As instances of this kind pressed upon me, I have sometimes felt as if I had got behind the scenes of a theatre, and that all sorts of materials, for all sorts of performances, were jumbled together around me, that they might be ready at a moment’s notice if called for. Here a crown — there a cap of liberty. On this peg, a mantle embroidered with fleurs-de-lis; on that, a tri-coloured flag. In one corner, all the paraphernalia necessary to deck out the pomp and pageantry of the Catholic church; and in another, all the symbols that can be found which might enable them to show respect and honour to Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics. In this department might be seen very noble preparations to support a grand military spectacle; and in that, all the prettiest pageants in the world, to typify eternal peace.
I saw all these things, for it was impossible not to see them; but as to the scene-shifters who were to prepare the different tableaux, I in truth knew nothing about them. Their trap-doors, wires, and other machinery were very wisely kept out of sight of such eyes as mine; for had I known anything of the matter, I should most assuredly have told it all, which would greatly tend to mar the effect of the next change of decorations.
It was with this feeling, and in this spirit of purely superficial observation, that the foregoing letters were written; but, ere I commit them to the press, I wish to add a few graver thoughts which rest upon my mind as the result of all that I saw and heard while at Paris, connected as they now are with the eventful changes which have occurred in the short interval that has elapsed since I left it.
“The country is in a state of transition,” is a phrase which I have often listened to, and often been disposed to laugh at, as a sort of oracular interpretation of paradoxes which, in truth, no one could understand: but the phrase may now be used without any Delphic obscurity. France was indeed in a state of transition exactly at the period of which I have been writing; but this uncertain state is past, nearly all the puzzling anomalies which so completely defied interpretation have disappeared, and it may now be fairly permitted, to simple-minded travellers who pretend not to any conjuring skill, to guess a little what she is about.
I revisited France with that animating sensation of pleasure which arises from the hope of reviving old and agreeable impressions; but this pleasure was nevertheless dashed with such feeling of regret as an English conservative may be supposed to feel for the popular violence which had banished from her throne its legitimate sovereign.
As an abstract question of right and wrong, my opinion of this act cannot change; but the deed is done, — France has chosen to set aside the claim of the prince who by the law of hereditary succession has a right to the crown, in favour of another prince of the same royal line, whom in her policy she deems more capable of insuring the prosperity of the country. The deed is done; and the welfare of tens of millions who had, perhaps, no active share in bringing it about now hangs upon the continuance of the tranquillity which has followed the change.
However deep therefore may be the respect felt for those who, having sworn fealty to Charles the Tenth, continue steadfastly undeviating in their declaration of his right, and firm in their refusal to recognise that of any other, still a stranger and sojourner in the land may honestly acknowledge the belief that the prosperity of France at the present hour depends upon her allegiance to the king she has chosen, without being accused of advocating the cause of revolution.
To judge fairly of France as she actually exists, it is absolutely necessary to throw aside all memory of the purer course she might have pursued five years ago, by the temperate pleading of her chartered rights, to obtain redress of such evils as really existed. The popular clamour which rose and did the work of revolution, though it originated with factious demagogues and idle boys, left the new power it had set in action in the hands of men capable of redeeming the noble country they were called to govern from the state of disjointed weakness in which they found it. The task has been one of almost unequalled difficulty and peril; but every day gives greater confidence to the hope, that after forty years of blundering, blustering policy, and changes so multiplied as to render the very name of revolution ridiculous, this superb kingdom, so long our rival, and now, as we firmly trust, our most assured ally, will establish her government on a basis firm enough to strengthen the cause of social order and happiness throughout all Europe.
The days, thank Heaven! are past when Englishmen believed it patriotic to deny their Gallic neighbours every faculty except those of making a bow and of eating a frog, while they were repaid by all the weighty satire comprised in the two impressive words JOHN BULL. We now know each other better — we have had a long fight, and we shake hands across the water with all the mutual good-will and respect which is generated by a hard struggle, bravely sustained on both sides, and finally terminated by a hearty reconciliation.
The position, the prospects, the prosperity of France are become a subject of the deepest interest to the English nation; and it is therefore that the observations of any one who has been a recent looker-on there may have some value, even though they are professedly drawn from the surface only. But when did ever the surface of human affairs present an aspect so full of interest? Now that so many of the circumstances which have been alluded to above as puzzling and incongruous have been interpreted by the unexpected events which have lately crowded upon each other, I feel aware that I have indeed been looking on upon the dénouement of one of the most interesting political dramas that ever was enacted. The movements of King Philippe remind one of those by which a bold rider settles himself in the saddle, when he has made up his mind for a rough ride, and is quite determined not to be thrown. When he first mounted, indeed, he took his seat less firmly; one groom held the stirrup, another the reins: he felt doubtful how far he should be likely to go — the weather looked cloudy — he might dismount directly.... But soon the sun burst from behind the cloud that threatened him: Now for it, then! neck or nothing! He orders his girths to be tightened, his curb to be well set, and the reins fairly and horsemanly put into his hands.... Now he is off! and may his ride be prosperous! — for should he fall, it is impossible to guess how the dust which such a catastrophe might raise would settle itself.
