Budget

AND ITS ADVANTAGES. 105
of the Ministry of Public Works, which are united under
one direction, and absorb, the first, from 15 to 16 mil
lions a-year, and the second, until lately, 70 millions
a-year, which, however, by the transfer, as above stated,
of several items to the Budget of Extraordinary Works,
has been reduced, in 1859, to 53 millions. These sums
are just the same as those spent during the latter years
of the government of July for such purposes.
Taking both ordinary and extraordinary expenses
together, a sum of 1300 millions, or £52,000,000 results,
which represents the " leaven " used up by Imperialism,
in ten years, for stimulating national enterprise and
promoting national prosperity, against 1706 millions,
or £68,000,000, laid out in the ten years before that.
How the smaller leaven produced a higher " rise "
under Imperialism, will be best seen from some details
about its application, which may be fitly given under
the title of the imperial fertilising system.

CHAPTER VII.
THE IMPERIAL FERTILISING SYSTEM.
The stranger who visits the gardens of Shoubra, near
Cairo, cannot but admire the energy which has suc
ceeded in creating, amid a sandy desert, one of the most
luxuriant retreats of shade and verdure. It is all owing
to a little water, the " life of all things," as the Eastern
saying is. But in vain would the fructifying waters of
the Nile be poured over the black basalt rocks of Nubia ;
they would not elicit a blade of grass from them. That
yellow sand, so hot and arid, contains powerfu1 germs of
fertility, which are wanting in the black rocks.
Not to waste energy on barren rocks, but to be
stow it where a rich return may be expected, is the
guiding principle of the Imperial Government. Its
assistance is made conditional on individual exertion,
and is offered in the most different ways. Some
times it takes the shape of Government protection, of
great privileges, amounting almost to a monopoly, as
in the case of the Credit Mobilier and other institu
tions of credit. In other cases great immediate advan
tages are held out, so as to attract capital; as, for
instance, in the construction of the railways. At other
times, again, Government stimulates private enterprise

THE IMPERIAL FERTILISING SYSTEM. 107
by a system of prizes and distinctions, as in the I n-
dustrial and Agricultural Shows ; or else it takes alto
gether the initiative, reclaims marshes, forms planta
tions on sandy landes, and then disposes of the reclaimed
lands at low prices. Not unfrequently Government
assistance is obtruded by a kind of gentle pressure, to
stimulate slovenly and timid municipal and depart
mental councils in the same direction.
Nor must it be forgotten that the inducements and
encouragements thus held out are made by a Govern
ment wielding practically unlimited power, and pos
sessing the means of bestowing favours or making its dis
pleasure felt, — circumstances which cannot fail to influ
ence a people so accustomed to look up to Government.
The first object to which this new method of Govern
ment assistance was applied was the railway system.
It was a legacy bequeathed to the Imperial Government
by its predecessors. While in England and America the
construction of railways was left altogether to private
enterprise, and Parliament and Congress, following
their old traditions, refused to give exceptional privi
leges and monopolies, continental governments took
an opposite course. Everywhere it was laid down as
the rule that to Government must belong all initiative
in the matter. Nowhere was this principle carried so
much to an extreme as in France. Not only did the
Government itself trace out the network of railways
which was to be constructed, but it adopted as a rule
that all railways should be in the hands of the Govern
ment, which would thus derive not merely a consider
able source of revenue, but likewise a large patronage,
and the control over this rapid means of communication
in times of political crisis. The only question was,

108 THE IMPERIAL FERTILISING SYSTEM.
whether the Government should construct them altoge
ther at its own expense, or whether, in consideration
of the delay which would result from the impossibility
of the Government making the large initial outlay
rapidly enough, it would not be advisable to call to its
aid private capitalists, allowing them to contribute a
portion of the expenditure, and giving them in return
short concessions for the working of the lines. Both
views had their ardent supporters in the Chambers ; and
the end was an unsatisfactory compromise, which not
only retarded in many cases the construction, but be
came the source of much waste in the outlay. The
compromise was, that no general rule should be laid
down, but that each case should be judged on its own
merits. Thus some lines, like that from Paris to Lille,
or the Chemin de fer de la Bretagne, were constructed
directly by the Government, while others, like the
Chemin de fer de l'Est, were constructed half by the
Government and half by a company. In almost every
such concession both the conditions and the terms of
the concession varied. The law of 1842 became, how
ever, the model for such concessions. According to
this the State paid for earthworks and for one-third of
the ground, the departments and commonalties paid for
another third of the ground, and only the rest of the
outlay was at the charge of the companies, which were
further assisted by loans from the Government. In
spite of these facilities the railways did not prosper;
most of the companies were only kept up with the great
est difficulty ; and on one of the most important lines,
that of Paris and Lyons, the Government had actually
to take back the concession, and continue the works on
its own account. It was a case of killing with kind-

THE IMPERIAL FERTILISING SYSTEM. 109
ness. Instead of being stimulated to exertion, the com
panies relied on the Government, and in most cases lost
all power of expansion. Each company endeavoured to
become the most favoured; little rivalries ensued to the
great disadvantage of the common interest. Private
capital was unwilling to aid in an enterprise where
Government authorities had so much power to inter
fere, and where the term of concession was too short to
allow sufficient time for the development of a large
remunerative traffic. The result of all this was, that at
the establishment of the Imperial regime, not more than
3541 kilometres, or 1270 miles of radway, dragged on
a wretched existence.
Invested, in 1852, with full powers of opening extra
ordinary credits for the construction of the large rail
way network decreed in 1 S42, the Imperial Government
gradually reversed the whole system which had been
introduced by its predecessors. The practice of con
structing and working railways at the expense of the
Government was from the outset condemned, and mea
sures taken at once to form companies to take off the hands
of the Government those lines which were its property.
Although the idea of an ultimate reversion of all the
principal railways to Government was not given up in
theory, the uniform grant of a ninety-nine years' lease to
the companies, instead, as before, of half that time,or even
less, was virtually giving them a right of proprietorship.
All companies were reconstructed on this basis.' Liberal
terms were given both to the companies which took the
Government lines, and to the old ones which were still
under large obligations for outlays made by Government ;
but at the same time the condition was imposed that they
should greatly extend their respective lines. In order

110 THE IMPEB.IAL FERTILISING SYSTEM.
to facilitate this, every effort was made to effect a fusion
of all the smaller lines into a few large ones, which
should divide the whole territory of France into so
many regions. At present the number of these lines
has been reduced to six, and they comprise all the rail
ways, with the exception of about sixty miles, which are
still in the hands of the smaller companies. Govern
ment subventions were not altogether stopped, but they
were every year more reduced. From 30 and 40 per
cent of the outlay — their former proportion — they gra
dually sank to 20 per cent and less ; until in 1857, when
a large construction of branch railways (4000 miles)
was decreed, subventions were in most cases dropped,
and a guarantee of 4.65 percent as interest and sinking
fund on a certain maximum of expense for fifty years,
was adopted as the rule. If the revenues of the old fines
exceeded a certain sum per mile, the surplus was to be
applied as part of the guarantee stipulated by the Go
vernment for the new branch lines ; if these latter
should at any time yield more than the guarantee, the
surplus was to be used to repay the sums expended by
Government as guarantee ; and, after 1872, all revenues
of old and new lines beyond a fixed sum were to be
shared with the Government. The system of direct
subventions was only kept up in exceptional cases, where
the Government was specially interested from military
or other motives ; but, taking all this together, it is
calculated that the proportion of expense borne by the
Government in these branch lines amounts to no more
than from 20,000 to 25,000 francs— £800 to £1000—
per kilometre, or about 7 per cent of the outlay, against
£4000 per kilometre, or 30 per cent, which had been the
average in the old lines.

THE IMPERIAL FERTILISING SYSTEM. Ill
By these means a complete revolution has, within the
last ten years, been effected in the French railway
system. They have changed their character as govern
ment concerns, and have become private enterprises./
The effect of this emancipation is plainly visible iu the'
progress which railways have made since that time.
From 3541 kilometres in 1851, they had risen in the be
ginning of this year 10,096, or above 5000 miles, and
this result has been achieved at about one-half of the
expense entailed on the Government by the former
system. The whole expense of the construction alone
may be calculated at 4,008,042,000 of francs, or an
average of 397,000 francs per kilometre ; out of this,
about one-fourth was contributed by Government, but
while it had spent above 600 millions for the original
3541 kilometres constructed till 1851, it had contributed
about 350 millions only for the 6557 constructed since
that time. On the other hand, in spite of the heavy ex
penditure since 1852 (about 2603 millions of francs, not
counting the rolling stock), the companies have become
proverbial for their prosperity, and excite the astonish
ment of railway shareholders all over the world. The
dividends vary between 7 and 1 5 per cent, and in some
instances, as in the case of the Orleans railway, have
reached 20 per cent. It would be superfluous to speak
of the reaction which this extension of very rapid and
cheap means of transport had on commerce and in
dustry ; but it will scarcely be an exaggeration to as
sume that both in point of time and of cost a reduction
of three-fourths has been effected.
But while giving so powerful an impulse to these
great arteries, the other means of communication were
by no means neglected. Among these must be classed

112 THE IMPERIAL FERTILISING SYSTEM.
first the roads. All roads having been free of tolls
from time immemorial, Government could not resort to
private enterprise by offering the prospect of large
profits. It had therefore to apply its system of assist
ance in another shape in order to obtain the co-opera
tion of those interested in the matter. It tried the
charms of example, the temptations of conditional
money grants from the Treasury, and the seduction of
loans, which placed means within the reach of depart
ments and communes without necessitating a sudden
large outlay. The roads in France are of three kinds
— Imperial, departmental, and vicinal roads — the first
constructed and maintained entirely at the charge of
the Government, the second at that of the departments,
and the last of the communes. Although railways
have in some measure superseded Imperial roads, the
traffic upon them is still estimated at 1600 millions
of tons a-year per kilometre ; and the Government
has thought it necessary to spend, in ordinary and
extraordinary works, larger sums upon them than were
expended when railroads either did not exist, or were
still in their infancy. From 30 to 33 millions of francs
a-year have been on an average applied for this pur
pose. With these sums it was possible to combine the
road system effectually with the railway system, with
out neglecting the roads which, running parallel to
railways, had become of less use. The roads running
at right angles to them, neglected before, and far more
important now, received special attention ; their course
was rectified, and the gaps between them filled up.
With such an example before them, the departments
and communes could not but follow, especially as " Pre
fets" and " Maires" did not fail to point out the use^

THE IMPERIAL FERTILISING SYSTEM. 113
fulness and desirability of making an effort on their
part. Their budgets show strong traces of the efficacy
of the persuasive powers of the authorities. The
budgets of the departments exhibit an increase of one-
third of what they were before the Empire, and every
year from 20 to 25 millions of extraordinary taxes are
proposed by the departments and authorised by Go
vernment, the greatest portion of which is applied to
the service of roads. On the whole, out of a revenue of
110 millions of francs, 48 millions on an averao-e are
spent for this purpose, making about 10 millions
more than before the Empire. Besides this, above 100
millions in loans have been authorised, one-half of
which is likewise destined for roads.
The communes have not remained behind. In 1851,
partly in labour and partly in money, they spent on
vicinal roads from 85 to 87 millions, while the ex
penditure now amounts to very nearly 100 millions
a-year. In this case, too, loans have been resorted to ;
and last year alone 34 towns were authorised to con
tract loans to the amount of 82 millions of francs, out
of which 23 millions are to be applied to means of
communication. In order to encourage these efforts on
the part of the municipalities, direct grants are from
time to time given by the Government, which invariably
act as a spur. Thus, from 1852 to 1856, when there
was a scarcity of provisions, 12,500,000 francs were
given ; last year again 25 millions were allotted, which,
if addresses from municipal councils are to be trusted,
will lead to new exertions.
These money grants are a kind of gentle pressure I
and seduction, which is resorted to by the Government ,
not only in the matter of roads, but in all useful and
H

114 THE IMPERIAL FERTILISING SYSTEM.
ornamental works in which the co-operation of depart
ments or municipalities is desirable. There is always
plenty of such improvements which are either obvious,
or which are easily suggested to municipal councils
—rivers require regulating, ports are insecure, quays
and bridges are giving way, towns must be improved,
streets widened, swamps and waste lands wait to be
reclaimed, &c. Government is applied to, and always
found willing to take the subject seriously. The only
remaining question is the money. With all its goodr
will and liberality, it cannot undertake to defray all
these large expenses ; but it is ready to contribute a
part under the condition that the municipalities do the
rest. They are already too heavily burdened to bear
so large an outlay, but there are plenty of capitalists
who will advance the money ; and the advantages re
sulting from the work will more than repay the outlay,
or else the resources are growing so rapidly that a fancy
may be safely indulged in now and then. The spirit
of emulation does the rest. Paris, Lyons, Marseilles,
and other large towns, headed the movement, and no
one wants to remain behind, the country any more than
the towns.
This system of encouragement by grants of money is
not confined to works undertaken by departments and
communes ; it extends in many cases . to individual
enterprises. With the view, for instance, of making
coal accessible to the consumer at low prices, sub
sidies are given to mining companies for the construc
tion of roads, canals, and tramways. In order to pro
mote drainage, the Credit foncier is authorised to make
loans to the amount of 100 millions of francs on afr
count of the Government, and this latter guarantees- 4

THE IMPERIAL FERTILISING SYSTEM. 115
per cent on them. In order to fertilise the plains of the
Dordogne, depots of sea-sand are formed at reduced prices.
About 1 0 millions of francs go every year to encourage
agriculture ; and lately, when the new commercial policy
was decided upon, similar favours have been extended to
manufactures. A law, passed in August 1860, empowers
the Government to make a loan of 40 millions of francs
to manufactures for improvement of machinery, with a
view to facilitate competition with foreign countries :
and so on, in an endless list, until the mind is quite
bewildered by this attempt to revive the Indian god
Vishnu, the many-headed and many-handed. Nothing
seems too large for the power of Government, or too
small to attract its attention.
But there is a stimulus and an assistance more effi
cient than money grants which a powerful Government
can apply iu favour of private enterprises, in a country
where nothing can be done without its direct authorisa
tion, and where even the most minute details of indus-f
trial and commercial establishments are subject to rules
and regidations. One stroke of the pen can, under
these circumstances, decide the prosperity or failure
of an enterprise. The system is due, not to Imperialism,
but to its predecessors ; and whatever opinion may be en
tertained of its advantages and disadvantages, it must
be admitted that it has been used by the present regime
as one of the most effective lures to stimulate private
exertion and to encourage capital. This is apparent
enough in the rapid growth of commercial societies since
1846 ; after falling off during the revolution from 2747 to
1511, they are now close upon 5000, or nearly double
what they were in the most prosperous times before
1848. Institutions of credit, insurance, railway, canal,

116 THE IMPERIAL FERTILISING SYSTEM.
mining, industrial, gas, and steamboat companies, &c,
have sprung up with a rapidity quite astonishing, and
have in most cases yielded large profits. Although
monopolies have been long abolished in theory, the
influence and favours which the Government can con
fer in authorising the statutes of the companies, are
such as to diminish competition, and sometimes to
make it altogether impossible. But, whatever the
favours bestowed be, they are only to be obtained at
the price of corresponding individual exertion, which
thus forms the great cause of the success of the system.
It is making others do, rather than doing itself.
The direct action of the Government is reserved for
those cases where some new idea is to be applied, which
might otherwise have remained fruitless. Whoever
knows the strong prejudices and the want of initiative
in the French people, might almost forgive such action,
however unreasonable it may appear to more enterprising
nations. The Government has in almost all such cases
shown itself far ahead of the people, and has had to
educate the latter. Thus agricultural shows, industrial
exhibitions, horse races, were almost unknown before
the establishment of the Imperial regime, and would
probably be so now had the Government not stepped
in. What the views of the people in general are even
now on this subject, may be gathered from the cir
cumstance that the exhibitors for the present Interna
tional Exhibition, when disappointed in their demands
for space, laid the blame on the method adopted in
England of getting up exhibitions by private enter
prise, which could not do things so liberally as govern
ments can.
Another point in question was internal navigation.

THE IMPERIAL FERTILISING SYSTEM. 117
The success of the liberal commercial policy, and of
the development of industry, depended greatly on faci
lity of communication, in which the rivers and canals
naturally played a considerable part. The former being
in the hands of Government, not only were large sums
yearly spent (15,400,000 francs on an average) to re
gulate them, but their tariffs have been greatly reduced.
With the canals, half of which are iu the hands of com
panies, difficulties were encountered in the way of re
ducing the tariffs, and the Government decided to buy
them back; four of the largest are already bought back,
and negotiations are going on for the rest. As soon as
these are settled, a large uniform reduction will offer
new facilities of internal communication to commerce.
But no stimulus or assistance, appbed either directly
or indirectly, promises more for the development of in
dividual enterprise than the new commercial legislation
which has been lately introduced. Competition sup
plies a stimulus far more powerful and regular than
any grants of money and government privileges can do.
It is one of the strangest contradictions that, in a
country which prides itself so much on its application
of the principle of equality, class interests should have
been so long favoured, to the detriment of common
interests. While England, under the "thraldom of
its proud aristocracy," has years ago dealt out equal
measure to the aristocratic landlord and the plebeian
manufacturer, in France both agricultural and manu
facturing interests maintained their unfair advantages
over the general consumer, in spite of revolutions, re
publics, and social and economical theories, until the Im
perial Government stepped in with its levelling pro
pensities, and opened the road to a more reasonable

118 THE IMPERIAL FERTILISING SYSTEM.
system. In spite of Imperial omnipotence, this throw
ing down the gauntlet was a bold step, and it re
quired great faith in the efficacy of free-trade principles
in a government which bases itself above all on the
prosperity of material interests which have grown up
under its tutelage. But the faith remained unshaken
by any outcries and sinister auguries of those interested.
The only effect of these latter seems to have been to lay
down a regular system for the gradual introduction of
the change, as we can now discern when the change
has taken place.
The leading idea evidently was to bring about the
change in such a way as to introduce foreign competi
tion under the most favourable circumstances. Viewed
in this light, the forcible impulse given to native in
dustry from the onset, the Industrial Exhibition in
1855 — which must have convinced the most stubborn
of the superiority of French industry on many points,
— and finally the free introduction of raw material a
considerable time before that of foreign manufactures,
were so many steps to give to French industry every
possible advantage : — a free flow of capital, confidence
in its own strength, and cheap materials to work upon.
Scarcely six months have passed, and the calculation
has already been so far justified that the opposition of
the most stubborn has been almost silenced.
As for the falling-off in the revenue by the reduction
of the tariff, any fears entertained on this point have
been set at rest. Even in the first three months, from
October to December, the falling-off was little more than
nominal ; and in the last three months the revenue had
already shown a surplus, not only over 1860, but even
over 1859 — that is, the time before the reduction.

THE IMPERIAL FERTILISING SYSTEM. 1 1 9
The predictions about the ensuing ruin of French
industry have been even more signally falsified. Tho
increased exportation of French produce into England
and Belgium has not only counterbalanced tho impor
tation of manufactures from these countries, but the
beginning of the new commercial movement has con
tributed greatly to remedy the effects of the American
war. It was as if constancy should have its reward.
Scarcely was the sliding scale on grain abandoned, when
a bad harvest showed all the advantages of free impor
tation ; and scarcely were the prohibitive duties on
manufactures removed, when the American crisis showed
the beneficial commercial policy which alone could neu
tralise the effects of such occurrences.
From this rapid sketch, the method may be learnt
which has been devised by Imperialism to elicit the
dormant energies of the nation. It would require
volumes to follow it into detail ; but there can be no
two opinions about the great success of the method. It
is a fact which obtrudes itself at every step in France,
and which is manifested by the prominent position
which France has of late taken among the commercial
and industrial nations of the world. But more start
ling than this success itself may be some day the effect
of this undermining of prejudices and stimulating of
individual exertion on the character of a people, which
has been almost proverbial for its want of individual
enterprise and initiative, and on the social condition of
a country noted for the violence of its party and class
rivalries. Indeed, the transformation is already so ap-
jpaisnt, that it cannot fail to strike the most superficial
observer.

