Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 391, May, 1848

She has been more than my better half ever since. There never passes a day on which I am not taunted with my plucking.

THE REVOLUTIONS IN EUROPE

When an Eastern sage was desired by his sultan to inscribe on a ring the sentiment which, amidst the perpetual change of human affairs, was most descriptive of their real tendency, he engraved on it the words: – "And this, too, shall pass away." It is impossible to imagine a thought more truly and universally applicable to human affairs than that expressed in these memorable words, or more descriptive of that perpetual oscillation from good to evil, and from evil to good, which from the beginning of the world has been the invariable characteristic of the annals of man, and so evidently flows from the strange mixture of noble and generous with base and selfish inclinations, which is constantly found in the children of Adam.

"And this, too, shall pass away." The moral whirlwind which has lately swept over the states of Europe, and shaken all the kingdoms to their foundations, will subside. Old habits will in the end return – old affections revive – old desires resume their sway – old necessities become imperious. Institutions may be modified – dynasties overturned – forms of government altered – monarchs sent into exile; but the human heart remains, and will for ever remain, the same. That foundation being unaltered, the social necessities of men will in the end compel them to the old establishment of authority, under names perhaps new. Old power will revive, old rule be established, old authority be confirmed. The great body of men will still remain hewers of wood and drawers of water; because Nature never intended them for any other destination, and she has rendered them incapable of discharging the duties of any other station. Respectable, useful, and virtuous, when confined to it, they become pernicious and ridiculous when for a time withdrawn from it to be placed in another. Mind will ere long resume its sway over matter, moral over physical strength. Nations may rise in insurrection; they may destroy the existing government; they may establish a democratic or republican institution; – but that will not alter the nature of things; it will not compensate the incapacity for self-government of the great body of mankind; it will not relieve them from the first of human necessities, that of being directed by a few. Under one name or another – that of Decemvirs, a Triumvirate, a Committee of Public Salvation, a Directory, or a Provisional Government, the old authority is speedily evolved, only the more powerful that it has been cradled in violence. It is not the weakness, it is the irresistible strength of a democratic government which is its greatest evil. It is the iron grasp it never fails to lay on the property of others which is its principal danger, the never-failing instrument of its speedy overthrow. Property is soon swept away by it, but liberty is swept away still more quickly. A Cæsar, a Cromwell, a Napoleon, arises like an avatar to stay the wrath of Heaven let loose in the unbridled passions of men; and ages of servitude succeed one terrible and unforgotten period of popular license.

It is the more important to refer to these lasting principles in human affairs at this time that the events which have recently occurred on the Continent seem at first sight to set all former experience and history at defiance. Not only has monarchy been again overthrown, and a republic restored in France by a single urban tumult, but the contagion of the example has spread to other countries, hitherto deemed the stronghold of the conservative principle, and farthest removed from the influence of the revolutionary mania. That Italy, following in the wake of a reforming Pope, should be speedily convulsed by popular fervour, was anticipated, and might easily be understood. That Lombardy and Venice, long impatient of the Tramontane yoke, should seize the first opportunity to cast it off, was what every person acquainted with the feelings of the people in those beautiful provinces has long expected. That Prussia, the most highly educated state in Europe, and which has long murmured at the delay in conceding the popular institutions promised during the struggle with Napoleon in 1813, should make an effort now to obtain them, might be understood. That the Poles, smarting under their recent dismemberment, and mourning their lost nationality, should eagerly grasp at the shadow even of the means of restoring it, was of course to be expected. But that Austria, the most aristocratic monarchy in Europe – that Austria, without either seaports, commercial cities, or manufacturing emporiums, should be seized by the same passions, and that the monarchy which had defeated Napoleon at Aspern, and all but destroyed him at Wagram, should be overturned by an urban tumult, headed by a burgher guard and the beardless students of the university – this indeed surpassed human comprehension.

It not unnaturally induced in superstitious or highly excited minds the belief that the end of the world was approaching, or that an entire new era had opened upon human affairs, to which nothing which had preceded it could furnish any thing like a parallel. According to the temper of their minds, men and women either believed that the dark prophecies of the Revelation were about to be accomplished, and that the great battle of Armageddon was to precede the advent of the Millennium, or that the era of commercial organisation and socialist felicity was approaching, and that all the miseries of mankind were to expire amidst the universal dominion of the people. In the midst of these general hopes and fears, more experienced or practical observers fixed their eyes on the spoliation of Austria by liberalised Piedmont; of Denmark, by revolutionised Prussia; and of Lithuania, by regenerated Poland; and drew the conclusion that human selfishness was the same in all times and ages; that pirates could sail under the red as well as the black flag, and that the fervour of Louis Blanc and Lamartine would terminate in a conflict as fierce, and disasters as wide-spread, as those which followed the visions of Siêyes, and the philanthropy of Robespierre.

What is in a peculiar manner worthy of consideration in the overthrow, in so short a time, of so many of the established governments of Europe, is the facility with which they appear to have been overturned by sudden urban tumult, and the immediate submission of the whole provinces and remainder of the empire, the moment the ruling power in the capital was changed. It was not thus, in former days, either in France or any of the other European monarchies. Paris was often lost and won during the English wars, the contests of the League and the Fronde, but the provinces were not dismayed by the loss of the capital; and, in their fidelity, Charles VII. and Henry V. found the means of changing the scales of fortune, and again wresting it from the arms of rebels or strangers. Charles I. set up his standard at Northampton; and London, from the very outset of the conflict, was in the hands of the Long Parliament; but he found, in the fidelity of the northern and western counties, the means of maintaining for years a gallant conflict, in which victory more than once was on the verge of rendering triumphant the royalist cause. Berlin, during the Seven Years' War, was twice taken by the Russians; but Frederick the Great emerged victorious out of that terrible strife. Vienna, in the time of Maria Theresa, was wrested from her arms by the French and Bavarians; but she threw herself on the fidelity of the Hungarians, and, ere long, the standards of France were driven with disgrace behind the Rhine. The double capture of the same city by Napoleon did not determine the conflict between France and Austria; but a desperate struggle was subsequently maintained, with almost balanced success, at Austerlitz, Aspern, and Wagram. But now a single tumult, in which the loss of life does not equal that of an ordinary skirmish, has overthrown the greatest monarchies. That of Louis Philippe fell before fifty men had been killed in the streets of Paris; that of Prussia sank in a conflict in which one hundred and eighty-seven men fell on the popular side; and an échauffourée, which scarcely would deserve a place in military history, overturned the monarchy of Austria, within sight of the steeples of Aspern, and around the cathedral which had witnessed the victory of John Sobieski and the triumphant entry of Maria Theresa!

