M. Louis Blanc, a democratic journalist, with all, and perhaps more than
the usual talents of the Parisian journalist--with all, and more than
the usual faults of one--has undertaken to write the history of his
country, during and since the revolution of 1830. What can we expect to
be the result of such an undertaking? What can we expect from a man who
sits down to a task of this description, animated with all the party
virulence which gives zest to a democratic newspaper? It is not a
history, but a scandal, that he will write. M. Louis Blanc has distilled
the bile of journalism; he has paused over the hasty sarcasm which
political animosity deals forth, not to correct, or moderate, or abate,
but merely to point and envenom it. His appreciation of men, their
character, their talents, their designs--all bear the hue of the
atrabilious journalist. There is this difference only between his
history and the daily portion of envy and malignity which a democratic
newspaper pours forth, that the dye is more deeply engrained. In the
mind of the author, the stain of his party has become ineffaceable.
Those who are pleased--and the number is not few--with having high names
and established reputations laid at their feet, soiled, trod upon, will
meet here with ample gratification. To be sure they will be occasionally
required, in lieu of such as they have thrown down, to set up the bust
of some democratic celebrity, whose greatness, or whose genius, they
were not previously aware of. But, not to say that the justice of party
requires this substitution, it is a penalty which writers of this
description will invariably impose upon them. It is the common trick of
the envious, and the mock magnanimity with which they seek to conceal
their true nature--to exalt the lowly, while they debase the exalted.
Since some idol there must be, let it be one of their raising. Even
while helping to raise it, they enjoy, too, the secret consciousness
that it is of brittle metal.
But in the composition of a history, the spirit of party, however eager
it may be, cannot always guide the pen. The mere interest of the
narrative, the strangeness and peculiarity of circumstances, will claim
their share of the author's mind. The politician must sometimes be
absorbed in the chronicler; and so it happens with M. Louis Blanc. His
narrative often interests by its details; and if it has the partiality,
it has also the vivacious colouring, of a contemporary. It possesses,
also, a richness of anecdote--the fruit, probably, of his position as a
journalist; add to which, that M. Louis Blanc is not without a species
of off-hand, dashing eloquence. He can say daring things in a daring
manner, and give the pungency of epigram to his political paradoxes. He
has a full share of that rhetoric of journalism which is so well
calculated to make an impression on the careless reader, but which
requires that the reader should continue careless, in order to retain
the impression he has received. It results from all this, that while we
constantly distrust our guide, while we perpetually refuse the
appreciation he offers to us of men and events, we still read on with
interest a work which is, at least, relieved from the charge of
insipidity or dulness; and indeed, if we had not derived some
entertainment from its perusal, we should not have thought of bringing
it under the notice of our readers. To have engaged ourselves merely in
combating its errors and misrepresentations, would have been a dreary
and an endless task.
To enable the reader at once to judge of the tone and temper of M. Louis
Blanc's politics, we present him the following passage. It is the object
of the long Introduction which precedes his history, to show that the
events which have transpired in France since 1793, have had, for their
great result, the establishment of the government of the middle classes
through a Chamber of Deputies--a view which we think is incontestably
right. That France has its House of Commons, is the great fruit of all
its struggles, its calamities, and its victories. It must not be
supposed, however, that this is a result in which M. Louis Blanc
rejoices. Nothing he so much detests as this government of the middle
classes; nor is there any portion of society he vilifies more cordially
than the _bourgeoisie_. Hear how he speaks of them. After relating the
history of the Carbonari, who troubled by their plots the reign of Louis
XVIII., he says:--"This _Carbonarism_ never descended into the depths of
society; it never moved the lower strata. How, then, could it be
preserved from the vices of the middle class--egoism, littleness of
ideas, extreme love of a mere material happiness, gross instincts!"--(P.
115.) So that he finds Carbonarism to have lacked in virtue, because it
had not descended, for its disciples, sufficiently low in the scale of
society!--to have grown corrupt, by reason of its not having penetrated
to the "lower strata!" And yet the duties of the Carbonari seem to have
been precisely calculated for these lower strata. These were, he had
already told us himself, "to have a gun and fifty cartridges, to be
ready to devote one's-self, and to obey blindly the orders of unknown
leaders."--(P. 101.)
When we describe M. Louis Blanc as a democrat, it is rather for want of
a better and more accurate title, than because this exactly describes
him. A democrat is generally understood to be one who has a large faith
in the lowest class of the people, such as they really exist; our author
has a faith only in the future of this class. He does not fail to give
vent, when the occasion prompts him, to his compassion or contempt for
the ignorant mass of mankind. The democracy he worships is one to be
established in some distant age, by a people very different, and living
under some modification of the law of property, which he has not thought
fit to explain. It is a democracy which has nothing distinct but its
hatreds--a shadowy monster, peculiarly disagreeable to deal with. Our
historian writes with overflowing gall against kings, against
aristocracies, against the middle class. You would say he is a stanch
republican, and that the people are to be his depositaries of power. But
no; a lamentation, which escapes him from time to time--as bitter as any
which Tory or Legitimist would utter--over the _blindness_ of the
people, their passions and their ignorance, contradicts this conclusion.
Where is the power, and in whom lodged, that M. Louis Blanc would
willingly obey, or see obeyed? It exists nowhere. Society is corrupt, is
chaotic; nor can it, by any organ it possesses, exercise a sound or
rational power. A new era must arise--how, whence, when, we are not
instructed.
