others are but grudgingly admitted there, and these latter are very apt to be lost in transit through the post. Moreover, few Frenchmen understand English, and the attacks upon their present government scarcely become known to any but that government itself, which is pretty sure to be irritated, but most unlikely to be amended or reformed, by violent and contemptuous language on the part of a foreign press. It were, perhaps, a wiser course to discontinue for a time the contemplation of Louis Napoleon's past; to look forward instead of back; and to judge him by what he shall do, and not by what he has done. Whilst English journalists empty the vials of their wrath upon the inscrutable dictator of France, what do the French say and think of their own condition and prospects? In public places one hears little or no politics talked; but if you converse in private with an intelligent and candid Frenchman, unbiassed by partisan influences, he speaks to you something in this strain: -"We have got what we deserved," he says; "nous l'avons bien gagné. The amount of freedom we now possess is all we have proved ourselves fit for and deserving of; the muzzling of the press, licentious and disreput able as it had become, should be viewed as a blessing rather than as an infliction; under the present régime we feel at least a temporary security, which for years previously we had not known. The government is strong, order is re-established, faction is crushed, commerce revives, material prosperity returns. We are sick of political theorists and charlatans, of liberators whose patriotism is concentrated in their breeches pockets, of princes unequal to emergencies and found wanting at the first trial. We do not laud the present man as a hero or a patriot; we see as plainly as you can the dark spots in his conduct and character, but still he has done France good service by crushing and disarming faction. Concerning his future conduct it were vain to prophesy; but after all we have gone through, we are well pleased to feel present security without peering too far or too inquisitively into the future."

Thus speak Frenchmen of the more

rational and reflecting class. Doubtless they feel humiliated at the loss of liberty, but they view that humiliation as the unavoidable atonement for the national folly and mutability. The less reflecting portion of the nation, the large body of the people, seem to have cast away all thoughts of politics. They have been so surfeited with them of late years, that, now that a respite has come, the reaction is proportionably strong, and the levity and insouciance of the national character are again in full force in the ascendant. Beyond a few bullet marks on the houses of the Boulevards, there is little in Paris to tell of recent convulsions. Here is a bright morningsuch a one as in London is rarely vouchsafed in this month. It is more like May than November. Last evening, until near midnight, people were sitting out of doors, as though in summer. You turn out early and ramble along the Boulevards, seeking an appetite for your omelette. There is a placard posted at the street corner, the paste still wet. You stop and read. Louis Napoleon recognises in print the national desire to restore the empire, and graciously intimates his compliance. Simultaneously with yourself, other passengers peruse the document. Absolute indifference is on every countenance. Qu' importe? The change from a nominal republic to a positive despotism is not worth a thought. Even had the move been unanticipated, it would scarcely have excited a smile or a frown, a passing emotion of contentment or disgust. The French political palate has been treated to such highly-spiced dishes, that nothing less than gunpowder seasoning seems now hot and sharp enough to affect it. So the artisan tramps onwards to his work, the clerk to his office, the speculator to the Opera Passage, and the idler pursues his stroll, whilst all have scarcely lost sight of the placard before ceasing to reflect on its contents. The whole day through, one is struck_by_the unmistakable evidence of Parisian carelessness about politics, of the little concern France now gives itself about the liberty that was once its boast. The physiognomy of the capital is one of profound indifference to the political condition of the country. A gleam

of sun takes a stream of vehicles to the Champs Elysées and Bois de Boulogne; the Boulevards and the Tuileries are as thronged with cheerful faces and light-hearted idlers as ever they were in the palmiest days of the Roi citoyen; cafes and eating-houses are crammed; on every side is heard the rattle of lively gossip; at night the numerous theatres are filled to the roof. A few weeks spent in Paris must convince any unprejudiced observer that English sympathisers are infinitely more shocked than the French themselves, at the destruction in France of the last shred of political freedom and constitutional government.

We have been pleased with the just appreciation of French feelings and affairs scattered here and there through a little volume which lately reached our hands.* Its anonymous author describes himself as a married American, who passed last winter with his family in the French capital, and who was still resident there as lately as June of the present year-the date of his preface. An intelligent American, who has lived in France and rubbed off Transatlantic prejudices by European intercourse, seems to us as fair and fitting a judge of French character and affairs as the French themselves could claim or expect. No sentiment of national rivalry or ancient animosity can be supposed to interfere with his dispassionate and impartial judgment; his brief traditions, from Lafayette's day and Washington's, are those of amity to France, of alliance with Frenchmen. In 1848 a fresh link of sympathy seemed to be forged between America and France. The great republic of the New World saw one of the greatest of European nations reject constitutional monarchy in favour of democracy. The congratulations offered, so eagerly and hastily, by the American minister at Paris to the Provisional Government, were harbingers of the applause and greeting that quickly crossed the Atlantic from the American Union to her sister republic. But the Yankees were too prompt with their plaudits.

