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nearly allied to superstition, to its aid and thus the fanciful mind may, without taking upon itself the airs of a Pythoness, give way to a little superstition, and yet, perhaps, be not too strongly condemned of folly. There exists an old prophecy in France, emanating from a monk of the middle ages, the authenticity of which cannot be doubted, or, at all events, cannot be disputed, in as far as it was in wellknown existence at the commencement of this century. It predicts, in mystic language,-dark, it is true, but wonderfully clear after its verification, -all the many revolutionary changes that have taken place in France, and now once more proclaims the reign of the "sons of Brutus." "Armed men," it distinctly says, "will march upon the doomed city," "sword and fire will prevail against it," "the wolves will devour each other." May the seeming superstition of a fantastical question be pardoned! May not these words refer to the future outbreak of the provinces of France against the capital? If they do, in what sense, with what tendencies, to forward the views of what party, may it be? Be that as it may, however, it is not the obscure future that is dealt with here, but the present confused and uncertain state of Republican France.

As it may be inferred from what has been said, Paris, then, has put on its crown, as capital, to some purpose. Never did despot assert his right to dictate his autocratic will to serfs and slaves more authoritatively than does revolutionary and republican Paris to the provinces of France. No three-tailed Bashaw of old melodrames could be more imperative in his ordinances, more arrogant in the conviction of the indisputability of his will. The bare supposition that the provinces could have a will of their own would strike Paris dumb with astonishment. Paris has been accustomed to consider itself not only as the heart, but the head, and the arms and legs to boot, of the whole country. The inert body has no more, in its consideration, to do, than allow itself to be fed with what scanty morsels of bounty and importance Paris may choose to afford, and then not to dare to grumble afterwards if the food

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prove unsavory to its tastes, or indigestible to its susceptibilities. Paris is "Sir Oracle," and, when it speaks, no provincial dog dare bark." Paris, thus, is the great type of the mainspring of the national character,-which works sometimes,

we allow, for good as well as for evil:-namely, of that mixture of vanity and overweening conceit, which may be found at the bottom of almost every action of the French. It calls itself "the great capital of the civilized world;" and thus considers that, although the departments may be admitted to the reflected rays of lustre that emanate from its superior glory, they must look upon themselves as mere satellites, created to revolve at its liking and its high will, and perform their revolutions in whatever direction it deems fit to make its own revolution. Let it not be supposed that this representation is exaggerated, or that it proceeds from the distorted views of a foreigner. Hear the Parisian himself speak; list to his expressions of contempt for those unknown and barbarous regions called departments; mark how he asserts the unutterable superiority of his Parisian essence; see how he tosses his head and curls his lip with an infinitely aristocratic air, when he condescends to notice them with a word; and never was Paris more eager in the maintenance of its tyrannical supremacy; never was it more despotically and autocratically disposed; never more aristocratic, to use the pet phrase of the day, than under the rule of soi-disant liberty, and of liberty of opinion, above all other liberties proclaimed by the French republic.

What were the expressions of the first republican minister of the interior, that type of republican exclusiveness and despotism, in his famous and rather too famous bulletins de la republique, issued to all France as the language and opinions of the government of the day? Paris, they informed the world, was the heart of France, from which all life and living principle emanated, through which every drop of the country's blood must flow, in order that it might beat in unison, and be refreshed with true republican vitality. Paris, they said again, was the hand that had created and fashioned

the republic, and that was to direct its steps, lead it vigorously forward in its way as it was the head that conceived, it was the hand that executed: it was more than all this, it was the soul of France-the pure and true essence emanating from the new deity, the republic. Paris, they asserted in as many direct words, was the mistress whose will was to be obeyed. It is unnecessary to point out how little such declarations were in accordance with republican principles, what little affinity they had with the three great watchwords of the day, "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." Republicanism in France, according to those old traditions, to which those who call themselves the only true and pure republicans seem always to be looking back as the only true and pure models for their admiration and imitation, was always based upon despotism, supported by constraint, compulsion, violence, and even terrorism; and the first efforts of modern republicanism were evidently exerted to place their old, newfangled statue of bastard liberty upon the same heterogeneous pedestal. The instructions of the same Bashaw-minister to the emissaries whom he despatched as Bashaws of lesser and fewer tails into the provinces, to see that they were duly disposed to fall down and worship the Goddess Republic, that had been set up, were modelled after the same and still rougher fashion.

