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JOURNALS 
 
 OF THE LATE 
 
 NASSAU WILLIAM SENIOR 
 
 Vol. I. 
 
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ION'DON: print ED BV 
 
 SPOTTIS-.VOODE AND CO., NEW-STKEET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
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 ^^eUd^^'^^yy/r- 
 
JOURNALS 
 
 KEPT IN 
 
 FRANCE AND ITALY 
 
 FROM 
 
 1848 TO 1852 
 
 WITH A SKETCH OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1848 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 NASSAU WILLIAM SENIOR 
 
 Master in Chancery, Professor of Political Economy, j\Iemhrc Correspondant de 
 
 I' Inst it lit dc France, &^c. ; Author of 'A T?-eatise on Political Economy,' 
 
 'Biographical Sketches,' 'Essays on Fiction,' 'Historical and 
 
 Philosophical Essays,' ' Journal kept in Turkey and 
 
 Greece,' ' Journals kept in Ireland,' &^c. 
 
 EDITED BY HIS DAUGHTER 
 
 M. C. M. SIMPSON 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. L 
 
 LONDON 
 HENRY S. KING AND CO., 65 CORNHILL 
 
 1S71 
 
^All rights reserved) 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Before the year 1848, Mr. Senior bad spent v^ery little 
 time in France. His autumnal wanderings had generally 
 been confined to Germany and Switzerland. It was not 
 until September, 1847, that he for the first time crossed 
 the Alps, visited Turin, Genoa, and Venice, and on his 
 return spent a fortnight in Paris. 
 
 In the following February the Monarchy, which had 
 appeared in the preceding autumn to be peacefully 
 established, fell with a sudden shock which was felt 
 throughout Europe. In Mr. Senior, whose life was 
 chiefly spent among politicians, and whose favourite 
 study was politics, the events which were passing on 
 the Continent awakened the keenest interest. 
 
 Many of the distinguished exiles, who, in spite of 
 their misfortunes, made London society at that time so 
 brilliant, were Mr. Senior's personal friends, and in his 
 house they always found a warm welcome. 
 
vi Preface 
 
 In the Whitsuntide Vacation of the year 1848 — - 
 as soon as it was possible for him to leave his 
 duties as Master in Chancery — Mr. Senior hastened to 
 visit the scene of the great drama which was being 
 acted in Paris. He came in for the second act of the 
 Revolution — the attack on the National Assembly — and 
 was so much struck by all that he saw and heard, that, 
 for the first time in his life (with the exception of a 
 short account of a visit to Ireland and Scotland in 
 1 8 19), he kept a journal which was destined to be the 
 first of a series. 
 
 The writing these journals added considerably to the 
 pleasure which he always had in visiting foreign coun- 
 tries. They are like no other travellers' journals. 
 Besides his fine taste for scenery and for art, he en- 
 joyed the society of people of all conditions and 
 countries in an unusual degree. Before he set out on 
 a tour his practice was to collect letters of introduction 
 from all quarters, besides official ones from the Foreign 
 Office ; and wherever he went he was received with 
 kindness and cordiality. 
 
 During the last fifteen years of his life he was as 
 much at home in Paris as in London, and some of his 
 best friends were French. Most of them were attached 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 to the Dynasty which fell in 1848 ; but he was so much 
 afraid of being exclusively influenced in one direction 
 that he took pains to converse with people of all opinions. 
 He made no secret of the existence of the journals, and 
 in most cases the speakers corrected his report of their 
 conversations. 
 
 His last journal was written in 1863. The present 
 publication extends from May 1848 to January 1852, 
 when the hopes of the Liberal party in France were 
 finally extinguished. It includes a visit to Italy, where 
 he had many friends among the eminent men whose 
 efforts to free their country have at length been crowned 
 with success. 
 
 Mr. Senior's life in Paris was one of remarkable 
 activity. He rose — as indeed he did all the year round I 
 — at half-past 6 or 7, took a light breakfast, wrote for 
 an hour or two, and then usually went to visit some 
 friend whom he was sure to find alone at an early 
 hour. He returned to breakfast with his family at 1 1 
 There were almost always three or four friends invited 
 to this second breakfast. The conversation was general 
 and extremely interesting. Before they left visitors 
 used to arrive. Every Saturday he attended the 
 meetings of the Academic des Sciences Morales et 
 
vlli Preface. 
 