CHAPTER VIII.

MONEYMANIA.

Following the stream of Paris life, the first clear im
pression which we become conscious of is, that it runs
very quick. There is a feverish activity perceptible in
everything that surrounds us, strangely contrasting
with that regular gentler current which once gave Paris
the reputation for being the place above all others for
fldneurs, badauds, and pleasure-seekers. Alas for those
halcyon days of enjoyment, when thoughtless Parisians
only busied themselves with tying flow^er- wreaths round
the sharp scythe of old Father Chronos ; when pleasure
seemed the only aim worth struggling for ; when a merry
dinner meant a well-spent day and night ; when an aim
less stroll on the Boulevards or in the Champs Elysees
was an ever fresh source of amusement ; when the atmos
phere itself seemed impregnated with Attic salt which
gave new relish to the most trivial trifles; when an
emeute was enjoyed like a cancan on a grand scale,
and a revolution got up like a bal masque out of season.
Those days are gone by, probably to return no more.
What has succeeded, is difficult to define. No word has
as yet been coined to name this new epoch, but the
slang word " fast" characterises it perhaps better than

MONEYMANIA. 121
any other. It is as if Imperialism had quickened tho
pulse of the population to 200, or as if it had shortened
life by one-half, and as if everyone was anxious to
make up for the loss by greater vitality. A feverish
rapidity of motion has seized everybody and everything.
Men, women, children, old and young, rich and poor,
high and low, all follow the impulse, and whirl along
none can tell exactly where. Is it vanity, selfish
ness, or love of gain, thirst for pleasure, or rage of
excitement, which impels 1 There is something of all
this in the mad race. And yet how reconcile vanity
with such bold and open cynicism 1 Is selfishness
compatible with so much thoughtlessness, or love of
gain with so much foolish recklessness ? Are these
pleasures where no one amuses himself? and can there
be a rage for excitement where nothing seems sponta
neous and all is calculation %
What is obvious ancl unmistakable in the race is the
kicking up of clouds of dust. The greater the dust the
greater seems the fun ; and whoever succeeds best in this
respect is sure to excite admiration and to attract the
crowds. There must be something intoxicating in this
blinding of the neighbour, even if it be at the risk of
choking yourself. The game reminds one of the Carni-
valone of Milan, and of the Coriandoli, when the whole
population is seized by the spirit of mischief, and hurl at
each other little bales of gypsum until every one is half
blind and choked. In the saturnalia of Paris the dust is
not white gypsum ; it is glittering dust, looking like gold,
but proving more frequently sham. But what does this
matter % it glitters and blinds, and the crowd follows.
This game of "blinding my neighbour" is as old as the
world; but rarely, if ever, has it been carried on with

1 22 MONEYMANIA.
such zest or brought to such perfection as in the present
instance. There is no attempt anywhere to mince
matters or to look demure; every one knows that every
one else does it, and that all depends on success ; suc
cess, however ephemeral and precarious, is invaluable,
for it is accepted as a proof of skill, or, what is more
valued, of luck. It exercises an irresistible attraction
on others, and creates immediately a position for him
who has achieved it. The more sudden the success,
the more every one is ready to bow down before it :
no one inquires about antecedents, or about the means
by which success has been attained ; the world at large
is ready to accept it such as it is ; and if here and there
the voice of suspicion is raised, it probably arises from
those who have themselves tried, but failed. This ac
quiescence is doubly remarkable in a country where the
principle " that every one is supposed to be innocent
until he is proved guilty," has never been recognised
or practised.
Neither can all be successful in this desperate race,
nor can any one be shown who has been invariably
successful : but such is the excitement produced by the
rapidity of the movement, that the effects of failure
scarcely ever last for more than a few days, and are
readily forgiven and forgotten if another effort is fol
lowed by fresh success.
It is the recklessness and excitement of gambling ad
mitted into all spheres and transactions of life, public as
well as private, commercial as well as social ; the race is
neither to the swiftest, strongest, nor even to the most
skilled, but to the boldest — to him who can best keep
up the appearance of success.
The candour which is exhibited in this respect has

MONEYMANIA. 123
something decidedly exhilarating for the spectator, who
may perchance remember certain high-sounding prin
ciples, which found so ready an echo in Franco not
very many years ago. To the moralist the c I leet of
the spectacle will be one of sadness ; he will probably
see in it the deplorable result of decadence and demo
ralisation. The light-minded French people, like the
heartless old coquette, worn out by former excesses, has
turned to bigotry aud gambling.
The Flaneur whose mind is open to exhilarating
as well as sad impressions, sees in this turmoil but
another expression of that impetuosity and proneness
to excess which has at all times made the attacks of
French horse and foot so formidable, — which has con
verted the most turbulent aristocracy into the most
servile courtiers, — which makes Frenchmen endure for
years the most humiliating subjection, and then again
scorn for a time all control, — which makes French
theorists the most captivating of thinkers, and French
politicians the most impracticable of mortals.
The same tendency to excess must needs lead, in
an age of materialistic propensities and of commercial
speculations, to reckless gambling in all the transactions
of life. It is but a novel form for venting the old
energy which has been diverted from other channels
into this one, — to live, to shine, to throw up dust, to
be successful.
The revelations made during the Mires affair have
thrown a strange light on the spirit which pervades
speculations in France.
Mires, another Hudson, migrates from Bordeaux to
Paris, and becomes in a few years the idol of the
Bourse. He eclipses the most formidable rivals, who

124 MONEYMANIA.
throw out in vain dark hints and insinuations. He seems
to have revived the old fable of Midas — whatever he
touches becomes gold. He improvises the Caisse Ginerale
des chemins de fer, a joint-stock company on a large
scale, intended to make advances on all kinds of secu
rities, and to find capital for every kind of enterprise.
Wonderful dividends are declared ; and high and low,
and great and small press forward to commit their money
to his stewardship. This lasts till 1860; when fortune
seems to get tired of its favourite, and rumours more
sinister than ever are afloat. A rare opportunity offers
itself to retrieve all losses. The Turk wants a loan
sadly ; and the Caisse Generale beats all other competi
tors, and secures the loan on terms almost as advantage
ous as those which were deemed so acceptable a short
time ago. This moment is chosen by one of Mires's own
associates to press a heavy personal claim, backed up by
the threat of judicial exposure in case of noncompliance.
The negotiations on the subject lead to mutual de
fiance ; and the complaint is lodged with the Procureur
Imperial. Mires is arrested and closely confined. The
books are examined by experts, and a report drawn up
by them. The case comes before the Tribunal Correc
tional de la Seine, and Mires is charged with embezzle
ment and betrayal of trust. He is accused of having
speculated with the securities intrusted to him, and
having defrauded his clients by his failure ; he is
charged with a forced and fraudulent liquidation,
with buying up the shares at low prices and reselling
them again at a profit, and with distributing false
dividends. The defence is, that the accused had been closely
confined and had had no access to his own books, from

MONEYMANIA. 125
which he could clearly prove that mistakes had been
made by the experts — that all could be explained. Ho
maintained that the securities were not deposits but
"gages" (pledges), like gold, silver, and other valuables ;
that the clients were well aware of this, as their receipts
never contained the numbers, but only the general naturo
of the securities, as, for instance, so many shares of Aus
trian railways, or so many shares of Credit Mobilier; that
the Caisse could therefore negotiate them at its own risk,
provided it was ready to give back an equal number of
the same securities when called upon to do so. If
there was now a loss, it was owing to the violent and
unjustifiable procedure against Mires just at the moment
when the Turkish loan held out a fair chance of making
up for all losses. As for the forced liquidation, it was
made in the interest of the clients and not of Mires,
who had lost instead of gaining by the transaction.
The experts had made the mistake of not including all
the shares in their account, which led them to state that
the transaction had been a profitable one. The divi
dends which were distributed were calculated so as to
include the probable profits of pending enterprises ; if
reality did not correspond to expectation, it was owing to
the general commercial crisis, which none could foresee ;
but they were for all that bond fide dividends. It was
hinted during the trial that the whole originated in a
powerful cabal against the defendant, who, if driven to
extremes, would spare no one.
In spite of all this, Mires was found guilty of the
charges, and condemned to five years' imprisonment.
He appealed to the Cour de Cassation. In the mean
time, being allowed access to the books, pamphlet after
pamphlet appeared on the subject by Mires himself, as

126 MONEYMANIA.
well as two of his legal advisers, stating the unfairness
of the trial, and trying to confute the report of the
experts. This was likewise the line taken in the de
fence before the Cour de Cassation. Several mistakes
were pointed out in the report, and a new examination
of the books was demanded. This demand was refused
by the court, which declared itself sufficiently " eclairee "
on the subject ; nevertheless, the charge of embezzlement
and fraud in the particular cases, which had been
pointed out by the report, were declared not proved, and
the accusation turned only on the general fraudulency
of the system pursued by the Caisse Ge'ne'rale. It was
argued that the securities were in the eyes of the law a
bond fide deposit, which could not be touched ; that the
forced liquidation, without the consent or even know
ledge of the clients, and the practice of assuming
probable profits as already realised, were most repre
hensible proceedings, which opened the door to fraud,
and could therefore not be tolerated.
The defence was that the laws which were invoked
had been framed at a time when commercial transac
tions and the Stock Exchange were in their infancy,
and that, were they applied in rigour now, all enterprise
would be checked. It was just this trust in the financial
capacity of individuals, and the latitude allowed to their
discretion and skill, which gave such impulse to enter
prise. If the securities on which the Caisse Generale
made advances were to be locked up in their safe, they
were so much waste paper for them, whereas by their
circulation they became available for new enterprises.
The rapidity of Stock Exchange transactions was such
nowadays that it was impossible to ask and wait for
the consent of hundreds of clients ; and unless large

MONEYMANIA. 127
powers are granted to the financiers at the head of large
companies, favourable moments may be lost, ancl great
losses incurred in times of sudden crises. This was so
well understood by the clients themselves in the alfair
of the forced liquidation, that only few complained, and
most of them bought back again when the crisis was
over. In the matter of the dividends, all was done in
broad daylight, and consented to by the parties inter
ested. What was done in all these cases is what is
done by all financiers. Mires was not worse, but very
likely better in this respect than others. Finally, allu
sion was made to the services which Mires had rendered
to the general national welfare, by being the author of
so many thriving enterprises, which now suffered because
he had been interrupted in his activity just at the criti
cal moment.
The Cour de Cassation acquitted Mires of the charges
of fraud and embezzlement in the cases brought forward
against him ; but maintained the sentence of the first
court as a punishment for the illegal practices amount
ing to a betrayal of trust, which the defendant himself
had admitted his being guilty of.
The Cour Imperiale of Douai, which has been ap
pealed to in the last instance, has just reversed this
sentence, and acquitted Mires of all the charges brought
against him, and Mires has been received with quite an
ovation at the Bourse, and bids fair to become more
powerful and idolised than ever before.
Hints are thrown out that the acquittal was brought
about by influential persons, who feared lest Mires, see
ing all hope gone, would make good his threats and
compromise them. But, be this as it may, the " Proces
Mirfes " will form an epoch in the commercial legislation

128 MONEYMANIA.
of France. The Cour Imperiale of Douai, by acquitting
Mires, has bowed down before modern Stock Exchange
ideas, as expounded by the defendant — it has repudiated
old-fangled notions, and legalised all the practices which
the lower courts had condemned as in direct contradic
tion to the laws of the country. This sanction is so much
the more significant as the first court of appeal, while ac
quitting Mires of fraud, had nevertheless maintained the
original sentence as a punishment for the general ittegal-
ityofhis business transactions. The threat which wasthus
held out against all those who might have followed the
same system has been now removed ; and the managers
of joint-stock companies have become the absolute mas
ters of the interests of the shareholders. They may spe
culate freely with deposits intrusted to their keeping,
sell the shares of their clients at discretion, calculate
the dividends according to their own convenience ; the
only precaution required is that their books should show
as little profit as possible ; they may live like Croesuses,
enrich their wives, provide for their children, relations,
and friends ; if they can show by their books that they
were merely unlucky, they are quite safe.
The acquittal pronounced by the High Court of Ap
peal has been sanctioned by the verdict of the Bourse,
which received Mires like a hero and martyr. The
ovation was less to the martyr of a powerful cabal than
to the most daring champion of the current ideas of the
Stock Exchange. His acquittal is the triumph of the
Stock Exchange, which is now relieved of judicial appre
hensions, and may indulge freely in its rage for specu
lation. No one has a right to complain that the law has
withdrawn its protection from the public, and has de
livered the shoals of small fry to become the prey of

MONEYMANIA. j 29
large fish. The position is clearly defined, and whoever
goes under the colonnade on the Place de la Bourse
knows what he has to expect.
Shocking as the legalised moneymania may appear
to the moralist, dangerous as it may prove to indi
viduals, it can plead marvellous success in extenuation
of its excesses and its wildness.
The country which, ten years ago, seemed barren of
capital and devoid of all spirit of enterprise, and which
could not muster enough of either for its own domestic
wants, is now so teeming with both, that it bids fairly
to take the lead in all Continental enterprises, and be
come the financial as well as the political capital of
Europe. Formerly, if potentates wanted money, or govern
ments wished to construct railways, they looked almost
exclusively to England, for there was not only more
capital, but likewise a bolder spirit of venture than any
where else. If a scheme found no support there, it was
considered as hopeless, and dropped. Besides this,
whenever a country was opened to enterprise, EngHsh-
men were always the first in the field, and had in most
cases not even competition to fear.
Not so now. England is no more the last refuge of
needy potentates and governments ; not that English
men have grown perhaps more cautious, but that
Frenchmen have grown more daring, and ready to
encounter risks for the chance of large profits. Many
a scheme, after having in vain sought for supporters in
England, finds them in France, and reappears under
French auspices and direction, finding then the patron
age which it laboured in vain to obtain before. Schemes
implying more than common risks look more and more
i

130 MONEYMANIA.
towards Paris as the most likely place to possess the
spirit of adventure necessary for them. All over the
Continent French agents are busy getting up schemes,
working to obtain concessions, and seizing every favour
able opportunity for making money.
There are no statistical data by which it would be
possible to estimate the number of enterprises at home
and abroad which have been initiated by French enter
prise within the last ten years, or the amount of French
capital which has been found for them ; but the list of
some of the most prominent suffices to give an idea
of what has been done.
The loans made by the French Government alone
represent a sum of £100,000,000, if we include the
Obligations Trentenaires and the last conversion of the
4-^ per cents ; the railways in France, rolling stock and
plant included, at least £150,000,000 ; the loans of the
three cities of Paris, Lyons, and Marseilles, not less than
£10,000,000 ; the loans to other towns and communes
about £2,000,000 ; those of the departments quite
£9,000,000. Then come the great credit establishments,
such as the Credit Foncier, Comptoir d'Escompte, Credit
Mobilier, Bank of Algeria, numbers of insurance, and
dock, port, omnibus, public conveyance, navigation,
mining, gas companies, iron-foundries, and other in
dustrial enterprises, which have been either initiated or
else greatly extended during that period. It is impos
sible to calculate what amount of capital all these enter
prises have absorbed, but, whatever the amount, it was
almost exclusively French capital.
Abroad, French enterprise was not less active. Italian
and Spanish loans, Spanish Credit Mobilier, Italian rail
ways, Lombard, Venetian, South Austrian, Roman, Span-

MONEYMANIA. 131
ish, Swiss, all represent in a great measure French capi
tal, French institutions, and are under French manage
ment; while in many other enterprises of a similar nature
France has not less contrived to get her share.
In seeing such exuberance of capital, it is impossible
not to remember the former dearth of it, and inquire
where such a sudden flow could have come from.
To be a Rentier, and to enjoy the otium cum dignitate,
were themost cherished dreams of the Frenchmen of yore.
The artisan ancl shopkeeper toiled for years, and econo
mised to realise this dream ; aud if he was successful
enough to acquire a capital whieh would give him a few
thousand francs of interest, he laid down his tools or got
rid of his shop, installed himself in some suburban villa,
and played the gentleman. He was content with little
enough, but wanted that little secure, so he bought Gov
ernment securities, or else houses and land.
But whether the son of one of these self-made Ren
tiers or the son of some small proprietor, he who was
fortunate enough to inherit a competency, however
small, would rarely dream of exerting himself to in
crease it by his own labour — to take to business, and
toil while he could eke out a living. There was not a
trace of that strong desire to better his fortunes, and
of that inclination to go out into the world and trust
to his energy, for which the Anglo-Saxon race is so
conspicuous. Actual starvation alone could induce
the son of even the humblest cultivator or rentier to
shake off his indolence.
A large amount both of capital and energy was thus
locked up every year, instead of being turned to the
production of fresh capital. In vain were tempting
offers held out as a bait; the anxiety to keep what had

132 MONEYMANIA.
been gained proved stronger than every temptation.
Under this system, all accumulation of capital became
impossible ; as the small capitals were made, they were
withdrawn, and, with few exceptions, every one had to
begin afresh.
The new spirit which has come over the French has
completely upset this system. All the small capital
which had lain dormant has now been brought forward,
and it is this principally which feeds French enterprises.
While in England the average of shares is £100, in France
this average is £20 ; and even £50 shares are very rare.
By this means an opportunity is given to the possessors
of the smallest savings to interest themselves in specu
lation. It is the system of association for the million,
and was carried to its farthest limits in the Govern
ment loans, where the lowest rentes were fixed at ten
francs, or eight shillings. As a consequence, nowhere,
probably, is the " rabble " of the Stock Exchange larger
than in France ; and it was as much with the view of
restricting this rabble as of making an income, that the
municipality of Paris introduced a few years ago certain
restrictions and payments which told against the Coulis-
siers. But this was cutting off the very nerve of French
speculation ; and so great was the outcry, that the Em
peror stepped in last year, and had the restriction with
drawn. The grateful Stock Exchange voted a statue,
which, however, was declined by the Emperor.
, There is probably no country in the world in which
example has such power as in France. The French
soldier alone is a forlorn, helpless being, but he becomes
a hero when before the eyes of his comrades. Similarly,
the small French capitalist, timid and narrow-minded,
drawn by this system of popular association into the

MONEYMANIA. 1 33
vortex of speculation, has now become bold and enter
prising. As he formerly toiled to secure his rentes and
idleness, he works doubly now to enable him to try his
luck on the Stock Exchange. Having once tasted tho
sweets of rapid gain and the excitement produced by
it, he can no more do without it. He seeks for them
not only in the Exchange, but in his own business ; he
becomes enterprising, enlarges his manufactory, improves
his material, takes a shop in a better position, increases
his business relations. Thus the mania for speculation
has brought into activity not only a vast amount of
small capital, but likewise a sum of individual energy
which was formerly unemployed, and which has become
now a rich source of wealth for France.

CHAPTER IX.

THE FIRST OF OCTOBER.

Let us fancy ourselves in a pheasant preserve, to the
inmates of which a malignant fairy has revealed the
meaning of the 1st of October. What a fluttering,
what cries of distress, what rustling among the leaves !
and yet this would give but a faint idea of the state of
agitation which the approach of the 1 st of October pro
duced last year in Paris and all over France.
" The numerous hotels in the Rue de Rivoli, on the
boulevards, and in the intermediate streets, are teeming
with British and Belgian manufacturers, and every train
of the Chemin de fer du Nord is disgorging new crowds
of these birds of prey, eager to feed on our industry.
" The shops are infested by these intruders, trying in
daytime to entice by artful devices the unsophisticated
Parisian bourgeois, and displaying in the evening their
triumphantly smiling countenances in the Bois, on the
boulevards, and in the theatres."
" The entrep6ts in Paris and in the towns opened for
importation, are too small to receive the great masses
of foreign goods, and the custom-house officers, although
assisted by extra hands, cannot suffice for the enormous
quantities that are waiting to be despatched."