It is impossible not to conclude that moral and political causes have here enervated the minds of men, and weakened, to a most ruinous extent, the strength of nations. The depositaries of power have not, in general, shown themselves worthy of the trust which they held. There is no reason to suspect them of personal cowardice; but the moral courage which carries through a crisis, and so often averts danger by venturing to face it, appears to have been generally awanting. Men forgot the words of Napoleon, on occasion of Malet's conspiracy – "The death of a soldier would be the most glorious of all, if that of a magistrate, slain in the faithful discharge of his civil duties, were not still more honourable." Of few in these days can it be said, in the words of the poet, —

"Justum et tenacem propositi virum
Non civium ardor prava jubentium,
Non vultus instantis tyranni,
Mente quatit solidâ;
Si fractus illabatur orbis,
Impavidum ferient ruinæ."

A long peace seems to have enervated the minds of the higher orders on the Continent; habitual luxury to have disinclined them to sacrifices by which it might be endangered. To slip through a crisis quietly, and with as little risk or disturbance as possible, seems to have been the great object; to avert danger at the moment, by pushing it forward to future times, the universal system. With how much success it was practised, the present deplorable state of France, Prussia, Austria, and Lombardy, sufficiently attests. The army was apparently everywhere faithful, and fought bravely; it was the want of moral courage and determination in the government which ruined every thing. They forgot the words of Mirabeau – "Such is the fate of those who hope, by concessions dictated by fear, to disarm a revolution."

But farther, the surprising facility with which the governments of these great military monarchies have been overthrown, in the late extraordinary revolutions, and the immediate submission of all the provinces to the new central power in the capital, suggests another, and a still more important consideration: – that is, the danger attendant on that system of centralisation, which, adopted by all the governments of France, monarchical and republican, for two centuries, from Imperial Rome, and from thence imitated over all Europe, has now apparently concentrated the whole strength of a state, moral as well as physical, in the capital. That such a system is very convenient; that it improves and facilitates administration in many respects, and greatly augments the national strength, when held together by unanimous feeling, and ably directed, may readily be conceded. The great power and extraordinary triumphs of Prussia under Frederick the Great, and of France under Louis XIV. and Napoleon, sufficiently demonstrate that. But what is the situation of such a centralised power when assailed, not in its circumference, but in its centre; not in the extremities, but the heart? Can any thing be expected of it but immediate submission to the power, whatever it be, which is in possession of the wonted seat of government, which has the command of the palace, the bank, the treasury, the post-office, and the telegraph? These revolutions, of which so much is said, cease to be national, to become merely urban movements; they are no longer an effort of plebeians against patricians, but of one set of prætorians in the capital against another. They are no longer "révolutions d'état," but "révolutions du palais." It is of no consequence who inhabits the palace – a king, a tribune, an emperor, or a decemvir. It is there, under whatever name that despotic power resides, it is discovered where the vital spring is to be found. Deprived of its capital, a centralised state, be it republican or monarchical, is Samson when shorn of his hair; it becomes the victim of any Dalilah who takes the trouble to lure it to perdition.

That this is the true character of the revolutions which have lately taken place on the Continent, and struck the world with such astonishment, from the magnitude of the changes which they involved, and the facility with which they were accomplished, is apparent on the very surface of things. They were all urban tumults, not national movements; the nation was never consulted on them at all. They were all concluded before the provinces heard of their commencement; they succeeded so easily, because the nations in which they occurred had been accustomed to obey the commands of the capital as implicitly as troops do the orders issuing from headquarters. The national consent of France, so far as it could be collected, was decidedly in favour of the Duchess of Orleans and the Count de Paris on the night of the 24th February; for two-thirds of the Chamber of Deputies were for that government. But what then? The armed mob, the prætorians of the capital, rushed in – the refractory deputies were dragged from their benches as summarily as the Council of Five Hundred were expelled from their seats by the grenadiers of Napoleon on the 18th Brumaire; a voice called "C'est trop tard. A l'Hotel de Ville! Vive la Republique!" and the Orleans dynasty was overthrown, and universal suffrage established. In Prussia the whole affair was a combat in the capital, between fifteen thousand regular troops and thirty thousand trained and disciplined citizens, (every man in Prussia is bred a soldier;) and after one hundred and eighty-seven men on the popular side had been killed, the King yielded, and the nation rushed headlong, from absolute despotism to household suffrage, equal electoral districts, and a single National Assembly. This is just the Cadiz constitution of 1812, which has ever since been the rallying point of the democrats throughout the south of Europe, over again. It was the same at Vienna: the whole affair there was determined in a single day, before intelligence of the commencement of the revolt had reached either Lintz or Presburg. It is ridiculous to talk of these as national movements, or revolutions of the state: they are mere urban tumults, originating in a struggle for the dictatorship in the capital, and decided without the sense of the nation being taken either on the one side or the other.