It is the peculiar characteristic of French democracy, that there is
always mixed up with it the principle, more or less distinctly avowed, of
the community of goods. Perhaps the vagueness we complain of in M. Louis
Blanc, is dictated by mere prudence; perhaps there is no vagueness to the
eye of a propagandist. One sentiment of French democracy he certainly
expresses with sufficient hardihood. It is not often we meet with the
principle of intervention between state and state, asserted in these days
with so much boldness as in the following passage:--"Men have stigmatized
the war in Spain, calling the principle of intervention an oppressive
principle. Puerile accusation! All people are brothers, and all
revolutions cosmopolite. When a government believes that it represents a
just cause, let it make it triumph wherever a triumph is possible. This
is its right; it is more--it is its duty."--(_Introduction_, p. 120.)
How exactly analogous to this is the reasoning which leads to
persecution in religion--to the Holy Inquisition, and all its
philanthropic schemes _of intervention!_ The conviction in a good cause
allowed to overrule the fundamental principles of justice between man
and man--to overrule them, not occasionally and by way of exception, but
systematically--this is the very essence of persecution. But let no one
think that, by any such representation, he would gain an advantage over
the republican propagandist. He no longer fears religious
persecution--it is a thing past: he braves it. He would adopt his
favourite principle, and all its consequences. He would probably admit
that it was the duty of the priest, according to his priestly
intelligence, to ban and persecute. Not mutual toleration, but
reciprocal compulsion, would be his principle. Combat thou for thy
truth--let me fight for mine; such would be his formula.
In a writer bent upon startling and surprising us, there is often a sort
of premeditated haste, a voluntary forgetfulness, which it is curious to
remark. One who weighs his matter well before he speaks, will often end,
alas! in having something very tame and moderate to propound--something
which, after all his turmoil and reflection, may sound very like a good
old commonplace. Now this approximation to commonplace is the great
horror of shallow writers; and the way to avoid it appears to be
this:--Proclaim your thought at once, in all its crude candescence,
before it has had time to cool and shape itself; then, in order to save
your credit with the more captions and scrutinizing, give, at some
convenient interval, such an explanation or modification as will show
that, after all, you were as wise as your reader. State your paradox in
all the startling force of unmitigated diction, and refute it yourself
afterwards, or say enough to prove that you could have done so. This,
well managed, gives two occasions for brilliant display; a sober
statement has been converted into a couple of bold and glancing
propositions. Truth, it is well proved, like the diamond, shines the
more by being cut into surfaces.
M. Louis Blanc, for instance, makes a startling remark on the
incompatibility of royalty and a representative chamber. The two powers
are represented to us as flatly irreconcilable. "Can society," he asks,
"have two heads? Is the sovereignty divisible? Between the government of
a king and the government of an assembly, is there not a gulf which
every day makes wider? And wherever this dualism exists, are not the
people condemned to fluctuate miserably between a 10th of August and an
18th Brumaire?"--(_Int._, p. 64.) And a little further on, speaking of
the times of Louis XVIII., he writes--"Meanwhile Europe began to be
disquieted on the state of things in France. Foreign sovereigns had
thought to establish peace in our country, by establishing the empire of
the charter, and the political dualism which it consecrates. The error
was great, and they ended by discovering it. M. de Richelieu, who had
been present at the congress at Aix-la-Chapelle, brought back with him a
very lively apprehension of the future fate of the monarchy in France. A
change of the electoral law was proposed. Unhappily, it was not in the
law of the 5th February that lay the danger which occupied the congress
of Aix-la-Chapelle. To consolidate the throne, and raise it above the
storms which threatened it, not this or that electoral law, but the
electoral power itself, should, if possible, be abolished. For in
whatever hands this formidable lever was placed, it was impossible that
royalty could long resist its action. To shift the elective power was
only to give the monarchy other enemies, not to save it. * * * The aim
of the new ministry was to preserve the electoral law; which amounted to
this--the monarchy chose ministers whose programme was the destruction
of monarchy."
On reading such passages, we naturally set about recalling certain
old-fashioned political truisms, bearing on the character and interest
of that middle class of society in which the electoral power is
generally lodged. We recollect that the middle classes have been held to
have an interest as well in preserving, as in checking and controlling
the monarchy. Alone, they could not govern society; and they have a
larger share in the government, as partners with the monarchy, than if
they were absorbed in the general mass of the population. They have
every thing to lose by the abolition of a royalty which they have ceased
to fear, and which they have bound by laws. Such a royalty, with its
sway over the imagination of the multitude, with its strong hand of
military power--hand in which the sword is allowed always to rest, as
pomp in time of peace, as weapon in time of war--such a royalty they
feel to be their best protection. Why, then, should they, in their
electoral capacity, be thrust on by a blind rage to destroy it? But all
this train of reflection we might have spared ourselves. M. Louis Blanc
knows it all, and, if you will wait a reasonable time, he will show you
that he knows it. He will put it to you very forcibly--in another place.
Accordingly, some ninety pages off, he tells us:--"At bottom, the middle
class (_la bourgeoisie_) sees in the monarchy a permanent obstacle to
democratic aspirations: it would have subjected royalty, but not
destroyed it."
