week, that I wish to bring under your notice. The experiment (as it is
called) of establishing political freedom in France is now sixty years
old; and the best that we can say of it is, that it is an experiment
still. There have been perhaps half-a-dozen new beginnings—half-a-dozen
complete failures. I am aware that each of these failures can be
excellently explained—each beginning shown to be quite necessary. But
there are certain reasonings which, though outwardly irrefragable,
the crude human mind is always most unwilling to accept. Among these
are different and subtle explications of several apparently similar
facts. Thus, to choose an example suited to the dignity of my subject,
if a gentleman from town takes a day’s shooting in the country, and
should chance (as has happened) at first going off, to miss some six
times running, how luminously soever he may ‘explain’ each failure
as it occurs, however ‘expanded a view’ he may take of the whole
series, whatever popular illustrations of projectile philosophy he
may propound to the bird-slaying agriculturists—the impression on the
crass intelligence of the gamekeeper will quite clearly be ‘He beint
noo shot homsoever—aint thickeer.’ Similarly, to compare small things
with great, when I myself read in Thiers and the many other philosophic
historians of this literary country, various and excellent explanations
of their many mischances;—of the failure of the constitution of 1791—of
the constitution of the year 3—of the constitution of the year 5—of
the _charte_—of the system of 1830—and now we may add, of the second
republic—the annotated constitution of M. Dupin,—I can’t help feeling
a suspicion lingering in my crude and uncultivated intellect—that some
common principle is at work in all and each of these several cases—that
over and above all odd mischances, so many bankruptcies a little suggest
an unfitness for the trade; that besides the ingenious reasons of
ingenious gentlemen, there is some lurking quality, or want of a quality,
in the national character of the French nation which renders them but
poorly adapted for the form of freedom and constitution which they have
so often, with such zeal and so vainly, attempted to establish.
In my last letter I suggested that this might be what I ventured to call
a ‘want of stupidity.’ I will now try to describe what I mean in more
accurate, though not, perhaps, more intelligible words.
I believe that I am but speaking what is agreed on by competent
observers, when I say that the essence of the French character is a
certain mobility; that is, as it has been defined, a certain ‘excessive
sensibility to _present_ impressions,’ which is sometimes ‘levity,’—for
it issues in a postponement of seemingly fixed principles to a momentary
temptation or a transient whim; sometimes ‘impatience’—as leading to
an exaggerated sense of existing evils; often excitement,’—a total
absorption in existing emotion; oftener ‘inconsistency’—the sacrifice of
old habits to present emergencies; and yet other unfavourable qualities.
But it has also its favourable side. The same man who is drawn aside
from old principles by small pleasures, who can’t bear pain, who forgets
his old friends when he ceases to see them, who is liable in time of
excitement to be a one-idea being, with no conception of anything but the
one exciting object, yet who nevertheless is apt to have one idea to-day
and quite another to-morrow (and this, and more than this, may I fancy be
said of the ideal Frenchman) may and will have the subtlest perception
of existing niceties, the finest susceptibility to social pleasure, the
keenest tact in social politeness, the most consummate skilfulness in
the details of action and administration,—may, in short, be the best
companion, the neatest man of business, the lightest _homme de salon_,
the acutest diplomat of the existing world.
It is curious to observe how this reflects itself in their literature.
‘I will believe,’ remarks Montaigne, ‘in anything rather than in any
man’s consistency.’ What observer of English habits—what person inwardly
conscious of our dull and unsusceptible English nature, would ever say
so. Rather in our country obstinacy is the commonest of the vices, and
perseverance the cheapest of the virtues. Again, when they attempt
history, the principal peculiarity (a few exceptions being allowed for)
is an utter incapacity to describe graphically a long-passed state of
society. Take, for instance—assuredly no unfavourable example—M. Guizot.
