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Chateau of Mount St. Michael in Normandy. | printing-offices of some newspapers, prevents This great state-prison, capable of holding this last act of despotism. The National many hundred prisoners, is situated in the Guard, in all probability, would resist such an sea, on the coast of the Channel, and amply attempt, and if not supported by them, it would tenanted now by the most unruly part of the endanger the crown of Louis Philippe. population of Paris, under a powerful military vernment has apparently discovered that the and naval garrison. retention of the power of abuse consoles the Parisians for the loss of all their other liberties. They read the newspapers and see the ministry violently assailed, and imagine they are in full possession of freedom, though they cannot travel ten leagues from Paris without a passport, nor go to bed in the evening with any security that they will not be arrested during the night by the police, and consigned to prison, without any possibility of redress, for an indefinite period.

Above fifteen hundred persons were arrested after the great revolt at the Cloister of St. Merri, in June, 1832, and, though a few have been brought to trial or discharged, the great majority still remain in prison, in the charge of the police, under warrants apparently of interminable duration. The nightly arrests and numerous domiciliary visits are constantly adding to this immense number, and gradually thinning that ardent body who effected the Revolution of July, and have proved The present government appears to be so formidable to every government of France, generally disliked, and borne from despair of since the beginning of the revolutionary trou- getting any other, more than any real attachbles in 1789. The fragment of this body, who ment. You may travel over the whole counfought at the Cloister of St. Merri, evinced such try without discovering one trace of affection heroic courage and invincible determination, to the reigning family. Their names are that the government have resolved on a bellum ad hardly ever mentioned; by common consent internecionem with such formidable antagonists, they appear to be consigned to oblivion by all and, by the continued application of arrests classes. A large and ardent part of the peoand domiciliary visits, have now considerably ple are attached to the memory of Napoleon, weakened their numbers, as well as damped their hopes. Still it is against this democratic rump that all the vigilance of the police is exerted. The royalists are neglected or despised; but the republicans, whom it is not so easy to daunt, are sought out with undecaying vigilance, and treated with uncommon severity. Public meetings, or any of the other constitutional modes of giving vent to general opinion in Great Britain, are unknown in France. If twenty or thirty thousand men were collected together in that way, they would infallibly be assailed by the military force, and their dispersion, or the overthrow of the government, would be the consequence.

and seize every opportunity of testifying their admiration of that illustrious man. Another large and formidable body have openly espoused the principles of democracy, and are indefatigable in their endeavours to establish their favourite dream of a republic. The Royalists, few in number in Paris and the great commercial towns, abound in the south and west, and openly proclaim their determi nation, if Paris will take the lead, to restore the lawful race of sovereigns. But Louis Philippe has few disinterested partisans, but the numerous civil and military employés who wear his livery or eat his bread. Not a vestige of attachment to the Orleans dynasty is to The only relic of freedom, which has sur- be seen in France. Louis Philippe is a man vived the Revolution of July, is the liberty of of great ability, vast energy, and indomitable the press. It is impossible to read the journals resolution: but though these are the qualities which are in every coffee-house every morn- most dear to the French, he has no hold of ing, without seeing that all the efforts of des- their affections. His presence in Paris is potism have failed in coercing this mighty in- known only by the appearance of a mounted strument. The measures of public men are patrol on each side of the arch in the Place canvassed with unsparing severity: and not Carousel, who are stationed there only when only liberal, but revolutionary measures ad- the king is at the Tuileries. He enters the vocated with great earnestness, and no small capital, and leaves it, without any one inquirshare of ability. It is not, however, without ing or knowing any thing about him. If he the utmost efforts on the part of government is seen in the street, not a head is uncovered, to suppress it, that this licentiousness exists. not a cry of Vive le Roi is heard. Nowhere is Prosecutions against the press have been in- a print or bust of any of the royal family to be stituted with a degree of rigour and frequency, seen. Not a scrap of printing narrating any since the Revolution of July, unknown under of their proceedings, beyond the government the lenient and feeble government of the Re-journals, is to be met with. You may travel storation. The Tribune, which is the leading across the kingdom, or, what is of more con republican journal, has reached its eighty-second sequence, traverse Paris in every direction, prosecution, since the Three Glorious Days. without being made aware, by any thing you More prosecutions have been instituted since see or hear, that a king exists in France. The the accession of the Citizen King, than during royalists detest him, because he has establishthe whole fifteen that the elder branch of the eď a revolutionary throne-the republicans, Bourbons was on the throne. The govern- because he has belied all his professions in ment, however, have not ventured on the de- favour of freedom, and reared a military de cisive step of suppressing the seditious jour-potism on the foundation of the Barricades. nals, or establishing a censorship of the press. The French, in consequence of these cit The recollection of the Three Days, which cumstances, are in a very peculiar state. They mmenced with the attempts to shut up the are discontented with every thing, and what is