For the enlightenment of those who may wish to write history in the most
captivating manner, and at the least possible expense to themselves, we
will reveal another fruitful expedient. There are two ways of writing
history. You may either deduce its great events from certain wide and
steadily-operating causes, as the growing wealth or intelligence of a
people, or you may raise a vulgar wonder by describing them as the
result of some quite trivial incident. In the one case, you appeal to a
philosophic taste; in the other, to a popular love of the marvellous. A
revolution may be represented as the inevitable outbreak of the
discontent and misery of the people; or it may be traced, with all its
disasters, to the caprice of a courtier, or perhaps the accidental delay
of a messenger. For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a
shoe, the horse was lost; for want of a horse, the man--and so all was
owing to the want of a nail!
The two manners seem incompatible. Never mind. Use them both--both
freely, independently--just as occasion prompts, and the effect
requires. Flatter the philosophic taste that delights in generalities,
and please the childish wonder which loves to fancy that the whole
oak--trunk, branches, leaves--lay in the acorn. M. Louis Blanc has
certainly no idea of forfeiting either of these attractions by laying
claim to the other. Observe the ease and boldness with which he embraces
them in his narrative of the fall of Napoleon, and the restoration of
the Bourbons. He commences in the generalizing mood.
"The fall of Napoleon lay in the laws of the development of the middle
classes. Can a nation be at the same time essentially commercial and
essentially warlike? Napoleon must have renounced his great part of
military chieftain, or he must have broken with the spirit of
citizenship and commerce. It was madness to think of reigning by the
sword, and continuing the Constituent Assembly. France could not have,
at the same time, the destinies of Rome and Carthage. Napoleon
succumbed, and must have succumbed, to the Carthaginian party of the
people of France. But if the necessary development of the middle classes
called for the overthrow of the empire, it demanded also the return of
the Bourbons. To prove this, we have only to present, in its instructive
simplicity of detail, that narrative of the restoration which so many
historians have distorted."--(_Int._, p. 18.)
Well, he proceeds with this simple and instructive detail; and his
first object is evidently to deprive Talleyrand, to whom on all
occasions he manifests a singular bitterness, of the credit generally
given him of having aided materially in the recall of the Bourbons in
1814. But does he effect this by showing, as from this exordium we might
expect, that his countrymen of the middle class, wearied of the costly
triumphs and disasters of the empire, had begun to sigh for peace and
their old kings? Not at all. He transfers the personal share in the
drama from Prince Talleyrand to Baron de Vitrolles. The Duke d'Alberg
had introduced the baron to Talleyrand, whose intention was to employ
him merely to sound the views of the Allies. Talleyrand was to have
accredited him by some lines of his own writing, but ultimately refused
to commit himself. How was Baron de Vitrolles, who by no means limited
himself to the subordinate part designed for him, and on whom it will be
seen so much really depended, to get accredited to the Allies?
The Duke d'Alberg was intimately acquainted with the Count de Stadion,
representative of Austria at the congress. Now these two friends had
formerly, at Munich, had a certain tender intimacy with two young girls,
whose names the Duke d'Alberg remembered; he wrote them on the leaf of a
pocket-book, and they served as a letter of credence to the adventurous
ambassador. "Such," exclaims our lately generalizing historian--"such is
the manner in which God disposes of the fate of nations!--_Voila de
quelle sorte il plait a Dieu de disposer du sort des peuples!_"
The Baron de Vitrolles, we are told, found the Emperor Alexander
possessed with a strong repugnance against the Bourbons. It cost him
three hours' conversation to gain him over. But he succeeded. It was he
who did gain him over. On the 31st of March, when the Emperor of Russia
entered Paris, Talleyrand stepped forward to receive him.
"Well," said Alexander, "it seems that France recalls the Bourbons."
These words occasioned M. Talleyrand a profound surprise, which,
however, he was too skilful a diplomatist to betray. From that moment,
he was a convert to what he considered the successful cause. "Thus,"
continues our historian, "this restoration took place contrary to the
will of the people, to whom the Bourbons in 1814 were unknown; contrary
to the sympathies of Alexander, who feared the dangers of a reaction;
contrary, in fine, to the opinion of M. Talleyrand, who had never
thought it possible, and had desired only the regency of _Marie
Louise_!"
What particle of truth there may be in this narrative, we do not stop to
enquire; we refer to it only as an example of the bold union of the two
historic manners. The restoration of the Bourbons was "in the laws of
the development of the middle classes!" It was all owing to the Baron de
Vitrolles, and that lucky little intrigue at Munich!
It is one of the boasts and privileges of history to reverse the
judgment that contemporaries have formed of the character of the actors
in it. This privilege M. Louis Blanc, since he writes history, is
determined at all events to seize upon; and he can boast, perhaps, of
having reversed more judgments of this kind than any other historian,
however voluminous. M. Talleyrand has obtained his reputation for
ability--his moral reputation it would be too commonplace a matter to
attack--by "speaking in monosyllables one half his life, and saying
nothing the other half." M. Guizot is a man "whose talent consists in
concealing, under the solemnity of expression and the pomp of _formulae_,
an extreme poverty of views, and sentiments without grandeur." M. Dupin,
the elder, is "skilful in concealing, under an affectation of rudeness,
the pusillanimity of his heart." Cuvier, whose scientific reputation is
untouched, probably because no motive led him to assail it, is "_homme
plus grand par l'intelligence que par le coeur_." Of Metternich he
writes--"A lover of repose from selfishness, he sought it also from
incapacity. He wished to enjoy a reputation easily usurped, the
falsehood of which the least complication of events would have exposed."