The extension of liberty was soon replaced by its extinction; the inauguration of self-government by the establishment of despotism. Seen from a distance, a French republic appeared possible; but a closer view dispelled the illusion. The remarks upon this head of our friend in spectacles are pertinent enough.

"In another respect have my opinions undergone a change since my arrival in France. A republican myself, I sympathised with all that bore the name. France, as a republic, was a country to be loved as well as admired. But further acquaintance has convinced me, that neither by genius, habits, nor education, turies of absolutism are no preparative are Frenchmen republicans. Fifteen cenfor republicanism; and, were they tomorrow to be governed by the constitution of the United States, they would no more be republicans than would ducks be chickens though hatched under a hen.

"Americans justly consider religion and education as the wells whence they draw their republicanism. But it is religion and education carried home to each individual. Not a pompous ceremonial, to dazzle the eyes of the multitude, while it leaves their hearts as cold as the marble altars it rears; nor arts and sciences for the favoured few; but a vital principle, warming souls into action, and a system that carries the elements of knowledge to every fireside. Exile from the United States the clergy, blot out our common schools, and the next generation, ceasing to be republicans, would become anarchists. Give Frenchmen the same educalot-box, and the popular forms of governtion, not only of schools, but of the balment, from village select-men up to legislative assemblies, and you prepare them for republicanism; but, until a people have learned to govern themselves, they must be governed.

"I have no need to recal the past, to prove that free principles have never been firmly rooted in France. There have been continual struggles against oppression, and repeated contests for power. Whichever gained the prize, prince or people, ruled with the authority of a despot or the cruelty of a tyrant. Terrorism has ever been the favourite weapon, because existence was only insured by success. Those who gave no quarter, could expect none; and thus, though

there has been blood enough spilt in France to regenerate a world, it has enriched no soil but that of despotism.

"The revolution of 1789, in its general destruction, swept away a multitude of abuses. But the nation exchanged only one despotism for a greater, and gladly welcomed imperial rule to screen them from their own. In 1848, they again essayed republicanism; were well-nigh engulfed in anarchy, and now have sought safety and security in a dictator.

"When history has given so many proofs of the incapacity of a nation to be free, it is the part of wisdom, if she would remedy the evil, to investigate the causes. One of these I believe to be the

Catholic religion; which began by making the people bigots, and ended in leaving them infidels. In requiring implicit faith and obedience, it destroyed individual judgment and action. But the cause which at present prevents republicanism is ignorance: the actual ignorance of the masses, who, unable to read or reason for themselves, are alternately the tools of the demagogue and despot.

"Statistics will be found to sustain me in this opinion. The population of France is 36,000,000. In her primary schools she has 2,332,580 pupils, or the ratio of one-sixteenth of her population, supported at an annual expense of 1,800,000 dollars, or an average to each pupil of about 75 cents. The State of New York, in 1851, expended on 726,291 pupils in her common schools, 1,432,096 dollars, or an average of nearly 2 dollars a-head for onefourth of her population, while she has a fund of 6,612,850 dollars devoted to purposes of education. The actual difference is, that while New York expends twice and two-thirds as much on each pupil as France, she educates her population also in the ratio of fourfold in point of numbers. France expends more upon the tomb of Napoleon than upon her entire "Ecoles Primaires ;" and the city of Paris, from 1800 to 1845, has spent at the Hotel de Ville, in fêtes to the several governments of France, 2,000,000 dollars -a sum sufficient to support its common schools, at the present rate of appropriation, for fifteen years. Previous to 1830, the cost of primary instruction in Paris was but 16,000 dollars annually. Since then it has been increased to 250,000 dollars, and the number of children frequenting the schools is about 45,000, or one twenty-second part of the population. In the colleges, institutions, and boarding-schools of the city, there are 11,000 pupils, but these embrace the élite of the youth from all parts of the country. The total number of pupils in

the lyceums, colleges, and private institutions in France, for 1850, was 92,231; making a total of 2,424,811 children only, out of the 18,000,000 in France, receiving any degree of education.

"The military conscription shows, that out of every thousand young men drawn, about 40 know how to read and write, 500 to read only, and more than 400 have no instruction whatever.