THE FIRST OF OCTOBER. 135
" The Government is bent on our ruin. France will
be inundated with foreign goods, and French industry
swept away by the flood. Already the last returns in
the 'Moniteur' show a considerable increase in the im
portation for the last eight months of the year, and a
corresponding falling off of the export trade. Masters
and workmen feel the effect of it ; mills are working at
short hours, and trade is stagnating just at the moment
when winter is at hand, when the bad harvest drains
the country of its ready-money, and provisions are rising
in price. What will it be when the floodgates are once
opened \ "
Such were the voices which resounded from one end
of France to the other at the approach of the ominous
day. They were in many cases sincere.
France, which had been for centuries jealously pro
tecting her home manufactures, was now at once open
ing her markets to her two most formidable rivals. Even
those most confident in their power might well be un
easy ; how much more the great mass who, ignorant
and narrow-minded, were unable to judge of their pro
bable positions under the new treaty of commerce 1 A
differential duty from 15 to 20 per cent and costs of
transport seemed but a poor consolation after the long
enjoyment of monopoly; and the advantages gained by
the treaty with respect to the importation of raw mate
rial duty free, were altogether forgotten.
The vague apprehensions of the mass of French in
dustrials offered a favourable opportunity for the in
terested agitation of those who, while knowing how
exaggerated these fears were, were yet unwilling to part
with their profits without making a struggle for them.
They had made their calculations, and had found that

136 THE FIRST OF OCTOBER.
the free importation of the raw material enabled them
to produce most articles at the same price as English
or Belgian manufacturers could, but they thought it
good policy to work on the fears of others, and thus foil
as long as they could the working of the new treaty.
They raised louder cries than any, in order to create
a panic, and through it induce the whole industrial in
terest in France to combine against the invasion, and
to frighten at the same time the Government itself.
The 'Moniteur Industrial,' the chief organ of this
party, assisted by the clerical and a number of provin
cial papers devoted to local interests, did its task well
enough, as may be seen from the results.
The much-dreaded 1st of October came, and imagina
tion driven wild saw on every cart which passed through
Paris tons of foreign goods. The ' Moniteur Universel,'
less imaginative, reported a few days after that the whole
quantity of foreign goods freed from bond on that day
amounted in value to 4 millions of francs, of which the
share of Paris was barely 3 millions. To appreciate fully
this result, it will be well to recall that the commercial
movement in 1860 shows an interchange of goods
amounting to wellnigh a milliard of francs for England
and 350 millions for Belgium. How is this to be ex
plained 1
The whole situation of France, as it appeared in the
latter end of September, was serious enough to give
importance to the loudly expressed apprehensions of
the manufacturing interest ; besides, common prudence
counselled to mitigate if possible the first effect of this
revolution in the commercial policy of the country.
The restriction of the importation to certain coast
and frontier towns, and the publication of the list of

THE FIRST OF OCTOBER. 137
towns not a fortnight before the 1st of October, seemed
already to indicate that the Government, if it did not
share the panic, had yielded to it. These tM-o measures
were in themselves sufficient to break the first fury of
importation. They left little time for preparation, and
would have made it absolutely impossible to pass a
large quantity of goods through the custom-house for
malities. Even the comparatively small amount that was
imported could not be cleared for the 1st of October.
The custom-house regulations were intentionally or
unintentionally good allies in this respect. The custom
house officer all over the world seems to have inherited
a larger share of the curse of Cain than any one else.
His hand is raised against every man, and every man's
hand is raised against him. He knows all mankind has
conspired against him, and womankind too. The mer
cenary who tramples clown a country by superior orders
may find people who will excuse him ; the jailer may
excite pity ; even the gendarme may now and then
reckon on sympathy ; but never the douanier. To get
the better of him is a venial sin, nay almost a merit,
and the daring smuggler is the hero of romance. What
wonder if this continual feud with mankind embitters
the feelings of this victim to duty, and develops in him
the germs of distrust and misanthropy r. After a few
years' experience, he sees in every man and woman a
vile deceiver — he suspects everybody, and believes in no
man's honesty. He tears out his heart, and studies to
acquire the nose of the retriever, the eye of the lynx,
and the ear of the hare, as weapons against his relentless
enemy, mankind.
Of all misanthropic douaniers the gay Frenchman is
the most misanthropic. Who has not looked at the

138 THE FIRST OF OCTOBER.
melancholy countenance with which he is prowling
about and inspecting new comers 1 Who has not heard
those whining accents with which he asks whether you
have anything to declare 1 Who has not caught that
restless eye with which he follows the stranger about
the place 1 He reminds you of jackals and hyaenas.
Poor devil ! in other countries the faint glitter of a
rouble or of a florin throws occasionally a brighter light
on the gloomy existence of the douanier, and shows
him the better side of human nature. This solace is
denied to the French douanier. He is wretchedly paid,
and there are no windfalls. It is not in vain that
France boasts of an unrivalled financial administration,
pays 180 millions of francs for it, and employs 80,000
persons in it. Control and solidarity are so linked
in this complicated machinery, with its numberless
wheels, that probity becomes a necessity independent of
will. The process is lengthy, the cost enormous, but
the machinery is perfect. Tradition ascribes its ele
ments to le grand Sully, le grand Colbert, and the first
Empire, but they were perfected by Barons Louis and
Vilelle under the Restoration ; that is to say, the whole
dates from a period when France sought her safety in
protection — when the chief object was to keep out every
thing, and make France independent of the foreigner.
This whole mechanism had only to be left to itself to
be an effectual check to any inundation of foreign goods
on the 1st of October.
Nor was it easy to change it all of a sudden, even by
the best will. All that controlling and re-controlling,
all those vises and passes, distinct packages for diffe
rent goods, and specified declarations, form a necessary
part of the machinery of the French custom-house, which,

THE F1EST OF OCTOBER. 139
in its turn, forms a part of the whole financial and con
trolling system of the country. Derange one wheel,
however small, and the whole machinery ceases to work.
It is like a commercial balance-sheet, where one penny's
difference upsets the equilibrium.
It would require volumes to set forth this marvellous
piece of human ingenuity in detail, to show how, in a
country so eminently afflicted with the centralising
mania, all official hierarchy is upset in the system of
finance and control, and how, in each local branch of
the same kind of revenue, three or four agents exist
under the names of " directeurs," " controleurs," " in-
specteurs," and " receveurs," all independent of each
other, and frequently the employe lower in rank con
trolling him who is above him in rank and pay.
The whole is based on the principle that human
nature is frail, and that therefore it ought not to be
exposed to temptation. Those numberless formalities
of which British importers are feeling the weight and
annoyance, are so many barriers to keep the frail nature
of the douanier from falling. As there is not much
belief in unintentional stumblings, the douanier, whose
whole existence is centred in the pittance he receives
for his self-sacrifice, is more than usually nervous when
any change takes place in the routine which he has
been following.
To illustrate this I can give a case from my own ex
perience. It was in the beginning of the war of 1859
I was returning in the steamer of the Messageries Impe'-
riales from the East, and on my way to Italy. The
declaration of war had gone forth, and French steamers
were not welcome to Neapolitan authorities in Sicily.
Taking, therefore, the pretext of some ox-hides on

140 THE FIRST OF OCTOBER.
board, originally from Samsoun, but which had been
lying for months at Stamboul, the authorities refused
pratique, preventing thus the passengers from em
barking on the steamers of the Italian line, and forcing
them to continue their road to Marseilles. Arrived
there, early in the morning I ran to the Messageries
office to take places for myself, servant, and two
horses which I had brought with me. I was told that
strict orders had arrived from Paris forbidding the ex
portation of horses, and that they could not be taken on
board without an express order of the " Directeur-Gene-
ral des Douanes." Nothing remained but to go to the
Directeur. A bland, diplomatic-looking gentleman,
with the ruban rouge, received me with great conde
scension. I explained to him my errand, stating the
circumstances of my involuntary journey to Marseilles.
He was very sorry, but could not take the responsibility
upon himself ; all he could do was to write to Paris in
this" grave matter. I mildly observed that the steamer
was leaving next morning, and that I should have to
wait for several days. He then consented to telegraph.
I was to draw up a petition stating my case, have it
signed by the Consul, and then bring it back. When
I returned, I was told that, after consideration, " M. le
Directeur" thought he might take the responsibility upon
himself. He signed the order on the back of the peti
tion, and told me to get it registered. I breathed more
freely, for I thought my troubles had ended; but I did
not know French " Comptabilite." After having it regis
tered, I was told that I had to go to the " Controleur" to
have the order drawn up. It was past twelve, and when
I arrived at the office I was told that the official in
question had gone to dinner, and would not be back

THE FIRST OF OCTOBER. 141
before two o'clock. Two o'clock came, and I was re
ceived, not by a bland diplomate, but by a hardened
bureaucrate, who examined me closely, meditated for
some time deeply on the case, and then told me the whole
thing was very irregular ; he would put on his vise, but
could not give the order. That was the business of the
"Inspecteur des Douanes Locales," who was at the Joli-
ette. Off I went to the latter place, which is at the other
end of the town. The Inspecteur was a good-natured,
communicative man. He told me fairly he was puzzled
by the case, he did not know how to make it fit. At last
he asked whether the horses had been disembarked or not.
I could give no answer, having left them in the morning
with the servants on board, ignorant of their further
fate. " I can do nothing until I know, for, voyez vous, if
the horses are disembarked, they must be first natural
ised and then denaturalised. I should be else in a help
less confusion with my books, ancl they are very severe
in this respect. You had better go to the Receveur to
see and find out the state of the case." It was towards
evening, and in despair I ran along the quay to find the
Receveur. I found, instead, my servants with my horses
on a flat between the steamer and the land, neither al
lowed to go one or the other way, and pressed by the
boatmen to leave the flat. Fortunately I met likewise
one of the chief officials of the Messageries, who took
pity on my case, and gave orders to transfer the horses
to the steamer leaving next morning for Italy. This
was indeed good news, but still I had no order to get
the tickets for them. So back I went again to the good
Inspecteur, who seemed struck by the simple way of the
Messagerie agent. It was the egg of Columbus ; and in
his joy to be so well out of his difficulty, he promised to

142 THE FIRST OF OCTOBER.
telegraph to the Messagerie office. Trusting to the pro
mise I went off there, and found no telegram had been
received; consequently no tickets could be delivered.
A fresh cab and another journey to the Joliette, this
time to find my protector, the Messagerie agent. He
could not help laughing, but told me all was right, and
so it was. About 7 p.m. I had the tickets in my pocket,
and returned to my hotel worn out, famished, and de
moralised. From this case it may be judged what the effect of
the slightest change or unforeseen circumstance is, in
the French customs regulations. There was no ill-will ;
on the contrary, with the exception of the sour bureau-
crate who presided at the controlling office, all did
their best ; and yet, what annoyance! How much
more must there be when such a change takes place
as that of the 1st of October! The official becomes
nervous, consequently irritable ; the delays and the
tiresome regulations have the same effect on the im
porter ; and then ill-will on both sides makes the case
doubly worse.
These little miseries had, no doubt, a share in depriv
ing the 1st of October of its terrors, and they are like
wise the chief cause of the complaints raised since by
importers. Now that the panic is allayed, and the
new system is beginning' to work freely, they are
diminished, although they can never completely dis
appear, unless the system of control is completely re
modelled. But far more than to the 30,000 French douan-
iers, the small result of what the new treaty has
yielded in the beginning was due to the success
with which the manufacturing interest had worked on

THE FIRST OF OCTOBER. 143
the panic, ignorance, and interest of the shopkeeper and
merchant. That distinction which exists in England between
the manufacturer, wholesale, and retail dealer, is far
less clearly drawn between the same classes in France.
There is little of that subdivision of labour and of pro
fits, which makes the contact between manufacturer and
retail dealer in England a gross breach of etiquette, to
be visited by the whole wrath of the corps of whole
sale merchants. The old rule and principle, that goods
never pass through other hands without leaving some
thing of profits between the fingers, is still greatly in
vogue. This is especially the case with the numerous
industries and manufactures of Paris. Frequently, the
shops are nothing but the offshots of the manufactures,
and are entirely devoted to the retailing of their pro
duce. In other cases, one manufacture furnishes the
greatest part of the stock in trade, and the rest is made
up either by direct sales or else by commission of
articles of other, but never rival, manufactures. But
even in cases where the shopkeeper starts on his own
account, he applies directly to the manufacturer as
soon as he can afford somewhat larger and regular
commands, and in the mean time goes probably to the
larger retail dealer for his goods. Besides, all the pro
vince comes to Paris, and turns, in nine cases out of
ten, to a large retail dealer, or to a dep6t of the manu
facturer itself. The wholesale merchant has, compara
tively speaking, little to do with this internal trade ; his
line is more foreign trade, and there it is more importa
tion than exportation.
This process is apparent in those miles and miles of
shops which form the astonishment and admiration of

144 THE FIRST OF OCTOBER.
foreigners and provincials. Many a person will have
asked himself how all these shops can live and prosper.
They are alimented by the whole trade of France :
there lies the secret of their prosperity.
This solidarity between manufacturing interest and
retail business made the first application of the free
trade principles in France so difficult, and it will pro
bably remain an obstacle to the establishment of true
commercial relations between England and France,
until antiquated ideas are given up, and a more en
larged view taken of commercial transactions. At any
rate it had a good deal to do with the paltry result
obtained at first.
The cries about impending ruin were great, but great
were, nevertheless, the preparations to struggle through
the crisis by fair means or foul.
The first effects of this preparation appeared in a
number of small pieces of paper affixed to the articles
displayed in the shops, and inscribed with figures,
showing an astonishing cheapness, which had come all
of a sudden over the good town of Paris — 20, 30, and
sometimes even 50 per cent under the usual price. It
was visible in all articles in which competition was
apprehended — tissues, carpets, crockery, glass, &c. — and
announced the race for cheapness — that feature so much
dreaded in British articles. On the contrary, other
shops collected whatever they had of most tasteful and
costly. In many cases they had articles prepared on
purpose to dazzle the eye and vindicate the superiority
of French manufacture as to quality. Nothing could
be fairer than this competition ; it was already a con
siderable gain to the consumer, and a good lesson of
what free trade is. What must have been the profits

THE FIRST OF OCTOBER. 145
before, if, all of a sudden, such reductions could be made \
was an argument difficult to resist.
But this was not all the preparation. The importers
came and offered their goods, but found little disposi
tion for bond fide sales. There was readiness enough
to take the goods on commission, but nothing more.
No doubt the want of initiative in the French trades
man had something to do with this ; but it was far
more the result of the combination of the manufactur
ing interest and of the direct connection existing be
tween this latter and the retail trade. Ever since
the calamity of the 1st of October was impending, the
manufacturers spared no pains to impress this solidarity
of interest on the bourgeois, as well as the consequences
resulting from it, until the said bourgeois lost all wish
to give up the certain for the uncertain. In many in
stances it required little exertion to bewilder him, as he
was already under the effect of a vague panic, and in
others the shopkeeper felt he was in the hands of the
manufacturers, through whom he had been making his
profits, and whose displeasure might end in his own ruin.
The success of this shortsighted combination was
facilitated by another circumstance, and this was the
imperfect knowledge of the French market on the part
of, at least, the British importer.
For the general public the 1 st of October was as good
as a great racing day. The two first industrial people
face to face in this struggle. This was at least the
view taken of it, and considerable was the interest
excited, as could be seen by the numerous groups
which collected wherever the large affiches indicated
the presence of English articles. The expectation was
greatly disappointed. The French walked over the
K

146 THE FIRST OF OCTOBER.
course, as the saying is, in this industrial race, and the
verdict was " ce n'est que cela." Nor was the verdict
unjust; a quantity of "tapis & sujet," with hideous
figures, and in more hideous colours, but wonderfully
cheap, and side by side rolls of the commonest staircase
carpets, wellnigh for nothing. Further on, a display of
all that Manchester can produce of most tasteless tissues
in silk, cotton, and wool, pure or mixed. Then again, ties
which reminded one of Houndsditch, or caricatures of
Chinese porcelain, here and there wretched imitations
of Scotch woollens, and this not in the cheap shops
high up on the Boulevard du Temple, or in the Fau
bourg Montmartre, but in the most prominent and
frequented parts. Further east, the display showed
canvass-like calico, Californian shirts, a collection of
all the refuse of Sheffield cutlery, and a collection of
old unsaleable woollens and cottons.
The whole seemed almost like a farce. Where were
the woollens of Scotland and of the west of England,
the linens of Ireland, the cottons of Lancashire, the
tissues of Bradford, Leeds, the tasteful wares of Staf
fordshire, the unparalleled cutlery of Sheffield, the car
pets of Kidderminster, and the unrivalled articles of so
many other places 1 Not a trace was seen of them.
There have been complaints accusing the French shop
keepers of foul play and downright trickery, of buying
or imitating the worst sort of English goods, and selling
them at double the price, in order to discredit English
goods. These cases may have occurred, but the dis
play was too generally wretched for one not to seek
for a cause elsewhere. English importers seem to have
acted in the first instance as if Timbuctoo, Australia,
or California, and not France, had been opened to their

THE FIRST OF OCTOBER. 147
•manufactures. To make a master-feat of cheapness,
and, at the same time, to get rid of all the old stores,
seems to have been the leading idea which prevailed.
It showed a total ignorance of the market opened, or
else must be ascribed to bad and interested advice from
the other side of the Channel. Whatever enthusiasts on
both sides may say, the industry of the two countries is
about on a par. The cost of production differs little or
nothing in most articles. Each of the two has special
ties in which it is superior ; and as both have a large
export trade, both manufacture two sorts of goods, one
for home consumption, and the other for exportation.
There was plenty of time to study these conditions, but
it seems to have been used but indifferently. The impor
tations of France to England would have shown that the
specific superiority of each people in certain manufac
tures must form the basis of their reciprocal intercourse;
at the same time, intelligent agents sent over, would
soon have found which of the articles in which England
excels could be naturalised with advantage in France.
If this had been done, it would have been found that
the best goods manufactured for home consumption were
the most necessary in the beginning. France has the
credit of being essentially the land of fashion, and the
credit is deserved. The problem was, therefore, to make
English goods fashionable ; that is, have them taken up
by the upper classes. This done once, the lower classes
would soon have imitated the example of their betters.
Unlike the trading classes, which had to defend their
interest, the upper classes would have been found favour
able. First, it was a n ovelty which had been long desired .
They are not infected with Anglophobia ; on the con
trary, they have a strong tendency to Anglomania, which

148 THE FIRST OF OCTOBER.
has rather increased of late, and is cultivated as a dis
tinctive feature from the mass. Dearness of the goods,
instead of being an impediment, would have been an
additional charm in these times of extravagance. " Mon-
ter sa maison a, l'Anglaise" might have been the watch
word of fashion for the winter of 1861.
Nor would this have been a transitory success, as
fashions usually are. Use would have taught soon the
undeniable superiority of certain articles, and naturalised
them among the upper classes. Let us take some in
stances. First, those soft and elastic woollens, whether
shawls, dresses, or hosiery — all so warm and comfortable,
and so agreeable to the eye by their undecided tints ;
then those comfortable articles of household furniture,
as carpets and arm-chairs, all the numerous articles
of toilette — brushes, razors, &c. : those numberless ar
ticles in leather and steel, those simple antique-shaped
glasses and crockery, sober in design and colour. Every
day would have brought a new proof of their comfort
and immense superiority in wear and tear, and accus
tomed those who used them to look upon them as a bless
ing which saves a great many of the " petites miseres
de la vie bumaine." How good the disposition was in
this respect one could see in the last steeple-chases of
La Marche, which took place a few weeks after the 1st
of October. Scotch plaids, mostly imitations, and in the
most extravagant colours, were quite the mot d'ordre
among all those who lead the world of fashion. Even
inferior articles were thought better than nothing.
The fashion of English articles thus introduced would
soon have spread among the masses, and taught them
new comforts and necessities of life. It would thus have
led to the demand of inferior, but still good articles.