And the picture he gives throughout of Casimir Perier is that of an
"illustrious charlatan," in whom nothing was genuine but his pride, his
hate, and his physical infirmities.
The ministers of Charles X. meet with a much fairer appreciation than
those of Louis Philippe. Towards them, one might even say that he is
indulgent. This is easily accounted for: in the war of party, those with
whom we come into the closest and most frequent collision, must, of
course, excite the largest share of our animosity. M. de Polignac seems
to have been aware that he had little to fear from the fierce democrat:
he has not disdained a sort of literary participation in the work,
having contributed some manuscript notes of his own, explanatory of his
share in the transactions of 1830. Altogether, we may presume that the
history, so far as it relates to the ministers of Charles X., is not
unfairly written. Let us approach the narrative by this quarter.
It is a singular picture that M. de Polignac presents to the
imagination, with his unruffled serenity, his extreme audacity, his
violent measures, his negligent preparation, his strong will, his weak
intelligence. The minister is always smiling, and, in the midst of
disaster and ruin, is still beaming with self-confidence; he seems to
have thought that self-confidence wrought like magic, or like faith, and
could of itself remove mountains. If difficulties occurred, his resource
was to be still more self-confident. He was well aware of the hostility
his ordonnances would create; he was well aware that the army must be
their veritable support: yet observe with what a sublime air of
nonchalance he prepares himself for the subjection of a people. "How
many men," asked M. d'Haussez, as the ministers sat round the
council-table, "can you reckon on at Paris?--have you twenty-eight or
thirty thousand?" "More," said the premier; "I have forty-two thousand;"
and, rolling up a paper which he held in his hands, he threw it across
the table to d'Haussez. "But," said the latter, as he looked over the
statement that had been given to him, "I see here only thirteen
thousand. Thirteen thousand men on paper--that amounts to about seven or
eight thousand actually ready to fight your battles. And the other
twenty-nine thousand to complete your number, where are they?" M. de
Polignac assured him that they were spread about the neighbourhood of
Paris, and in ten hours, if it were necessary, could be assembled in the
capital. The ministers felt, adds our historian, that they were entering
into a dreadful game blindfold.
M. de Polignac appears to have relied upon the army, much in the same
way that a speculative writer, theorizing upon government, rests upon
his great abstraction, the military power. He treated it as if it were a
principle, an idea, that developed itself without his aid, and not a
palpable fact of there being a certain number of armed men, then and
there, to fight for his ordonnances.
There is no virtue so much applauded in the present day as
resolution--_will_; and there are who regard a strong will as the
essence of all virtue. But the history of M. de Polignac proves, (if
this needed proof,) that the weak can have will enough. Your strong will
may be purchased at the sole expense of reason. Let there be one idea in
a brain that cannot hold two, and you have a strong will. M. de Polignac
never wavered once; he was always seen with a smiling countenance, calm,
radiant with hope and self-approval. When others around him began to
despond, when the Duke of Ragusa, commander of the forces, writing to
the king, said that it was not a riot, but a revolution, and advised him
to retreat while he could still retreat with honour, the minister had,
for all answer, but one word--"Fire!" It was still, Fire! But what if
the troops, it was asked, desert to the people? "Then fire on the
troops!"
On the publication of the ordonnances, the members of the Chamber who
were in Paris met at each others' houses to discuss measures of
resistance. But it was not from the members of the Chamber that the
movement was to emanate. Those who had any position to compromise looked
on, for the most part, with anxiety and astonishment, waiting to see
what current the disturbed waters would finally take. "On the evening of
the 27th, a man, name unknown, appeared on the Quai d'Ecole, and
paraded the banks of the river with the tri-coloured flag, which had
been folded up and hidden away for fifteen years." The symbol was
adopted by the people. The revolution had commenced.
Then followed all those strange scenes of levity and blood, buffoonery
and heroism, which the history of Parisian revolutions has familiarized
to the imagination, but which, nevertheless, have an inexhaustible
interest. The people arm themselves wheresoever and howsoever they can.
One brings into the Place de la Bourse two large hampers, full of
muskets and accoutrements. They come from the Theatre du Vaudeville,
where a piece had been played, a few days before, which required that a
number of actors should be armed. To command men thus equipped there
were extemporary generals, whose epaulets were obtained from the
wardrobe of the Opera Comique. The students of the Polytechnic were, as
usual, on the alert to practise whatever they had learned of military
science; the younger sort entering into the war with the same spirit
that other schoolboys partake of any minor mischief that is going
forward. A student of the Polytechnic is standing on the left bank of
the river; he has a musket, but no ammunition. A fellow-student, a lad
of fifteen, has a packet of cartridges, but no musket: "You shall share
them," said he, showing his treasure, "if you will lend me the gun to
shoot my half." A party of the royal guard were coming over the bridge.
He started with the gun _to have his shots_. He was swept off with
others by the fire of the military.
On one side comes a party led by a violin, women applauding. But the
women do more than applaud. They carry great paving-stones to the top of
the house, to be thence precipitated on the heads of the soldiers; they
tend the wounded, they bruise charcoal for gunpowder.
There was, no doubt, some severe fighting during the Three Days; but,
generally speaking, the military seem to have entered into the contest
with reluctance. Some instances are here given of singular forbearance
on their part. At a time when, in certain quarters of Paris, each house
was converted into a sort of fortress whence the military was assailed,
three men had placed themselves behind a stack of chimneys, and had,
from this shelter, directed a destructive fire on the troops. They were
at length discovered, and a cannon was levelled against the chimney.
