_Paris, Hôtel Bedford.--Friday, March_ 2, 1855.--We slept on the 27th at
Calais, on the 28th at Amiens, and reached this place last night.
Tocqueville called on us this morning. We talked of the probability of
Louis Napoleon's going to the Crimea.
I said, 'that the report made by Lord John Russell, who talked the matter
over with him, was, that he certainly had once intended to go, and had
not given it up.'
'I do not value,' said Tocqueville, 'Lord John's inferences from anything
that he heard or saw in his audiences. All Louis Napoleon's words and
looks, are, whether intentionally or not, misleading. Now that his having
direct issue seems out of the question, and that the deeper and deeper
discredit into which the heir presumptive is falling, seems to put _him_
out of the question too, we are looking to this journey with great alarm.
We feel that, for the present, his life is necessary to us, and we feel
that it would be exposed to many hazards. He ought to incur some military
risks, if he is present at a battle or an assault, and his courage and
his fatalism, will lead him to many which he ought to avoid. But it is
disease rather than bullets that we fear. He will have to travel hard,
and to be exposed, under exciting circumstances, to a climate which is
not a safe one even to the strong.'
'But,' I said, 'he will not be exposed to it long. I have heard thirty,
or at most forty, days proposed as the length of his absence.'
'Who can say that?' answered Tocqueville. 'If he goes there, he must stay
there until Sebastopol falls. It will not do for him to leave Paris in
order merely to look at the works, pat the generals on the back,
compliment the army, and leave it in the trenches. Unless his journey
produces some great success--in short, unless it gives us Sebastopol--it
will be considered a failure; and a failure he cannot afford. I repeat
that he must stay there till Sebastopol falls. But that may be months.
And what may months bring forth in such a country as France? In such a
city as Paris? In such times as these? Then he cannot safely leave his
cousin--Jérôme Plon swears that he will not go, and I do not see how he
can be taken by force.'
'I do not understand,' I said, 'Jerôme's conduct. It seemed as if he had
the ball at his feet. The _rôle_ of an heir is the easiest in the world.
He has only to behave decently in order to be popular.'
'Jérôme's chances,' answered Tocqueville, 'of the popularity which is to
be obtained by decent behaviour were over long before he became an heir.
His talents are considerable, but he has no principles, and no good
sense. He is Corsican to the bone. I watched him among his Montagnards in
the Constituent.
'Nothing could be more perverse than his votes, nor more offensive than
his speeches. He is unfit to conciliate the sensible portion of society,
and naturally throws himself into the arms of those who are waiting to
receive him--the violent, the rapacious, and the anarchical: this gives
him at least some adherents.'
'What do you hear,' I asked, 'of his conduct in the East?'
'I hear,' said Tocqueville, 'that he showed want, not so much of courage,
as of temper and of subordination. He would not obey orders; he would not
even transmit them, so that Canrobert was forced to communicate directly
with the officers of Napoleon's division, and at last required him to
take sick leave, or to submit to a court-martial.'
'I thought,' I said, 'that he was really ill.'
'That is not the general opinion,' said Tocqueville. 'He showed himself
at a ball directly after his return, with no outward symptoms of ill
health.'
The conversation turned on English politics.
'So many of my friendships,' said Tocqueville, 'and so many of my
sympathies, are English, that what is passing _in_ your country, and
_respecting_ your country, gives me great pain, and greater anxiety. To
us, whom unhappily experience has rendered sensitive of approaching
storms, your last six months have a frightfully revolutionary appearance.
'There is with you, as there was with us in 1847, a general _malaise_ in
the midst of general prosperity. Your people seem, as was the case with
ours, to have become tired of their public men, and to be losing faith in
their institutions. What else do these complaints of what is called "the
system" mean? When you complain that the Government patronage is bartered
for political support, that the dunces of a family are selected for the
public service, and selected expressly because they could not get on in
an open profession; that as their places are a sort of property, they are
promoted only by seniority, and never dismissed for any, except for some
moral, delinquency; that therefore the seniors in all your departments
are old men, whose original dulness has been cherished by a life without
the stimulus of hope or fear, you describe a vessel which seems to have
become too crazy to endure anything but the calmest sea and the most
favourable winds. You have tried its sea-worthiness in one department,
your military organisation, and you find that it literally falls to
pieces. You are incapable of managing a line of operations extending only
seven miles from its base. The next storm may attack your Colonial
Administration. Will that stand any better? Altogether your machinery
seems throughout out of gear. If you set to work actively and fearlessly,
without reference to private interests, or to private expectations, or to
private feelings, to repair, remove and replace, you may escape our
misfortunes; but I see no proofs that you are sufficiently bold, or
indeed that you are sufficiently alarmed. Then as to what is passing
here. A year ago we probably overrated your military power. I believe
that now we most mischievously underrate it. A year ago nothing alarmed
us more than a whisper of the chance of a war with England. We talk of
one now with great composure. We believe that it would not be difficult
to throw 100,000 men upon your shores, and we believe that half that
number would walk over England or Ireland. You are mistaken if you think
that these opinions will die away of themselves, or will be eradicated by
anything but some decisive military success. I do not agree with those
who think that it is your interest that Russia should submit while
Sebastopol stands. You might save money and men by a speedy peace, but
you would not regain your reputation. If you are caught by a peace before
you have an opportunity of doing so, I advise you to let it be on your
part an armed peace. Prepare yourselves for a new struggle with a new
enemy, and let your preparations be, not only as effective as you can
make them, but also as notorious.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Note inserted by M de Tocqueville in my Journal, after
reading the preceding conversation.