The interest which his situation excites is sufficiently awakening, and produces a species of romantic feeling, that may be compared to what the spectators experienced in the tournaments of old, when they sat quietly by to watch the result of a combat à outrance. But greater, far greater is the interest produced by getting a near view of the wishes and hopes of the great people who have placed their destinies in his hands.
Nothing that is going on in Paris — in the Chamber of Deputies, in the Chamber of Peers, or even in the Cabinet of the King — could touch me so much, or give me half so much pleasure to listen to, as the tone in which I have heard some of the most distinguished men in France speak of the repeated changes and revolutions in her government.
It is not in one or two instances only that I have remarked this tone, — in fact, I might say that I have met it whenever I was in the society of those whose opinions especially deserved attention. I hardly know, however, how to describe it, for it cannot be done by repeating isolated phrases and observations. I should say, that it marks distinctly a consciousness that such frequent changes are not creditable to any nation — that they feel half ashamed to talk of them gravely, yet more than half vexed to speak of the land they love with anything approaching to lightness or contempt. That the men of whom I speak do love their country with a true, devoted, Romanlike attachment, I am quite sure; and I never remember to have felt the conviction that I was listening to real patriots so strongly as when I have heard them reason on the causes, deplore the effects, and deprecate the recurrence of these direful and devastating convulsions.
It is, if I mistake not, this noble feeling of wishing to preserve their country from the disgrace of any farther demonstrations of such frail inconstancy, which will tend to keep Louis-Philippe on his throne as much, or even more perhaps,
than that newly-awakened energy in favour of the boutique and the bourse of which we hear so much.
It is nowise surprising that this proud but virtuous sentiment should yet exist, notwithstanding all that has happened to check and to chill it. Frenchmen have still much of which they may justly boast. After a greater continuance of external war and internal commotion than perhaps any country was ever exposed to within the same space of time, France is in no degree behind the most favoured nations of Europe in any one of the advantages which have ever been considered as among the especial blessings of peace. Tremendous as have been her efforts and her struggles, the march of science has never faltered: the fine arts have been cherished with unremitting zeal and a most constant care, even while every citizen was a soldier; and now, in this breathing-time that Heaven has granted her, she presents a spectacle of hopeful industry, active improvement, and prosperous energy, which is unequalled, I believe, in any European country except our own.
Can we wonder, then, that the nation is disposed to rally round a prince whom Fate seems to have given expressly as an anchor to keep her firm and steady through the heavy swell that the late storms have left? Can we wonder that feelings, and even principles, are found to bend before an influence so salutary and so strong?
However irregular the manner in which he ascended the throne, Louis-Philippe had himself little more to do with it than yielding to the voice of the triumphant party who called upon him to mount its troublesome pre-eminence; and at the moment he did so, he might very fairly have exclaimed —
“If chance will have me king, why chance may crown me
Without my stir.”
* * * * *
Never certainly did any event brought on by tumult and confusion give such fair promise of producing eventually the reverse, as the accession of King Louis-Philippe to the throne of France.
The manner of this unexpected change itself, the scenes which led to it, and even the state of parties and of feelings which came afterwards, all bore a character of unsettled confusion which threatened every species of misery to the country.
When we look back upon this period, all the events which occurred during the course of it appear like the rough and ill-assorted fragments of worsted on the reverse of a piece of tapestry. No one could guess, not even the agents in them, what the final result would be. But they were at work upon a design drawn by the all-powerful and unerring hand of Providence; and strange as the medley has appeared to us during the process, the whole when completed seems likely to produce an excellent effect.
The incongruous elements, however, of which the chaos was composed from whence this new order of things was to arise, though daily and by slow degrees assuming shape and form, were still in a state of “most admired disorder” during our abode in Paris. It was impossible to guess where-unto all those things tended which were evidently in movement around us; and the signs of the times were in many instances so contrary to each other, that nothing was left for those who came to view the land, but to gaze — to wonder, and pass on, without attempting to reconcile contradictions so totally unintelligible.
But, during the few weeks that have elapsed since I left the capital of France, this obscurity has been dispersed like a mist. It was the explosion of an infernal machine that scattered it; but it is the light of heaven that now shines upon the land, making visible to the whole world on what foundation rest its hopes, and by what means they shall be brought to fruition.
Never, perhaps, did even a successful attempt upon the life of an individual produce results so important as those likely to ensue from the failure of the atrocious plot against the King of the French and his sons. It has roused the whole nation as a sleeping army is roused by the sound of a trumpet. The indifferent, the doubting — nay, even the adverse, are now bound together by one common feeling: an assassin has raised his daring arm against France, and France in an instant assumes an attitude so firm, so bold, so steady, and so powerful, that all her enemies must quail before it.
As for the wretched faction who sent forth this bloody agent to do their work, they stand now before the face of all men in the broad light of truth. High and noble natures may sometimes reason amiss, and may mistake the worse cause for the better; but however deeply this may involve them in error, it will not lead them one inch towards crime. Such men have nothing in common with the republicans of 1835.