But, before firing, the gunner made signal to the men to escape,
contenting himself with demolishing their breastwork. As another company
of soldiers, led by its officer, was marching through the streets, one
of the mob rushed forward, and, with a mad audacity, struck the officer
on the head with a bar of iron. He staggered, and his face overflowed
with blood; but he still had strength enough to raise his sword to put
aside the muskets of his men, who were in the act of firing on the
assailant.
We have here a vivid description of the taking of the Tuileries by the
populace. Some amused themselves by mutilating the statues of kings, or
by firing at the portraits of such of the marshals as they considered to
have been guilty of treason to Napoleon. A number of artisans installed
themselves in the chamber of the throne; they sat, each in his turn,
upon the royal seat, afterwards they placed a corpse in it. Some of them
drew, over shirts stained with blood, the court-dresses which had
circled the waist of royal princesses, and strutted about in this
masquerade. Riot and destruction as much as you please, but no
theft--such was the order of the day. A young man was bearing off a hat,
decorated with plumes of a costly description. "Where are you going,"
cried his companions, "with that hat?" "It is only a souvenir," said he
of the hat. "Ha! good; but in that case the value is nothing." So
saying, they took the hat and trampled it under their feet, and then
returned it to him--doubly valuable as a souvenir. Many striking traits
of honesty were exhibited. One man brought a vase of silver to the
prefect of police, and did not even leave his name. Another found a bag
of three thousand francs in the Louvre, and hastened with the money to
the Commune. The next day he was probably amongst the number who were
wandering about Paris without bread and without work, driven out of
employment by the commercial panic of their own glorious revolution.
A scene of a like grotesque description took place, at a later period,
on the return of the mob from Rambouillet, where they had gone in search
of the unhappy Charles X. The king had left Rambouillet before the mob
reached it, so that they had nothing to do but to return, unless any
work of demolition should invite them to stay. M. Degoussee, at that
moment the man in authority, in order to save the royal carriages from
destruction, bethought him of the expedient of offering a ride home in
them to the most violent and redoubtable of the mob. In a moment these
gilded vehicles, blazoned with the royal arms, were filled with the
lowest of the rabble, who projected their pipes and their bayonets from
the windows. These state carriages, drawn by eight horses, and driven by
silken postilions, were heaped up, inside and out, with this riotous
crew, who entered Paris in triumph, amidst the responsive jests and
shouts of the populace. Driven up to the Palais Royal, they there
descended from their splendid vehicles, and delivered them over to their
new owner. "_Tenez--voila vos voitures!_" they shouted, as they alighted
under the windows of the Duke of Orleans.
It is curious to remark the contrast between the thoughtless, reckless
bravery of the combatants of July, and the watchful timidity of the
politicians who were ultimately to profit by their courage and
infatuation. The soldiers had, at many points, fraternized with the
people--all was success for the popular party--and the drawing-room of
M. Lafitte was full of distinguished men of that party.
"The court of the hotel," continues M. Blanc, "was now full of soldiers.
Five of the royal officers entered the saloon. M. Lafitte, who had been
wounded in the leg, received them sitting in an arm-chair. He received
them with great blandness and dignity. 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'keep your
arms, but swear never to turn them against the people.' The officers
extended their hands, as if to take an oath. 'No oath, gentlemen,' said
M. Lafitte with much emotion; 'kings have dishonoured oaths. The word of
the brave is sufficient.' This was received with universal applause, and
every one present resigned himself to the excitement of the hour; when
suddenly a discharge of musketry was heard. How describe the tumult that
in a moment filled the apartment! The royal guard was certainly
victorious--the enemy would be down on them--every one fled. They rushed
into the hall, they pushed, they struggled for egress. Some jumped
through the windows of the ground-floor into the garden. Two deputies
were found hiding in the stables. In an instant, M. Lafitte was
abandoned by all those who had besieged his arm-chair. His nephew was
the only person who remained with him. And what had happened? The
soldiers of the 6th had followed the example of their comrades of the
55th, and, gained over to the cause of the people, they had fired their
muskets in the air!"
Already, at the first outbreak of the revolution, some one had
remarked--"here were a good game for the Duke of Orleans, if he has the
courage to play it." Courage he had, but equal caution it seems, equal
prudence. A deputation had proceeded from the house of Lafitte to
Neuilly, the residence of the Duke, to invite him to the throne; but it
was the Duchess who received them. The Duke himself had taken refuge at
Raincy. To Raincy messengers were sent. The Duke of Orleans ordered his
carriage. Those who were waiting his arrival at Neuilly heard the wheels
approach--heard them suddenly recede. The carriage had turned, and was
regaining Raincy with all the speed possible. The resolution was not
quite taken, or the pear was not quite ripe.
His entry into Paris, according to M. Blanc, was made on foot in the
evening, and he clambered like a common citizen over the barricades.
Arrived at the Palais Royal, he sent to notify his presence to Lafitte
and Lafayette--representatives, the one of the Chamber, and the other of
the Hotel de Ville--and also to the Duke de Mortemart, minister of
Charles X. The interview with this last took place the same evening, and
had for its apparent object to proclaim, in the presence of the
minister, his attachment and unalterable fidelity to the elder branch of
the Bourbons. When De Mortemart arrived, he was ushered into a little
cabinet on the right, which looks upon the court, not ordinarily used as
an apartment of the family.