'J'ai entendu universellement louer sans restriction le courage héroïque
de vos soldats, mais en même temps j'ai trouvé répandu cette croyance,
qu'on s'était trompé de l'importance de l'Angleterre dans le monde, comme
puissance militaire proprement dite, qui consiste autant à _administrer_
la guerre qu'à combattre, et surtout qu'il lui était impossible, ce qu'on
ne croyait pas jusque là, d'élever de grandes armées, même dans les cas
les plus pressants. Je n'avais rien entendu de pareil depuis mon enfance.
On vous croit absolument dans notre dépendance, et du sein de la grande
inimité qui règne entre les deux peuples, je vois naître des idées qui,
le jour où nos deux gouvernements cesseront d'être d'accord, nous
précipiteront dans la guerre contre vous, beaucoup plus facilement que
cela n'eut pu avoir lieu depuis la chute du premier Empire. Cela
m'afflige, et pour l'avenir de Alliance anglaise (dont vous savez que j'ai
toujours été un grand partisan), et non moins aussi, je l'avoue, pour la
cause de vos institutions libres. Ce qui se passe n'est pas de nature à
la relever dans notre esprit. Je vous pardonnerais de déconsidérer vos
principes par les louanges dont vous accablez le gouvernement absolu qui
règne en France, mais je voudrais du moins que vous ne le fissiez pas
d'une manière encore plus efficace par vos propres fautes, et par la
comparaison qu'elles suggèrent. Il me semble, du reste, bien difficile
de dire ce qui résultera pour vous même du contact intime et prolongé
avec notre gouvernement, et surtout de l'action commune et du mélange
des deux armées. J'en doute, je vous l'avouerai, que l'aristocratie
anglaise s'en trouve bien, et quoique A B ait entonné l'autre jour une
véritable hymne en l'honneur de celle ci, je ne crois pas que ce qui
passe soit de nature à rendre ces chances plus grandes dans l'avenir'--_A
de Tocqueville_.
'I heard universal and unqualified praise of the heroic courage of your
soldiers, but at the same time I found spread abroad the persuasion that
the importance of England had been overrated as a military Power properly
so called--a Power which consists in administering as much as in
fighting; and above all, that it was impossible (and this had never
before been believed), for her to raise large armies, even under the most
pressing circumstances. I never heard anything like it since my
childhood. You are supposed to be entirely dependent upon us, and from
the midst of the great intimacy which subsists between the two countries,
I see springing up ideas which, on the day when our two Governments cease
to be of one mind, will precipitate our country into a war against you,
much more easily than has been possible since the fall of the first
Empire. This grieves me, both on account of the duration of the English
Alliance (of which you know that I have always been a great partisan),
and no less, I own, for the sake of your free institutions. Passing
events are not calculated to raise them in our estimation. I forgive you
for discrediting your principles by the praise which you lavish on the
absolute government which reigns in France, but I would have you at least
not to do so in a still more efficacious manner by your own blunders and
by the comparisons which they suggest. It seems to me, however, very
difficult to predict the result to yourselves of the long and intimate
contact with, our Government, and, above all, of the united action and
amalgamation of the two armies. I own that I doubt its having a good
effect on the future of the English aristocracy, and although A.B. struck
up the other day a real hymn in its praise, I do not think that present
events are of a nature to increase its chance in the future.']
_Paris, Saturday, March_ 3.--Tocqueville called on us soon after
breakfast.
We talked of the loss and gain of Europe by the war. We agreed that
Russia and England have both lost by it. Russia probably the most in
power, England in reputation. That Prussia, though commercially a gainer,
is humiliated and irritated by the superiority claimed by Austria and
conceded to her.
'You cannot,' said Tocqueville, 'estimate the opinions of Germany without
going there. There is a general feeling among the smaller Powers of
internal insecurity and external weakness, and Austria is looked up to as
the supporter of order against the revolutionists, and of Germany against
Russia. Austria alone has profited by the general calamities. Without
actually drawing the sword she has possession of the Principalities, she
has thrust down Prussia into the second rank, she has emancipated herself
from Russia, she has become the ally of France and of England, and even
of her old enemy Piedmont, she is safe in Italy. Poland and Hungary are
still her difficulties, and very great ones, but as her general strength
increases, she can better deal with them.'