But, most of all, these Continental revolutions teach a lesson of inestimable importance to the people of this country, and which recent events have so well illustrated, as to the incalculable value of a hereditary order of succession in the government, supported by hereditary respect, and resting on the disinterested loyalty of the people. It is in vain to conceal that it was the fact of its being a usurping government which proved fatal, in the crisis of its fate, to the monarchy of Louis Philippe. He was the King of the Barricades, and how could he withstand the force of the Barricades? It was the same with the government of Robespierre, the Directory, and Napoleon: they were all usurpations, and fell before the power which had created them. They had not taken root in the loyal and generous affections of men. The dynasty of Cromwell perished with himself; Charles II. was restored amidst the unanimous transports of the whole nation. It was the same with the government of Great Britain for long after the Revolution of 1688: it is well known that, during the last years of the reign of Queen Anne, it was almost an open question in both houses of parliament, whether the Stuart line should be restored, or the Hanoverian family, in terms of the Act of Settlement, be called to the throne. The devastating civil wars and bloody contests of the Prætorian Guards with the legions, which stained with blood the annals, and shortened the existence of the Roman empire, may show what is the fate of a great nation which, having cast away the bonds of hereditary loyalty, has nothing to be guided by, in the choice of a ruler, but the blind partiality of armed men, or the corrupted support of interested hirelings. It will be long before either will produce the fidelity of the Scottish Highlanders in 1745, or the glories of La Vendée in 1793. Usurpation of the throne is a sure prelude to endless dissension, national corruption, and endangered freedom. The expulsion of the Tarquins brought Rome to the brink of ruin; its effects were not removed for two centuries. England took nearly a century to recover the effects of the most just and necessary revolution in which men were ever engaged – that which chased James II. from the throne. Our present stability, amidst the fall of so many other governments, is mainly owing to this, that by the long possession of the throne by her ancestors, Queen Victoria unites in her person the two firmest foundations of regal power – a nation's consent, and a nation's loyalty.

If any doubt could exist as to the importance of the barrier which the government of Louis Philippe and the administration of M. Guizot opposed to the torrent of revolutionary anarchy, and the ascendant of selfish ambition, it would be removed by the dreadful nature of the events which have since taken place, or are in progress, in every part of Europe. Never was so clearly demonstrated the incalculable moment of the restraint which religion, law, and order impose on the rapacious and selfish passions of men, or the truth of Hobbes' doctrine that the natural state of man is a state of war. Instantly, as if by magic, the world has been thrown into confusion; and out of the chaos have arisen not the virtuous and benevolent, but the vicious and aggrandising propensities. While "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" are in every mouth, "tyranny, rapacity, enmity" are in every heart. A legion of demons seem to have been suddenly let loose upon the world; the original devil was expelled, but straightway he returned with seven other devils, worse than himself, and the last state was worse than the first. Kings and Kaisars, ministers and generals, demagogues and aristocrats, seem to have become alike seized with the universal contagion. In the general scramble, when society seemed to be breaking up, as in the horrors of a shipwreck or the disasters of a retreat, all subordination has been lost, all sense of rectitude passed away, and the prevailing principle appears to have been to make the most of the crisis to the purpose of separate advantage.

The great parent republic took the lead in this demoniac race. From the very first, its steps were disgraced by rapine and robbery; by the most audacious violation of vested rights, and the most shameful disregard of private interests. The first thing they did was to burn the railway stations, and expel with savage barbarity several thousand inoffensive and industrious English and Belgian labourers and artisans, without their wages or their effects, from the French territory. The next was, to confiscate the savings' banks throughout France – virtually destroying thereby nine-tenths of the accumulated savings of French industry since the peace. The suspension of cash payments soon after lowered the value of all realised property a third. A heavy addition (45 per cent) was imposed on direct taxes: the period of payment anticipated by six months. Fifty millions of francs (£2,000,000) was next exacted from the Bank of France without interest; the "Bons du Trésor Royal" (Exchequer Bills) were thrown overboard; a progressive income-tax is hinted at; and Government have now openly commenced the work of spoliation by seizing upon the Paris and Orleans and Orleans and Vierzon railways, and directing their whole proceeds, averaging 200,000 francs (£8000) a week, to be paid into the public treasury! This is done without a hint at disapprobation, or even an expression of dissent, from the whole press of France. Nay, they have now taken to stopping, like footpads, common travellers, and forcing them to give up their specie in exchange for worthless paper. We doubt if the whole history of mankind contains an account of the perpetration, in so short a time, of so many acts of rapacity, or such an instance of the slavish degradation into which the press has fallen.

Lord Brougham, a great liberal authority in his day, has given, in the House of Peers, the following graphic and characteristic account of the state of France at this time, (April 17,) from which he has just returned: —

"The present condition of Paris, if it continue for any time, would inevitably effect the ruin of that glorious country. Paris governs France, and a handful of the mob govern Paris. He hoped and trusted that they would live to see better times. He hoped that what they now saw passing before their eyes – the general want of credit, the utter impossibility of commerce going on, the complete ruin of trade in the capital and great towns, the expedients to which the Provisional Government finds itself compelled to have recourse day by day to perpetuate its existence, and to make its ephemeral being last – one day taking possession of the banks of deposit to the robbery of the poor – another, stopping the supplies of the rich – a third day stopping travellers for the purpose of taking their money from them (hear, hear, and laughter) at the barriers, upon the ground that the town was in want of cash. He hoped, he said, that they would soon see such an unsettled state of things give way to a more firm form of government. He knew some of those individuals who had severely suffered by these circumstances – (hear, and laughter) – but he should inform their Lordships that he was not here present. (Continued laughter.) Although it was a pity to spoil their merriment, he yet rejoiced in being able to show them that there was not a shadow of foundation for the report which had been circulated respecting himself; when he came to the barrier, the circumstance occurred which had no doubt given rise to the story. He was told that he should stop in order that his baggage might be examined. On requiring further explanation for this conduct, he was informed that the inquiry was sought for for the purpose of seeing whether he had any money. (Laughter.) He had heard a great deal respecting the misgovernment of former rulers, but he had never heard of such a step as this being tolerated. He knew one person from whom they took 200,000 francs, giving him bank paper instead. The state of trade in that country was dreadful – the funds falling suddenly from 70 to 32; the bank stopping, notwithstanding the order for the suspension of cash-payments; the taking possession of one of the railways, with the proceeds, amounting to about £8000 a-week, which were put into Louis Blanc's pocket to be dispensed again according to his peculiar theory. In the same way, it was said, the Provisional Government intended to act with all the other railways. They had, no doubt, a right to do all this, if they pleased, and also, as it was rumoured they intended to do, to seize the bank, and to issue a paper currency to a very large amount. He only hoped that at the meeting of the National Assembly, they would open their eyes to the necessity of taking such steps as to prevent that mischief to which such experiments as these were likely to lead. (Hear, hear.) He believed that the certain result of such a government would be this – that they would be stricken down with imbecility, and would become too weak to perform the ordinary functions of a government. They might struggle on for a time, until some military commander would rise and destroy the Republic, and perhaps plant in its place a military despotism. At this moment he was of opinion that any one general, with 10,000 men, marching into Paris, would have the effect of at once putting an end to the Republic. No man could doubt it. The Belgian ambassador the other day had applied to M. Lamartine for protection; the latter said in reply, he admitted the full right of the ambassador to such protection, but he had not really three men at his disposal. The people in Paris were as uneasy as any persons could be at this state of things, but they have made up their minds to the fact that this experiment of a Republic must be tried; so that France must remain a Republic for some time, whether it be for her advantage or not." —Morning Chronicle, April 13, 1848.