The missionaries were invested with autocratic powers to make and unmake according to their own autocratic will; to send away functionaries who might appear lukewarm in the cause; to put in their places such acolytes as might better serve the altars of the goddess, and to offer up sacrifices to her, civil and military, judicial and political, as they might think pleasing to the divinity, or convenient and agreeable to their own hates and prejudices. They were particularly requested to travailler the country, to torture it, as the French phrase goes; and were taught, if they could not hammer the hard and unbending metal of departmental feeling to the shape they fancied, just gently to make the iron red-hot with the fire of terrorism, and then twist it to the suitable form. How well the workmen, in many instances, per

formed the task-how well they employed the fiery passions of the mob to produce the desired red-hot effect, and then strike-is a matter of historical fact.

In the elections for the National Assembly, the same dogmas of republican religion were strenuously enforced. No emissaries of the Inquisition ever used more moral violence to propagate a faith among suspected schismatics, than did these ministers of republican despotism to enforce the full, entire, and uttermost doctrines of their creed, even to the minutest articles. Where the moral influence appeared unlikely to penetrate as deeply into men's hearts as was desired, other and more direct methods were adopted to make entire converts; and, when these methods were found too mild to work the intended effect, and purge the land of moderatism and anti-wholehog-ism, another stronger and more racking dose was administered: the mob was excited to overawe with threat and terrorism, and, where it could not prevent, to destroy. How should the departments dare to have a will of their own? The rebellious children were to be whipped like schoolboys into learning their lessons of pure and undefiled republicanism, and reciting them as Master Commissioner taught them; there was no better rod in pickle for such naughty urchins than the scourge of the fury of a mob, carefully taught another lesson, and one it was not slow of learning-namely, that it was master, and must constrain obedience to its will; while, in fact, itself obeyed the influence, and was the instrument of the master-spirit that ruled up above, and made the best, or rather the worst use of its rule. That all these measures failed in a great measure-those of violence as well as those of moral constraint-is attributable to a variety of complicated reasons, connected with the present state of the departments; and the how and why they failed, will be the subject of a few considerations presently.

What, again, were the expressions of the more violent and so-called only true republican party in the capital, proceeding from its organs, the clubs, upon the same occasion of the elections? To all the candidates who

presented themselves before them, the same question was propounded. If, when the votes of all France were taken, it should be found that the departments declared themselves averse to the establishment of a republic, what would be the duty they would have to perform-what steps would they take? Those who did not declare that they would turn against that National Assembly, of which they themselves might then be members, and take up arms to march upon it, were denounced as traitors to their country, unworthy of the votes of true men, and hooted from the tribune, in which they had dared to stand forward as future representatives of the people. It would have been in vain to insinuate to these good gentlemen, that, in the application of the principle of universal suffrage, in which every man was not only an elector, but eligible as representative, the voice of the majority would be the voice of all France; and that it was for all France, by the voice of its majority, to decide upon the form of government best suited to all France. In vain, indeed. The ready answer would invariably have been-that Paris was the mistress of France, and had a right to dictate its will; that Paris had made the revolution, and that, consequently, Paris was privileged to support the principles of that revolution, and to arrogate to itself all its advantages: that the country at large, in fact, had nothing to do but to give in its approval, and be happy that its concurrence was so far demanded, and that, should it dare to have an opinion of its own, woe betide it! All this insolent bombast of the ultra party in Paris might have been spared, how ever; the cause of "Paris v. the Departments" was never called into the court of the country. The departments had accepted the establishment of the republic as a fait accompli: they never desired to subvert the new order of things by another convulsion, that would have plunged the country, already so miserable, into an increase of misery; but they protested in favour of a republic of peace and order, upon moderate principles; and, lo and be hold, Paris itself combined with them in this desire. The disappointed party of the directing master-spirits of Paris