'Has not France, I said, 'been also a gainer, by becoming head of the
coalition against Russia?'
'Whatever we have gained,' answered Tocqueville, 'has been dearly
purchased, so far as it has consolidated this despotism. For a whole year
we have felt that the life, and even the reign, of Louis Napoleon was
necessary to us. They will continue necessary to us during the remainder
of the war. We are acquiring habits of obedience, almost of resignation.
His popularity has not increased. He and his court are as much shunned by
the educated classes as they were three years ago; we still repeat "que
ça ne peut pas durer," but we repeat it with less conviction.'
We passed the spring in Algeria, and returned to Paris the latter part of
May.
_Paris, May 26,_1855.--After breakfast I went to the Institut.
M. Passy read to us a long paper on the Art of Government. He spoke so
low and so monotonously that no one attended. I sat next to Tocqueville,
and, as it was not decent to talk, we conversed a little in writing. He
had been reading my Algiers Journal, and thus commented upon it:--
'Il y a tout un côté, particulièrement curieux, de l'Algérie, qui vous a
échappé parce que vous n'avez pu ou voulu vous imposer l'ennui de causer
souvent avec les colons, et que ce côté-là ne se voit pas en parlant
avec les gouvernants; c'est l'abus de la centralisation. L'Afrique peut
être considérée comme le tableau le plus complet et le plus
extraordinaire des vices de ce système.
'Je suis convaincu que seul, sans les Arabes, le soleil, le désert, et la
fièvre, il suffirait pour nous empêcher de coloniser. Tout ce que la
centralisation laisse entrevoir de défauts, de ridicules et absurdités,
d'oppression, de paperasseries en France, est grossi en Afrique au
centuple. C'est comme un pou vu dans un microscope.'
'J'ai causé,' I answered, 'avec Vialar et avec mon hôte aux eaux
ferrugineuses. Mais ils ne se sont pas plaints de la centralisation.'
'Ils ne se sont pas plaints,' he answered, 'du mot que, peut-être, ils ne
connaissaient pas. Mais si vous les aviez fait entrer dans les détails de
l'administration publique, ou même de leurs affaires privées, vous auriez
vu que le colon est plus gêné dans tous ses mouvements, et plus _gouverné
pour son plus grand bien_ que vous ne l'avez été quand il s'est agi de
votre passeport.
'Violar faisait allusion à cela quand il vous a dit que les chemins
manquaient parce que le Gouvernement ne voulait pas laisser les gouvernés
s'en mêler.'[1]
[Footnote 1: 'One whole side, and that a very curious one, of Algeria,
has escaped you, because you could not, or would not, inflict on yourself
the bore of talking frequently with the colonists, and this side cannot
be seen in conversing with officials--it is the abuse of centralisation.
Africa may be considered as the most complete and most extraordinary
picture of the vices of this system. I am convinced that it alone,
without the Arabs, the sun, the desert and the fever, would be enough to
prevent us from colonising. All the defects of centralisation, its
oppressions, its faults, its absurdities, its endless documents, which
are dimly perceived in France, become one hundred times bigger in Africa.
It is like a louse in a microscope.'
'I conversed,' I answered, 'with Violar and with my landlord at the
mineral waters, and they did not complain of centralisation.' 'They did
not complain,' he answered, 'of the word, which perhaps is unknown to
them. But if you had made them enter into the details of the public
administration, or even of their own private affairs, you would have seen
that the colonist is more confined in all his movements, and more
_governed, for his good_, than you were with regard to your passport.
'This is what Violar meant when he told you that roads were wanting,
because the Government would not permit its subjects to interfere in
making them.']
_Monday, May_ 28.--Tocqueville called on me.
I asked him for criticisms on my article on the State of the Continent in
the 'North British Review' of February 1855.[1]
[Footnote 1: See p. 107.]
'Of course,' I said, 'it must be full of blunders. No one who writes on
the politics of a foreign country can avoid them. I want your help to
correct a few of them.'
'Since you ask me,' he answered, 'for a candid criticism, I will give you
one. I accuse you rather of misappreciation than of misstatement. First
with respect to Louis Napoleon. After having described accurately, in the
beginning of your paper, his unscrupulous, systematic oppression, you end
by saying that, after all, you place him high among our sovereigns.'