THE FIRST OF OCTOBER. 149
But it will be long, if ever, that those bad articles, made
for cheapness and exportation, will be accepted in that
country. First, there is an innate unwillingness to buy bad
things merely because they are cheap. Tho French
ouvrier prefers to be without them, or wait till he can
afford something better. Whoever took the trouble of
roaming about the Faubourgs iu the first days of Octo
ber, when there was an avidity to examine the English
articles displayed, might have heard such remarks as,
"Tiens, est-ce qu'ils nous prennent pour des sauvages'?"
Or, " C'est pas bete de croire que nous acheterons ca."
Then there is another not less weighty reason which
opposes itself to the adoption of these articles. It is
the difference in the life led by the lower classes in
France — ;their different ideas of necessaries and luxuries.
Most English articles are calculated for home life and
home comfort; while the French lower classes have little
or no idea of home life, and certainly no notion of com
fort. They remain at home when they can go nowhere
else. In their atelier, or out-of-doors, and engaged in
work the whole day, they prefer, in the evening, idling
about in the streets, or going to a cafe or " estaminet,"
until the time comes for going to bed. The ouvrier sleeps
at home, but that is all. What is the use of cheap car
pets, crockery, &c, to him ? Carpet is a luxury, crockery
almost useless, as he takes his meals at the next wine
shop, and goes with his family on Sundays to some " Es
taminet" at the barrieres. If not with the man, with
the French housewife, in the lower classes, saving and
mending old things is almost a mania, which would
scarcely find a satisfaction in buying bad things ; she
prefers good old things second or third hand.

150 THE FIRST OF OCTOBER.
It seems to me, therefore, that British importers have
begun to work the new treaty at the wrong end, and
have therefore their share, as well as others, in the small
result which has been obtained hitherto. It is the con
solation of England, that it must have reverses in the
beginning of every war, and that this is a necessity
which serves to develop her resources. It is a poor
consolation, but may be applied fikewise in the present
industrial struggle. Having allowed to pass the first
favourable moment, time alone can help to remedy the
original mistake. As it is, a marked improvement is
already visible since the first days of October; the best
class of goods begin to appear gradually. On the other
hand, French trading interest, relieved from the first
panic, shows likewise a disposition to abandon that
narrow-minded policy which may succeed for a moment,
but can never be carried out for any length of time. It
is this gradual understanding and approach of the two
sides towards each other, which will lead to the true
equilibrium in the new commercial relations of the two
countries.

CHAPTER X.

SOCIALISM.

Nowhere has the struggle between labour and capital
taken a more violent and extreme course than in France.;
It formed the most prominent feature in the events of'
1848 and of the subsequent years, and has contributed
more than anything else to the establishment of the
present regime. Fostered by wild theories, and en
venomed by popular passions, the struggle between the
two conflicting interests at last degenerated into a war
against property, threatening to upset the very basis of
society, and making all compromise seemingly impos
sible. Not more than ten years have passed since in this
struggle blood flowed for the last time in the streets of
Paris — it was the blood of the bourgeois, on the 2d of
December 1851, and since then bourgeois and ouvrier
seem to have forgotten their old quarrels ; they work
together in harmony, only intent on increasing the na
tional productions of France. The race of hot-headed
turbulent ouvriers seems to have become extinct ; and
he who has been for years the topic of newspaper dis
cussions, and of secret police reports, the political capital
of agitators, the pet subject of philanthropists, and the

152 SOCIALISM.
nightmare of governments, has scarcely been heard of
for years. In the spring of 1859 he turned out un
bidden to see off the Emperor, who went to fight for
Italian independence ; last autumn he went once or
twice to the Place Maubert to give his opinion on the
high price of bread, and the mismanagement of the
municipal commission of Paris ; and lately he attempted
to protest against the clerical and ultramontane agita
tion at the occasion of Mr Renan's appearance in the
College de France. With the exception of these harm
less appearances in public, the ouvrier has kept to his
atelier. No wonder. He goes only into the streets when there
is nothing to keep him in his atelier. Socialism in his
eyes means bread ; but even in his wildest moments the
ouvrier never clamoured for bread except as a reward
for his labour. All he insisted upon was the " Droit du
Travail;" and he never before so fully enjoyed this social
right as within the last ten years. Thanks to the impulse
given to every branch of industry and commerce, the
social problem, which had been hopelessly involved by
theory, has received its natural practical solution.
And so naturally and easily did this solution come
about, that it would seem almost as if it had been
merely the result of favourable circumstances. After a
period of distress caused by the financial crisis in 1847,
and the revolutionary movements all over Europe, a
reaction ensued, and French produce began to be in
greater request than ever. Industries which had been
wellnigh ruined revived ; the workmen who had been
scattered grouped themselves again round their em
ployers ; capital, which for several years had almost
disappeared, came forward with a boldness unheard of

SOCIALISM. 153
before in France. It covered the country with rail
roads, enlarged old industries, and created new ones ;
it metamorphosed cities, developed the mineral wealth
of the country, and spread life and activity into every
branch of enterprise. A short time before, all kinds
of artificial devices had to be resorted to to feed the
overgrown working-classes ; and now high wages were
promised to attract the agricultural population to the
great centres. Every census furnishes new proofs of
this displacement to an almost alarming extent. That
of 1856 shows that, from 1851 to 1856, not less than
two millions migrated from the rural districts and
smaller towns to those containing a poptdation of
20,000 and above, increasing these latter by more than
one-third. The census of last year will probably indi
cate analogous results.
It is scarcely surprising that under these favourable
auspices all trace of a former struggle between labour
and capital should have disappeared. Common interest
made the ouvrier forget his theories, and taught the
bourgeois to widen his narrow-minded egotistical views.
Both sides had felt that their extreme pretensions lead
inevitably to the ruin of both, and past miseries opened
the road to a compromise.
The struggle has ceased, there can be no doubt, and
both sides are anxious to avoid whatever might remind
of it. Is it an armistice merely, or is it durable peace
based on good understanding'? This is the question
which must occur to every one who has known France
during the internecine war of the two contending inte
rests, and who sees now the apparent harmony which
reigns between them. Is the solution only a fair day
solution, or is it likely to resist those crises to which

1 54 SOCIALISM.
the modern complicated industrial system is periodi
cally exposed %
Ten years is too short a time to settle the question
by the test of experience. Still they have not been
uniformly prosperous and devoid of crises. There was
first the high price of provisions in 1856, caused by a
bad harvest; then the great monetary crisis in 1857,
consequent on the large American failures ; and last
winter brought a combination of evils — a bad harvest ;
languishing trade produced by the American war; a
monetary crisis, the result of over-speculation ; financial
embarrassment of the Government, and considerable
political excitement, arising from the agitation of the
clerical and anti-dynastic party, on account of the
Roman question ; and of a large portion of the manu
facturing interest, dissatisfied with the free-trade policy
of the Government. Although comparatively little was
heard of the effect of so many adverse circumstances
which weighed down on the country, the distress in
some branches of industry, especially tissues of silk
and cotton, was probably larger than in England.
Mills were standing still, or working at short hours ;
weavers had to sell their frameworks, in order to live ;
a portion of the workmen migrated, in the hope of find
ing employment elsewhere ; yet the storm was weathered
with apparent ease.
Early in autumn the Government turned its attention
to the subject, and watched the symptoms of the evd
with great anxiety, and with the view of remedying
as far as it was in its power. Already, in the middle
of August, when only the first mutterings were heard
about an insufficient harvest and depression of trade,
a grant of 20 millions of francs (£800,000) was made

SOCIALISM. 1 55
for vicinal roads, and, in spite of the financial diffi
culties, a tenth part of that sum was immediately placed
at the disposal of the Prefets in the departments. After
the Emperor's return from Biaritz, and during his short
stay in Paris previous to the autumn journey to Com
piegne, the main subject of all ministerial councils was
the probable distress of the working-classes in the com
ing winter. Orders were issued to continue without in
terruption all the public works projected either by the
Government itself or by the municipal and departmental
authorities. The modest representations made by some
of the latter about " too great burdens" were met with a
smile, and the assurance that they would have to spend
rather more next year. Later in winter, £80,000 was
directly assigned by Government for the relief of manu
facturing distress. Besides this, the municipalities were
urged to take the matter in hand — to exert themselves,
and stimulate the exertions of others. Unlike to former
times, when the manufacturers left things to take their
own course, they have been on this occasion beforehand
of the authorities, in organising a regular system of relief,
towards which private charity largely contributed.
Thanks to this foresight on the part of the Govern
ment ; and to the ready co-operation of the manufac
turers themselves, the crisis may be said to have passed
away, and, according to the last accounts, things begin
to look up again.
Financial and commercial crises will occur from time
to time in France, as everywhere else ; but the danger
has been hitherto in France that every such disturbance
revived the old question of socialism, and threatened to
bring about a political and social catastrophe. This \
danger seems now considerably lessened.

156 SOCIALISM.
A machinery has been brought into operation by the
Government to obviate it ; it may be an expensive one,
but it is efficient, and must in the end be cheaper than
a social and political convulsion. Indeed, if rightly un
derstood, it will not be found more costly than the sys
tem of relief to the poor in other manufacturing countries.
France has no poor-law system. Except in the case of
foundlings and the insane, all assistance is purely volun
tary ; the numerous hospitals and other charitable insti
tutions derive by far the greatest part of their revenue
from foundations and donations, and the subventions of
Government and departments is comparatively small,
about £800,000 out of a revenue of £3,500,000.
The only regular machinery for the relief of the poor
are the " Bureaux de Bienfaisances " and the " Societe"s
de Secours Mutuel." There are 11,409 of the former,
having a revenue of £700,000 to £800,000, scarcely
one-fourth of which is derived from subventions of the
State ancl contributions on the part of the municipalities,
the rest arising from donations and foundations. The
" Societes de Secours Mutuel " are, as their name indi
cates, societies of mutual assistance, established by pri
vate enterprise, the only assistance received from the
Government being a grant of £400,000 at the time of
their first establishment in 1853.
Thus, properly speaking, not more than about
£200,000 are spent by Government and the depart
mental authorities yearly for the relief of pauperism,
and even with the subvention for hospitals, foundlings,
asylums, &c, only £1,000,000 ; while the poor-law sys
tem in England absorbs from £3,000,000 to £4,000,000.
It would be unnatural to expect that this should be
sufficient in a country only second to Great Britain in

SOCIALISM. 157
industry and commerce ; but instead of resorting to
the workhouse system, which would have been repug
nant to the ideas of the people, a system of public works
has been substituted and organised on the part of tho
Government, and of the municipal and departmental
authorities. The money laid out in the relief of the
poor is thus turned to account to construct roads, ports,
quays, to improve and embellish cities, reclaim waste
lands and swamps, &c, which benefit the community
at large without exposing the working classes to the
demoralising influence of a workhouse system. The
sums spent in this way by the Imperial Government
have never exceeded more than £3,500,000 a-year ; and
it will be interesting, when the accounts for the last
year are concluded, to see whether the relief given in
this useful shape in France has been greater than that
given under the poor-law system in England within the
same period.
The system of public works in France is old, but the
application of it as a poor-law system is due to Impe
rialism; and, if we are to judge by recent events, the
application must be said to have been successful. The
want of such a machinery in the crisis of 1847 had a
great share in the convulsions which followed, while the
exaggeration of it by the Provisional Government of
1848 led to even greater disasters.
If this success of the Imperial Government is alone
sufficient to raise the hope that those deadly struggles
between labour and capital may be in future moder
ated, if not altogether averted, there was another
feature in the late crisis which goes far to show that
the understanding between employer and workman,
which has subsisted for the last ten years, has a deeper

1 58 SOCIALISM.
foundation than the temporary prosperity which ori
ginally produced it.
Formerly, even in tolerably prosperous times, there
was a sullen rancour nourished between the two, which
broke out into recrimination and open hostility when
ever trade was depressed. The most senseless accusa
tions were brought forward on both sides, — the ouvrier
laid his distress to the charge of the egotism of the
bourgeois, and sought the remedy in a thorough remo
delling of the whole social condition ; the bourgeois,
frightened by the violence of his adversaries, sought his
safety in a system of repression, which increased the
irritation. All during the late crisis no trace of this old ani
mosity was discernible. The employers co-operated to
relieve the distress, and the workman, instead of refus
ing such help with scorn, as he would have done ten
years ago, now gratefully recognised the interest in his
welfare shown by the employer, and submitted to his
guidance. Perhaps things would have been somewhat
different had they not both felt the strong hand of
Government high above them ; but however strong
this latter may be supposed to be, it could not have
suppressed all trace of animosity between the two ; and
this would have come to daylight in some shape or
other, had it really existed.
This may be so much the more fairly presumed as,
actually in spite of every precaution, the working
classes did not refrain from manifesting their discon
tent, not with their employers, but with the Government
itself. It was that vague cry about mismanagement,
which is usually taken up by the masses in times of
distress. Things had been so prosperous before, that it

SOCIALISM. 159
must be somebody's fault if they were no more so.
There was no want of agitators to take advantage of
this vague murmuring of discontent ; the large ex
penditure and deficit, the heavy taxes, the treaty of
commerce, corruptions and stockjobbing of high func
tionaries, which all had passed unobserved, or were dis
posed of with a joke when things were prosperous, now
were formulated into so many griefs, and brought for
ward as the causes of the distress.
If, then, the working classes were freespoken enough
about the Government, how does it come that they had
no griefs to bring forward against their old adversary
the bourgeois 1
The impulse given by Government to the material
development of the country, although the primary cause
which made an approach between the two antagonistic
classes possible, was not the only one at work within
the last ten years for the solution of the great social
problem. There was another agency which has power
fully worked in the same direction independently of the
Government, very often in direct opposition with it, and
which may claim some day or other the greatest share
in the difficult task of bridging over the gulf which
separated hitherto the employer and workman.
While theoreticians like Saint Simon, Proudhon, &c,
were seeking the solution of the social problem in pha-
lansteres, and building up a new world in the clouds,
Mr Lavallee, a modest individual, whose name has
scarcely been heard of out of France, worked at a more
practical solution of the problem. He established in
1829 in Paris the "Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manu
factures," destined for the education of civil engineers,
and of managers of every kind of manufacturing and

160 SOCIALISM.
industrial establishments. Down to 1857 the Ecole
Centrale remained a private school ; in that year it
was ceded gratuitously by its founder to the Govern
ment, which names now the directeur, and grants £1200
a-year in scholarships. This school has been a nursery
which supplied France with a number of independent
and enlightened men, scientifically educated for their
profession, just at the moment when a new era was
opening out for industrial pursuits all over the world.
Embued with liberal notions in matters of industry,
and confident in their own power, the students of this
school went forth so many apostles, combating those
old narrow-minded views which had grown up under a
long system of protection, amounting almost to prohibi
tion, and trying to break the way for new ideas more in
harmony with the spirit of the age. This quiet activity
has probably contributed more to the gradual spreading
of free-trade principles in France than any of the bril
liant and fruitless discussions in the Chambers. In
daily contact with the working-classes, they could not
but open their eyes to the growing gulf which separated
the employer from the bourgeois ; but, like all moder
ating influences in times of great excitement, they were
overwhelmed by the extremes on both sides. The sweep
ing theories of socialists were more to the taste of the
masses ; and the bourgeois, who had been accustomed
to look upon his workmen as the old noble had once
looked upon his villains, either scouted the danger
which was threatening him, or else, carried away by
nervous timidity, dreaded lest the least concession on
his part should place him altogether at the mercy of
the mob. The catastrophe of 1848 terrified both ex
tremes, and made them more tractable to moderate

SOCIALISM. 161
counsels. The ouvrier found out by experience tho
fallacy of social theories, and contracted a horror to
" ateliers nationaux " and " cite"s ouvriores," which
seemed to him nothing less than an attempt at a
colossal social barrack system ; while tho bourgeois
saw that he was jeopardising life and property, if ho
did nothing but drive hard bargains with his work
men, and use his rights as employer to their utmost
extent. This was the moment for putting into practice those
new ideas which the students of the Ecole Centrale
had been pressing in vain before, and which tended
to establish the relations between employer and work
men on a more equitable and durable basis. Their
position as a species of middlemen between the two,
gave them great advantages for their task as mediators.
Paid as they were mostly by fixed salaries, the ouvriers
looked upon them as of their own class ; while the em
ployers, recognising the superiority of men scientifically
educated for their profession, silently gave way to their
influence. The principle which has been followed in this work
of reconciliation is — that social life in every sphere is
made up of a succession of compromises. If every one
was to use his rights, or any momentary advantage, to
the utmost, it would lead to a general war, and human
society would become an impossibility ; that the interests
of employer and workmen, if rightly understood, are
identical ; that what conduces to the welfare of the one is
sure to turn out as a gain for the other ; that the exist
ence and maintenance of a healthy, intelligent, and will
ing labouring class ought to be an object of the special
care of the employer ; that it will repay amply any mo-
L

162 SOCIALISM.
mentary sacrifice which may be made to it ; and that
the more is done to identify the interests of the work
man with that of the establishment, the more he will
exert himself to promote its wellbeing.
The epoch of unusual prosperity which followed the
great commotion, greatly facilitated the application of
these principles. It not only enabled all industrial
establishments to give constant employment to their
workmen, but likewise to augment their wages. Al
though the statistical returns of last year are not yet
published, it may be calculated that the general average
has increased by 40 to 50 per cent within the last two
years ; already, in 1855, at the time of the Paris Exhi
bition, the increase was one-third ; it had been two francs
a-day, and in 1855 it was three francs, including men
and women. Since that time there has been a farther
augmentation in almost all branches of industry.
The most important feature in this increase of wages
has been that it was more rapid than the normal rise in
the price of the necessaries of life. And this not only
enabled the working-classes to live better, but likewise
to make some provision for cases of illness, old age, and
interruption of work. Whoever has known something
about the mode of living of the ouvrier before 1848,
will be astonished at the change which has taken place.
The change is, above all, visible in the substitution of
animal food for bread and the traditional " soupe," with
lard and onions. A great proportion of the workmen
who formerly had at most once a-day meat, now have
it regularly twice a-day, in the forenoon and in the
evening ; the consequence, greater health and strength,
which must strike at the first glance.
The successful application and extension of the truck

SOCIALISM. 163
system has had a good deal to do with this change It
is principally flourishing in those groups of small manu
facturing places in the cast and north which are in an
analogous position to those scattered about in Lancashire.
It is carried out with the co-operation and under the
control of the workmen themselves. The usual plan is
to depute every day two of the number to superintend
the distribution which takes place at fixed hours. These
controllers are paid by their companions for the loss of
time ; but such has been in most cases the fairness of
the employers, that controllers have been given up as a
useless loss of time and money. In the larger manufac
turing centres, like Paris and Lyons, the working-classes
are too much scattered and intermixed to allow of the
application of the truck system, and a species of "pen
sion ouvrieres," or eating clubs, takes their place. The
model institution of the kind in France is admitted to
be the " Association Alimentaire" of Grenoble, in the
management of which the employers themselves take a
considerable part, rendering their services gratuitously.
In the dwellings of the working-classes, likewise, a
change for the better is perceptible. From obvious
reasons, it is greater in the places where the working-
classes are less crowded. An experiment has been tried
in this respect at Mulhouse, which promises much,
and has been since imitated in other places : single or
double cottages have been built, with little plots for
gardens around them, and they are let at a little higher
rent, so that after a number of years the tenant becomes
the proprietor. It is surprising what a change this
chance of becoming a proprietor works in the habits
of the workmen ; — the public-houses in the neighbour
hood feel it keenly. In the large crowded towns the