The Duke of Orleans was stretched upon the floor, lying on a mattrass,
in his shirt. His forehead was bathed in sweat;{B} the glare of his
eyes, and every thing about him, betrayed a great fatigue, and a
singular state of excitement. On seeing the Duke de Mortemart enter, he
began to speak with great rapidity. He expressed himself with much
volubility and ardour, proclaiming his attachment to the elder branch,
and protesting that he came to Paris only to save the town from anarchy.
At this moment a great noise was heard in the court, and the cry was
raised of _Vive le Duc d'Orleans!_ "You hear that cry," said the
minister; "it is you the people call for." "No, no!" answered the Duke
with increasing energy. "They shall kill me before I accept the crown."
The next morning the deputation from the Chamber presented itself at the
Palais Royal; and so far was resolved, that the Duke of Orleans was
proclaimed lieutenant-general of the kingdom.
M. Louis Blanc gives several anecdotes respecting the King of the
French, and his successive ministers, which we should be disposed to
extract, but that his political antipathies lying exactly in this
quarter, we have not felt sufficient confidence in their authority. For
this reason we will pass on abruptly to a portion of the work where the
political bias of the writer is harmless, or where it may have induced
him to inform himself more accurately on his subject than the generality
of persons.
This last is evidently the case in his account of the doctrines and
practices of the St Simonians. One who felt no sympathy with any portion
of their creed, would not have taken the trouble to obtain accurate
information, or an intimate knowledge on this subject. Not that M. Blanc
is a St Simonian; to do him justice, he has argued with ability and
clearness against their leading tenets or maxims; but being a man
devoted to a new order of things of some kind or other, he has given
naturally a more than usual attention to this sect, and we think our
readers will hold themselves obliged to us, if we abridge some portion
of his account of St Simon and his disciples.
"The founder of the St Simonian school had been deceased five years when
the revolution of July broke out. He belonged to one of the noblest
houses of France, bearing the name and arms of that famous Duke de St
Simon, the historian of the reign of Louis XIV., and the last of our
veritable _grands seigneurs_. Yet it was the privilege of birth that he
attacked, and the impiety of war that he proclaimed. He was a man of
singular independence of mind, and of extreme moral courage. Convinced
that, before dictating a code for the regulation of human life, it was
necessary to have attentively analysed that life as it actually exists,
he spent the first half of his days in studying society under all its
aspects; recoiling from no experience, practising, in the character of
an observer, even vice as well as virtue; drawing a lesson from his own
frailties, and making a study of his own follies. He dissipated his
fortune in premeditated prodigality, and terminated a studious opulence
in excessive poverty; living on the miserable salary of a copyist, when
in idea he was governing the world. In the estimation of some, a
sage--of others, a madman; at one time sanguine to enthusiasm, at
another discouraged to the point of attempting suicide; reduced at last
to the condition of a mendicant, after having so often united round his
table, in order to observe and judge them, the most celebrated men in
art and literature. Such was St Simon in life and character: it remains
to see what were the intellectual results he arrived at."--(Vol. III. p.
96.)
His first project of a code for human life was sufficiently ridiculous.
In a work entitled _Letters from an Inhabitant of Geneva to his
Contemporaries_, he addressed himself to the learned portion of the
world, inviting them to undertake the government of the human race. The
programme was as follows. A subscription was to be opened before the
tomb of Newton. Every one was called upon to subscribe according to his
means, rich and poor, man and woman; and each subscriber was to have a
voice in the selection of--three mathematicians, three natural
philosophers, three chemists, three physiologists, three men of letters,
three painters, and three musicians. These several threes, amounting to
twenty-one, besides having the produce of the subscription, were to form
a council, called the _Council of Newton_, and undertake the spiritual
government of the world, directing the efforts of the several nations of
the globe towards one common end.
The learned portion of the world made no response to this invitation; he
therefore next addressed himself to the operatives, declaring that the
time was come to tear the crown from the brow of idleness, and establish
the reign of labour. The king was now to be the chief of artisans, his
ministers enlightened workmen; and the electoral right was to be so
placed as to transfer all power from the proprietor of the soil to the
cultivator, from the capitalist to the journeyman. One would say that,
piqued with the indifference of the most literate portion of mankind, he
was determined to offer the government of the world to the most
illiterate. Since the Royal Society would not accept the ball and
sceptre which he had placed at its disposal, he gave them over to the
Trades' Union.
But neither would this satisfy him. He who appeals to the lowest order
of minds must confine himself to what is intelligible to, and
influential on the lowest; and this would hardly accord with one who, at
all events, had led an intellectual life, of however wild an order. He
again reverted to the thinking classes, and to some modification of his
first idea; and his _New Christianity_--his last and most complete
effort--has for its object to erect an intellectual and spiritual
government of the world. Taking his analogy from the spiritual dominion
of the church of Rome, but finding that that power was too restricted in
its exercise, inasmuch as the material interests and scientific labours
of mankind were not embraced by it, he called for the foundation of "a
religious power, which, embracing humanity in all its interests, should
conduct it towards a Christian purpose--the amelioration of the lot of
the great multitude of mankind; by their _sentiments_ employing
_artists_, by their _reason_ employing the _learned_, and by their
_activity_ employing the _operative_."