'You must recollect,' I answered, 'that the article was written for the
"Edinburgh Review," the organ of our Government, edited by Lord
Clarendon's brother-in-law--and that the editor thought its criticisms of
Louis Napoleon so severe, that after having printed it, he was afraid to
publish it. I went quite as far as I prudently could. I accused him, as
you admit, of unscrupulous oppression, of ignorance of the feelings of
the people, of being an idle administrator, of being unacquainted with
business himself, and not employing those who understand it, of being
impatient of contradiction, of refusing advice and punishing censure--in
short, I have praised nothing but his foreign policy--and I have
mentioned two errors in that.'
'But I have a graver accusation to bring against you,' replied
Tocqueville. 'You couple as events mutually dependent the continuance of
the Imperial Government and the continuance of the Anglo-Gallic Alliance.
I believe this opinion not only to be untrue, but to be the reverse of
the truth. I believe the Empire and the Alliance to be not merely, not
mutually dependent, but to be incompatible, except upon terms which you
are resolved never to grant The Empire is essentially warlike--and war in
the mind of a Bonaparte, and of the friends of a Bonaparte, means the
Rhine. This war is merely a stepping stone. It is carried on for purposes
in which the mass of the people of France take no interest. Up to the
present time its burthens have been little felt, as it has been supported
by loans, and the limits of the legal conscription have not been
exceeded. But when the necessity comes for increased taxation and
anticipated conscriptions, Louis Napoleon must have recourse to the real
passions of the French _bourgeoisie_ and peasantry--the love of conquest,
_et la haine de l'Anglais_. Don't fancy that such feelings are dead, they
are scarcely asleep. They might be roused in a week, in a day, and they
_will_ be roused as soon as he thinks that they are wanted.
'What do you suppose was the effect in France of Louis Napoleon's triumph
in England?
'Those who know England attributed it to the ignorance and childishness
of the multitude. Those who thought that the shouts of the mob had any
real meaning either hung down their heads in shame at the
self-degradation of a great nation, or attributed them to fear. The
latter was the general feeling. "Il faut," said all our lower classes,
"que ces gens-là aient grande peur de nous."
'You accuse, in the second place, all the Royalist parties of dislike of
England.
'Do you suppose that you are more popular with the others? That the
Republicans love your aristocracy, or the Imperialists your freedom? The
real friends of England are the friends of her institutions. They are
the body, small perhaps numerically, and now beaten down, of those who
adore Constitutional Liberty. They have maintained the mutual good
feeling between France and England against the passions of the
Republicans and the prejudices of the Legitimists. I trust, as you trust,
that this good feeling is to continue, but it is on precisely opposite
grounds. My hopes are founded, not on the permanence, but on the want of
permanence, of the Empire. I do not believe that a great nation will be
long led by its tail instead of by its head. My only fear is, that the
overthrow of this tyranny may not take place early enough to save us from
war with England, which I believe to be the inevitable consequence of its
duration.'
We left Paris soon after this conversation.
[The following are a few extracts from the article in the 'North British
Review.'--ED.]
'The principal parties into which the educated society of Paris is
divided, are the Imperialists, Royalists, Republicans, and
Parliamentarians.
'The Royalists maybe again subdivided into Orleanists, Legitimists, and
Fusionists; and the Fusionists into Orleanist-Fusionists, and
Legitimist-Fusionists.
'The Imperialists do not require to be described. They form a small party
in the salons of Paris, and much the largest party in the provinces.
'Those who are Royalists without being Fusionists are also comparatively
insignificant in numbers. There are a very few Legitimists who pay to the
elder branch the unreasoning worship of superstition; who adore Henri
V. not as a means but as an end; who pray for his reign, not for their
own interests, not for the interests of France, but for his own sake; who
believe that he derives his title from God, and that when the proper time
comes God will restore him; and that to subject his claims to the
smallest compromise--to admit, for instance, as the Fusionists do, that
Louis Philippe was really a king, and that the reign of Henri V. did not
begin the instant that Charles X. expired--would be a sinful contempt
of Divine right, which might deprive his cause of Divine assistance.
'There are also a very few Orleanists who, with a strange confusion of
ideas, do not perceive that a title founded solely on a revolution was
destroyed by a revolution; that if the will of the people was sufficient
to exclude the descendants of Charles X., it also could exclude the
descendants of Louis Philippe; and that the hereditary claims of the
Comte de Paris cannot be urged except on the condition of admitting the
preferable claims of the Comte de Chambord.
'The bulk, then, of the Royalists are Fusionists; but though all the
Fusionists agree in believing that the only government that can be
permanent in France is a monarchy, and that the only monarchy that can be
permanent is one depending on hereditary succession; though they agree in
believing that neither of the Bourbon branches is strong enough to seize
the throne, and that each of them is strong enough to exclude the other,
yet between the Orleanist-Fusionists and the Legitimist-Fusionists the
separation is as marked and the mutual hatred as bitter, as those which
divide the most hostile parties in England.