164 SOCIALISM.
process of amelioration is more difficult ; all attempts
at building houses for the working-classes have been
abortive. Ground being too valuable for building small
cottages, large barrack-like buildings were erected ; and
they are the horror of the workman. He prefers the
dingiest alley and the most dismal attic to the most
commodious dwelling under a certain amount of con
trol. Even the place built at Monceau for the vagrant
chiffonier (rag-picker) is deserted. The demolitions
alone may by degrees help to secure better dwellings
for the working-classes in the large towns ; they force
them to migrate towards the outskirts, where ground
is less valuable, and the houses are of small size. At
present the ouvrier in the large centres lives, as of old,
in the atelier and the wine-shop, and only sleeps in his
garret ; it must take a good many more demolitions
before he will begin to appreciate a home.
The fair arrangement of wages must always be the
basis of the understanding between employer and
workman ; but there is another device, which has been
invented by the new industrial school, to cement the
union. This consists in giving the workman directly
or indirectly an interest in the management of the
establishment. It has been now adopted as an
almost general rule to give to the ouvrier a profit in
the saving of tools, fuel, oiling of machinery, and thus
to counteract the tendency to waste. Instead of sup
plying new or repairing old tools, a certain allowance is
made for keeping them in good order with fuel and oil,
the quantity required for full working power is given,
and any saving bought back at half-price. It is quite
astonishing to see in what order tools are, and how long
they last, what small amount of fuel is required, how

SOCIALISM. 165
bright the machinery, and how wonderfully clean tho
boilers. But there is strong tendency in the new school of
going even farther, and to associate ihe ouvrier directly
in the profits when these reach a certain large propor
tion. The establishment which carries out this idea
on the largest scale is the Orleans Railway Company,
and railway statistics prove that it is worked cheaper
than any other line in Franco, and that its clear profit
per mile for each train run is far ahead of the
others.* The management of the refreshment-rooms
will show better than anything else how everything co
operates for the joint interest of the company and of
the workmen. Unlike other lines, the company has
kept the management of them in its own hands, and
takes advantage of this to supply the employe's and
workmen. Whenever there is a surplus of one or
another article in one place it is sent along to other
places on the line.
All that is being done in this respect seems to point
to the beginning of a novel system of practical social
ism, which has no set theory, but works gradually,
taking its light from experience. After ten years it
can but be in its infancy ; but it promises more for the
ultimate solution of the social problem, as existing in
France, than anything that has been hitherto devised.
Already it has done a good deal to break down that
egotistical barrier which divided the race of employers
from that of the workmen, as the system is calculated
to bring the two into daily close contact, more on terms
* In 1860 the share of the servants of the company amounted to
2,181,503 francs, X84,U00 ; while the dividend was 100 francs for every
500 franc share.

166 SOCIALISM.
of equality. Any differences which might arise are more
easily settled, and all those feuds, strikes, which played
so prominent a part formerly, are avoided. There is
an institution, dating from the first Empire, which con
tributes considerably to keep up the harmony : it is
the Conseil des Prud'hommes, of which there are about
100 all over France. They are composed in equal
numbers of masters and workmen, and judge of their
differences, which are amenable to their jurisdiction ;
but their chief task, before giving judgment, is to try
conciliation. These juries have very much increased
in importance since the beginning of the second Em
pire, and the cases brought before them have nearly
doubled. How successful the institution is may be gath
ered from the circumstance, that out of 1000 cases
970, on an average, end in a compromise. And there
are quite 50,000 cases coming within the cognisance
of the Conseil des Prud'hommes. By far the greater
proportion of these cases is furnished by the small
industries, and arise from individual grievances between
workman and employer, — that is, where the mediating
influence of the new ideas is less felt. In the large
establishments the amicable interference of these juries
is now rarely required.
Another important feature which shows itself where-
ever the new ideas have gained the upperhand is, that
Government assistance and interference, so dear to
every other class of Frenchmen, is not only not sought
after, but as much as possible deprecated. In a country
which has always been divided between servile sup
porters and deadly adversaries of the Government, the
formation of an independent class, judging Government
by its acts alone, can scarcely be overrated.

SOCIALISM. 167
But while holding aloof from any partisanship for or
against the Government, and steeled against all its
allurements, nowhere else, perhaps, are the etlbrts of
Imperialism to promote the material well-being of France
better understood and appreciated than in this growing
class of industrials of the new school. Among the first
in embracing free-trade notions, they were of great
assistance to the Government in helping to carry them
out, and in persuading of their beneficial effect the
parties most directly interested. They are fair enough
to admit that they, and the whole French industry,
owe a great deal to the judicious impulse given by the
Imperial Government to the material interests of the
country. They cannot but see how much assistance
they can derive in times of crisis, like that of last
winter, from the watchfulness and prompt measures
of a clear-sighted Government. The latter may act
partly in the interest of its own safety, but without
its action all other well-meant efforts would have been
sufficient. They may have their ideas, too, about poli
tical government as it ought to be, about freedom of
the press and of the elections, about constitutionalism,
and other " isms " ; but from no other quarter is there
less danger of any assertion of these ideas by material
force. From all that has been said it may be seen that there
have been agencies at work in France of late to bring
about a practical solution of that dreaded social ques
tion, and that in this respect, like in so many others,
changes have taken place which promise fair to diminish
the chances of those violent convulsions which have so
often distressed that country, and reacted on Europe
and the world. It was the complication of the political

168 SOCIALISM.
movements with sockl__questions which always gave
themthat_yiolent and pernicious character ; so that if
this complication can be avoided in future, the political
question itself will soon find its own level.
The Imperial Government seems to have been ani
mated by this conviction when it turned its efforts first
towards effacing the traces of the social struggle ; and
it shows a good deal of confidence in the success of its
measures, that of late it has thought it time to take up
the political question. In the mean time every year
increases the chances of consolidating what has been
done, by allowing time for the influence of another
powerful agent, and this is the diffusion of education
among the lower classes. About four thousand schools
for boys, and over seven thousand for girls, have been
opened since 1848, and the number of scholars has
increased by more than one- fifth. The process may be
slow, but the effect of education may in the end be
more relied upon in this matter than any other cause.

CHAPTER XI.
DEATH AND RESURRECTION.
If the traveller sauntering through the noisy crowd of
a populous town, full of life, found himself suddenly in
the midst of a silent graveyard, he could not help being
startled. Although prepared to meet with the traces
of death where there is so much life, he would be struck
by the close proximity of these two most formidable
contrasts in nature.
Such a contrast of life and death forms one of the
greatest curiosities of Imperial Paris. Not that Pere la
Chaise or the Cimetiere of Montmartre has been trans
planted into the Rue de Rivoli or to the Boulevards.
The contrast is a psychological one, political lethargy,
surrounded by exuberance of every other kind of life
and movement — a people which has thrown itself, with
all the vigour and energy of youth, into every sphere
of activity except the one which seems more adapted
than any other for the display and employment of all
faculties. The impression is painful — something like
that produced on us by persons afflicted with some
natural defect, and trying to remedy the loss of one
faculty by a violent and unnatural use of all the others.
The impression in such a case will be doubly painful if

170 DEATH AND RESURRECTION.
the affliction is not a misfortune of birth, but the result
of accident, or is caused by the person's own fault, and
if we remember the person when in possession of all the
faculties. And this is the case here.
Paris sunk in political lethargy, is Paris turned deaf
and dumb. Paris, which was so long the model for
political life all over the Continent, that great hotbed
of the most astonishing political and social theories — it
lies fallow and barren : that eloquent tongue, which
electrified half Europe with every word it uttered — it
is mute and silent ; that colossal brain, which seemed
to have taken upon itself the task of reforming man
kind — it is paralysed ; and the bold pen, before which
the mightiest have trembled — it has scarcely power left
to trace meaningless flourishes.
The transformation is so violent, that we at first
scarcely believe our senses ; but soon indignation seizes
us against the Imperial sway as against those wicked
rulers of Byzanz, who sought their safety in blinding
their adversaries. Willingly would we give all those
marvels which surround us for one spark of the old
genius. Immense pity seizes us at the sight of such
calamity. But no ; we cannot believe that the sacred fire is
extinct. It is smouldering under the mass of rubbish
which has been heaped upon it to stifle it. If public
thought be fettered, so much the more active will be
the movement of private opinion and convictions. If
the tribune be mute and the press gagged, the echo of
their voices is still repeated by the people, the thousand-
tongued. If it is the fashion and mot d'ordre to deride
and blaspheme liberty in public, so much the more fer
vent must be the secret worship of the persecuted god-

DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 171
dess. Such is our consolation ; and being ourselves
devotees of the goddess, we courageously start on our
pious pilgrimage to search for the scattered embers of
the sacred fire which has been banished from public
altars. The longer the search, and the moro earnest the
seeker, the deeper will be the feeling of disappointment
and sadness. Ten short years, and all is forgotten, or
remembered only to be cursed or laughed at. It seems
incredible, and yet it is true. The artisan and work
man, who once listened with devotion to the public read
ing of the papers in his atelier, and who might have
given lessons in politics to many a silent or talking
member of the Chamber of Deputies, cares no more
about politics than the tool he handles. He has a vague
sympathy for Italy, because he admires the man of the
people, Garibaldi the pure, and because it is the French
army which " made" Italy. The bourgeois is frightened
at the very word politics, and reads piously his semi
official paper, from which he tries to gather what the
Emperor is going to do next. Of the upper classes, the
great mass care only for telegrams from abroad, and
announcements of the 'Moniteur,' as influencing the
quotations of the Exchange. Politics imply change
and disturbance, hence risks and losses ; they have been
already the cause of much misery in the world, and
above all in France. Let us guard ourselves against
further temptation. Besides, politics are a social " bore,"
freedom a dangerous illusion, which is easily caught by
the mob, and turned against their betters. Rather the
rule of one man than that of the masses.
Worship of success, a comfortable feeling of ever
growing material prosperity, daily satisfaction of na-

172 DEATH AND RESURRECTION.
tional vanity by the commanding position taken up by
France, and, above all, utter want of faith in liberal
institutions, have produced a state of quiescence and
apathy in the great majority of all classes, such as the
country has not possessed for the last hundred years.
There are indeed, here and there, voices in the desert ;
some of them sincere, but they are neither listened to
nor believed in, for they represent in the eyes of the
sceptic crowd the cries of disappointed ambition. Hav
ing no faith themselves, the multitude believe little
in the faith of others.
The more we examine and the better we know this
psychological phenomenon, the milder are wTe inclined
to judge Imperialism. Whatever the opinion be about
the origin of it, never did power understand better the
temper of the people it has to deal with. It had little
if any share in producing the scepticism in liberal in
stitutions ; it took merely advantage of it to give a
vent to energy in another direction, and to compensate
for lost illusions by promoting the national wellbeing
and satisfying national vanity. It is not in vain the
Emperor has studied the 'Commentaries of Caesar;'
he has learned to know the "infirmitatem Gallorum
quod sunt in consiliis capiendis mobiles, et no vis ple-
rumque rebus student." This "infirmitas," as well as
the other weakness, that " non solum in omnibus civi-
tatibus atque in omnibus pagis partibusque, sed pene
etiam in singulis domibus factiones sunt,"— they were
as true in 1848 as they had been nineteen centuries
before. This restlessness, always prone to extremes, and
knowing no moderation, and party spirit, fiercer than
ever before, had exhausted themselves in the wild

DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 173
struggle from 1848 to 1851, and placed France at the
feet of the new Caesar.
More unrelenting and savage was the strife than any
that ever raged between Gallic chieftains, for it was
no more a strife of individuals, but of classes, a social
and not only a political war.
So far remote is the origiu of it, and so constant
and implacable the antagonism pervading the dilferent
layers of society in France, that one would be almost
tempted to see in it the vestiges of the hatred of race
which conquest has aroused, and which reappears after
centuries under auother form. The Roman colonist and
master who ruled the Celt with iron hand, the Frankish
lord who succeeded and held under his foot both Roman
and Celt, and the Celtic mass which hated both its op
pressors — however much assimilated these elements may
be in appearance, there seems to exist a repulsion be
tween them which has become an obstacle to their
amalgamation. While in England, Celt, Saxon, Dane,
and Norman combined to break the royal power ; here
royal power found always the seigneurs ready to help
in oppressing the towns, the towns anxious to assist
royalty against the lords, and both combining against
the people, until all three were reduced into servitude.
The weakness of the royal power in 1789 became the
signal for the first great social outburst. The aristo
cracy tries to isolate itself, and claims a privileged posi
tion. The bourgeois, calling in the assistance of the people,
sweeps away the privileged class. The bourgeois in turn
attempts to monopolise power, and, falling under the re
sentment of the masses and of demagogues, opens the road
for the 1 8th Brumaire and military despotism. After
the Restoration the aristocracy again attempts the old

174 DEATH AND RESURRECTION.
game. It is overpowered by the bourgeoisie in 1830.
This latter again tries to shut itself up within a narrow
circle. Another revolution in 1848, and the two hos
tile elements find themselves again face to face disput
ing for the mastery. The bourgeoisie triumphs in the
bloody days of June, the vanquished masses revenge
themselves by the election of their candidate in De
cember. The "Assemble Legislative" retaliates by
becoming more reactionary, devising a scheme of double
elections to keep out the masses from influence, and
urging an expedition to crush the Republic in Rome.
Another outburst and internecine war is impending,
when military reaction, applauded by the masses, puts
an end to the narrow-minded sway of the bourgeois,
and ends the game altogether on the 2d of Decem
ber 1851.
The social side of the struggle must be always kept
in mind if we wish to understand the real character of
Imperialism and the present state of indifference or
even aversion to politics. The questions of property and
labour brought out for the first time the secular antag
onism of the two classes in its most formidable shape.
Property gained for a moment the victory, but it was so
dearly bought, and so precarious, that, for the majority
of the victors, their own defeat by the coup d'etat was
almost a relief. That continual terror in which they
had lived prepared them to accept wellnigh any power
capable of protecting them against those who wished
to deprive them of what they held dearer than life —
property. Both sides were exhausted. They saw they could
never come to an understanding. Neither felt strong
enough to be confident in victory over the other, and

DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 175
rather than give in, each was willing to submit to the
arbitration of the strong mediator. This explains the
httle resistance which was opposed on the 2d of Decem
ber. In vain was the Faubourg St Antoine and Fau
bourg St Jaques appealed to; the prolctaire remembered
the days of June, and rejoiced that the turn of the
bourgeois had come at last. This latter, with few
exceptions, was equally deaf to the appeal, and did not
care to expose himself for a government which he did
not believe strong enough to protect him. No one
stirred, and the patres patr'uv were marched off to Vin
cennes. The ten years of Imperialism has been a time of
truce between the two adversaries ; and it is but fair to
say that they have contributed greatly to heal the
breach which seemed almost irreparable. The impulse
given to material prosperity, however forced, has profited
both to property and labour ; and the two sworn foes
have begun to feel that their interests well understood
were by no means incompatible. All that was wanted
was guarding against extremes, and see the necessity
of a compromise. On the other hand, the prominent
position gained by French arms and diplomacy became
another powerful bond of union — the greatness of the
common country.
Under the soothing effect of these panaceas of Im
perialism, France reposes from the giant struggle, and
the success which has attended the cure hitherto has
made many converts. The necessity of a strong go
vernment is the current phrase in use to this day. It
is considered as the only means of preventing the flame i
of discord from breaking out again, and most are ready J
to sacrifice political freedom for social safety. There is

176 DEATH AND RESURRECTION.
indeed, a small cluster of men remaining who believe
that political freedom is the best cure against social
discord ; but this belief is by no means shared by the
mass of the people, who wish only for the continuance
of successful Imperialism. Above all, the bourgeoisie
has become more reactionary than ever, and looks with
suspicion at the insinuations of those who, without
denying the great service which Imperialism has ren
dered to French society, think that the time has come
to try another experiment with liberal institutions, and
admit the people to a greater share in public affairs.
Twice within the last twelve months the Emperor
has surprised his own people and the world by taking
the initiative in this direction. To appreciate the true
meaning of these steps it will be useful to cast a glance
at the constitution of 1852.
Its traces are found in the appeals to the people to
sanction the coup d'6tat. " The fury of faction is
imperilling society." " I undertake to save it ; will you
trust me?" The appeal is made not on principle, but
on personal grounds. The French people are asked to
base their destinies not on some abstract rule, but to
have confidence in one man.
This man assumes the whole executive power with
out control ; he has the initiative of making laws ; he
declares war, makes treaties of peace, alliance, and com
merce ; fixes the order of succession, — in one word, has
unlimited sovereign rights ; but he is " the responsible
chief of the French Government," (Constitution, art. 5).
Article 6 defines this responsibility : " the Emperor is
responsible to the French people, to which he has always
a right to appeal." The constitution is thus, as it were,
a realisation of the " pacte fondamental" of Rousseau.

DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 177
The Emperor claims his power from universal suffrage,
and recognises popular sovereignty as his judge.
The Emperor governs by means of the Ministers, of
the Conseil d'Etat, the Senate, and the Corps Legis
latif (Art. 3).
As the Emperor is supposed to be the responsible
chief magistrate, the ministers are nothing more than
his agents named for the direction of the different de
partments. They are not recognised as a body, and
have no solidarity. They meet, indeed, twice a-week,
but have only to discuss the questions on which they
are consulted by the Emperor. Each of them is intent
on his own department, cares nothing for his colleagues,
and communicates directly with the Emperor. They
are responsible only to him, but may be impeached by
the Senate.
Of the three " great bodies of the State," the Conseil
d'Etat is a kind of administrative and judicial council
to which all new rules of administration and decrees of
a certain importance are submitted. It is more especi
ally charged with drawing up the projects of law, and
some of its members are chosen to bring these projects
before the Senate and the Corps Legislatif. It has five
sections corresponding to the different ministerial de
partments, and a sixth judging of all questions arising
between the administration and private individuals. The
members are named by the Emperor, and are movable.
The Senate " is the guardian of the Facte fonda-
mental, and no law can be promulgated before it has
been submitted to it" (Art. 25). If a law is contrary
to the constitution, to religion, morals, &c, the Senate
can oppose it. It regulates everything which has not
been provided by the constitution, or which would era-
M

178 DEATH AND RESURRECTION.
barrass the working of the constitution. It likewise
interprets all articles which might be doubtful in the
constitution (Art. 27). It maintains or annuls all
acts which are represented as unconstitutional by the
Government, or denounced as such by petitions (Art.
29). It may, in a report to the Emperor, lay down the
bases of new laws of great public interest (Art. 30). It
may likewise propose a modification of the constitution
(Art. 31). It receives petitions, may impeach the mini
sters (Art. 45), and may, in case of a dissolution of the
Corps Legislatif, provide for everything which the re
gular course of government requires. The members
are high functionaries and other notabilities, and are
named for life.
The Corps Legislatif, the produce of direct universal
suffrage, has neither the right of initiative nor that ot
amendments in public sittings. Amendments are only
allowed to be made before the commissions charged to
examine the project presented. The Budget is sub
mitted likewise to a commission which, according to
the constitution of 1852, had only the right of rejecting
it by departments.
In order to see the working of this rather complicated
machinery, it will be well to consider the process through
which a law has to pass. The bases of it are laid down
by the minister to whose office the law relates. This
first project is sent to the Council of State, where it is
submitted to the respective section, which elaborates the
project, develops or changes it ; then the project drawn
up is placed before the whole Council of State, where
it is again discussed. If it is adopted it comes before
the Corps Legislatif, where it is first examined in block,
then submitted to a commission, the sittings of which

DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 179
are not public. If amendments are made, they are re
ferred back to the Conseil d'Etat, and only if approved
by the latter are they inserted. Then the commission
draws up its report, and a second discussion takes place
in a public sitting of the Corps Legislatif. If the law
is accepted, it is submitted to the Senate, whicli has to
decide whether it be not contrary to the constitution,
and which gives finally the order for promulgating the
law. From this short sketch it will be seen that the re
sponsibility and control, as established by the constitu
tion of 1852, is what strict constitutionalists of the old
school might call a homoeopathic responsibility and con
trol ; for the leading idea seems evidently to have been,
that the smaller the quantity, and the more diluted it is,
the more powerful will be the action of the remedy.
The principle is new in politics ; but as it has tolerably
succeeded in medicine, the idea may have arisen of try
ing it in another sphere. The case seemed a desperate
one. France was suffering from a general derangement,
which had been caused by intemperance in the use of
liberty, and made worse by " over-doctoring." Vigor
ous diet and small doses may have seemed "indicated"
for this case.
By people with strong constitutions and more mode
rate habits, the allowance might be considered as very
small. Complete independence of the Executive, coupled with
responsibility, are only intelligible if they are followed by
this logical consequence, reward and punishment. How
this can be applied in a case where the responsible chief
magistrate is immovable, and where, in the next genera
tion, he is to rule by hereditary right, is difficult to un-

180 DEATH AND RESURRECTION.
derstand. The word responsible seems, therefore, rather
out of place, and might be advantageously replaced by
the word control.
According to constitutional ideas, the control over
the Executive, to be efficient, must be directly applied
by the representation of the nation. This idea is the
result of costly experience, which has proved that this
continual jealous vigilance can alone check the innate
tendency of every executive to abuse of its powers. \
In France, experience has proved several times, that
whenever the representatives of the nation were al
lowed a direct control over the Executive, a collision
has followed between the two> In order to diminish
the chances of a conflict, it was resolved to subdi
vide this power of control, and at the same time to
place between the Executive and the national represen
tatives, some pliant and elastic bodies to act the part
which buffers do in railways. This laudable duty has
devolved on the Senate and the Council of State ; they
are, by the constitution of 1852, supposed to restrain
the impetuosity on both sides, and charm by their
example of wise moderation. It is a goodly mechanism
and a wise provision against accidents — it is only open
to one objection, namely, that until quite lately there
could be no accidents, for the Corps Legislatif was
deprived of all power of motion, and its power of resist
ance was smaller than that of the Council of State or
Senate; so that the three controlling powers of the
State were propelled as fast and in whatever direction
it pleased the Executive.
A recent example furnishes a good illustration of
this. One of the duties of the Conseil d'Etat is sup
posed to be a control over the budget of the different

DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 181
ministers; every supplementary and extraordinary
credit, as well as every transfer (virauent) from one
department to the other, is referred to it : recent dis
closures have shown how they checked the impetuosity
of the Government. " Buffers" aro useful where there
is opposition and resistance ; where there is none, they
are only more or less costly ornaments, and sometimes
even impediments : for instance, the Senate has a cer
tain right of initiative; it may propose modifications
of the constitution and projects of laws of a general
interest. The only time this was tried was in the case
of a rural code ; but the Council of State raised the
question, whether the right " of laying down the basis
for a law" implied the right of the Senate to enter into
all the details of the law. The Council of State, which
has the " drawing up of the laws,'' maintained that this
would be encroaching on its attributes ; the Senate, on
the contrary, whose right it is to explain all doubtful
points in the constitution, pretended that it could dis
cuss the details. The question was not decided, but
the Government ordered the Council of State to pre
pare the rural code.
Although the control and responsibility, as intro
duced by Imperialism, might with justice appear a
mere form, it would be wrong to despise this form.
However awkward such forms may be, if the constitu
tional spirit arises it can take refuge behind them, and
thus grow, and change at last the form itself. That these
forms are dead forms, shows more than anything else
that constitutional spirit is not alive in France. The
sphere of activity may be small, the forms cumbrous,
the official obstacles great ; but if Poland and Hungary
show their vitality under somewhat greater official

182 DEATH AND RESURRECTION.
obstacles, and under rather more cumbrous forms,
France, if it was animated at this moment by the spirit
•of freedom, could give easier signs of this spirit. There
are plenty of opportunities.
Not a month passes without one or more supplemen
tary elections for the Corps Legislatif — no liberal can
didate ever starts, no liberal paper ever takes notice of
the circumstance. If this fact is held up as a reproach,
the answer is, We are not allowed to form committees,
and Government influence is too great. But Ultra
montanes do start nevertheless ; they are often defeated,
but they succeed sometimes ; and at any rate, by their
activity and perseverance, make themselves felt by the
Government on more than one question. They have
courage, and are ready for sacrifices, which shows that
they have serious convictions.
When and where the spirit of freedom which has
once animated this nation will revive, is difficult to
say ; hitherto there are but slight symptoms of a coming
resurrection. To judge by these symptoms, it would
almost seem as if in this revival, like in so many other
things, the initiative and impulse should come directly
or indirectly from the Emperor.
The purely personal character of his reign, which
pervades his constitution, his government, and his
policy, was' the consequences of exceptional circum
stances ; indeed these circumstances are continually
pleaded as an excuse for the anomaly. Exceptional
circumstances and personal prestige are too changeable
by their nature to build anything lasting upon them,
.and transmit the fabric to coming generations. The
exhaustion produced by the social struggle of 1848
may end to-morrow, and personal prestige depends on

DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 183
success, on which even those who have greatest faith in
their star cannot invariably reckon.
To watch the revival of the dormant public spirit —
nay, to arouse it, and lead it into a regular channel,
and thus prepare the road for a more normal state, and
less dependent on personal prestige — seems therefore
commanded by dynastic as well as national interest.
There can be little doubt that this has been under
stood. The year 1859 is, in this respect, not less im
portant for France than it has been for the continent of
Europe. It marks the close of the transition-period,
and the beginning of a new era. The championship
assumed by the Emperor of the cause of national inde
pendence abroad, was sure to draw attention to the
contrast which was thus established between foreign
and home policy. A people held in tutelage, setting up
the pretension of delivering others ! There was, indeed,
the difference that, in the latter case, it was foreign
tutelage ; but the popular mind could scarcely be ex
pected to perceive this difference, while the whole pen
insula of Italy was gradually asserting its rights to self-
government, and even the Empire of Austria was obliged
to yield, in appearance at least, to the new spirit.
France, to whose initiative all this change was due,
could not but feel mortified at the comparisons which
naturally suggested themselves.
Little time was left for the growth and strengthening
of this feeling. The great mass of the people was still
under the narcotic influence of satisfied national pride,
when the decree of the 24th of November 1860 heralded
in an epoch of internal reforms, at a moment when
no one dreamed and few cared for it in France. Ever
since that time there have been successive steps in

/

184 DEATH AND RESURRECTION.
the same direction, passport conventions, commercial
treaties, freer movement of the press, the Senatus Con
sulte of the 3d February 1861, enlarging on the decree
of the 24th November 1860, and quite lately the decree
of the 12th November, and the Senatus Consulte of
1 0th December. The single steps may seem but small,
but the direction is unmistakable.
Indeed it is clearly indicated by the Emperor himself
in the letter he addressed to the Minister of State at
the occasion of the last decree, which extends consider
ably the power of purse possessed hitherto by the Corps
Legislatif. " Faithful to my origin," the letter says, " I
look upon the prerogatives of the Crown neither as a
sacred deposit which cannot be touched, nor as an in
heritance of my fathers which I must transmit unim
paired to my son. The elect of the people, I shall
always without regret abandon every prerogative use
less to the public good, as, on the other hand, I shall
keep undiminished every power which is indispensable
to the tranquillity and prosperity of the country."
The promises of the powerful and mighty may of
course be shadows, but the past has shown that the
constitution of 1852 is not the last word of Imperialism,
and the Emperor acted before he spoke the words
of promise. The right of address granted to the Corps
Legislatif and to the Senate, in which these bodies are
allowed to discuss Imperial policy ; the publicity of dis
cussion granted to the Senate ; the publication in exten-
so of the debates, instead of the meagre resume" allow
ed before ; the right of amendment made more accessible
to the deputies ; and now the abolition of extraordin
ary and supplementary credits, and the voting of the
Budget by chapters instead of departments, — all these

DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 185
changes have altered completely the spirit of the con
stitution. The Senate and Corps Legislatif, which were
little more than retarding administrative wheels, have,
by these changes, begun to return to their former
legitimate position as political bodies destined to con
trol the actions of the Government.
The great step is made; what it will lead to depends
on the disposition in which French public spirit wakes
up from its lethargic sleep. May it awake sobered
down from the last orgie which sent it to sleep ! The
debate on the Address last spring was not very pro
mising, there were still considerable signs of drowsi
ness and ill-humour. It looked almost like anger at
being aroused from the comfortable lethargy which
vented itself in an attack on the liberal foreign and
commercial policy of the Government. The old nar
row-mindedness and acrimony seemed to have revived,
and the world saw with astonishment that the repre
sentatives of the French people were more illiberal and
retrograde than their Government.
But it would be wrong to be discouraged by their first
exhibition ; for it must be remembered that when the
Corps Legislatif was elected in 1857, sleepiness was the
great criterion of patriotism, and marmottes were thought
the most eligible candidates, even before the annexation
of Savoy. Already last session, after the new concessions,
there was a general desire to see another popular assem
bly elected, more in accordance with the new position
of the Corps Legislatif. Even before the decree of the
12th of November, it was rumoured that, after an early
session this year, the new elections should take place.
This is doubly necessary now; and until another Corps
Legislatif meets, it can scarcely be said that France has
made a fresh start on the path of self-government.

CHAPTER XII.

BODY AND MIND.

" Panem et Circenses " was the motto of Imperial
Rome, and a modest motto it was for the proud people
which carried on its standard the high-soaring eagle
as the emblem of its bold aspirations. Imperialism in
France has adopted both the emblem and the motto,
and prides in them. Of all the incense offered up by
officious writers on the shrine of Imperialism, none is
so much relished as those effusions in prose and verse
which choose for their theme the resemblance between
French and Roman Imperialism.
" Caesar, who saves France from internal factions" —
" Caesar, who becomes the champion of the people
against a tyrannical aristocracy" — "Csesar, the father
of the poor." But, more fortunate than his Roman
prototype, Csesar is able to give to French citizens
" the seventy drachmas," " walks," " arbours," " com
mon pleasures to walk abroad," in his lifetime, and
needs no Mark Antony to announce these boons in his
testament. The eagle is again restored to its former
proud position, and is carried triumphantly into all the
corners of the earth. Caesar and Augustus in one per
son, the Emperor transforms Paris into a city of palaces.

BODY AND MIND. 187
The Tuileries have taken the place of the Capitol ; to it
kings and peoples are anxiously turning their eyes, for
there resides the power which decides their fate. Am
phitheatres and their savage games are out of date, but
there is no want of " circenses" for that. The world has
been thrown open as one large arena, to supply excite
ment and sport to the " grande nation." The stakes are
not the life of a few wretched savages, but the happiness
and misery of millions which depend on the nod of the
Imperator. Even those most " biases " must appreciate
such refinement.
But however successful in the imitation or emulation
of its prototypes in other respects, there is one feature of
which Imperialism in Paris has not been able to learn as
yet the secret from Imperialism at Rome. Not even the
most injudicious friends of it have ever thought of ac
cusing the former of having produced a "golden era" of
literature. Indeed, if there be one charge brought for
ward against Imperialism more frequently than any
other, by those who have no fancy for eagles or " cir
censes," it is the intellectual dearth which has come
over France under the iron pressure of the last ten
years. There are no traces of a new Augustan era ; on the
contrary, even the old brilliancy of French genius seems
to have faded away. Who has forgotten that long series
of acute thinkers, bold theoreticians, inspired poets, bril
liant historians, charming novelists, inexhaustible dra
matic authors, powerful journalists, clever painters and
composers, inimitable actors and musicians, who have
succeeded each other ever since the Restoration in
France 1 Who does not remember the influence which
they exercised on the ideas and tastes, not only of their

188 BODY AND MIND.
own country, but of all Europe, by ridding literature
and art of that traditional formalism which had ham
pered them so long, and by striking out a new path,
rejecting old worn-out rules, and following boldly the
dictates of their own genius 1 The long line has failed,
and the source of inspiration is dried up. Many of the
bright luminaries who shed such lustre once on litera-
ture and art in France have passed away, and those
who still remain of the old race are a mere shadow of
their former selves. Victor Hugo, the brilliant founder
of the romantic school almost forgotten by his country
men, but not broken in faith, has still some strings left
on his lyre, but uses them to utter his dying cry of sad
ness and indignation. Lamartine has had to turn penny-
a-liner in his old age, and to rake up painfully his remi
niscences, to satisfy his creditors. Guizot draws in his
turn on his souvenirs, or writes on the maintenance of
the temporal power two long volumes, which no one
thinks of reading or even of criticising. Thiers is
laboriously spinning out his history of the Empire.
Other celebrities are either silent, or only busy with
their " Memoires." The Dumases and Georges Sands are
adding some more volumes to those which they have
already written. Michelet writes poetry on the sea;
Montalembert takes up monastic institutions in the
West ; and so on — all faint echoes only of once power
ful voices. Scarcely raised, they die away, leaving no
impression on the public mind. None of those works,
full of genius and freshness, which once electrified the
world, and gained that lasting fame for their authors
on which most of them still live.
However painful this agonising process may be to
witness, it is but a natural phenomenon which would

BODY AND MIND. 189
scarcely be remarked, had a new generation arisen to
supply the place of those who had to pay their tributo
to time.
The Turkish wag, Hodja Nasreddin, when asked what
became of the moon when on the wane, replied that it
was cut up and made into stars. One would be almost
inclined to apply the astronomical notions of the Turk
ish wag to the literary and artistic spheres of France —
such is the number of small stars which have arisen and
are arising daily, while the larger luminaries pass through
their last quarter, and by degrees vanish.
Indeed, if the number of litterateurs and the quantity
of their yearly productions wrere taken alone as a test,
the ten years of Imperialism might not only rival but
would actually surpass any former period. So strange
this may sound, it is borne out by figures. The
number of yearly publications has doubled since the
establishment of Caesarism in France. In 1851, 7350
books and pamphlets appeared, whfle for the last two
years the number has been close on 15,000, and this
does not include musical publications, engravings, and
lithographs, in which a proportionate increase has taken
place. In the thirty years before 1851, comprising the
most brilliant epoch of French literature, the average
number of publications reaches not more than 6000
a-year. Nor is there any lack of variety. Poems of all shades
and colours — melancholy, gay, sentimental, and gloomy.
Satires and idyls, elegies and chansons, dramas and
comedies, tragedies and fairy-plays ; novels, in all styles
— historical, domestic, extravagant, pictures from social
life ; historical essays, economical dissertations, and
philosophical researches on all subjects in heaven and

190 BODY AND MIND.
on earth, political pamphlets, scientific disquisitions; in;
one word, in the whole wide domain of literature, no
corner is allowed to lie barren.
But what seems even -more curious is, that in the
periodical literature we see an almost equal productive
ness. AVith the exception of the United States, a
larger number of periodicals are published in France
than in any other country in the world. To explain
this mystery it must be, however, added, that out of
the 1350 not more than 270 touch on politics, while
all the others treat of literature, art, science, industry,
and agriculture; hence are not subject to the exceptional
regime which is applied in the case of political journals.
Yet all this fertility has scarcely produced a single
work which promises to outlive its author, or brought
forward a name which could be placed side by side with
even the second-rate celebrities of the last generation.
How many works of the last ten years, and how many
new names are there which are known beyond a limited
circle even in France, or which are remembered beyond
a few weeks % There is not one of those works which
formerly used to mark an epoch in literature, which
were translated into all civilised languages, and became
models for others — not one of those names which have
become household words in France, and whose fame
spread all over Europe. And yet never were there
such facilities for bringing excellence, wherever it be
found, before the eyes of the world — never was there
such rapidity of communication and such close daily
contact among nations. Had there been anything
worth having in this luxuriant growth of the French
mind, it would have long become the common property
of mankind. Of course, it would be unreasonable to

BODY AND MIND. 191
expect a country to go on producing, without intermis
sion, great poets, great dramatists, great historians, &c. ;
but neither seems it natural that a country which has
more or less excelled in all branches of literature should
all of a sudden produce nothing beyond respectable
mediocrity in any of them.
The French themselves are keenly alive to this falling
off in their position as the leaders of the intellectual
movement in Europe ; and most of those who consider
themselves as the representatives of literature point to
the Imperial regime as the main cause of this decay.
Hampered and trammelled by restrictive laws on all
sides, how is it possible for intellectual activity to soar
above mediocrity \ Not a fine can be printed without
the printer's informing the authorities of his intention ;
and not a work can be published or sold without his
depositing two copies for inspection. In all publica
tions under ten printed sheets a special copy must, be
sides, be lodged with the Procureur-Imperial (Attorney-
General) at least twenty-four hours before publication.
No play can be represented without passing the strict
est censorship. Even the posting up of bills, and the
distribution of any print or writing by hawkers (col-
portage), is subject to stringent and annoying regula
tions. The answer to this charge is, that the restrictions are
more apparent than real — proof, the prolific character
of French literature within the last ten years ; that the
brilliant literature of France in the seventeenth and
eighteenth century arose at a time when liberty was
at its lowest ebb ; that the restrictive measures are
only rigorously applied in the case of periodical litera
ture, and are so leniently handled in all other cases that

192 BODY AND MIND.
they do not affect much general science and literature ;
and that any one was at liberty to surpass Racine's
' Athalie,' Corneille's ' Cid,' the ' Meditations Poetiques'
of Lamartine, or Guizot's 'History of Civilisation,' and
not only would he find no impediment on the part of
the Government, but the greatest readiness and encour
agement. If no one did, it was certainly not the fault
of the Government.
In spite of the continual assurances of the Govern
ment in this respect, it may be well questioned whether
an author or a publisher could be found who would dare
to put them so far to the test as to submit to the
lenient interpretations of a censor an historical essay
like Lamartine's ' Girondins,' or a drama of the stamp
of Victor Hugo's ' Le Roi s' Amuse,' or some philosophical
rhapsody in the style of Voltaire.
But, however numerous the lucky escapes be, there
are the scissors of the censor, like a Damocles's sword,
suspended over the unprotected heads of the authors.
He cannot write a line without casting a side glance at
those instruments of intellectual torture ; and whenever
the flame of inspiration threatens to rise rather higher
than usual, a warning voice whispers, " Beware of the
snuffers." The very existence of preventive measures
must act as a check on the freedom of thought ; and
these preventive measures exist not merely with regard
to the press, but overrule the whole social and political
life of the nation.
Such are the complaints which may be daily heard in
France whenever this subject is alluded to, and no
doubt they are in a great measure founded on truth ;
for what is the literary activity of a nation but the re
flex of its social and political life 1 and nowhere was

BODY AND MIND. 193
this intimate connection so strikingly apparent as in
France. All the literary glory of modern France dates
from the establishment of free institutions in 1815.
The two were born together ; they grew aud increased,
and they died together. They acted and reacted on
each other, helping, stimulating, rivalling, and ulti
mately destroying each other.
It has been often a subject of inquiry how far the
Encyclopedic school of the last century was responsible
for the first French Revolution ; but the question can
never be fairly answered, without showing at the same
time how great the influence of a corrupt social state, of
a cynical aristocracy, and of an oppressed people, was
in producing that disbelief and scepticism which formed
the chief feature of that school. Similarly the future
historian of modern France will have to seek the key
to contemporary events in the literary as well as in the
political and social movement.
With the fall of the first Empire a new spirit came
over France. The national humiliation led to a mira
culous conversion. The people, which for fifteen years
had worshipped success, and believed in nothing but
success, seeing its idol shattered, experienced a sudden
reaction, and felt a yearning after a higher ideal. It
set to work with an eartnestness and a faith which is
shadowed forth in all that was said and written during
that epoch, and which appears in strange contrast with
the former frivolousness and scepticism. It is not con
fined to one school, or one party, but forms the charac
teristic feature of all. The Royer Collards, the de
fenders of " throne and altar," have it as much as the
Benjamin Constants and the De Foys, the champions of
constitutional ideas. It animates that small phalanx
.N

194 BODY AND MIND.
of stern republicans, who, undismayed by the failure
of their first attempt, came forward again from their
¦obscurity, the apostles of the future ; it idealises the
devotion of the scattered and persecuted remnants of
Buonapartism, and forms the great charm of the chan
sons of Beranger, the bard of the people and its glory,
the scourge of priests and nobles.
But it seems to be the fate of France to seek after
high ideal standards, and remain invariably far behind
them in reality ; then, disgusted at the failure, to ridicule
and drag down her idols, and return to scepticism and
worship of success as the only divinity which can claim
lasting respect and inspire awe. This corrosive influ
ence, to which every idea seems exposed in France, arises
from that logical tendency of the French mind, which,
incapable of admitting any compromise between theory
and practice, seeks to push the application of every idea
to its ultimate consequences, rushes off into extremes,
and thus oversteps the boundary between the sublime
and ridiculous.
Thus the defenders of royalty and legitimacy, scarcely
made masters of the situation, attempted to revive the
pre-revolutionary system with all its consequences ; and
it was soon found out that the exalted cry for " throne
and altar" meant, in reality, bigotry, hypocrisy, court
favouritism, and aristocratic class interests.
The constitutional ideas which bad their turn next
fared equally bad. Handled by distressingly logical
doctrinaires, who obstinately adhered to the letter of the
Charte, they soon were exposed by their equally logical
adversaries as one colossal system of sham — a packed
sham. Parliament, and a sham liberty, for the benefit of
100,000 bourgeois National Guard electors.