Wretched as this account of the present state of France is, its prospects are if possible still more deplorable. The misery brought on the working-classes by the ruin of commerce, destruction of credit, and flight of the opulent foreigners, is such that it is absolutely sickening to contemplate it. Seventy-five thousand persons are out of employment in Paris alone, which, with the usual number of dependents, must imply two hundred thousand human beings in a state of destitution. The only way of supporting this enormous mass of indigence is by maintaining it as an armed force; and it is said that 200,000 idlers are in this way paid thirty sous a-day to keep them from plundering the capital! But the resources of no country, far less one shipwrecked in capital, trade, and industry, can withstand such a strain. The following is one of the latest accounts of the financial and social condition of France, by an able observer on the spot: —

"The time is now fast approaching when the pecuniary resources left in the treasury at the revolution will be exhausted. The old loan has ceased to be paid up. The new loan remains a barren failure. The regular taxes are paid with reluctance, and are not paid beforehand except in Paris. The additional impost of 45 centimes (near 50 per cent on the direct taxes) is positively refused as illegal by the rural districts and provincial cities. The stock of bullion in the Bank of France decreases, and, in short, the progress of financial ruin goes steadily on. We pointed out some weeks ago the exact and inevitable course of this decline, and we now read in a French journal of repute the precise confirmation of our predictions: – 'We are now,' says the Journal des Debats, 'but two steps removed from a complete system of paper-money; and if we enter on that system, we shall not get out of it again short of the total ruin of private persons and of the state, after having passed through the most rigorous distress; for it would be the suspension of production and of exchange.' The plan proposed, though not yet sanctioned by the Provisional Government, seems to be a general seizure and incorporation with the state of all the great financial and trading companies, such as the Bank of France, the railways, the canals, mines, &c., and the issue of a vast amount of paper by the state on the alleged credit of this property – in short, a pure inconvertible system of assignats. Monstrous as such a proposal appears, we are inclined to think that the rapid disappearance of the precious metals will render some such scheme inevitable, and it will be the form given to the bankruptcy and ruin of the nation." —Times, 14th April.

In the midst of these woful circumstances, the Provisional Government does not for a moment intermit in the inflaming the public mind by the most fallacious and false promises of boundless future prosperity from the adherence to republican principles, and the return of stanch republicans to the approaching assembly. In the same able journal it is observed, —

"We have now before us a handbill entitled the Bulletin de la Republique, and printed on white paper, the distinctive mark of official proclamations, headed, moreover, with the words "Ministère de l'Intérieur." This document is one of those semi-officially circulated, as we understand, by M. Ledru Rollin, for the purpose of exciting the Republican party. A more disastrous appeal to popular passions, and a more delusive pledge to remedy all human sufferings, we never read; for after having laid to the charge of existing laws all the miseries of a poor man's lot, heightened by inflammatory description, the working classes are told that 'henceforth society will give them employment, food, instruction, honour, air, and daylight. It will watch over the preservation of their lives, their health, their intelligence, their dignity. It will give asylum to the aged, work for their hands, confidence to their hearts, and rest to their nights. It will watch over the virtue of their daughters, the requisite provision for their children, and the obsequies of the dead.' In a word, this exceptional and transitory power, whose very form and existence are still undefined, announces some necromantic method of interposing between man and all the laws of his existence on this globe – of suspending the principles of human nature, as it has already done those of society – and of changing the whole aspect of human life. No delusions can be so enormous: the word is too good for them —they are frauds; and these frauds are put forward by men who know well enough that the effect of the present crisis already is, and will be much more hereafter, to plunge the very classes to whom these promises are made into the lowest depths of human suffering." —Times, 14th April.

One of the most instructive facts as to the ruinous effect of the late Revolution on the best interests of French industry, is to be found in the progressive and rapid decline in the value of all French securities, public and private, since it took place. It distinctly appears that two-thirds of the capital of France has been destroyed since the Revolution, in the short space of six weeks! Attend to the fall in the value of the public funds during that brief but disastrous period: —

La Presse, March 12, and Times since that date.

The value of railway stock and bank shares has declined in a still more alarming proportion. Bank shares, which in 1824 sold for 3400 francs, are now selling at 900 francs – or little more than A FOURTH of their former value. Railway stock is unsaleable, being marked out for immediate confiscation. Taking one kind of stock with another, it may safely be affirmed that TWO-THIRDS of the capital of France has perished since the Revolution, in the short space of seven weeks. The fruit of thirty-three years' peace, hard labour, and penurious saving, has disappeared in seven weeks of anarchical transports!! Of course, the means of employing the people have declined in the same proportion; for where credit is annihilated, how is industry to be maintained, before its produce comes in, but by realised capital? How is its produce to be disposed of if two-thirds of the classes possessed of property have been rendered bankrupt? Already this difficulty has been experienced in France. The Paris papers of 13th April announce that seventy-five thousand persons will be employed at the "ateliers Nationaux," or public workshops, at 30 sous a-day, in the end of April – at a cost of 112,500 francs a-day, or 3,375,000 francs, (£150,000) a-month. This is in addition to an armed force of above 100,000 men, paid for the most part two francs a-day for doing nothing. No exchequer in the world can stand such a strain; far less that of a bankrupt and revolutionised country like France. It is no wonder that the French funds are down at 32, and an issue of assignats – in other words, the open and avowed destruction of all realised property – is seriously contemplated.