'The Orleanist-Fusionists are generally _roturiers_. They feel towards
the _noblesse_ the hatred which has accumulated during twelve centuries
of past oppression and the resentment excited by present insolence. Of
all the noble families of France the most noble is that of Bourbon. The
head of that house has always called himself _le premier gentilhomme de
France_. The Bourbons therefore suffer, and in an exaggerated degree,
the odium which weighs down the caste to which they belong. It was this
odium, this detestation of privilege and precedence and exclusiveness,
or, as it is sometimes called, this love of equality, which raised the
barricades of 1830. It was to flatter these feelings that Louis Philippe
sent his sons to the public schools and to the National Guard, and tried
to establish his Government on the narrow foundation of the
_bourgeoisie_. Louis Philippe and one or two of the members of his
family, succeeded in obtaining some personal popularity, but it was only
in the comparatively small class, the _pays légal_, with which they
shared the emoluments of Government, and it was not sufficient to raise a
single hand in their defence when the masses, whom the Court could not
bribe or caress, rose against it. The Orleanist-Fusionists are
Bourbonists only from calculation. They wish for the Comte de Paris for
their king, not from any affection for him or for his family, but because
they think that such an arrangement offers to France the best chance of
a stable Government in some degree under popular control: and they are
ready to tolerate the intermediate reign of Henri V. as an evil, but one
which must be endured as a means of obtaining something else, not very
good in itself but less objectionable to them than a Bonapartist dynasty
or a Republic.
* * * * *
'The Legitimists have been so injured in fortune and in influence, they
have been so long an oppressed caste, excluded from power, and even from
sympathy, that they have acquired the faults of slaves, have become
timid, or frivolous, or bitter. Their long retirement from public life
has made them unfit for it. The older members of the party have forgotten
its habits and its duties, the younger ones have never learnt them. Their
long absence from the Chambers and from the departmental and municipal
councils, from the central and from the local government of France, has
deprived them of all aptitude for business. The bulk of them are
worshippers of wealth, or ease, or pleasure, or safety. The only
unselfish feeling which they cherish is attachment to their hereditary
sovereign. They revere Henri V. as the ruler pointed out to them by
Providence: they love him as the representative of Charles X. the
champion of their order, who died in exile for having attempted to
restore to them the Government of France. They hope that on his
restoration the _canaille_ of lawyers, and _littérateurs_, and
adventurers, who have trampled on the _gentilshommes_ ever since 1830,
will be turned down to their proper places, and that ancient descent will
again be the passport to the high offices of the State and to the society
of the Sovereign. The advent of Henri V., which to the Orleanist branch
of the Fusionists is a painful means, is to the Legitimist branch a
desirable end. The succession of the Comte de Paris, to which the
Orleanists look with hope, is foreseen by the Legitimists with
misgivings. The Fusionist party is in fact kept together not by common
sympathies but by common antipathies; each branch of it hates or
distrusts the idol of the other, but they co-operate because each
branch hates still more bitterly, and distrusts still more deeply, the
Imperialists and the Republicans.
'Among the educated classes there are few Republicans, using that word to
designate those who actually wish to see France a republic. There are
indeed, many who regret the social equality of the republic, the times
when plebeian birth was an aid in the struggle for power, and a
journeyman mason could be a serious candidate for the Presidentship, but
they are alarmed at its instability. They have never known a republic
live for more than a few years, or die except in convulsions. The
Republican party, however, though small, is not to be despised. It is
skilful, determined, and united. And the Socialists and the Communists,
whom we have omitted in our enumeration as not belonging to the educated
classes, would supply the Republican leaders with an army which has more
than once become master of Paris.
'The only party that remains to be described is that to which we have
given the name of Parliamentarians. Under this designation--a designation
that we must admit that we have invented ourselves--we include those who
are distinguished from the Imperialists by their desire for a
parliamentary form of government; and from the Republicans, by their
willingness that that government should be regal; and from the Royalists,
by their willingness that it should be republican. In this class are
included many of the wisest and of the honestest men in France. The only
species of rule to which they are irreconcilably opposed is despotism. No
conduct on the part of Louis Napoleon would conciliate a sincere
Orleanist, or Legitimist, or Fusionist, or Republican. The anti-regal
prejudices of the last, and the loyalty of the other three, must force
them to oppose a Bonapartist dynasty, whatever might be the conduct of
the reigning emperor. But if Louis Napoleon should ever think the time,
to which he professes to look forward, arrived--if he should ever grant
to France, or accept from her, institutions really constitutional;
institutions, under which the will of the nation, freely expressed by a
free press and by freely chosen representatives, should control and
direct the conduct of her governor--the Parliamentarians would eagerly
rally round him. On the same conditions they would support with equal
readiness Henri V. or the Comte de Paris, a president elected by the
people, or a president nominated by an Assembly. They are the friends of
liberty, whatever be the form in which she may present herself.'