"In the United States, where the nice adjustment of counter-balancing powers and general intelligence makes the political machine move on quietly in its accustomed track, no adequate conception can be formed of the evils to which France is exposed, from the passions and ignorance of its labouring masses, misled by unprincipled demagogues or conceited theorists. There is no spirit of conciliation in French politics. A difference of views is a war to the knife. Falsehood, force, treachery, and every kindred weapon, is employed to attain the desired end. The government strangles liberty, as it alleges, that society may exist. Independence of speech, action, or writing -everything which gives political importance to the individual-becomes a crime. The press, army, judiciary, and even the church, exist only as the slaves of authority. Spies are everywhere. The government spreads a thick web over France, ready, like a spider, to dart upon any intruder upon the slightest movement. With this annihilation of political freedom, which in the United States would be the signal of universal dissolution, she prospers growing mightier and richer as liberty recedes. Call her by what name you will, the freedom of America becomes her curse, and the despotism of Russia her security. This being the case, she has no alternative but to maintain a strong government, until education and tranquillity shall have prepared her citizens for the rational enjoyment of those privileges, which are the birthright alike of all men. It is not so much political as individual reform that France needs."

This is a decidedly American view of the subject, but it does not the less contain many home truths. The writer, in another chapter, follows the French to the place where he maintains that they are really educated-namely, to the theatre.

"The drama," he says, "plays the same relative part in the education of a Frenchman, that religion does in that of an American. The latter loves his meeting-house, and looks askant upon the

theatre; the former, indifferent to the church, or merely tolerating it, could not exist without the play-house. It is his school of manners; his forum of education; his teacher of history; the parent of his ideas; a living monument, in which antiquity reappears in the present. He can no more live without it than the American without his newspaper. It plays the most important rôle in his 'Art de vivre,' a science which in his own estimation exists only at Paris. It is the necessary superfluity. Sainte Beuve gravely says, The French public, who respect so few things, have preserved the religion of the French theatre.' Churches have been sacked and desecrated; the clergy have been massacred or banished; but the drama has triumphantly held its own, through every revolution, oftener giving law to society than imitating it. The same author, the popularity of whose 'Causeries' attests how truly they reflect the public sentiment, speaks thus: 'When Paris recommences to amuse itself, it is not only a privileged class that is amused, but all classes profit and prosper. Paris then is in good train to save herself, and France with her. The theatres present the means of action the most direct, the most prompt, the most continuous, upon the masses. To abandon to chance the direction of the theatres, would be to despise the custom and the exigencies of our nature, the energy of the French mind itself.""

If we admit the proposition that the French really get the greater part of their education at the theatre, it is impossible to wonder at any degree of degradation to which the nation may come, or to anticipate where it shall stop. One need but glance at the sort of pastime just now provided by French dramatists for the nightly gratification of the complaisant public. Complaisant it assuredly is, when it tolerates and even applauds the licentious balderdash continually presented to it. Admirable as many of the present French actors are, especially in comedy and vaudeville, their powers are taxed to the very utmost to pass off the ignoble pieces in which they are compelled to appear. Thanks to their efforts, and to the fulsome eulogiums of the Paris papers, downright failures are rarer than they should be. Improbability, bad taste, and false sentiments, constitute the stock in trade of the present race of Parisian dramatists. It is up-hill

work for actors, however able and accomplished. To take an example: The great success of the year, the only marked and decided one, has been La Dame aux Camélias, "The Lady with the Camelias," which, after running a hundred nights or more in the spring, has been revived this autumn with scarcely less success. Alexander Dumas the younger, novelist by hereditary right, produced a tale under the above title. It attracted no attention-that being exactly as much as it deserved-and would speedily have been forgotten, had not M. Dumas junior conceived the bright idea of turning it into a five-act vaudeville, which is indebted for the greater part of its success to the excellent acting of Madame Doche. So powerful was its effect upon the audiences which night after night crammed to suffocation the Théatre du Vaudeville, that a caricature was published, in which the occupants of the pit were seen holding up umbrellas to protect themselves from the torrents of tears that flowed from the boxes. Of the real merits of the play, we can give the reader, in a few lines, an opportunity to judge for himself. The Lady with the Camelias (said to have been a real person, of the main incidents of whose life young Dumas availed himself) is a Parisian Aspasia of that higher class known by the name of Lorettes-a word derived originally from the quarter of Paris (Notre Dame de Lorette) in which they chiefly resided. She owes her nom-de-guerre to her love for camelias. Whilst leading a life of splendid luxury and dissipation, she falls in love with a young man, whose solicitude about her lungs (the lady, as is not wonderful, considering her rapid style of life, is of a consumptive habit) appears to be the chief engine brought to bear upon her heart. She becomes suddenly disgusted with her brilliant but profligate existence, flies from Paris, and buries herself with her youthful lover in a rural retreat. The pure and pastoral existence they there lead is unkindly broken in upon by the father of Armand, (the lover,) who has an idea that his son's time might be passed better than at the feet of the camelia-bearing syren, the more so that, notwithstanding the romantic