This is exactly the condition to which France was brought during the Reign of Terror, when the whole inhabitants of Paris fell as a burden on the government, and the cost of the 680,000 rations daily issued to them, exceeded that of the fourteen armies which combated on the frontiers for the Republic. In those days the misery in Paris, the result of the Revolution, was so extreme, that the bakers' shops were besieged day and night without intermission by a famishing crowd; and the unhappy applicants were kept all night waiting during a severe frost, with a rope in their hands, and the thermometer often down at 5° Fahrenheit, to secure their place for the distribution when the doors were opened. There is nothing new in the condition of France and Paris at this time: it has been seen and experienced in every age of the world; it has been familiar to the East for three thousand years. The principle that the state is the universal proprietor, the middle class the employés of government, and the labouring class the servants of the state, is exactly the oriental system of government. It is just the satraps and fellahs of Persia – the mandarins and peasants of China – the zemindars and ryots of Hindostan over again. Exact parallels to the armed and insolent rabble who now lord it over Paris, and through it over France, may be found in the Prætorians of Rome – the Mamelukes of Egypt – the Janissaries of Constantinople. The visions of perfectibility and utopian projects of Louis Blanc, Lamartine, and Ledru Rollin, have already landed the social interests of France in the straits of the Reign of Terror – its practical government in the armed despotism of the Algerine pirates, or the turbulent sway of the Sikh soldiery.

But the contagion of violence, the ascendant of ambition, the lust of rapine have not been confined to the armed janissaries of Paris, or their delegates the Provisional Government. They have extended to other countries: they have spread to other states. They have infected governments as well as their subjects; they have disgraced the throne as well as the workshop. Wherever a revolution has been successful, and liberal governments have been installed, there a system of foreign aggression has instantly commenced. The first thing which the revolutionary government of Piedmont did, was to invade Lombardy, and drive the Austrian armies beyond the Po; the first exploit of constitutional Prussia, to pour into Sleswig to spoliate Denmark. Open preparations for revolutionising Lithuania are made in the grand-duchy of Posen. A war has already commenced on the Po and the Elbe; it is imminent on the Vistula. Lamartine's reply to the Italian deputation proves that France is prepared, on the least reverse to the Sardinian arms, to throw her sword into the scale; his conduct in permitting an armed rabble to set out from Paris to invade Belgium, and another from Lyons to revolutionise Savoy, that the extension of the frontier of France to the Rhine and the Alps is still the favourite project of the French republic. If he declines to do so, the armed prætorians of Paris will soon find another foreign minister who will. France has 600,000 men in arms: Austria 500,000: 150,000 Russians will soon be on the Vistula. Hardly was uttered Mr Cobden's memorable prophecy of the approach of a pacific millennium, and a universal turning of swords into spinning-jennies, when the dogs of war were let slip in every quarter of Europe. Hardly was M. Lamartine's hymn of "liberty, equality, fraternity," chanted, when the reign of internal spoliation and external violence commenced in France, and rapidly extended as far as its influence was felt throughout the world.

"And this, too, shall pass away." The reign of injustice is not eternal: it defeats itself by its own excesses: the avenging angel is found in the human heart. In the darkest days of humanity, this great law of nature is unceasingly acting, and preparing in silence the renovation of the world. It will bring about the downfall of the prætorian bands who now rule France, as it brought about the overthrow of Robespierre, the fall of Napoleon. The revolutionary tempest which is now sweeping over Europe cannot long continue. The good sense of men will reassume its sway after having violently reeled: the feelings of religion and morality will come up to the rescue of the best interests of humanity: the generous will yet combat the selfish feelings: the spirit of heaven will rise up against that of hell. It is in the eternal warfare between these opposite principles, that the true secret of the whole history of mankind is to be found: in the alternate triumph of the one and the other, that the clearest demonstration is to be discerned of the perpetual struggle between the noble and generous and selfish and corrupt desires which for ever actuate the heart of man.

"To rouse effort by the language of virtue," says Mr Alison, "and direct it to the purposes of vice, is the great art of revolution." What a commentary on these words have recent events afforded! Judging by the language of the revolutionists, they are angels descended upon earth. Nothing but gentleness, justice, philanthropy is to be seen in their expressions: nothing but liberty, equality, fraternity in their maxims. Astræa appears to have returned to the world: the lion and the kid have lain down together – Justice and Mercy have kissed each other. Judging by their actions, a more dangerous set of ruffians never obtained the direction of human affairs: justice was never more shamelessly set at nought in measures, robbery never more openly perpetrated by power. Their whole career has been one uninterrupted invasion of private rights; their whole power is founded on continual tribute to the selfish desire of individual aggrandisement among their followers. We do not ascribe this deplorable contrast between words and actions to any peculiar profligacy or want of conscience in the Provisional Government. Some of them are men of powerful intellect or fine genius; all, we believe, are sincere and well-meaning men. But "Hell is paved with good intentions." They are pushed on by a famishing crowd in their rear, whom they are alike unable to restrain or to feed. They are fanatics, and fanatics of the most dangerous kind – devout believers in human perfectibility, credulous assertors of the natural innocence of man. Thence their enormous error – thence the enormous evils they have brought upon the world – thence the incalculable importance of the great experimentum crucis as to the justice of these principles which is now taking place upon the earth.