Whatever may be the importance of this conception, it answered one
purpose--it satisfied the builder's mind. St Simon died full of faith
and hope. When he bade his eternal adieus to the few disciples who
surrounded his dying bed, he regarded his work as completed, his mission
as fulfilled. "The fruit is ripe," said he; "you will gather it."
The disciples of St Simon still further elaborated and disseminated his
doctrines; and a school was formed which recognised MM. Enfantin and
Buzard for its chiefs. It need hardly be said, that the new order of
society was to be founded on universal benevolence--no war, and no
rivalry--and the industry of mankind organized in such sort, _that to
each man would be assigned according to his capacity, and to each
capacity according to its works_.
We quote with pleasure the remarks (tinctured though they are by his own
peculiar opinions) which M. Blanc makes on this famous formula:--"In
preaching a universal association of men, founded on benevolence--in
demanding that industry should be regularly organized, and that she
should establish her empire on the ruins of a system of violence and
war, the St Simonians showed a thorough intelligence of the laws which
will one day govern humanity. But they overthrow with one hand the
edifice they erect with the other, when they announce this famous
formula--_To each according to his capacity; to each capacity according
to its works_--a formula wise and equitable in appearance, but in
reality subversive and unjust.
"If we say that a man, in virtue of his intellectual superiority, is to
adjudge to himself a larger share than others of the goods of this
world, what right have we to censure the sturdy barbarian, who, in
virtue of his physical superiority, was wont to take the lion's share to
himself? We have changed the basis on which the tyranny rested--the
tyranny remains. The St Simonians, it is true, justify their formula on
the grounds of public utility; it is well, say they, to stimulate talent
by recompense. But is it necessary that the recompense of talent be of
this gross and material kind? that it be counted down in so much wealth?
Thank Heaven! man has other and more energetic motives. With a piece of
riband to be attached to the buttonhole, Napoleon could make an army of
a million of men rush forward upon danger and death. The word _glory_,
well or ill understood, has always decided the destinies of the world.
What is amply sufficient when the work of destruction is in hand, by
what disastrous fatality does it become incompetent when the task is to
produce and to create? Is it not true that great men have always sought
and found their principal recompense in the very exercise of their high
faculties? If society had wished to recompense Newton, it would have
been utterly powerless to do so; there was for Newton, in all the world,
no other or sufficient recompense, but the joy he must have felt when
his genius discovered the laws which govern the planets. * * * The
greater the intelligence, the greater the sphere of action; but not
necessarily the greater the material recompense. The inequality of
capacities can legitimately conduct to the inequality only of duties."
The revolution of 1830 gave a wonderful stimulant to the little society
of St Simon. It extended rapidly, and adjourned its sittings from a
private house to an ample theatre, where three tiers of boxes held the
admiring or ironical auditory. Fetes, and the presence of charming
women, increased the number of proselytes; artists, physicians,
advocates, poets, flocked to share in the generous hopes of the new era.
The capital and the provinces were portioned out into new departments,
to accord with the new administration of affairs, and St Simonism had
also its map of France. The two chiefs, or fathers, took upon themselves
the ambitious title of popes. They already cast their eyes upon the
Tuileries. Louis-Philippe was summoned by letter to yield his place to
MM. Enfantin and Buzard. St Simonism was already a government destined
to replace the authority of the Catholic church.
But there were schisms in this new church--Pope Enfantin thinking one
thing and Pope Buzard another; and that, too, on the important topic of
matrimony. The principal adepts of the sect met together, and held
strange fanatical discussions for the discovery of the truth on these
controverted points. It is worthy of remark, that St Simonism, as well
as Irvingism or Mesmerism, could boast of its convulsions and its
prophecies.
"At this time there passed in the Rue Monsigny, in the midst of this
sceptical and mocking France, scenes so extraordinary, that, to find
their parallel, we must revert to the history of the Anabaptists. Those
who had hitherto resisted the extreme doctrines of Father Enfantin, felt
as if impelled against their will to the borders of some immense abyss.
With the rest, it was an accession of fervour altogether indescribable,
an exaltation which ended in delirium. There, in a room, the doors of
which were carefully closed, and whose thick walls betrayed no sound,
discussions were continued whole days and whole nights without
interruption, without relief, without repose. It sometimes happened that
a young man, incapable of sustaining these consuming vigils, reeled and
fainted; they removed the apparently lifeless body without suspending
the discussion. M. Caseaux was in an ecstasy for an hour, and began to
prophesy. Another day, M. Olinde Rodrigues was struck as if by apoplexy;
because, asking each of the members in turn whether it was not true that
the Holy Spirit was in him, (M. Olinde Rodrigues,) one of the persons
interrogated had the temerity to answer by certain expressions of
incredulity. The fit was extremely violent, and Dr Fuster, in order to
save the patient, had recourse to a formal retractation from the
inconsiderate respondent, who, on his part, was full of affliction for
the mischief he had occasioned. Such, even on men of serious thought and
elevated understanding, may be the effect produced by a belief carried
to a certain point of excitement."
Such, too, may be the danger of contradicting a prophet; and we intend
to take the hint, and never be guilty of so great an imprudence. These
dissensions, accompanied with certain financial difficulties, led to a
rupture, and the family of the Rue Monsigny were compelled to dissolve.