BODY AND MIND. 195
Republican and Socialist ideas were not more lucky.
Perhaps more ardent and sincere than their predecessors,
the leaders, just on that account, proved themselves so
logical and impracticable, that it scarcely required a
Jerome Paturot to start in research of the best of re
publics, in order to make them ridiculous, and destroy
all faith in their doctrines. What wonder if the
"grande nation," having lost all its illusions about
magniloquent ideas, bows down now before one idea
alone, that of success ?
In order to appreciate fully this iconoclastic process,
through which the French mind has passed since 1815,
it must be remembered that the best authors of France,
during that period, were, with few exceptions, likewise
her most eminent politicians. Although not laid down
in any of the Chartes and Constitutions, the principle,
that literary celebrity is the stepping-stone to political
greatness, has been the one most piously observed ; and
there is scarcely a case, before the establishment of the
Empire, of a man having attained political distinction!
without this preliminary step. Author, journalist, andj
politician were almost synonymous. A clever " Premier
Paris" in one of the leading journals, or a stirring
pamphlet, expanded an obscure writer over night into
a full-blown minister. All vied with each other to be
more original and startling in their theories, and more
logical in their consequences, than their rivals ; the un
stable and impatient public hailed enthusiastically the
new comer, and believed in him until he had the chance
of applying his startling ideas, failed like the others,
and was hooted down by his public. Served him right,
was the verdict; he is a humbug, like all the rest. The
failure was so uniform, that gradually a scepticism grew

196 BODY AND MIND.
up, not only about the writings, but even about the
sincerity of the writers, and all they said was set down
as a political bait — an imposition on the public. On
the other hand, the political failure, and the distrust
and scorn of the public, could not but affect the faith of
the authors and politicians themselves, and make them
waver either in their own convictions, or else, if vanity
would not allow that, in the capability of the French to
appreciate their value.
And this general scepticism has not been confined to
those branches of literature which have a more intimate
connection with the social and political life of a people ;
it has crept into general literature. The same causes
have produced the same effects. The great charm of
the romantic school in France has been its tendency to
embody the leading ideas of the day, and present them
to the people in their novels and plays. To search into
all the most hidden corners of the national life ; to rake
up mysteries and horrors, and minister to the morbid
tastes of their public ; to imagine the most painful
situations, and stimulate the feelings by a refined intel
lectual torture, adroitly mixed up with a false ideal
picture of a world as it ought to be ; to build up para
doxes, hold up wrong as right, and right as wrong, —
such were the tenets of the school which made so much
noise in the world, and exerted such influence for a time
on the ideas of the nation.
The rivalry at such a game of disordinate imagination
could not but lead to complete exhaustion and to ridi
cule. It was the natural course of things that the Victor
Hugos and Balzacs should be succeeded by the Eugene
Sues, Souliers, and Dumases, father and son. Fresh and
more pungent condiments had to be supplied, in order

BODY AND MIND. 197
to gratify the vitiated palate of the public, until, like in
the case of Frederic the Great, assaftvtida had to bo
resorted to. ' Athalie,' ' Notre Dame de Paris,' and tho
' Peau de Chagrin,' were naturally followed by the ' Me
moires du Diable,' the ' Mysteres de Paris,' the ' Juif
Errant,' and ' Monte Christo,' just as the natural sequel
of the ' Dames aux Camillas' were the ' Filles dc Marbre,'
which in their turn were followed by the 'Filles de Platre,'
which even the Republican Government thought to have
so outstripped all bounds that it had them stopped.
Exhaustion of the imagination of authors, and surfeit
and disgust on the part of the public, led to a reaction,
and no one would dare now7 to come forward with any
of those wild productions which, scarcely fifteen years
ago, were devoured by the reading public. The author
would be laughed at, and hooted clown. People are sick
of heated imaginations, and of angels and devils. They
are matter-of-fact, sceptical and equivocal, are impatient
of high-flown ideas, of high-sounding words, and want
something real and tangible. There are no more minis
tries in store for authors, but the pubhc will pay liberally
for any clever dodges by which two and two can be made
five, or if possible into six, or for some short pamphlet
giving a clear statement of any leading question of the
day, or else for a good laugh at a well-aimed satire.
The authors have courteously adapted themselves
to the tastes of their " go-ahead" public. Instead of
troubling it with endless novels in the style of the
' Arabian Nights,' they give their treatises on the art of
making money, or short spicy tales, half-a-dozen to the
volume ; they caricature some well-known weakness,
or else they give them a brilliant extravaganza, with
plenty of " cancan " and short petticoats.

198 BODY AND MIND.
. ' All this may not be very lofty and ideal, but it is
amusing, and pays well. A successful hit — like, for in
stance, the ' Question d'Argent,' the ' Faux Bonhommes,'
the 'Effronte'es,' or 'Nos Intimes,' in which everybody can
see himself or his friends faithfully represented on the
stage — or else something in the style of the ' Pied de
Mouton/ the 'Orphee aux Enfers,'with plenty of tricots —
may give the author, if not immortal glory, at any rate
£1500 to £2000 a-year. Aristophanes has supplanted
Sophocles and Euripides.
The present materialistic money-making tendency
has no doubt assisted to finish what the follies and ex
cesses of the past had so well begun. Nations, like in
dividuals, have only a certain amount of energy at
their disposal ; if they spend too much in one direction,
little or nothing will be left for any other. With all
this furious race after the " piece de cent sous," little
time and taste is left to enjoy and appreciate the
charms of literature. Even in the theatres the satire
•must be very pungent, or else the " cancan " very
"chique," in order to silence the whispers about the
Credit Mobilier or the 5 pour cent Italian.
However much we may regret that the lofty tone of
French literature, which, in spite of its extravagance,
possessed such charms, should have been so lowered by
scepticism and utilitarianism, and that those who were
always soaring among the clouds should now never
think of looking up towards the skies, this falling off
is not without its advantages. It has sobered down
the national mind, and done away with a great deal
that was forced and unreal, opening thus a road for a
more healthy and natural development. It has turned
it into a practical direction, and at no time did exact

BODY AND MIND. 199
sciences attract so many students as at the present
moment — an evident proof that it is not merely decay
which we witness, but the germ of something new.
But to acquire again its former elasticity, the French
mind must conquer the scepticism in whicli it has sunk,
and regain its faith in something higher than the tran
sient success of the moment and the "piece de cent sous."
To doubt that it will be so would be almost a crime ;
but the question when and how this will happen —
whether, as before, it will be a conversion by some catas
trophe, or else a gradual rise from the present disbelief
— time alone can solve.

CHAPTER XIII.
GOSSIP.
It may seem presumption on the part of a " flaneur"
to touch on the subject of Imperial policy at all, a sub
ject so profound and mysterious that it has puzzled the
shrewdest diplomatists, and has been given up in de
spair by the wisest political heads in Europe; but a
" fl&neur " has not to choose his subjects ; he takes them
as they offer themselves ; and he would be untrue to
himself were he to pass over in silence a subject which
obtrudes itself at every step in France, which is the
great moving spring of all activity in that country,
which every Frenchman watches with intense anxiety,
and on which every one has his pet theory.
In the heyday of journalism in France, the first
thing a Frenchman did on opening his wet newspaper
was to stop at the first page and devour every word of
a long " Premier Paris," barren of any substratum of
fact, but full of fine sentiments, broiling indignation, or
stinging irony, as the case might be. His choice was
made, and he stuck to it. Whether the object of his
preference was the ' National,' the ' Presse,' or the ' Con-
stitutionel,' he loved it dearly, believed in it, swore by
it, and was ready to fight all comers in honour of it

GOSSIP. 201
His paper was his other self. He did not care whether
the few facts it gave were true or not, nor whether there
were any facts at all in it ; but he saw himself, as it were,
reflected in his paper, with all his prejudices, sentiments,
and crotchets. All those vague instincts and crude
notions which were floating about in his brain, he saw
them clearly formulated in choice words. " Tres bien,
voild un gadlard qui connait son ajfaire!'' was the ex
clamation of delight when some unusually well-turned
phrase brought home to him some pet notion. He
persuaded himself almost that the writer had overheard
some of his own secret thoughts.
Very different is now the sight offered by the news-
pillars on the Boulevards at the hour of 4 p.m., the
sacred time for the distribution of the evening papers,
or at 9 in the morning, the time for the morning
papers. 'La Patrie,' 'Le Pays,' 'Le Siecle,' ' Le Constitu-
tionel!' shouts the little boy who runs about busily with
his heap of papers still wet from the press. The bour
geois stops perplexed at the rich choice offered to his
craving appetite, and is puzzled which to choose. He
has no personal preference for any, for he has lost his
faith in all of them ; all he wants is to find out which
of the official, semi-official, officious, and more or less
inspired journals, represents best what the Emperor will
do next. It is a lottery, as he has found out at his own
expense. The ' Patrie,' which was right yesterday, is
proved by the ' Pays ' of to-day to have been completely
wrong. The ' Constitutionel ' of to-morrow will leave
not the least doubt that both were misinformed ; while
the ' Moniteur ' of the day after will have a " com
munique"" in large type, informing the world in general
that there is no such thing in France as a semi-official,

202 GOSSIP.
officious, or inspired journal, and that there is but one
official infallible paper, and that is the ' Moniteur ' it
self. The declaration deceives no one, as long as the
habit prevails among ministers, and other more or less
influential personages, to make use of the press for their
own purposes, and to keep writers as hangers on.
At last when the choice is made, no one even bestows
a glance on a " Premier Paris" unless it be placed so
prominently and in so large type as to excite a suspi
cion of its having emanated from an official source. It
is the third page, with the paragraph headed "Dernieres
Nouvelles," which is the chief object of attraction. This
is an invention which dates from the Italian war, during
the course of which the ' Patrie' began to publish in its
evening editions official information about the war, and
the habit remained by prescription after the close of
the war, and has been adopted by all papers more or
less. This paragraph of " Latest Intelligence " is the politi
cal meteorology of France, far more exciting no doubt,
but far less reliable, than Admiral Fitzroy's weather
prophecies. No wonder ; Admiral Fitzroy is the only
prophet in his line who appears in public, while there
are half-a-dozen of rival political prophets in France,
all with more or less pretensions to inspiration, and
jealously catching and distorting each other's predic
tions. Then Admiral Fitzroy has some positive data to
go upon, and frankly admits that there are all kinds of
currents and disturbing influences which are as yet
unknown; admitting any such shortcoming would
destroy immediately all authority of the political pro
phets in France, so they fish about among the "cur
rents " and disturbing influences, and land " canard "

GOSSIP. 203
after "canard" which they are often forced to swal
low. But, in spite of all contradictions, modifications,
untruth, and inaccuracies, so puzzling is the Sphinx of
the Tuileries, that any guess at the riddle, however
wild it be, is received gratefully by the public.
Don't let us be hard on the bewildered Frenchman
who catches thus at the slightest thread, in the hope of
finding his way in the dark labyrinth of Imperial policy.
There are plenty of other wise people besides foolish
Frenchmen who have snatched at such frail things,
which not unfrequently existed only in their heated
imaginations. Nor will it seem surprising that in France, which has
seen nearer, and felt more acutely, the effects of the
extraordinary career of its Emperor, and the strange
contradictions of his policy, there should be an even
stronger tendency than elsewhere to take those extreme
views of it which are the most approved ones in other
countries. These extreme views have been typified in two
theories, which may be best characterised as the spirit
ualistic and the fatalistic theory. The first is that of
those who, astonished and overcome by the success
which has smiled hitherto on their Emperor, try to
explain every one even of his most insignificant acts
and words, by seeking for some deep-laid secret scheme.
According as the partisans of this theory belong either
to the adherents of the Imperial regime or to its adver
saries, there is a difference in the appreciation of these
deep-laid schemes. In the eyes of the first, it is inva
riably one which will powerfully promote the welfare
and glory of France ; while in the eyes of the latter, it
is only another of those infernal devices of egotism

204 GOSSIP.
conceived in the dark mind of the Demon Emperor to
enslave France and the world, and to carry out which
all means will be resorted to, however immoral, treach
erous, and degrading they be.
The other theory is that of those who, either impa
tient of the success of Imperiafism, or else driven to
despair by its continual surprises, have persuaded them
selves that all these contradictions, uncertainties, and
half-measures, show nothing more than the want of
principle and plan of action, and that Imperialism lives
day by day, and that all the success is owing to hazard
and fatality. As with the famous three propositions
of Kant, both sides find plenty of arguments drawn
from past and present events to prove their case in the
most evident manner. In the mean time, the great
mass of the people never takes the trouble to inquire
whether all that has come to pass was merely the effect
of a capricious hazard, or of angelic or demoniacal
agency ; they see the success, and find it conduces to
their own interests ; they watch it anxiously, and rarely
reflect as to what it will lead to. Nay, there is a posi
tive aversion to enter into this last subject — a kind of
unwillingness to be disturbed in the full enjoyment of
a successful present. In vain do the prophets of evil
raise their Cassandra voice, and in vain do the par
tisans of the fatalist theory sneer and cavil — they
produce not the slightest impression on the popular
mind. However short-sighted, nay culpable, this indifference
may seem, there is more truth in this instinct of the
masses than in the speculations of the theoreticians.
It represents, as it were, the protest of common sense
against the one-sided appreciation and exaggerations of

GOSSIP. 20.")
both theories, which make anything like a fair and im
partial examination of events impossible.
Without resorting to angels and demons, and without
making mere accident and hazard responsible for a
long-continued series of successes, much that is dark
and seems unintelligible in Imperial policy becomes
clear by an unprejudiced survey of the personal history
of the Emperor, especially the two early phases of it,
— his life in exile and the coup d'etat.
Having, by the death of his brother and of the Due
de Reichstadt, become the representative of the preten
sions of his family, he found himself in one of the
most hopeless positions which it is well possible to con
ceive. The failure of the revolutionary movements in
Italy, Spain, and Germany had given an opportunity
to the reaction all over Europe to acquire a strength
such as it had never possessed before, and which the
July Revolution in France only contributed to increase.
Indeed, in this last named outbreak the leaders them
selves were so frightened at the spirit which they had
raised, that they lost no time to allay it, with almost
indecent haste, by choosing Louis Phflippe as King of
the French. What made things even more desperate for
all Napoleonic pretenders, was that the fear was from
the Republic and not from Napoleonic pretenders, whose
very name seemed to have been forgotten by France.
A cause so hopeless could not reckon on sympathy
and assistance except from the champions of causes
equally or more desperate — the secret societies, under
different names and pretexts, which had become all
over Europe the last refuge of those liberal and national
aspirations, to which the reaction had closed all legiti
mate vent and activity elsewhere. It seemed a strange

206 GOSSIP.
alliance this between the Revolution and the representa
tives of him who had curbed and diverted its course ;
and yet it was not so strange either, for every page in
history shows such temporary alliances of unsuccessful
causes against a common enemy ; and then what was
this alliance but a return of Napoleonism to its source,
the Revolution ] What was Napoleonism itself in its
origin but the successful overthrow of old dynastic and
legitimist pretensions, and the propagation, by armed
force, of those ideas of nationality and popular sove
reignty, which had been proclaimed by the first French
Revolution as the new public law which is to rule the
world 1 It was by forgetting this, its origin, that Na
poleonism came into antagonism with those ideas, and
expiated the ingratitude by its fall. That a Napoleon,
with half the world at his feet, should be guilty of such
ingratitude, is not more surprising than that his nephew
should remember the lesson for which he was paying
by poverty and exile.
And yet the lesson was not learned at once, nor from
the fault of others. Witness the failures of Strasburg
and Boulogne, which showed that, amidst all his help
lessness, Louis Napoleon still lived in the illusion of
being able to revive Napoleonism on its own merits,
without the help of revolution, nay, in opposition to it,
by a simple military emeute. Four years of prison at
Ham dispelled these illusions, and probably did more
than anything else to bring home the conviction that
Napoleonism had neither sense nor chance of success,
except in intimate alliance with those principles of
nationality and popular sovereignty, of which the Gen
eral Buonaparte was the armed torch-bearer in Europe.
This conviction could not but cement the union

GOSSIP. 207
between the Napoleonic pretender and those scattered
apostles of the new ideas, who were pursuing their
course, undaunted by failure, and in spite of all diffi
culties. It is the remembrance of this union, early
begun and long continued, which keeps up, iu spite of
all " appearances," the faith of many in the sympathies
of the Emperor for the cause of freedom and nationality.
Nor would it be natural if the attraction which great
and generous ideas, and the self-denial and enthusiasm of
their advocates, exercises on youth, had been altogether
lost on the Emperor, who followed their fortunes dur
ing the best part of his life. But it would be perhaps
hazardous to lay too much stress on these early recollec
tions ; they may have been dimmed by the halo of the
Imperial crown, or else rendered unpleasant by those
little vanities and ambitions which are found to exist
not less among the obscure apostles of new ideas than
on the great stage of the world.
The important feature in this long association of the
Emperor with the activity of the advanced party in
Europe is, that he was enabled to follow closely the
rapid growth and irresistible expansion of those ideas
of freedom and nationality. In vain were violence and
sham resorted to by their adversaries ; they served only
to strengthen faith and increase aspirations : and dull
indeed must have been the mind which, in the face of
such evidence, would have failed to perceive that they
are the ideas of the age, which, sooner or later, must
prevail ; that he is doomed who refuses to recognise
them, while he who is bold enough to lead them on to
success may rule the world.
This long insight into the growth and working of
modern political and social ideas constitutes the great

208 uossi.r.
superiority the Emperor Napoleon enjoys over other
sovereigns, who have never seen anything beyond the
narrow circle which surrounds them. It was this in
sight which forced upon him the conviction, in 1859,
that it was high time to act, or else to be prepared to
see the movement find another champion, and escape
control altogether. However cautious the initiative
may have been, and however far it may have remained
behind expectation, it was sufficient to change the face
of Europe, to constitute an Italy, and to force even the
most reactionary sovereigns to break, at least in appear
ance, with their traditions, and come to a compromise
with their peoples. Nor was the reward for the good
deed long in coming. The advantages and the prestige
gained by the war of 1859, by strengthening his power
at home, allowed the Emperor to make the first step
towards relaxing that system of restrictions which had
prevailed since 1852 ; while the bold championship of
national rights acquired for him in the councils of
Europe one of the proudest and most formidable posi
tions a sovereign could aspire to.
These facts are too patent to admit of a doubt of the
Emperor's just appreciation of the spirit which moves
Europe ; he evidently understands " Idealogues" better
than his uncle did, and has — it matters little whether
from sympathy or necessity — recognised that Imperial
ism can have no lasting foundation but as the cham
pion of popular and national sovereignty.
If, nevertheless, we see these ideas still so crude and
undeveloped in practice, nay, often so thwarted and
opposed as to make them appear a mockery, we must
seek for some obstacle and disturbing cause which has
hitherto prevented their becoming a reality.