* * * * *
'Although our author visits the Provinces, his work contains no report of
their political feelings. The explanation probably is, that he found no
expression of it The despotism under which France is now suffering is
little felt in the capital. It shows itself principally in the subdued
tone of the debates, if debates they can be called, of the Corps
Législatif, and the inanity of the newspapers. Conversation is as free in
Paris as it was under the Republic. Public opinion would not support the
Government in an attempt to silence the salons of Paris. But Paris
possesses a public opinion, because it possesses one or two thousand
highly educated men whose great amusement, we might say whose great
business, is to converse, to criticise the acts of their rulers, and to
pronounce decisions which float from circle to circle, till they reach
the workshop, and even the barrack. In the provinces there are no such
centres of intelligence and discussion, and, therefore, on political
subjects, there is no public opinion. The consequence is, that the action
of the Government is there really despotic; and it employs its
irresistible power in tearing from the departmental and communal
authorities all the local franchises and local self-government which they
had extorted from the central power in a struggle of forty years.
'Centralisation, though it is generally disclaimed by every party that is
in opposition, is so powerful an instrument that every Monarchical
Government which has ruled France since 1789 has maintained, and even
tried to extend it.
'The Restoration, and the Government of July, were as absolute
centralisers as Napoleon himself. The local power which they were forced
to surrender they made over to the narrow _pays légal_, the privileged
ten-pounders, who were then attempting to govern France. The Republic
gave the election of the _Conseils généraux_ to the people, and thus
dethroned the notaries who governed those assemblies when they
represented only the _bourgeoisie_. The Republic made the Maires
elective; the Republic placed education in the hands of the local
authorities. Under its influence the communes, the cantons, and the
departments were becoming real administrative bodies. They are now
geographical divisions. The Préfet appoints the Maires; the Préfet
appoints in every canton a Commissaire de Police, seldom a respectable
man, as the office is not honourable; the Gardes champêtres, who are the
local police, are put under his control; the Recteur, who was a sort of
local Minister of Education in every department, is suppressed; his
powers are transferred to the Préfet; the Préfet appoints, promotes, and
dismisses all the masters of the _écoles primaires_. The Préfet can
destroy the prosperity of every commune that displeases him. He can
displace the functionaries, close its schools, obstruct its public works,
and withhold the money which the Government habitually gives in aid of
local improvement. He can convert it, indeed, into a mere unorganised
aggregation of individuals, by dismissing every communal functionary, and
placing its concerns in the hands of his own nominees. There are many
hundreds of communes that have been thus treated, and whose masters are
now uneducated peasants. The Préfet can dissolve the _Conseil général_ of
his department, and although he cannot actually name their successors, he
does so virtually. No candidate for an elective office can succeed unless
he is supported by the Government. The Courts of law, criminal and civil,
are the tools of the executive. The Government appoints the judges, the
Préfet provides the jury, and _la Haute Police_ acts without either. All
power of combination, even of mutual communication, except from mouth to
mouth, is gone. The newspapers are suppressed or intimidated, the
printers are the slaves of the Préfet, as they lose their privilege if
they offend; the secrecy of the post is habitually and avowedly violated;
there are spies in every country town to watch and report conversation;
every individual stands defenceless and insulated, in the face of this
unscrupulous executive, with its thousands of armed hands and its
thousands of watching eyes. The only opposition that is ventured is the
abstaining from voting. Whatever be the office, and whatever be the man,
the candidate of the Préfet comes in; but if he is a man who would have
been unanimously rejected in a state of freedom, the bolder electors show
their indignation by their absence.
'In such a state of society the traveller can learn little. Even those
who rule it, know little of the feelings of their subjects. The vast
democratic sea on which the Empire floats is influenced by currents, and
agitated by ground swells which the Government discovers only by their
effects. It knows nothing of the passions which influence these great
apparently slumbering masses. Indeed, it takes care, by stifling their
expression, to prevent their being known.