have been none the less furious in their expressions of contempt for the openly declared will of all France. They had long kicked down their idol of universal suffrage with disdain, as soon as they had found that, in spite of all the hidden machinery they had set to work in it, the idol had not obeyed their will, or declared their oracles. Universal suffrage they pronounced a hoax: constraint, tyranny, anarchy, conspiracy, civil war, were proclaimed by them the only true elements of the only true republic. Frantic with disappointment at the result of their own manoeuvres, by which they had been caught in their own toils, they seized upon the pretext of sympathy in the sorrows of another country; and, aided by the treachery of certain of their own party in authority, invaded the obnoxious Assembly, overthrew the government for an hour, and proclaimed a terrorist government of their own. Foiled again in this audacious attempt, foiled at least for the time being, they now endeavoured to patch up the shaking soil that had given way beneath their feet, and plunged their leaders into a quagmire, and to build new foundations for fresh aggressions upon the discontent of a part of the working-classes. For this purpose they have taken two newfangled tools into their hands, the one of impulsion, the other of repulsion-the one of enthusiasm, the other of alarm; and both are so vaguely fashioned, and of so unintelligible a nature, that the real fact of their existence can never be

proved, although their use, their purpose, and their design, in the hands of these men, are very clear. The one of these tools is a bugbear, a phantom, a bogie, to which they endeavour to give as terrific an aspect as possible, in order to fright ignorant_men over into their own ranks. This evil spirit, they declare, has an existence, although no one ever saw it, no one ever felt it, no one ever knew where it dwells. No superstitious people was ever endeavoured to be worked up into a move irrefragable belief of some mysterious demon that haunts them in dark woods and obscure places to devour them-nor, generally, with more complete success over the credulous; for

structure upon the heads of the people, and crush it for ever beneath them. In spite of the infinite harm worked upon the spirit of the lower classes by the establishment of the belief in this phantom, there would, perhaps, be no real danger in the effect produced by the clamours of insensate ultra journals, the preachings of agitating demagogues, and the insidious insinuations of anarchist meneurs, among the crowd, did not certain members of the government itself, and some of those in authority, render themselves parties concerned to the propagation of the belief, either genuinely, from having been themselves carefully inoculated with the virus of false fear, until they have really taken the disease, or designedly, for the advancement of their own purposes-did they not, in fact, throw a sop continually to mob-lecturers, by insinuating their own conviction in the existence of "bogie" by their decrees, edicts, and proclamations, and, when they are called to put down anarchy, never obey without crying "Reaction" at the same time, and vainly giving the phantom a slap on the face. As it is

fear is the most powerful agent over the minds of the masses, and more especially when the fear is of the unknown and mysterious; and certainly no demon was ever described with a more hideous or blacker face. This bogie, phantom, bugbear, is a supposed influence called 66 Reaction." No precise form is given to it, for that would be to deprive it of more than half its terrors. No! omne ignotum pro terribili is the policy. Nothing can be more vague or indefinite than this same monster, Reaction; it remains an Ossianic cloudlike spectre, floating no one knows whence, but bringing death and pestilence in its train. If the working-classes suffer, it is the Reaction, they are told, that is the cause of all their sufferings. If all their exactions, however exorbitant and impossible, are not conceded at once, it is because that horrible Reaction labours that their just demands should be withheld. If the most violent of their own body are not elected as the true representatives of the people, it is because that pestilential Reaction has cast a spell over the minds of all the electors. The Reaction has also, potent demon although it be, and herein lies the evil--the people all the freaks and caprices of a lesser are taught that the National Assemimp it performs the strangest and bly, as it is now constituted, is the most incomprehensible feats-for if a concentrated essence of the spirit of discontented mass of workmen revolt Reaction-that the representatives of unsuccessfully, and gain not their ends, the people, with but few exceptions, it was the Reaction again that was the are the ministering imps in a visible cause of all. The Reaction, for its own form of the invisible demon. If a vile reactionary purposes, it was, that word of reason is spoken in the Assemtreacherously induced them to revolt, bly against the clamours of unreasonwhen they themselves were naturally able demand-" Look ye there! Reinclined to be the most peaceable, action!" is the cry; if it prepares safe contented, and the least exorbitant measures of repression against the people on the earth. See how perfi- open efforts of anarchy-" Reaction;" dious, Machiavelic, and Jesuitical, is if it defends its own existence against this horrible monster Reaction! Pity the subversive attempts of conspirait is that, in order to establish the tors-" reaction;" if it attempts to fact of its real existence, it should not establish the republic upon a firm as yet have made itself visible to and solid, but moderate basis--" remortal eyes in any incarnate form! action;" if it does anything—“ reThe Reaction is, however, no less, action!" if it does nothing "reacmen are told, the enemy of the repub- tion;" if it cannot perform impossible lic, the adversary of all true republican wonders for the amelioration and prosprinciples, labouring ever to overthrow perity of the lower working-classes, it; above all, the enemy of the people -at which, however, it labours most and the people's interests, their under- hard," reaction-reaction-reaction; mining serpent, their secret assassin. the reaction of aristocratic feeling It is already sapping, unseen, the foun--the reaction of ill-will-the reaction dations of the republic, and it intends of indifference and indolence;" thereby to pull down the ruins of that august always meaning reaction against the