To give one instance, among many, of the way in which these regenerators of society proceed to spoliate their neighbours, it is instructive to refer to the proposals officially promulgated by the Provisional Government, in their interview with the railway proprietors of France, whom, by one sweeping act, it was proposed to "absorb" into the state. The Minister of the Interior stated that it was proposed to "purchase" the shares of the proprietors; and the word "purchase" sounded well, and was doubtless a balm to many a quaking heart, expecting unqualified confiscation. But he soon explained what sort of "purchase" it was which was in contemplation. He said that it was the intention of Government to "absorb" all the railway shares throughout France; to take the shares at the current price in the market, and give the proprietors not money but rentes, or public securities, to the same amount! That is, having first, by means of the revolution, lowered the current value of railway stock to a twentieth, or, in some cases, a fiftieth part of what it was previous to that convulsion, they next proceed to estimate it at that depreciated value, and then pay the unhappy holders, not in cash, but in Government securities, themselves lowered to a third of their value, and perhaps ere long worth nothing. A more shameful instance of spoliation, veiled under the fine names of "absorption," centralisation, and the like, never was heard of; but the Minister of the Interior had two conclusive arguments to adduce on the subject. Some of the railway lines at least were "paying concerns," and the republic must have cash; and all of them afforded work for the labouring classes, and Government must find employment for the unemployed.

To such a length have these communist and socialist projects proceeded in Paris, that a great effort of all the holders of property was deemed indispensable to arrest them. The effort was made on Monday, 17th April; but it is hard to say whether the dreaded evils or the boasted demonstration were most perilous, or most descriptive of the present social condition of the French capital. Was it by argument in the public journals, or by influencing the electors for the approaching Assembly, or even by discussion at the Clubs, as in the days of the Jacobins and the Cordeliers, that the thing was done? Quite the reverse: it was effected by a demonstration of physical strength. They took a leaf out of the book of the Chartists – they copied the processions of the Janissaries in the Atmeidan of Constantinople. The National Guard, two hundred and twenty thousand strong, mustered on the streets of Paris: they shouted out, "A bas les Communistes!" – "A bas Blanqui!" – "Vive le Gouvernement Provisoire!" and the Parisians flattered themselves the thing was done. Is not the remedy worse than the disease? What were fifteen thousand unarmed workmen spouting socialist speeches in the Champs de Mars to 200,000 armed National Guards, dictating their commands alike to the Provisional Government and the National Assembly! Was ever a capital handed over to such a lusty band of metropolitan janissaries? What chance is there of freedom of deliberation in the future Assembly in presence of such formidable spectators in the galleries? Already M. Ledru Rollin is calculating on their ascendancy. Like all persons engaged in a successful insurrection – in other words, who have been guilty of treason – he is haunted by a continual, and in the circumstances ridiculous, dread of a counter-revolution; and in his circular of 15th April, he openly avows the principle that Paris is the soul of France; that it is the advanced guard of Freedom, not for itself alone, but the whole earth; and that the departments must not think of gainsaying the will of their sovereign leaders, or making the cause retrograde, in which all nations are finally to be blessed.

The account of this extraordinary demonstration, given in the Paris correspondence of the Times of 19th April, is so characteristic and graphic, that we cannot forbear the satisfaction of laying it before our readers. It recalls the preludes to the worst days of the first Revolution.

"Ever since the appearance of this bold defiance to the moderate majority in the Provisional Government, and its announcement that 'the gauntlet was thrown down – the death-struggle was at hand,' the city has naturally been in a state of subdued ferment. Various reports, some of the most extravagant kind, were circulated from mouth to mouth. It was said that the majority of the members of the Government intended retreating to the Tuileries, and fortifying their position – that a collision between the violent and moderate parties was imminent – that the Ultras, led by Blanqui, were to profit by a new manifestation in favour of a further delay in the general elections, and against the admission of the military into the city upon the occasion of the great fraternisation fete, in order to upset the moderate party in the Government; in fine, that Ledru Rollin, with two or three of his colleagues, was instigating, aiding, and abetting Blanqui in this movement to get rid of that majority of his other colleagues that thwarted his designs. Whatever the truth of all these rumours, the alarm was general. It soon became generally known that a monster meeting of the working classes was to be held in the Champ de Mars on the Sunday, and that Messrs Louis Blanc and Albert, instigated, it was said, by the Minister of the Interior, had convoked this assembly. The Ultra party, it was added, designed to make use of this manifestation in order to forward the schemes already mentioned. This was the state of things on Sunday morning. In the Champ de Mars, a little after noon, the scene was certainly an exciting one. Delegates of all the trades and guilds of Paris were assembled, to the number of nearly 100,000 men. Banners were waving in all directions, and the fermenting crowd filled about a third of the vast space of the plain. It was with difficulty that an explanation could be obtained of the real object of the meeting. Its ostensible object, however, appeared to be the election from among the working classes of fourteen officers for the staff of the National Guard; although other motives, such as the choice of candidates among them for the general elections, and various deputations to the Government upon various matters connected with the endless organisation of work, were also put forward. There is every reason to believe that the greater part of the meeting had in reality no other object in view, and that the other secret intrigues fomented by the Blanqui party were confined, at all events, to but a chosen few. About two o'clock the monster procession began to move towards the Hotel de Ville. Along the outer boulevards, along the esplanade of the Invalides, over the Pont de la Concorde, and along the quays, it moved on, like a huge serpent, bristling with tricoloured banners. The head of the monster appeared to have nearly reached its destination before the tail had fully left the Champ de Mars. In passing through the Faubourg St Germain, I found the rappel beating in every street; the National Guards were hurrying to their places of meeting, columns were marching forward; in every mouth was the cry that the Provisional Government was in danger from the anarchists of the Ultra party.