'We disapprove in many respects of the manner in which Louis Napoleon
employs his power, as we disapprove in all respects of the means by which
he seized it; but, on the whole, we place him high among the sovereigns
of France. As respects his foreign policy we put him at the very top. The
foreign policy of the rulers of mankind, whether they be kings, or
ministers, or senates, or demagogues, is generally so hateful, and at the
same time so contemptible, so grasping, so irritable, so unscrupulous,
and so oppressive--so much dictated by ambition, by antipathy and by
vanity, so selfish, often so petty in its objects, and so regardless of
human misery in its means, that a sovereign who behaves to other nations
with merely the honesty and justice and forbearance which are usual
between man and man, deserves the praise of exalted virtue. The
sovereigns of France have probably been as good as the average of
sovereigns. Placed indeed at the head of the first nation of the
Continent, they have probably been better; but how atrocious has been
their conduct towards their neighbour! If we go back no further than to
the Restoration, we find Louis XVIII. forming the Holy Alliance, and
attacking Spain without a shadow of provocation, for the avowed purpose
of crushing her liberties and giving absolute power to the most
detestable of modern tyrants. We find Charles X. invading a dependence
of his ally, the Sultan, and confiscating a province to revenge a tap on
the face given by the Bey of Algiers to a French consul. We find Louis
Philippe breaking the most solemn engagements with almost wanton
faithlessness; renouncing all extension of territory in Africa and then
conquering a country larger than France--a country occupied by tribes who
never were the subjects of the Sultan or of the Bey, and who could be
robbed of their independence only by wholesale and systematic massacre;
we find him joining England, Spain, and Portugal in the Quadruple
Alliance, and deserting them as soon as the time of action had arrived;
joining Russia, Prussia, Austria and England, in the arrangement of the
Eastern question, on the avowed basis that the integrity of the Ottoman
empire should be preserved, and then attempting to rob it of Egypt. We
find him running the risk of a war with America, because she demanded,
too unceremoniously, the payment of a just debt, and with England because
she complained of the ill-treatment of a missionary. We find him trying
to ruin the commerce of Switzerland because the Diet arrested a French
spy, and deposing Queen Pomare because she interfered with the sale of
French brandies; and, as his last act, eluding an express promise by a
miserable verbal equivocation, and sowing the seeds of a future war of
succession in order to get for one of his sons an advantageous
establishment in Spain.
'The greatest blot in the foreign policy of Louis Napoleon is the
invasion of Rome, and for that he is scarcely responsible. It was
originally planned by Louis Philippe and Rossi. The expedition which
sailed from Toulon in 1849 was prepared in 1847. It was despatched in the
first six months of his presidency, in obedience to a vote of the
Assembly, when the Assembly was still the ruler of France; and Louis
Napoleon's celebrated letter to Ney was an attempt, not, perhaps
constitutional or prudent, but well-intentioned, to obtain for the Roman
people liberal and secular institutions instead of ecclesiastical
tyranny.
'His other mistake was the attempt to enforce on Turkey the capitulations
of 1740, and to revive pretentions of the Latins in Jerusalem which had
slept for more than a century. This, again, was a legacy from Louis
Philippe. It was Louis Philippe who claimed a right to restore the dome,
or the portico, we forget which, of the Holy Sepulchre, and to insult the
Greeks by rebuilding it in the Latin instead of the Byzantine form. Louis
Napoleon has the merit, rare in private life, and almost unknown among
princes, of having frankly and unreservedly withdrawn his demands, though
supported by treaty, as soon as he found that they could not be conceded
without danger to the conceding party.
'With these exceptions, his management of the foreign relations of France
has been faultless. To England he has been honest and confiding, to
Russia conciliatory but firm, to Austria kind and forbearing, and he has
treated Prussia with, perhaps, more consideration than that semi-Russian
Court and childishly false and cunning king deserved. He has been
assailed by every form of temptation, through his hopes and through his
fears, and has remained faithful and disinterested. Such conduct deserves
the admiration with which England has repaid it.
'We cannot praise him as an administrator. He is indolent and
procrastinating. He hates details, and therefore does not understand
them. When he has given an order he does not see to its execution;
indeed, he cannot, for he does not know how it ought to be executed. He
directed a fleet to be prepared to co-operate with us in the Baltic in
the spring. Ducos, his Minister of Marine, assured him that it was ready.
The time came, and not a ship was rigged or manned. He asked us to
suspend the expedition for a couple of months. We refused, and sailed
without the French squadron. If the Russians had ventured out, and we
either had beaten them single-handed, or been repulsed for want of the
promised assistance, the effect on France would have been frightful. We
have reason to believe that it was only in the middle of February that he
made up his mind to send an army to Bulgaria. They arrived by driblets,
without any plan of operations, and it was not until August that their
battering train left Toulon. It ought to have reached Sebastopol in May.
In time, however, he must see the necessity of either becoming an active
man of business himself, or of ministering, like other sovereigns,
through his Ministers. Up to the present time many causes have concurred
to occasion him to endeavour to be his own Minister, and to treat those
to whom he gives that name as mere clerks. He is jealous and suspicious,
fond of power, and impatient of contradiction. With the exception of
Drouyn de l'Huys, the eminent men of France, her statesmen and her
generals, stand aloof from him. Those who are not in exile have retired
from public life, and offer neither assistance nor advice. Advice,
indeed, he refuses, and, what is still more useful than advice, censure,
he punishes.