His books, I need not say, are nearly unrivalled for eloquence, for
philosophy and knowledge; you read there, how in the middle age there
were many ‘principles:’ the principle of Legitimacy, the principle of
Feudalism, the principle of Democracy; and you come to know how one
grew, and another declined, and a third crept slowly on; and the mind is
immensely edified, when perhaps at the 315th page a proper name occurs,
and you mutter, ‘Dear me, why, if there were not _people_ in the time of
Charlemagne! Who would have thought that?’ But in return for this utter
incapacity to describe the people of past times, a Frenchman has the gift
of perfectly describing the people of his own. No one knows so well—no
one can tell so well—the facts of his own life. The French memoirs, the
French letters are, and have been, the admiration of Europe. Is not now
Jules Janin unrivalled at pageants and _prima donnas_?
It is the same in poetry. As a recent writer excellently remarks, ‘A
French Dante, or Michael Angelo, or Cervantes, or Murillo, or Goethe,
or Shakespeare, or Milton, we at once perceive to be a mere anomaly; a
supposition which may indeed be proposed in terms, but which in reality
is inconceivable and impossible.’ Yet, in requital as it were of this
great deficiency, they have a wonderful capacity for expressing and
delineating the poetical and voluptuous element of every-day life.
We know the biography of De Béranger. The young ladies whom he has
admired—the wine that he has preferred—the fly that buzzed on the
ceiling, and interrupted his delicious and dreaming solitude, are as well
known to us as the recollections of our own lives. As in their common
furniture, so in their best poetry. The materials are nothing; reckon up
what you have been reading, and it seems a _congeries_ of stupid trifles;
begin to read,—the skill of the workmanship is so consummate, the art
so high and so latent, that while time flows silently on, our fancies
are enchanted and our memories indelibly impressed. How often, asks Mr.
Thackeray, have we read De Béranger—how often Milton? Certainly, since
Horace, there has been no such manual of the philosophy of this world.
I will not say that the quality which I have been trying to delineate
is exactly the same thing as ‘cleverness.’ But I do allege that it is
sufficiently near it for the rough purposes of popular writing. For this
_quickness_ in taking in—so to speak—the present, gives a corresponding
celerity of intellectual apprehension, an amazing readiness in catching
new ideas and maintaining new theories, a versatility of mind which
enters into and comprehends everything as it passes, a concentration
in what occurs, so as to use it for every purpose of illustration, and
consequently (if it happen to be combined with the least fancy), quick
repartee on the subject of the moment, and _bons-mots_ also without
stint and without end—and these qualities are rather like what we style
cleverness. And what I call a proper stupidity keeps a man from all the
defects of this character; it chains the gifted possessor mainly to his
old ideas; it takes him seven weeks to comprehend an atom of a new one;
it keeps him from being led away by new theories—for there is nothing
which bores him so much; it restrains him within his old pursuits, his
well-known habits, his tried expedients, his verified conclusions, his
traditional beliefs. He is not tempted to ‘levity,’ or ‘impatience,’
for he does not see the joke, and is thick-skinned to present evils.
Inconsistency puts him out,—‘What I says is this here, as I was a
saying yesterday,’ is his notion of historical eloquence and habitual
discretion. He is very slow indeed to be ‘excited,’—his passions, his
feelings, and his affections are dull and tardy strong things, falling in
a certain known direction, fixing on certain known objects, and for the
most part acting in a moderate degree, and at a sluggish pace. You always
know where to find his mind.
Now this is exactly what, in politics at least, you do not know about
a Frenchman. I like—I have heard a good judge say—to hear a Frenchman
talk. He strikes a light, but what light he will strike it is impossible
to predict. I think he doesn’t know himself. Now, I know you see at once
how this would operate on a Parliamentary Government, but I give you a
gentle illustration. All England knows Mr. Disraeli, the witty orator,
the exceedingly clever _littérateur_, the versatile politician; and
all England has made up its mind that the stupidest country gentleman
would be a better Home Secretary than the accomplished descendant of the
‘Caucasian race.’ Now suppose, if you only can, a House of Commons all
Disraelis, and do you imagine that Parliament would work? It would be
what M. Proudhon said of some French assemblies, ‘a box of matches.’