On reaching the quays, I found every thing in a state of revolution. They were already lined, literally from one end to the other, by files of the National Guards; other battalions were advancing towards the Hotel de Ville; the legions of the Garde Mobile were hurrying in the same direction, and seemed, as far as I could judge, animated by the same spirit of resistance as the National Guards to the supposed coup-de-main expected to be directed against the majority of the Government. It was with difficulty that the advancing legions could proceed along with the monster procession, which seemed surprised and stupified by the force displayed. Thousands upon thousands of spectators crowded the long thoroughfare also, all endeavouring to push on to the scene of action. I reached at last the Place de l'Hotel de Ville; it appeared a very sea of bayonets; a small space only was left for the passage of the procession. The force of the armed citizens of the National Guards and the Garde Mobile made certainly a tremendous show. In this state matters remained upon the Place for about four hours, during which the members of the Government were employed probably in receiving the delegates of the monster meeting of the working classes. From time to time, however, when they appeared at the windows of the old building, shouts were raised by the Guards, and the caps, hats, shakos, képys, and all the other variations of coiffure, that suddenly burst up, like a forest, into the air upon every bayonet point, had a most singular effect. This was repeated continually. During the whole of this long scene, in which such of the armed force as filled the Place kept its position, the ferment among the surrounding crowd was intense. Several hommes du peuple were in a very angry and excited state; they declared that the working classes were insulted by this demonstration of the National Guards; that the National Guards were the enemies of the people; that the people must rise once more against them, &c. The cry against the Moderates was raised under the name of "reactionaires" and "faux republicains;" the counter cry was "anarchie" and "communisme." Several times the angry parties among the spectators were on the point of coming to blows, and much hustling took place. This state of things remained the same when I left the Place de l'Hotel de Ville at six o'clock. In addition to the lines of National Guards that still occupied the quays, battalions after battalions of the different legions were still pouring along towards the Hotel de Ville even at that hour. The advancing columns reached through the Place du Carrousel far upon the Rue de Rivoli. They were hurrying on as quickly as the intense press permitted them, shouting almost universally, "A bas les Anarchistes!" or more commonly, for that was the real rallying cry, "A bas les Communistes!" General Courtais, with his staff, was riding up and down among the advancing ranks, declaring, as far as I could hear, that the Government was no longer in danger, but thanking them for this demonstration of their desire to support it. —Times, 19th April.

On the following night, (Monday 17,) attacks were made by the Communists on the Treasury, the Hotel de Ville, and several other posts; but they were defeated by the National Guard.

It thus appears that the Provisional Government, before it has been seven weeks in office, is already passed in the career of revolution by a force from below! It is fain to summon the National Guard for its protection, and to receive the petitions of the proletaires and ouvriers from the Champ de Mars, surrounded not by the love of the people, but the bayonets of sixty thousand National Guards grouped round the Hotel de Ville! Insane projects of communism, and the division of all profits among the workmen, without leaving any thing for the profits of stock, have made such progress among them, that in a few weeks the Provisional Government is accused of imitating the conduct of Louis Philippe, because they do not forthwith adopt these without limitation, and are significantly warned to avoid his fate. It is evident that the destiny of the whole civilised world is wound up with allowing these communist ideas in France to run their course unmolested, and work out their appropriate and inevitable fruits.

We anticipate no good from the revolution in Prussia. We are well aware, indeed, of the intelligence and energy of that gallant people. We know that her inhabitants are the most highly educated of any people in Europe, and second to none in patriotism and spirit. Prussia is capable, in good time, and from her own exertions, of working out the elements of constitutional freedom. But we distrust all revolutions brought about by example. Contagion never yet spread the spirit of real freedom: foreign imitation may for a while overthrow existing governments, but it cannot establish new ones in their stead on a durable foundation. The Republic of Rienzi, who, according to the fine expression of Madame de Stael, "mistook recollections for hopes," perished in a few years without leaving a wreck behind. Where are now the Batavian, Cisalpine, Ligurian, and Parthenopeian Republics, which arose during the fervour of the first Revolution around the great parent Republic? What has been the result of the revolutionary mania which in 1820 threw down the established government in Piedmont, Naples, Spain, or Portugal? What has become of the Republics of South America, which borrowed their institutions from the French or Spanish model? Has any one of these countries obtained real freedom in consequence of their exertions? Have they not all, on the contrary, suffered dreadfully, and in nothing so much as their capacity for liberty, from their effects? Has not capital been so abridged, industry so blighted, security so endangered, violence so general, that the cause of freedom has been postponed for centuries, if not rendered entirely hopeless, from the triumph of foreign imported liberalism? Whatever it may effect elsewhere, free-trade in revolutions does nothing but evil in society. Nothing but what is of home growth, in constitutions at least, can succeed there. It is difficult enough to make the tree of liberty prosper even where it is indigenous in the earth; but who ever heard of a transplanted tree of liberty thriving in the soil to which it was transferred?

Already all the usual and well-known effects of successful revolution are to be seen in Berlin. Extravagant ideas among the working classes, – visions of unbounded felicity in all. Hopes that can never be realised, – expectations inconsistent with the first laws of society. In the midst of this chaos of excitement, transports, and chimerical projects, have come the inevitable attendants on such an assault on the established interests and order of society, – shaken credit, frequent bankruptcy, diminished employment, a falling revenue, augmented discontent, foreign warfare, general suffering. These effects follow so universally and invariably from the triumph of Revolution, that they may be fairly set down as its inevitable results. It is in the midst of this scene of danger, excitement, and tribulation, that Prussia, without the least previous preparation for it, is to plunge at once into universal suffrage, equal electoral districts, and a deputy for every 50,000 souls! England, with its centuries of freedom, cautious habits, realised wealth, and opulent middle classes, could not withstand such a constitution. The abolition of the national debt, of the house of peers, and a division of property, would follow from it in three months. What, then, is to be expected from Prussia, which, so far from having served an apprenticeship to freedom, is not yet entered with the craft?