'But the war, though it must last longer, and cost, more in men and in
money than it would have done if it were managed with more intelligence
and activity, must end favourably. Ill managed as it has been by
France, it has been worse managed by Russia. It is impossible that that
semi-barbarous empire, with its scarcely sane autocrat, its corrupt
administration, its disordered finances, and its heterogeneous
populations, should ultimately triumph over the two most powerful nations
of Europe, flanked by Austria, and disposing of the fanatical valour of
Turkey. If Louis Napoleon pleases the vanity of France by military glory,
and rewards her exertions by a triumphant peace; if he employs his
absolute power in promoting her prosperity by further relaxing the
fetters which encumber her industry; if he takes advantage of the
popularity which a successful war, an honourable peace, and internal
prosperity must confer on him, to give to her a little real liberty and a
little real self-government; if he gradually subsides from a [Greek:
_Týrannos_] to a [Greek: _Basileús_]; if he allows some liberty of the
press, some liberty of election, some liberty of discussion, and some
liberty of decision; he may pass the remainder of his agitated life in
the tranquil exercise of limited, but great and secure power, the ally of
England, and the benefactor of France.
'If this expectation should be realised--and we repeat, that among many
contingencies it appears to us to be the least improbable--it affords to
Europe the best hope of undisturbed peace and progressive civilisation
and prosperity. An alliance with England was one of the favourite dreams
of the first Napoleon. He believed, and with reason, that England and
France united could dictate to all Europe. But in this respect, as indeed
in all others, his purposes were selfish. Being master of France, he
wished France to be mistress of the world. All that he gave to France was
power, all that he required from Europe was submission. The objects for
which he desired our co-operation were precisely those which we wished to
defeat. The friendship from which we recoiled in disgust, almost in
terror, was turned into unrelenting hatred; and in the long struggle
which followed, each party felt that its safety depended on the total
ruin of the other.
'The alliance which the uncle desired as a means of oppressing Europe,
the nephew seeks for the purpose of setting her free. The heavy continued
weight of Russia has, ever since the death of Alexander, kept down all
energy and independence of action, and even of thought, on the Continent.
She has been the patron of every tyrant, the protector of every abuse,
the enemy of every improvement. It was at her instigation that the
Congress of Verona decreed the enslavement of Spain, and that in the
conferences of Leybach it was determined to stifle liberty in Italy.
Every court on the Continent is cursed with a Russian party; and woe be
to the Sovereign and to the Minister who is not at its head: all the
resources of Russian influence and of Russian corruption are lavished to
render his people rebellious and his administration unsuccessful. From
this _peine forte et dure_ we believe that Europe will now be relieved;
and if the people or the sovereigns of the Continent, particularly those
of Germany and Italy, make a tolerable use of the freedom from foreign
dictation which the weakness of Russia will give to them, we look forward
to an indefinite course of prosperity and improvement. Unhappily,
experience, however, forbids us to be sanguine. Forty years ago, an
event, such as we are now contemplating, occurred. A Power which had
deprived the Continent of the power of independent action fell, and for
several years had no successor. Germany and Italy recalled or
re-established their sovereigns, and entrusted them with power such as
they had never possessed before. How they used it may be inferred from
the general outbreak of 1848. A popular indignation, such as could have
been excited only by long years of folly, stupidity, and tyranny, swept
away or shook every throne from Berlin to Palermo. The people was
everywhere for some months triumphant; and its abuse of power produced a
reaction which restored or introduced despotism in every kingdom except
Prussia and Piedmont, and even in Prussia gave to the King power
sufficient to enable him, up to the present moment, to maintain a policy,
mischievous to the interests, disgusting to the sympathies, and injurious
to the honour of his people. But while the Anglo-Gallic alliance
continues, the Continent will be defended from the worst of all evils,
the prevention of domestic improvement, and the aggravation of domestic
disturbance, by foreign intervention. That alliance has already preserved
the liberty of Piedmont. If it had been established sooner, it might have
preserved that of Hesse, and have saved Europe from the revolting
spectacle of the constitutional resistance of a whole people against an
usurping tyrant and a profligate minister crushed by brutal, undisguised
violence.
'We repeat that we are not sanguine, that we do not expect the tranquil,
uninterrupted progress which would be the result of the timely concession
on the part of the sovereigns, and of the forbearance and moderation on
the part of their subjects, which, if they could profit by the lessons of
history, would be adopted by both parties. The only lesson, indeed, which
history teaches is, that she teaches none either to subjects or to
sovereigns. But we do trust that when the ruler and his people are
allowed to settle their own affairs between one another, they will come
from time to time to coarse and imperfect, but useful arrangements of
their differences. Rational liberty may advance slowly and unequally; it
may sometimes be arrested, it may sometimes be forced back, but its march
in every decennial period will be perceptible. Like an oak which has
grown up among storms, its durability will be in proportion to the
slowness of its progress.'