They

have a vivid impression also of the external consequences of such an event: they know that their hot-headed youth would instantly press forward to regain the frontier of the Rhine; they foresee an European war, a cessation of the influx of foreign wealth into Paris, and possibly a third visit by the Cossacks to the Champs Elysées. These are the considerations which maintain the allegiance of the National Guard, and uphold the throne of Louis Philippe, when there is hardly a spark of real attachment to him in the whole kingdom. He is supported, not because his character is loved, his achievements admired, or his principles venerated, but because he is the last barrier between France and revolutionary suffering, and because the people have drunk too deep of that draught to tolerate a repetition of its bitterness.

worse, they know not to what quarter to look | actions; the Reign of Terror, the massacres for relief. They are tired of the Citizen King, in the prisons float before their eyes. whom they accuse of saving money, and preparing for America; of having given them the weight of a despotism without its security, and the exhaustion of military preparation without either its glory or its advantages. They (excluding the royalists) abhor the Bourbons, whom they regard as priest-ridden, and superstitious, weak and feeble, men unfit to govern the first nation in the world. They dread a republic as likely to strip them of their sons and their fortunes; to induce an interminable war with the European powers; deprive them of their incomes, and possibly endanger the national independence. They are discontented with the present, fearful of the future, and find their only consolation in reverting to the days of Napoleon and the Grand Army, as a brilliant drama now lost for ever. They are in the situation of the victim of passion, or the slave of pleasure, worn out with enjoyment, blasé with satiety, who has no longer any energetic and most formidable party in France, joyment in life, but incessantly revolts with the prurient restlessness of premature age to the orgies and the excesses of his youth.

What then, it may be asked, upholds the reigning dynasty, if it is hated equally by both the great parties who divide France, and can number none but its own official dependents among its supporters? The answer is to be found in the immense extent of the pecuniary losses which the Revolution of July occasioned to all men of any property in the country, and the recollection of the Reign of Terror, which is still vividly present to the minds of the existing generation.