From their earliest existence as a party, these republicans have avowed themselves the unrelenting enemies of all the powers that be: social order, and all that sustains it, is their abhorrence; and neither honour, conscience, nor humanity has force sufficient to restrain them from the most hideous crimes when its destruction is the object proposed. Honest men of all shades of political opinion must agree in considering this unbridled faction as the common enemies of the human race. In every struggle to sustain the laws which bind society together, their hand is against every man; and the inevitable consequence must and will be, that every man’s hand shall be against them.
Deplorable therefore as were the consequences of the Fieschi plot in its partial murderous success, it is likely to prove in its ultimate result of the most important and lasting benefit to France. It has given union and strength to her councils, energy and boldness to her acts; and if it be the will of Heaven that anything shall stay the plague of insurrection and revolt which, with infection more fearful than that of the Asiatic pest, has tainted the air of Europe with its poisonous breath, it is from France, where the evil first arose, that the antidote to it is most likely to come.
It will be in vain that any republican clamour shall attempt to stigmatise the acts of the French legislature with the odium of an undue and tyrannical use of the power which it has been compelled to assume. The system upon which this legislature has bound itself to act is in its very nature incompatible with individual power and individual ambition: its acts may be absolute — and high time is it that they should be so, — but the absolutism will not be that of an autocrat.
The theory of the doctrinaire government is not so well, or at least so generally, understood as it will be; but every day is making it better known to Europe, — and whether the new principles on which it is founded be approved or not, its power will be seen to rest upon them, and not upon the tyrannical will of any man or body of men whatever.
It is not uncommon to hear persons declare that they understand no difference between the juste-milieu party and that of the doctrinaires; but they cannot have listened very attentively to the reasonings of either party.
The juste-milieu party, if I understand them aright, consists of politicians whose principles are in exact conformity to the expressive title they have chosen. They approve neither of a pure despotism nor of a pure democracy, but plead for a justly-balanced constitutional government with a monarch at its head.
The doctrinaires are much less definite in their specification of the form of government which they believe the circumstances of France to require. It might be thought indeed, from some of their speculations, that they were almost indifferent as to what form the government should assume, or by what name it should be known to the world, provided always that it have within itself power and efficacy sufficient to adopt and carry into vigorous effect such measures as its chiefs shall deem most beneficial to the country for the time being. A government formed on these principles can pledge itself by no guarantee to any particular line of politics, and the country must rest contented in the belief that its interests shall be cared for by those who are placed in a situation to control them.
Upon these principles, it is evident that the circumstances in which the country is placed, internally and externally, must regulate the policy of her cabinet, and not any abstract theory connected with the name assumed by her government. Thus despotism may be the offspring of a republic; and liberty, the gift of a dynasty which has reigned for ages by right divine.
M. de Carné, a political writer of much ability, in his essay on parties and “le mouvement actu
el,” ridicules in a spirit of keen satire the idea that any order of men in France at the present day should be supposed to interest themselves seriously for any abstract political opinion.
“Croit-on bien sérieusement encore,” he says, “au mécanisme constitutionnel — à la multiplicité de ses poids et contre-poids — à l’inviolabilité sacrée de la pensée dirigeante, combinée avec la responsabilité d’argent?”...
And again he says,— “Est-il beaucoup d’esprits graves qui attachent aujourd’hui une importance de premier ordre pour le bien-être moral et matériel de la race humaine à la substitution d’une présidence américaine, à la royauté de 1830?”
It is evident from the tone sustained through the whole of this ingenious essay, that it is the object of M. Carné to convince his readers of the equal and total futility of every political creed founded on any fixed and abstract principle. Who is it, he asks, “qui a établi en France un despotisme dont on ne trouve d’exemple qu’en remontant aux monarchies de l’Asie? — Napoleon — lequel régnait comme les Césars Romains, en vertu de la souveraineté du peuple. Qui a fondé, après tant d’impuissantes tentatives, une liberté sérieuse, et l’a fait entrer dans nos moeurs au point de ne pouvoir plus lui résister? — La maison de Bourbon, qui régnait par le droit divin.”
In advocating this system of intrusting the right as well as the power of governing a country to the hands of its rulers, without exacting from them a pledge that their measures shall be guided by theoretical instead of practical wisdom, M. Carné naturally refers to his own — that is to say, the doctrinaire party, and expresses himself thus:— “Cette disposition à chercher dans les circonstances et dans la morale privée la seule règle d’action politique, a donné naissance à un parti qui s’est trop hâté de se produire, mais chez lequel il y a assez d’avenir pour résister à ses propres fautes. Il serait difficile d’en formuler le programme, si vaporeux encore, autrement qu’en disant qu’il s’attache à substituer l’étude des lois de la richesse publique aux spéculations constitutionnelles, dont le principal résultat est d’équilibrer sur le papier des forces qui se déplacent inévitablement dans leur action.”
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 563