true republic, and its true representatives, the lower classes. The phantom Reaction is thus used as a tool by a wild and violent party against the present order of things; against the moderate majority of the Assembly more particularly; against all things and all men not suiting its views, its schemes, its dreams, and its ambitions; and the bugbear is not ill got up to scare the credulous of the lower classes more completely into the toils of the malcontents, with the fear that reaction really may destroy that idol from which they have been taught to expect all the good gifts of "roasted larks," for which they have only to open their mouths, and "showers of gold," for which they have only to stretch forth their hands-that idol that has been lacquered over with the false gilding of delusive promises by imprudent rulers, and which the many still fancy to be all of solid gold-in a word, the Republic. The reaction, in truth, exists not, or exists not in the manner that people would be led to believe. If it exists, it is in the disgust of the more laborious and less tumultuous of the lower classes themselves, who, in their increasing misery, would be happy to accept the Lama of Thibet, or any other abstraction, with an absolute government, in the place of the false idol of their hopes, that has as yet only deluded them into greater misery it is in the reactionary cry of the wretched, who call for “King Log," or any other senseless ruler that would bring with it peace, and order, and a hope of well-being.

The other tool employed by the designing malcontents-that of impulsion is the banner upon which is inscribed "Republique Democratique." We have a republic, it is true, they say, but not the republic of our wishes. This is only a mere republic, like any other: we want a democratic republic, and the democratic republic is taken from us; but the democratic republic we must and will have. Ask them what they mean by their " publique democratique," they will not be able to inform you. They launch into phrases which are but phrases; they lose themselves in a cloudy confusion of terms and ideas: they pretend to give you vague and chaotic

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explanations, that are no explanations at all: they know not themselves what they mean. Universal suffrage upon its broadest basis, with all the rights and privileges thereto attached, in their most democratic sense, is no democratic republic according to their view. What is? Who can tell?certainly not they. "They have clamoured for the moon," says a wit of the day, "and the moon has been given them; and now they cry, we are betrayed; we wanted the sun, and the sun we will have.' But have a care! the sun will blind your eyes, my friends, and you will stagger in still greater darkness; the sun will burn your fingers, and you will smart beneath the blisters. But they heed not; they still clamour for the sun." At all events, the banner on which flaunts aloft the words-" Republique democratique" is a good rallying banner for all malcontents, a good banner under which to enlist the unwary among their ranks. It is a cry, a clamour, and all the more enticing because it is vague, unexplained, mysterious in its fresh promises of some fancied good that has not yet arrived, full of the great and alluring unknown. Thus it serves a purpose.

But to return from this long digres sion upon the efforts of subversive parties, to the state of feeling that subsists in Republican France between its now well-sorted and divided elementsParis and the provinces.

What are, again, the expressions used by the lower classes with regard to the departments? what the feelings they express? Ever the same. Paris, they declare, makes, has made, and will make all the revolutions of the country. Paris, consequently, is all in all in France: Paris is the mistress, and the queen, the supreme arbitress of the destinies of France: Paris must be obeyed in all its wishes and its high will. What were the words of the workmen of the national workshops, in a late revolt, to the Minister of Public Works? They were told that there was no longer any work for them in the capital, that their pretended labour was an irony of labour, that the country paid them for doing nothing, and that they were eating the bread of idleness under the name of work! they were told that

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