Although, therefore, there is a large and en

who are ardently devoted to revolutionary principles, and long for a republic, as the commencement of every imaginable felicity; yet the body in whom power is at present really vested, is essentially conservative. The National Guard of Paris, composed of the most reputable of the citizens of that great metropolis, equipped at their own expense, and receiving no pay from government, consists of the very persons who have suffered most severely by the late convulsions. They form the ruling power in France; for to them more than the garrison of the capital, the government look for that support which is so necesOn the English side of the channel, few are sary amidst the furious factions by whom aware of the enormous pecuniary losses with they are assailed; and to their opinions the which the triumph of democracy, in July, people attach a degree of weight which does -1830, was attended. In Paris, all parties are not belong to any other body in France. The agreed that the depreciation of property of Chamber of Peers are disregarded, the legis every description in consequence of that event lative body despised; but the National Guard was about a third: in other words, every man is the object of universal respect, because every found himself a third poorer after the over- one feels that they possess the power of throw of Charles X. than he was before it. making or unmaking kings. The crown does Over the remainder of France the losses sus- not hesitate to act in opposition to a vote of tained were nearly as great, in some places both Chambers; but the disapprobation of a still heavier. For the two years which suc- majority of the National Guard is sure to comceeded the Barricades, trade and commerce mand attention. In vain the Chamber of Deof every description was at a stand; the import puties refused a vote of supplies for the erecof goods declined a fourth, and one half of the tion of detached forts round Paris; the ground shopkeepers in Paris and all the great towns was nevertheless purchased, and the sappers became bankrupt. The distress among the and miners, armed to the teeth, were busily labouring classes, and especially those who employed from four in the morning till twelve depended on the sale of articles of manufac- at night, in their construction; but when sevetured industry or luxury, was unprecedented. ral battalions of the National Guard, in de It is the recollection of this long period of na- filing before the king, on the anniversary of tional agony which upholds the throne of Louis the Three Days, exclaimed, "A bas les forts Philippe. The National Guard of Paris, who detachés," the works were suspended, and are are in truth the ruling power in France, know now going on only at Vincennes, and two by bitter experience to what a revolution, even other points. That which was refused to the of the most bloodless kind, leads-decay of collected wisdom of the Representatives of business, decline of credit, stoppage of sales, France is conceded at once to the cries of pressure of creditors. They recollect the in-armed men: the ultimate decision is made by numerable bankruptcies of 1830 and 1831, and are resolved that their names shall not enter the list They know that the next convulsion would establish a republic in unbridled sovereignty: they know the principles of these apostles of democracy; they recollect their

the bayonet; and the boasted improvements of modern civilization, terminate in the same appeal to physical strength which character. ize the days of Clovis.

This contempt into which the legislature has fallen, is one of the great features of

France, since the Revolution of July; but it is presentatives of such varied interests must be one which is least known or understood on chosen: the interests in the nation do not exist the English side of the channel. The causes whose intermixture is essential to a weighty which produced it had been long in operation, legislature. Elected by persons possessed of but it was that event which brought them fully one uniform qualification-the payment of diand prominently into view. The supreme rect taxes to the amount of two hundred francs, power has now passed into other hands. It or eight pounds sterling a-year-the deputies was neither the Peers nor the Commons, but are the representatives only of one class in the Populace in the streets, the heroes of the society, the small proprietors. The other inBarricades, who seated Louis Philippe on the terests in the state either do not exist or are throne. The same force, it is acknowledged, not represented. The persons who are chosen possesses the power to dethrone him; and are seldom remarkable either for their fortune, hence the National Guard of the capital, as family, talent, or character. They are, to use the organized concentration of this power, is a homely expression, "neighbour like;" indilooked to with respect. The departments, it viduals of a bustling character, or ambitious is known, will hail with shouts whatever king, views, who have taken to politics as the best or whatever form of government the armed and most lucrative profession they could force in the capital choose to impose; the de- choose, as opening the door most easily to the puties, it is felt, will hasten to make their sub- innumerable civil and military offices which mission to the leaders who have got possession are the object of universal ambition in France. of the treasury, the bank, the telegraph, and Hence they are not looked up to with respect the war office. Hence, the strife of faction even by their own department, who can never is no longer carried on by debates in the get over the homeliness of their origin or Chambers, or efforts in the legislature. The moderation of their fortune, and by the rest of National Guard of Paris is the body to which France are unknown or despised. all attention is directed; and if the departments are considered, it is not in order to influence their representatives, but to procure addresses or petitions from members of their National Guards, to forward the views of the great parties at work in the metropolis. Such petitions or addresses are daily to be seen in the public papers, and are referred to with undisguised satisfaction by the parties whose views they support. No regard is paid but to the men who have bayonets in their hands. Every thing directly, or indirectly, is referred to physical strength, and the dreams of modern equality are fast degenerating into the lasting empire

of the sword.