The same quality acts in another way, and produces to English ideas a
most marvellous puzzle, both in the philosophical literature and the
political discussion of the French. I mean their passion for logical
deduction. The habitual mode of argument is to get hold of some
large principle; to begin to deduce immediately; and to reason down
from it to the most trivial details of common action. _Il faut être
conséquent avec soi-même_—is their fundamental maxim; and in a world
the essence of which is compromise, they could not well have a worse. I
hold, metaphysically perhaps, that this is a consequence of that same
impatience of disposition to which I have before alluded. Nothing is such
a bore as looking for your principles—nothing so pleasant as working them
out. People who have thought, know that inquiry is suffering. A child a
stumbling timidly in the dark is not more different from the same child
playing on a sunny lawn, than is the philosopher groping, hesitating,
doubting and blundering about his primitive postulates, from the same
philosopher proudly deducing and commenting on the certain consequences
of his established convictions. On this account Mathematics have been
called the paradise of the mind. In Euclid at least, you have your
principles, and all that is required is acuteness in working them out.
The long annals of science are one continued commentary on this text.
Read in Bacon, the beginner of intellectual philosophy in England, and
every page of the ‘Advancement of Learning’ is but a continued warning
against the tendency of the human mind to start at once to the last
generalities from a few and imperfectly observed particulars. Read in
the ‘Meditations’ of Descartes, the beginner of intellectual philosophy
in France, and in every page (once I read five) you will find nothing
but the strictest, the best, the most lucid, the most logical deduction
of all things actual and possible, from a few principles obtained
without evidence, and retained in defiance of probability. Deduction
is a game, and induction a grievance. Besides, clever impatient people
want not only to learn, but to teach. And instruction expresses at least
the alleged possession of knowledge. The obvious way is to shorten the
painful, the slow, the tedious, the wearisome process of preliminary
inquiry—to assume something pretty—to establish its consequences—discuss
their beauty—exemplify their importance—extenuate their absurdities.
A little vanity helps all this. Life is short—art is long—truth lies
deep—take some side—found your school—open your lecture-rooms—tuition is
dignified—learning is low.
I do not know that I can exhibit the way these qualities of the French
character operate on their opinions, better than by telling you how
the Roman Catholic Church deals with them. I have rather attended to
it since I came here; it gives sermons almost an interest, their being
in French—and to those curious in intellectual matters it is worth
observing. In other times, and even now in out-of-the-way Spain, I
suppose it may be so, the Catholic Church was opposed to inquiry and
reasoning. But it is not so now, and here. Loudly—from the pens of a
hundred writers—from the tongues of a thousand pulpits—in every note of
thrilling scorn and exulting derision, she proclaims the contrary. Be she
Christ’s workman, or Antichrist’s, she knows her work too well.—‘Reason,
Reason, Reason!’—exclaims she to the philosophers of this world—‘Put
in practice what you teach, if you would have others believe it; be
consistent; do not prate to us of private judgment when you are but
yourselves repeating what you heard in the nursery—ill-mumbled remnants
of a Catholic tradition. No! exemplify what you command, inquire and
make search—seek, though we warn you that ye will never find—yet do as
ye will. Shut yourself up in a room—make your mind a blank—go down (as
ye speak) into the “depths of your consciousness”—scrutinise the mental
structure—inquire for the elements of belief—spend years, your best
years, in the occupation; and at length—when your eyes are dim, and your
brain hot, and your hand unsteady—then reckon what you have gained: see
if you cannot count on your fingers the certainties you have reached:
reflect which of them you doubted yesterday, which you may disbelieve
to-morrow; or rather, make haste—assume at random some essential
_credenda_—write down your inevitable postulates—enumerate your necessary
axioms—toil on, toil on—spin your spider’s web—adore your own souls—or,
if you prefer it, choose some German nostrum—try the intellectual
intuition, or the “pure reason,” or the “intelligible” ideas, or the
mesmeric _clairvoyance_—and when so or somehow you have attained your