GOSSIP. 209
All unprejudiced persons in France have long deplored
this disturbing cause in the coup d'etat, which placed
Imperialism from the outset in a false position, and
which weighs upon it still with all the heaviness of a
curse. It was a strange fatality, indeed, which forced
the champion of popular and national sovereignty to
establish his claims, in the first instance, by an act of
arbitrary violence. No doubt the reactionary spirit of
the Chamber was threatening to produce another social
convulsion more bloody than any before. The Legislative
Assembly, having passed a law abolishing universal
direct suffrage, had violated the very basis of the Revo
lution of 1848, of which it was an offshoot. No doubt
the coup d'etat was approved of by eight millions of
votes ; but, for all that, the very first act of the Empire
was a contradiction to its own principles. This first act
necessarily led to others. The new system had to be
consolidated ; and this could not well be done, after
such a beginning, but by the introduction of a com
plete system of repression. All individual and pohtical
freedom had to be suspended ; the partisans of those very
ideas of popular sovereignty had to be proscribed ; and,
in the first instance, priests, soldiers, and employe's —
that is, the most decided adversaries of them — resorted
to, to establish Imperialism. In this manner the Empire
was from the beginning forced deeper and deeper into
that labyrinth of contradictions, uncertainties, and va
cillations in which it is still wandering about.
There is a strong feeling in France that all this might
have been avoided, and this feeling exists just among
those who are the advocates of the same ideas which
the Empire has so often proclaimed as its own. It is a
common belief that a direct appeal to the people would

210 GOSSIP.
have been from the first as efficient as bayonets, and
would have established the Empire free from this in-
[ cubus. Whoever remembers how thoroughly disorgan
ised and torn by factions the people was, as well as
the Assembly, in 1851— how the leaders of the re
action were as ready to resort to violence as he who
adroitly had the start of them,— whoever remembers
all these things, may perhaps entertain some doubts
about the efficiency of an appeal to the people. But
even if the possibility of such an appeal without a civil
war might be proved, it would be of little avail ten
years after another solution has taken place.
Whether it was mistake or necessity which led the
Emperor into the labyrinth, it is but fair to say that
he has manfully struggled to get out of it ; and the
difficulties which he met with in this attempt to make
the Empire into what it pretends to be were not slight.
First and foremost among them were the pretensions
of those who, either directly or indirectly, were made
instrumental in the establishment of the Empire. Like
true Frenchmen, they thought themselves entitled to
monopolise the whole success for themselves. Instead
of seeing that the system resorted to in the beginning
was an abnormal and exceptional one, which cannot
last, they only felt that they had profited by it. They
dreaded every change, however slight, which might dis
turb this wellbeing, never perceiving that, by trying to
keep too much, all may be lost again. This what might
be called the Imperial party brought, and with few ex
ceptions still brings, their whole dead weight to bear
on, whenever they apprehend an intention on the part
of the Emperor to move. They were always the most
determined adversaries of any relaxation in the system

GOSSIP. 211
of restrictions at home ; they looked with the greatest
suspicion on the Eastern war, opposed in every way
the Italian war. They tried last year all their resources
to dissuade the Emperor from enlarging the power of
the Legislative Assembly ; and they now move heaven
and earth to reverse the policy which dictated the
Italian war, or at any rate to keep up the status quo
in Rome. No doubt the influence of the individuals
of this party is small enough on the councils of the
Emperor, but their united dead weight tells. It must
be remembered that the Emperor is no more the exile
Louis Napoleon, who could ancl did see the world with
his own eyes, who could hear and watch the movement
of popular ideas and opinions. He must now rely for
his information on others, and try as best he can to
gather the truth from their garbled accounts. When
ever any step in a liberal and generous direction is
under contemplation, the clique vie with each other to
paint the dangers likely to result from it in the gloom
iest colours, and to represent France as on the brink of
an abyss. Besides, these are the very men who are
intrusted with the execution of all plans, and with the
control over their execution. It may be imagined with
what good -will they apply themselves to the task — how
liberally they interpret every measure ; so constant in
deed and assiduous is their kind care, that every gene
rous thought dwindles down, until little more remains
of it than a shadow, and the world begins to suspect
that all was but a sham. On the other hand, the
jealousy and greediness of this party forms a constant
subject of satire and indignation to the public, and,
whether deservedly or not, brings discredit on the Im
perial regime.

212 GOSSIP.
The question naturally obtrudes itself, Why not make
another coup d'etat with them, as it would be even
more certain to be applauded by France than that
of the 2d of December ? The reply must be, It is
the curse, the first coup d'etat. It bred suspicion
against all those who are not servilely devoted, and
admitted of no intermediate class between sycophants
and deadly enemies. Whoever showed the least trace
of independence was put down into the last category.
This suspicion may not have been without foundation
in the beginning, when a wholesale razzia was under
taken against all that was prominent in France ; but it
might have long ceased were it not adroitly fostered by
the Imperialists, who dread competition, and have an
interest in making themselves indispensable ; and it is
owing to their well-combined efforts that all attempts
to bring about a reconciliation with the old parties
have failed. In the very last attempt, when, at the
invitation of the Government itself, some of the bolder
ones came forward as candidates for the municipal
councils, the prefets brought all their influence to bear
in order to exclude them as " suspicious."
Suspicion on one side naturally increases the hostil
ity of the other. How can it be expected that those
who are treated as political lepers should find it their
interest to support Imperialism — to persuade themselves
of its stability, and to give up plotting? And yet, con
sidering the general political scepticism in France, the
consequence of the successive breaking-down of all poli
tical theories, there can be little doubt that the great
mass of these " suspicious characters " would have long
ago bowed down before the success, had it not been for
this jealousy on the part of the Imperialists. As it is,

GOSSIP. 2 1 3
they are found to stand aloof in armed neutrality, if
not in hostile array.
The Empire thus moves in a sort of vicious circle,
which threatens to maintain that false position in which
it was placed by the coup d'etat. This vicious circle is
strengthened by those who, from one or another reason,
can never be reconciled with Imperialism. Their num
ber is exceedingly small, but their activity is so much
the greater. It all tends to strengthen the Government
in its mistakes, and always lends a helping hand when
ever this latter has a reactionary mood upon it.
Behind these false friends, presses, in the same direc
tion, the great crowd of the middle classes, unprincipled,
timid, egotistical, and politically the most uneducated
and most prejudiced class of the country. Woe to
him who would rely upon them ; he would find them
intolerant and exacting in good fortune, and cow
ardly in reverse. The success of Imperialism has won
them over to a man, but they would be the first to
turn round and hoot down their idol if he dared to be
unsuccessful. It was their frantic cry which lately
resounded in the discussions in the Senate and in
the Corps Legislatif. While all these agencies tend
to push the Empire towards a reactionary policy, and
to keep up that fatal contradiction between its avow
ed principles and its practice, there stands in the dis
tance an indifferent spectator, the mass of the people,
uneducated, but sound at the core, and not with
out generous instincts, which require but fostering
to become developed. Of all the people in France,
the artisan and ouvrier of the great towns alone
divined instinctively the great idea which lay at the
bottom of the Italian war, and he was the only one dis-

214 GOSSIP.
satisfied with the abrupt close of it, which left the idea
but half realised. He showed his feelings in the mat
ter by the ovation which he made at the departure
of the Emperor for Italy, and by the coolness which
he manifested at his return, in spite of the laurels
and trophies brought back. The feeling was genuine,
for the transactions about Nice and Savoy were then
unknown. With such obstacles in the way as a flagrant viola
tion of the principle of popular sovereignty at starting,
an egotistical, grasping set of officials, a host of suspected
enemies, a band of false friends, and with no other ele
ments to work upon but an unprincipled, narrow-minded
middle class, and an ignorant popular mass, the wonder
is not that so much uncertainty and vacillation should
oe visible, but, on the contrary, that all efforts to rule
otherwise than by force have not been long given up in
despair. These perplexing uncertainties are a healthy
symptom, which show that the struggle to get out of
the false position is more earnest than ever.
" Compromise " is the watchword in this struggle. To
allay old feuds, to create common interests by stimulat
ing national ambition and national welfare, to abate the
extreme pretensions of parties, to reconcile old and new
ideas — such is the constant aim visible. As the balance
oscillates in one or in the other direction, each party
claims the victory.
In a country which has been always lost by its rushing
into extremes, this "jeu de bascule," as it is commonly
called, may not unfairly be interpreted as a preparation
for free institutions, which are based on an equilibrium
and moderation of parties and ideas ; but there must
be some strong basis which no swinging process will

GOSSIP. 215
upset. In France the whole game is artificial, and its
safety lies in the strength of the government which
keeps it in its hands.
The people must be first educated for it practically.
It is not in the Corps Legislatif that such an education
can take place ; it_.must begin lower down. All the vio
lence, impracticability, and want of temper which have
always characterised French Assemblies, originated, in
a great measure, in that want of a preparatory school
which local self-government alone can supply. Men
who never had even the right of moving without the
authority of the Government — who, in their own com
munes, had not the least control over their functionaries
or the most trifling improvements — were called upon to
treat high pohtical subjects, and decide the fate of
governments. There is a growing feeling in France
among that small cluster who look beyond the present,
that the too great centralisation is the great evil from
which the country has been suffering so long, and that
nothing can be done untfl this relic of the old govern
ments is done away with.
The Imperial Government itself boasts to have done
a good deal towards decentralisation ; and, in the ' Ex
pose* of the Situation of the Empire,' which was presented
this year to the Senate and Corps Legislatif, the progress
made in this respect is pointed to.
The progress amounts to this, that the administration
has been simplified, and that many local affairs which
had formerly to be brought before the Ministry of the
Interior are now left in the hands of the prefets. The
' Expose*' boasts likewise of the full freedom which has
been left to the initiative of the municipal councils, and
to the Conseils Generaux of the departments. The

216 GOSSIP.
misfortune is, that few believe or even trouble themselves
in France about this freedom, the importance of which
they are not able to appreciate ; but, in spite of assur
ances to the contrary, all such freedom must be desultory
as long as all magistrates, down to the Garde Champetre,
are functionaries appointed by Government, responsible
only to their superiors, and not impeachable before
the tribunals for any act of abuse of power they may
have committed — as long as these functionaries have
an overpowering influence in the elections of munici
pal councils, and as long as the Government possesses
the power of dissolving unruly councils, and replacing
them by commissions appointed by the selfsame func
tionaries. This system of centralisation is not new ; it has been
steadily followed and perfected by all the successive
governments, whatever their name may have been; it
has taken deep root in the French character, and has
produced that tendency towards the centre of govern
ment which is so striking. It pushes the young men
of the village towards the town in the vicinity, and
from these towns towards the capital. Paris is the
magnet which attracts all imaginations, and any energy
which might be required for local affairs is considered
either as a loss, or else as merely a disagreeable inter
mediate stage which must be passed through.
And yet it is in these local spheres that Frenchmen
must learn moderation, fair party play, and acquire the
habit of handling political problems practically before
they will be fit to be trusted on the larger arena in the
capital. Until this is done, the very idea of a com
promise, at which the Emperor seems to aim, will not
even be understood, and the "jeu de bascule" will appear

GOSSIP. 217
as uncertain shuffling, which merely tends to confirm
the disbelief in all fixed principles.
No one has a greater interest in giving to Frenchmen
this taste for local self-government, and teaching them
the value of it, than just the Government itself. Had
this interest been rightly understood by preceding gov
ernments, many of those violent convulsions which have
changed so often the fate of France might have been
avoided. The rigid system of administrative centralisa
tion had so accustomed all France to follow, sheep-like,
the orders which came from the capital, that a small
number of bold men who could get up a successful
eineute in Paris found no difficulty in making them
selves masters of France. They got the mainstrings of
the administration into their hands, and imposed their
will on the provinces. How different might have been
the issue had there been even the slightest trace of that
spirit of independence which such local self-government
is alone able to keep alive and develop ! Imperialism,
which has been so successful in its other attempts of
changing Frenchmen, of eradicating prejudices, awaken
ing new ideas, teaching new pursuits, would probably
be equally successful in forming the taste for local self-
government; and the success in this respect would do
more than anything else towards consolidating what has
been done. Local self-government would be at the same
time the surest and safest way of rousing gradually the
people from that state of political torpor and scepticism
in which it is sunk, and to conjure those violent tran
sitions from lethargy to extreme violence which are so
characteristic in French history.
The Emperor has shown, by the concessions he made
within the last two years, that he does not indulge in

218 GOSSIP.
the illusion that the present torpor will last for ever ;
while the exhibition which senators and deputies have
made of themselves during the late debates must have
convinced him, as well as the world, how incapable
Frenchmen are still of free institutions. It seems, there
fore, high time to think of educating them in the only
way this can be done.
The Imperial Government, it is true, loudly disclaims
all imitation of parliamentary party government, as unfit
for a people which requires a strong executive to arbi
trate between conflicting interests ; but it nevertheless
admits the principle of control over the Government.
To exercise such control in a reasonable manner, to
understand and appreciate the difficulties and embar
rassments of the Government, political education is just
as necessary as for party government. Men who have
learnt at their expense how difficult it is, now and then,
to manage even the affairs of a petty commune or town,
to reconcile all those petty interests, at war with each
other, and to " make both ends meet," are more likely
to take a charitable view of the embarrassments to which
the government of a great country is exposed, than men
whose judgment is exclusively formed by ideal standards
and theories.
That idea of a compromise between old and new
ideas, which can be distinctly traced in internal affairs,
is even more apparent in the Emperor's foreign policy.
It originated in a similar contradiction and false posi
tion. Brought forward by the Revolution, the Em
peror's very name was a threat to legitimacy, and the
establishment of the Empire the first " coup de canif" to
the treaty of Vienna ; on the other hand, the coup d'etat
itself, and the expedition to Rome, whether voluntary

GOSSIP. 219
or forced upon him, were little calculated to inspire the
national parties in Europe with much confidence in the
good intentions of the ruler of France.
Both sides, therefore, watched eagerly which way the
balance would incline towards old or new ideas. In the
beginning the former seemed decidedly the more weighty,
and the whole foreign policy of France seemed only in
tent on persuading crowned heads that they had an ally,
and not an enemy, in the new Empire. The Eastern
war, directed as it was against the most open champion
of reaction in Europe, and undertaken as it was in alli
ance with liberal England and Sardinia, re-established
for one moment the equilibrium. The subsequent years
destroyed it again, and Imperial policy abroad seemed
to gravitate more than ever towards old sovereigns and
old ideas. Indeed, all hope of seeing the Emperor espouse
the cause of freedom in Europe seemed so utterly gone,
that he was at last considered as the chief obstacle to any
improvement in Europe. The Italian war changed this
despondency into sanguine hope. Villafranca somewhat
sobered down these hopes ; the annexation of Central
Italy again raised them : Nice and Savoy depressed
them; and so on up to the present time.
Amid these uncertainties and contradictions, from
which the foreign policy seems to suffer, there stands
out, however* the broad fact that, owing in a great
measure to the initiative of the Emperor, those ideas
of national independence and popular sovereignty which
the Empire professes have made great progress all over
Europe, leaving little doubt which way the balance is
inclining here as well as at home.
This attempt at a compromise in both cases proceeds
from the same apprehension of extremes, and proves

220 GOSSIP.
that desire to act as mediator and arbiter between
them. The Empire has been lately defined by Prince Napo
leon as the " organised revolution," that is, a deliberate
orderly transition from old to new, adopting the prin
ciples laid down by the Revolution of 1789, but estab
lishing them, not by violent popular commotions, but
by the direct agency of the Government. The defini
tion is a happy one as regards the aim and tendency of
Imperialism ; but as yet the work of organisation is far
from complete : it must begin in France, and there the
process of transformation is still at its height.
Indeed this transformation, and the rapidity of it, is
the characteristic feature which obtrudes itself at every
step in France.
Change, change, change is written up everywhere.
Men, ideas, pursuits, country, town — all things, living
and inanimate, proclaim it loud. But short ten years
have passed, and a new world has arisen. Old types
gradually disappear, and new ones take their place.
No one would recognise in the civilised being dressed
" comme tout le monde," and swaggering up and down
the asphalt of the Boulevard, the reckless, eccentric
student, the inhabitant of the Boheme of Murger. The
gay, modest grisette of Beranger, that charming com
pound of affection and selfishness, devotion and " gour-
mandise," has dropped her coquettish cap and " robe de
percail," and has been metamorphosed into the dashing
Lorette. The timid French capitalist, who was invari
ably left behind by foreign enterprise, now hurries on
headlong after the Mireses, and displays in this race a
recklessness calculated to frighten even the bold Anglo-
Saxon. The bourgeois National Guard, infected as

GOSSIP. 221
usual by the mania of his betters, seeks for a place
where to hide his traditional " bonnet de coton," and
brings out his dear five-franc pieces, which he had
been treasuring hitherto with such anxious care. The
imaginative Frenchman, the plaything of theoreticians
and agitators, always ready to follow any high-soaring
Icarus into the clouds, turns now with scorn from
the finest phrases, ancl has chosen as his motto the
advice of Faust, " that grey is all theory, and green the
tree of life." The gay witty Gaul, with his keen sense
of enjoyment, indolent and violent in rapid succession,
finds now no time for either wit or enjoyment, and
hurries through life as if he wished to make up for the
time he has idled and trifled away before. The very
cabman and his horse, those emblems of all that was
slow and stationary, are trying to get the better of
their aversion to rapid evolutions.
So quick has been all this transformation of people
and country, that, if it continues another ten years,
Imperial France promises to be as different from what
it was before 1848, as the British Isles are now from
the time when they harboured Plesiosauri and Ichthyo
sauri. What the transformation will ultimately lead to, no
man can tell ; but every one who is unprejudiced must
see that it has been successful so far. This has been its
chief merit, and forms its chief danger. To precipitate
as much as possible this process of transformation, and
to be successful at any price while the process is going
on — such is the difficult task which Imperialism has to
perform. Until this task is completed, the apprehensions
and uncertainties which surround it must last. The
success which has attended its efforts hitherto was

222 GOSSIP.
sufficient to reduce the active enemies of the Empire
to insignificance, but not to procure sincere friends on
whose support it might reckon under all circumstances.
The transformation must be complete ; the " popular
sovereignty" which the elect of eight millions has in
scribed on his banner must be a reality ; and those
national aspirations which threaten to convulse Eu
rope must be satisfied, before the present ready acqui
escence in success can become sincere partisanship, and
before all uneasiness about the future will be allayed.

THE END.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.