The chief complaint against the legislature in France is, that it is swayed by corruption and interested motives. That complaint has greatly increased since the lowering of the freehold qualification from three hundred to two hundred francs of direct taxes, in consequence of the Revolution of July. This change has opened the door to a lower and more corruptible class of men; numbers of whom got into the legislature by making the most vehement professions of liberal opinions to their constituents, which they instantly forgot when the seductions of office and emolument were displayed before their eyes. The majority of the Chamber, it is alleged, are gained by corruption; and the more that the qualification is lowered the worse has this evil become. This is founded on the principles of human nature, and is of univer sal application. The more that you descend in society, the more will you find men accessible to base and selfish considerations, because bribes are of greater value to those who possess little or nothing than those who possess a great deal. Many of the higher ranks are corrupt, but the power of resisting seduction exists to a greater degree among them than their inferiors. You often run the risk of insult if you offer a man or woman of elevated station a bribe, but seldom if it is insinuated into the hand of their valet or lady's maid; and when the ermine of the bench is unspotted, so much can frequently not be said of the clerks or servants of those elevated functionaries. Where the legislature is elected by persons of that inferior description, the influence of corruption will always be found to increase. It is for the people of England to judge whether the Reformed Parliament is or is not destined to afford another illustration of the rule.

The complete insignificance of the Chambers, however, is to be referred to other and more general causes than the successful revolt of the Barricades. That event only tore aside the veil which concealed the weakness of the legislature; and openly proclaimed what political wisdom had long feared, that the elements of an authoritative and paramount legislature do not exist in France. When the National Assembly destroyed the nobility, the landed proprietors, the clergy, and the incorporations of the country, they rendered a respectable legislature impossible. It is in vain to attempt to give authority or weight to ordinary individuals not gifted with peculiar talents, by merely electing them as members of parliament. If they do not, from their birth, descent, fortune, or estates, already possess it, their mere translation in the legislature will never have this effect. The House of Commons under the old English constitution was so powerful, because it contained the representatives of all the great and lasting interests of the country, of its nobles, its landed proprietors, its merchants, manufacturers, To whatever cause it may be owing, the fact burghers, tradesmen, and peasants. It com- is certain, and cannot be denied by any person manded universal respect, because every man practically acquainted with France, that the felt that his own interests were wound up with Chamber of Deputies has fallen into the most and defended by a portion of that body. But complete contempt. Their debates have al this is not and cannot be the case in France-most disappeared; they are hardly reported the classes are destroyed from whom the re-by the public press; seldom is any opposition

to be seen amongst them. When Louis Phi- | are roused; the National Guard hesitate, or .ippe's crown was in jeopardy in June, 1832, it join the insurgents; the troops of the line rewas to the National Guard, and not to either fuse to act against their fellow-citizens; the branch of the legislature, that all parties look-reigning dynasty is dethroned; a new flag is ed with anxiety. A unanimous vote of the old hoisted at the Tuileries; and the submissive English Parliament would probably have had departments hasten to declare their allegiance great weight with an English body of insur- to the reigning power now in possession of the gents, as it certainly disarmed the formidable treasury and the telegraph, and disposing of mutineers at the Nore; but a unanimous vote some hundred thousand civil and military of both Chambers at Paris would have had little offices throughout France. or no effect. A hearty cheer from three battalions of National Guards would have been worth a hundred votes of the Chambers; and an insurrection, which all the moral force of Parliament could not subdue, fell before the vigour of two regiments of National Guards from the Banlieue.

No sooner is this great consummation effected, than the fruits of the victory begin to be enjoyed by the successful party. Offices, honours, posts, and pensions, are showered down on the leaders, the officers, and pioneers in the great work of national regeneration. The editors of the journals whose side has It is owing apparently to this prodigious as- proved victorious, instantly become ministers: cendency of the National Guard of Paris, that all their relations and connections, far beyond the freedom of discussion in the public jour- any known or computable degree of consannals has survived all the other liberties of guinity, are seated in lucrative or important France. These journals are, in truth, the offices. Regiments of cavalry, préfetships, pleaders before the supreme tribunals which sous-préfetships, procureurships, mayorships, govern the country, and they are flattered by adjointships, offices in the customs, excise, the fearlessness of the language which is em-police, roads, bridges, church, universities, ployed before them. They are as tenacious schools, or colleges, descend upon them thick of the liberty of the press at Paris, in conse- as autumnal leaves in Vallombrosa. Meanquence, as the Prætorian Guards or Janizaries were of their peculiar and ruinous privileges. The cries of the National Guard, the ruling power in France, are prejudiced by the incessant efforts of the journals on the different sides, who have been labouring for months or years to sway their opinions. Thus the ultimate appeal in that country is to the editors of newspapers, and the holders of bayonets, perhaps the classes of all others who are most unfit to be intrusted with the guidance of pub-selves. lic affairs; and certainly those the least qualified, in the end, to maintain their independence against the seductions or offers of a powerful executive.