results, try them on mankind. Don’t go out into the highways and
hedges—it’s unnecessary. Ring the bell—call in the servants—give them a
course of lectures—cite Aristotle—review Descartes—panegyrise Plato—and
see if the bonne will understand you. It is you that say “_Vox populi—Vox
Dei_;” but you see the people reject you. Or, suppose you succeed—what
you call succeeding—your books are read; for three weeks, or even a
season, you are the idol of the _salons_; your hard words are on the
lips of women; then a change comes—a new actress appears at the Théâtre
Français or the Opéra—her charms eclipse your theories; or a great
catastrophe occurs—political liberty (it is said) is annihilated—_il faut
se faire mouchard_, is the observation of scoffers. Any how, _you_ are
forgotten—fifty years may be the gestation of a philosophy, not three
its life—before long, before you go to your grave, your six disciples
leave you for some newer master, or to set up for themselves. The poorest
priest in the remote region of the _Basses Alpes_ has more power over
men’s souls than human cultivation; his ill-mouthed masses move women’s
souls—can you? Ye scoff at Jupiter. Yet he at least was believed in—you
never have been; idol for idol, the _de_throned is better than the
_un_throned. No, if you would reason—if you would teach—if you would
speculate, come to us. We have our _premises_ ready; years upon years
before you were born, intellects whom the best of you delight to magnify,
toiled to systematise the creed of ages; years upon years after you are
dead, better heads than yours will find new matter there to define, to
divide, to arrange. Consider the hundred volumes of Aquinas—which of you
desire a higher life than that? To deduce, to subtilise, discriminate,
systematise, and decide the highest truth, and to be believed. Yet such
was his luck, his enjoyment. He was what you would be. No, no—_Credite,
credite_. Ours is the life of speculation—the cloister is the home for
the student. Philosophy is stationary—Catholicism progressive. You
call—we are heard,’ &c., &c., &c. So speaks each preacher according to
his ability. And when the dust and noise of present controversies have
passed away, and in the silence of the night, some grave historian writes
out the tale of half-forgotten times, let him not forget to observe that
skilfully as the mediæval church subdued the superstitious cravings of
a painful and barbarous age—in after years she dealt more discerningly
still with the feverish excitement, the feeble vanities, and the dogmatic
impatience of an over-intellectual generation.
And as in religion—so in politics, we find the same desire to teach
rather than to learn—the same morbid appetite for exhaustive and original
theories. It is as necessary for a public writer to have a system as it
is for him to have a pen. His course is obvious; he assumes some grand
principle—the principle of Legitimacy, or the principle of Equality, or
the principle of Fraternity—and thence he reasons down without fear or
favour to the details of every-day politics. Events are judged of, not by
their relation to simple causes, but by their bearing on a remote axiom.
Nor are these speculations mere exercises of philosophic ingenuity. Four
months ago, hundreds of able writers were debating with the keenest
ability and the most ample array of generalities, whether the country
should be governed by a Legitimate Monarchy, or an illegitimate; by a
Social, or an old-fashioned Republic; by a two-chambered Constitution,
or a one-chambered Constitution; on ‘Revision,’ or Non-revision; on
the claims of Louis Napoleon, or the divine right of the national
representation. Can any intellectual food be conceived more dangerous
or more stimulating for an over-excitable population? It is the same in
Parliament. The description of the Church of Corinth may stand for a
description of the late Assembly: every one had a psalm, had a doctrine,
had a tongue, had a revelation, had an interpretation. Each member of
the Mountain had his scheme for the regeneration of mankind; each member
of the vaunted majority had his scheme for newly consolidating the
Government; Orleanist hated Legitimist, Legitimist Orleanist; moderate
Republican detested undiluted Republican; scheme was set against scheme,
and theory against theory. No two Conservatives would agree what to
conserve; no Socialist could practically associate with any other. No
deliberative assembly can exist with every member wishing to lead, and no
one wishing to follow. Not the meanest Act of Parliament could be carried
without more compromise than even the best French statesmen were willing
to use on the most important and critical affairs of their country.