"In this crisis, the profound calm of Enfantin never deserted him. He
possessed, at Menilmontant, a house and garden; here he resolved to seek
a place of retreat, of study, and of labour, for himself and his more
faithful disciples. Forty of these followed him to this retreat, and
there commenced the life in common, combined always with a just
sentiment of the true hierarchy of society. Poets, artists, officers,
musicians, all devoted themselves in turn to the rudest and coarsest
labours. They repaired the house, they swept the courts, they cleaned
the chambers and polished the floors; they dug up the uncultivated soil,
they covered the walks with gravel, extracted from a pit which they
themselves had excavated. To prove that their ideas on the nature of
marriage, and the emancipation of women, were pure from any selfish or
sensual calculations, they imposed upon themselves the law of celibacy.
Morning and evening they nourished their mind with the words of the
father, or, in the lives of the Christian saints read aloud, they found
example, encouragement, and precept. Hymns, the music of which one of
their members had composed, served to elevate their minds and charm
their labours. At five o'clock, dinner was announced by the sound of a
horn. Then these philosophic workpeople piled up their tools, arranged
their wheel-barrows symmetrically, and took their place, after having
first sung 'the prayer before repast.'"
In this retreat they adopted a distinctive dress, of which one portion,
the waistcoat, was symbolical; it was so made that it could not be put
on without the help of a brother--and thus was calculated perpetually to
call to mind the necessity of mutual aid. On the day of the institution
of this habit, Enfantin declared that he and his followers had renounced
all rights to property according to the existing law, and had duly
qualified themselves to receive "the honourable wages" of labour.
But this fantastical experiment was cut short by the interference of the
law. A public prosecution was instituted against the St Simonians; and
Pere Enfantin, and other chiefs of the sect, were brought before the
tribunal at Paris. It will be easily understood that the court that day
was crowded with spectators, eager to see the St Simonians, especially
Enfantin, who appeared in a violet-coloured robe, with the words LE PERE
written in large letters on his breast. When asked by the president,
whether he did not style himself the Father of Humanity--whether he did
not profess to be the Living Law--he answered, "Yes!" with perfect
calmness and assurance. The discourse he delivered in his own defence
was chiefly remarkable for the long pauses he made from time to time,
occupying himself with looking steadfastly at the president, or the
advocate-general. He said he wished to make them feel "the power of the
flesh." But this species of animal magnetism appears to have had no
other effect than that of irritating the court. He and some others were
condemned to pay a fine, and suffer a year's imprisonment. The family
was dispersed. For the present there was an end to St Simonism.
A history is hardly complete without a plague, or pestilence, or famine,
or some such wide-spreading calamity, on which the historian can spend
the dark colours of his descriptive eloquence. Considering that M. Louis
Blanc had but the space of ten years under him, he must have regarded
himself as very fortunate in meeting with the cholera, which figures
here as a very respectable pestilence. The carrying forth the dead,
naked and uncoffined, in open carts, is an image often presented to us
in descriptions of this nature; but it is perhaps surpassed in terrible
effects by the one here offered to us, of the bodies of those who had
died of the cholera piled up in carts and tumbrils, in coffins so
hastily and slightly constructed, that, as they rattled over the stones,
there was constant danger of their horrible contents being poured upon
the pavement. But the strange reports that were afloat amongst this
credulous and passionate populace, form the most striking feature in the
picture. It was reported in Paris, as our readers will probably
remember, that there was, in reality, no cholera, but that poison had
been poured into the fountains of the metropolis, and had been mingled
with the wine and the flour; and thus it was that the people were dying.
It was dangerous to be found with a phial in the hand, or to be seen
sitting, without any ostensible cause, near one of the public fountains.
A young man was looking into a well; he was massacred. Another met the
same fate, who was leaning over the door of a dealer in wine and
spirits, in order to see what o'clock it was. A Jew in the market-place
was thought to have a sinister laugh; they searched him, found a packet
of white powder--it was camphor--they killed him, and set on the dogs to
tear the body.
And then that insurrection against the mud-carts--what an insight does
it give into the wide-spreading and tangled interests of a modern
capital! It was impossible to touch the mud of Paris without periling
the subsistence of eighteen hundred persons. What more fit, what more
innocuous to all parties, it would seem, than to clear away the mud from
the streets--to clear it away as soon as possible, that it should not
lie there, exhaling pestilence during the heat of the day? But
stop--there are in Paris some eighteen hundred persons who gain their
bread out of this mud, groping in it, and extracting from it every
article of the least commercial value. With a basket slung upon their
back, and a crook in their hand to facilitate their search, these
_chiffoniers_ are to be seen in every quarter of the city, congregating
wherever there is dirt. And now, if all that is thrown out of the houses
of Paris is taken away before these industrious persons have had time to
search it, what is to become of the whole profession of _chiffonerie_?
These new mud-carts, with their ruthless sweepers, traversing the city
at dawn of day, must be broken up and thrown into the Seine; and it was
done so accordingly.
There is a peculiar charm, we think, in having related to us, for the
first time, in the shape of history, what we remember to have read and
talked over as the news and gossip of the day. We seem to be present at
the making of history. We see facts, as the death of princes, which made
so much stir and confusion, sink into the commonplace of the historical
record; while anecdotes, which were repeated and forgotten, may stand
forward as instructive proofs of the temper of the times, and the spirit
of the past age. More than one such anecdote we think we could select
from the pages before us; but it is possible we might draw them from a
purer source than the work of M. Louis Blanc, to which our readers will
perhaps think that we have already given more than sufficient space.