while the vanished party are universally and rigidly excluded from office, their whole relations and connections in every part of France find themselves suddenly reduced to a state of destitution, and their only resource is to begin to work upon the opinions of the armed force or restless population of the capital, in the hope that, after the lapse of a certain number of years, another revolution may be effected, and the golden showers descend upon them

In the Revolution of July, prepared as it had been by the efforts of the liberal press for fifteen years in France, and organized as it was by the wealth of Lafitte, and a few of the great bankers in Paris, this system was successful. And accordingly, Thiers, Guizot, the Duke de Broglio, and the whole coterie of the doctrinaires, have risen at once, from being editors of newspapers, or lecturers to students, to the station of ministers of state, and dispensers of several hundred thousand offices, They are now, in consequence, the objects of universal obloquy and hatred with the remain

The central government at Paris is omnipotent in France; but it does by no means follow from that, that this central government is itself placed on a stable foundation. The authority of the seraglio is paramount over Turkey: but within its precincts the most dreadful contests are of perpetual recurrence. The National Assembly, by concentrating all the powers of government in the capital, necessarily delivered over its inhabitants to an inter-der of the liberal party, who accuse them of minable future of discord and strife. When having sacrificed all their former opinions, once it is discovered that the mainspring of and embraced all the arbitrary tenets of the all authority and influence is to be found in royalist faction, whom they were instrumental the government offices of Paris, the efforts of in subverting. Their conduct since they came the different parties who divide the state are into office, and especially since the accession incessant to make themselves masters of the of Casimir Perier's administration on the 13th talisman. This is to be done, not by any March, 1831, has been firm and moderate, efforts in the departments, any speeches in the strongly inclined to conservative principles, legislature, or any measures for the public and, in consequence, odious to the last degree good, but by incessant working at the armed to the anarchical faction by whose aid they force of the capital. By labouring in the pub-rose to greatness. lic journals, in pamphlets, books, reviews, and The great effort of this excluded faction was magazines, for a certain number of years, the made on the 5th and 6th of June, 1832, on faction in opposition at length succeed in occasion of the funeral of Lamarque. In making an impression on the holders of bay-England it was not generally known how foronets in Paris, or on the ardent and penniless youth who frequent its coffee-houses; and when once this is done, by a well organized emeute, the whole is concluded. The people

midable that insurrection was, and how nearly it had subverted the newly erected throne of the Barricades. Above eighty thou. sand persons, including a considerable por

city of Paris can make themselves masters of the Hotel de Ville, France is more than half conquered; if their forces are advanced to the Marché des Innocens, the throne is in greater danger than if the Rhine had been crossed by two hundred thousand men: but if their flag is hoisted on the Tuileries, the day is won, and France, with its eighty-four departments and thirty-two millions of inhabitants, is at the disposal of the victorious faction. If the rebels who sold their lives so dearly in the cloister of St. Merri could have openly gained over to their side one regiment, and many only waited an example to join their colours, they would speedily have been in possession of the treasury, and the telegraph, and France was at their feet. No man knew this peculiarity in the political situation of the great nation better than Napoleon. He was little disquieted by the failure of the Russian campaign, till intelligence of the conspiracy of Mallet reached his ears; and that firmness which the loss of four hundred thousand men could not shake, was overturned by the news that the rebels in Paris had imprisoned the minister of police, and were within a hair's breadth of making themselves masters of the telegraph.