Rigorous reasoning would not manage a parish-vestry, much less a great
nation. In England, to carry half your own crotchets, you must be always
and everywhere willing to carry half another man’s. Practical men must
submit as well as rule, concede as well as assume. Popular government has
many forms, a thousand good modes of procedure; but no one of those modes
can be worked, no one of those forms will endure, unless by the continual
application of sensible heads and pliable judgments to the systematic
criticism of stiff axioms, rigid principles, and incarnated propositions.
I am, &c.,
AMICUS.
P.S.—I was in hopes that I should have been able to tell you of the
withdrawal of the decree relative to the property of the Orleans family.
The withdrawal was announced in the _Constitutionnel_ of yesterday; but I
regret to add was contradicted in the _Patrie_ last evening. I need not
observe to you that it is an act for which there is no defence, moral or
political. It has immensely weakened the Government.
The change of Ministry is also a great misfortune to Louis Napoleon.
M. de Morny, said to be a son of Queen Hortense (if you believe the
people in the _salons_, the President is not the son of his father, and
everybody else is the son of his mother), was a statesman of the class
best exemplified in England by the late Lord Melbourne—an acute, witty,
fashionable man, acquainted with Parisian persons and things, and a
consummate judge of public opinion. M. Persigny was in exile with the
President, is said to be much attached to him, to repeat his sentiments
and exaggerate his prejudices. I need not point out which of the two is
just now the sounder counsellor.
LETTER V.
_ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE PRINCE-PRESIDENT._
SIR,—The many failures of the French in the attempt to establish a
predominantly Parliamentary Government have a strong family likeness.
Speaking a little roughly, I shall be right in saying that the
Constitutions of France have perished, both lately and formerly, either
in a street-row or under the violence of a military power, aided and
abetted by a diffused dread of impending street-rows, and a painful
experience of the effects of past ones. Thus the Constitution of 1791
(the first of the old series) perished on August 10, amid the exultation
of the brewer Santerre. The last of the old series fell on the 18
Brumaire, under the hands of Napoleon, when the 5 per cents. were at
12, the whole country in disorder, and all ruinable persons ruined. The
Monarchy of 1830 began in the riot of the three days, and ended in the
riot of February 24; the Republic of February perished but yesterday,
mainly from terror that Paris might again see such days as the ‘days of
June.’
I think all sensible Englishmen who review this history (the history of
more than sixty years) will not be slow to divine a conclusion peculiarly
agreeable to our orderly national habits, viz., that the first want
of the French is somebody or something able and willing to keep down
street-rows, to repress the frightful elements of revolution and disorder
which, every now and then, astonish Europe; capable of maintaining, and
desirous to maintain, the order and tranquillity which are (all agree)
the essential and primary prerequisites of industry and civilisation. If
any one seriously and calmly doubts this, I am afraid nothing that I can
further say will go far in convincing him. But let him read the account
of any scene in any French revolution, old or new, or, better, let him
come here and learn how people look back to the time I have mentioned
(to June, 1848), when the Socialists,—not under speculative philosophers
like Proudhon or Louis Blanc, but under practical rascals and energetic
murderers, like Sobrier and Caussidière—made their last and final stand,
and against them, on the other side, the National Guard (mostly solid
shopkeepers, three-parts ruined by the events of February) fought (I will
not say bravely or valiantly, but) furiously, frantically, savagely, as
one reads in old books that half-starved burgesses in beleaguered towns
have sometimes fought for the food of their children; let any sceptic
hear of the atrocities of the friends of order and the atrocities of the
advocates of disorder, and he will, I imagine, no longer be sceptical
on two points,—he will hope that if he ever have to fight it will not
be with a fanatic Socialist, nor against a demi-bankrupt fighting for
‘his shop;’ and he will admit, that in a country subject to collisions
between two such excited and excitable combatants, no earthly blessing is
in any degree comparable to a power which will stave off, long delay, or
permanently prevent the actual advent and ever-ready apprehension of such
bloodshed. I therefore assume that the first condition of good government
in this country is a really strong, a reputedly strong, a continually
strong Executive power.