So strange and sudden has been the revolt at Vienna, that it is scarcely possible to conceive that it can be of lasting effects. The framework of society there, the habits of the people, the ideas prevalent among them, are essentially aristocratic. The change in the government was entirely the work of a few thousand ardent students and discontented burghers in the capital. There is no material suffering in the Austrian provinces: Chartism is not there, as here, fanned by the misery produced by free-trade and a contracted currency. In these circumstances, it is not unlikely that, after the first blush of the insurrection is over, and men begin to consider in what respect they have benefited by it, there will be a general inclination to return to the former government. Probably a few concessions – as of a national Diet, where the wants of the country may be made known by a majority, still composed of nobles and landed proprietors – will satisfy the general wish. Old feelings will revive, old ideas return, old habits retain their ascendancy; foreign warfare will make the national supersede the social passions. It will be with them as was said of the first French Revolution in La Vendée, – giving privileges to the people is like casting water on a higher level – it speedily finds its way to the lower. The Revolution of 1848 in Vienna will be – like that of Jack Cade in England, or Rienzi in Italy, and all similar movements in countries not prepared for them – a brief and painful effort which leaves not a trace behind. But this much may without the least hesitation be predicted. If this return to old feelings and habits does not take place – and Austria, with its various races, provinces, and interests, and accustomed submission to authority, is really revolutionised, its power will be annihilated, its provinces partitioned, its people enslaved, its happiness destroyed, and a fatal breach made in the great Germanic barrier which separates French Insurrection from Russian Absolutism.

What a contrast to the storms which now agitate and have so profoundly shaken the Continental states does the aspect of Great Britain at the same period afford? We, too, have our dangers: we have our Chartists and our Repealers: the whole force of revolution in this island, and of insurrection in the neighbouring one, have been directed to assail and overturn the constitution. This treasonable attempt, too, has been made at a time of all others most likely to give it success: when the ruinous dogmas of free-trade had paralysed industry, and of a gold currency had shattered it; when bankruptcies to an unheard of extent had shaken commerce to its centre, and an unexampled number of persons in all the manufacturing districts were thrown out of employment. Yet even in these, the most favourable of all circumstances for the success of sedition, when real and wide-spread internal suffering is aggravated by vehement external excitement, how has it fared with the revolutionists? Their treasonable designs have been every where met with calm resolution by the Government and the country; and with scarce any effusion of blood, without a contest which can be dignified with the name of rebellion, without a single execution, as yet at least, on the scaffold, their designs have been rendered abortive. The Press has stood nobly forward on this momentous crisis; and to its ability and truly patriotic spirit, the defeat of the disaffected, without bloodshed, is mainly to be ascribed. England has shown one instance at least of an empire saved by the unbought loyalty of her people and the free independence of her Press. The metropolis has set a splendid example of mingled patriotism and firmness: and Europe, which expected to see the treason of the Chartists triumphant on the 10th of April, and another republic, proclaimed on the banks of the Thames, was astonished to behold their boasted multitudes shrink from a contest with six thousand soldiers supported by an equal number of police. Beyond all question, it was the glorious display of public spirit then made by the middle and higher classes, who came forward to a man to defend the cause of order, which paralysed the audacity of the revolutionists, and saved the empire from the horrors of hopeless indeed, but in any event disastrous, civil warfare.

The following observations by a distinguished journal, long known for its able and intrepid defence of the cause of religion and order, put this memorable event in its true light: —

"The eleventh of April, in the year 1848, has arrived, and the United Kingdom is still a monarchy. The day, the great day, which was to revolutionise the nation, and to establish a republic on the French model, has passed over, and we find no change. The Parliament sits at its ease as heretofore; the courts of law administer justice as heretofore; and the officers of the executive are transacting the business of the Government without molestation. All other business, too, is proceeding in its ordinary course.

"A better means of estimating the strength of the Chartists than has yet been afforded, was afforded by the exhibition yesterday on Kennington Common. The five millions and a half mustered 10,000, or, to take the highest estimate, 15,000. It may be said that these were the Chartists of London and its neighbourhood; but though we have shown that this is not the fact, let it be so, – London and its neighbourhood comprise a population of two millions, giving five hundred thousand men of military age. Of these, then, but 15,000 at most – we say but 10,000 – are Chartists: 1 in 500 according to our estimate, 1 in about 330 according to the higher estimate of the number on the common.

"Let us now turn to the more pleasing side of yesterday's proceedings; and let us, in the first place, acknowledge the true fountain of domestic peace, and of every other blessing – 'Unless the Lord keepeth the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.' To the bounty of Divine Providence we owe it, that this morning we arise in peace to pursue our peaceful occupations. May we not add, with humility, that to the Giver of all good we owe the honour that the metropolis of England has won, in setting to the world an example of a peaceful victory over the worst spirit of rebellion, encouraged by the triumph of rebellion in almost every other capital of Europe. Yes, it is to Him, and to the teaching of His word, the glory is due.

"We have told the number of Chartists; now what was the number of special constables? – Two hundred thousand; the Morning Chronicle says, we believe truly, two hundred and fifty thousand – no sickly spectres, like those whose perverse activity summoned them from their usual avocations, but the manhood of the metropolis, from the high-spirited nobility and gentry downward, through all the gradations of society, to the strong-armed artisan, and the robust drayman or coal-whipper. Yes, the special constables enrolled yesterday presented a body for spirit, strength, and number, not to be matched, out of Great Britain, on the face of the earth. How truly did we say a few weeks ago, that every Sunday saw meekly kneeling in the churches of the metropolis a body of men that could laugh to scorn the assault of any enemy, foreign or domestic, that could by possibility be brought to confront them. These men look for spirit, and strength, and safety in the right quarter, and they themselves yesterday exhibited the proof.

"The military preparations of the Government were prudent, as providing against the danger of local success on the part of the enemies of order, but it is plain that they did not operate by terror, for a soldier was not to be seen; it was the little staff of the special constable that quelled sedition, and it is right that this should be known to all our foreign enemies, and to domestic traitors, as proof beyond all doubt that the people of England are firmly united in defence of their constitution." —Standard, April 11.

That the Chartists fully expected a Revolution to be effected in London that day is decisively proved by their conduct in the provinces. At Glasgow, a placard appeared, headed and invited the people to be ready to come out by their thousands and tens of thousands, the moment farther intelligence was received. The "absorption" of the Electric Telegraph by Government was a sad blow to them, for it left them at a loss how to act.

"Threatened

Revolution in London;"