tion of the National Guard from the Fauxbourg | metropolis. Having no root in the provinces St. Antoine, and other manufacturing districts being based on no great interests in the state of Paris, walked in regular military array, it depends entirely on the armed force of the keeping the step in that procession: no one capital-a well organized emeule, the defection could see them without being astonished how of a single regiment of guards, a few seditious the government survived the crisis. In truth, cries from the National Guard, the sight of a their existence hung by a thread;-for several | favourite banner, a fortunate allusion to hearthours a feather would have cast the balance-stirring recollections, may at any moment conestablished a republican government, and sign it to destruction. If the insurgents of the plunged Europe in an interminable war. Till six o'clock in the evening the insurgents were continually advancing; and, at that hour, they had made themselves masters of about onehalf of Paris, including the whole district to the eastward of a line drawn from the Port St. Martin through the Hotel de Ville to the Pantheon. At the first alarm the government surrounded the Fauxbourg St. Antoine with troops, and would have perished, but for the fortunate cutting off of that great revolutionary quarter from the scene of active preparations. Though deprived of the expected co-operation in that district, however, the insurgents bravely maintained the combat; they entrenched themselves in the neighbourhood of the cloister of St. Merri, and among the narrow streets of that densely peopled quarter, maintained a doubtful struggle. The ministers, in alarm. sent for the king, with intelligence that his crown was at stake: above sixty thousand men, with an immense train of artillery, were brought to the spot; but still the issue seemed suspended. The National Guard of the city, for the most part, hung back; the cries of others were openly in favour of the insurgents; if a single battalion, either of the line or the National Guard, at It is not surprising that Paris should have that crisis had openly joined the rebels, all acquired this unbridled sovereignty over the was lost. In this extremity a singular circum- rest of the country, if the condition in which stance changed the fortune of the day, and the provinces have been left by the Revolution fixed his tottering crown on the head of Louis is considered. You travel through one of the Philippe. The little farmers round Paris, who departments-not a gentleman's house or a live by sending their milk and vegetables to chateau is to be seen. As far as the eye can the capital, found their business suspended by reach, the country is covered with sheets of the contest which was raging in the centre grain, or slopes covered with vines or vegeof the city, where the markets for their pro- tables, raised by the peasants who inhabit the duce are held; their stalls and paniers were villages, situated at the distance of a few miles seized by the rebels, and run up into barri- from each other. Does this immense expanse cades. Enraged at this invasion of their pro- belong to noblemen, gentlemen, or opulent perty and stoppage of their business, these proprietors capable of taking the lead in any little dealers joined their respective banners, common measures for the defence of the public and hastened with the National Guard of the liberties? On the contrary, it is partitioned Banlieue to the scene of action: they were out among an immense body of little proprieplentifully supplied with wine and spirits on tors, the great majority of whom are in a state the outside of the barrier; and before the ex- of extreme poverty, and who are chained to citation had subsided, were hurried over the the plough by the most imperious of all barricades, and determined the conflict. In its laws-that of absolute necessity. Morning, last extremity the crown of Louis Philippe noon, and night, they are to be seen labouring was saved, neither by his boasted guards, nor in the fields, or returning weary and spent to the civic force of the metropolis, but the anger their humble homes. Is it possible from such of a body of hucksters, gardeners, and milk-a class to expect any combined effort in favour dealers, roused by the suspension of their humble occupations.

of the emancipation of the provinces from the despotism of the capital? The thing is utterIt is this peculiarity in the situation of the ly impossible: as well might you look for an French government which renders it neces-organized struggle for freedom among the sary to watch the state of parties in Paris serfs of Russia or the ryots of Hindostan. with such intense anxiety, and renders the A certain intermixture of peasant proprie strife in its streets the signal for peace or war tors is essential to the well-being of society; all over the civilized world. The government and the want of such a class to a larger extent of France, despotic as it is over the remainder in England, is one of the circumstances most of the country, is entirely at the mercy of the to be lamented in its social condition. But

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