 Politiques,' of which he was a ' Membre Correspondant,' 
 a distinction which he highly valued. The afternoon 
 was spent in walking and visiting, and though dinner 
 parties are not so frequent in Paris as in London, the 
 kindness of his friends seldom permitted him to dine 
 at the hotel. Most ladies in Paris ' receive ' once or 
 twice a week, and he generally spent the remainder of 
 the evening in the salon of one of his friends. Not 
 much time seems to have been left for the journals. 
 His habit was to note down shortly the heads of a con- 
 versation immediately after it had taken place, and to 
 extend them at leisure. His memory was so retentive 
 that he was able to do this with remarkable accuracy. 
 
 He was assisted in acquiring information by his indif- 
 ference to shining himself His endeavour was always 
 to draw out the thoughts of others : hence the veiy little 
 which these pages contain of his own opinions. Now that 
 his voice is no longer heard, and our questions must re- 
 main unanswered, this absence of self-assertion becomes a 
 matter of regret. His intention was to supply the re- 
 quisite explanation, and to give a sort of ,digest of the 
 
 ' One of the five branches of the celebrated Institut de France, estab- 
 lished under tlie auspices of Cardinal Richelieu in 1633. 
 
 For an interesting account of the rise of the Institut, see a little book by 
 Mdme. Mohl, entitled ' Mdinc. Recamier, with a sketch of the History of 
 Society in France.' Chapman and Hall, 1862. 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 opinions recorded ; but his last illness fell on him so 
 suddenly — he passed in the space of a few months from 
 health and strength to death — that the time for revision 
 never came. All that can now be done is to furnish 
 short notices of the different speakers, almost all of 
 whom have already passed away, and to attempt to 
 connect the Journals by a few sentences describing the 
 events which took place in the intervals between his 
 visits to the Continent. 
 
 The language of the conversations is, in many parts, 
 perhaps, more unstudied than Mr. Senior would have 
 suffered it to remain on committing it to the press ; 
 still, what it may lose in dignity it gains in ease and 
 naturalness, and, at any rate, I do not feel justified in 
 altering it. 
 
 We have lived so rapidly of late, such startling events 
 have followed each other in quick succession, that the 
 Revolution of 1848, in spite of its great importance 
 in itself, and in its bearing on the present crisis in 
 France, is not clearly remembered by the present gene- 
 ration, and mapy false ideas are current respecting the 
 conduct of its leaders and of Louis-Philippe. 
 
 A sketch of the events of those memorable four 
 months, taken from an article written by Mr. Senior in 
 
X Preface. 
 
 the 'Edinburgh Review' of January, 1850, seems, ""there- 
 fore, an appropriate introduction to the Journals. 
 
 It can hardly fail to strike the reader that the questions 
 debated in this article are precisely those which are now 
 agitating Europe. Peace, War, Treaties, Republicanism, 
 Socialism, Centralisation, Church Establishment, are in 
 turn touched upon, and the reflections of one who had 
 thought so long and so deeply on these matters must be 
 of interest, and may be of use. Mr. Senior's views on these 
 subjects are not, however, likely to please those who hold 
 extreme opinions, for he was equally opposed to every 
 form of despotism — to the despotism of a mob as well as 
 to that of a tyrant or a sect. Every shade of opinion, 
 however, will be found expressed in the conversations, so 
 that the reader may draw his own conclusions. 
 
 M. C. M. SIMPSON. 
 
 Kensington : May 22, 1S71. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME, 
 
 SKETCH OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1848. , 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Revolution a disguised Socialism . ... I 
 
 The French Government undertakes eveiy sort of Duty . . 2 
 
 Place-hunting of the higher Orders ..... 3 
 
 Mistaken Theory of Government ..... 4 
 
 Mischief created by the State undertaking too much . . .5 
 
 Third class of Revolutionists— the Lovers of Excitement . . 5 
 
 Influence of Lamartine's ' Girondins ' . . . .6 
 
 Lamartine's claims as a Poet, Orator, Philosopher, and Statesman. 
 
 Comparison between him and O'Connell and Mirabeau . . 7 
 
 He acquired little ascendancy over the Chamber of Deputies . 8 
 
 His half-day of Influence ...... 8 
 
 I^amartine's Philosophy of Government .... 9 
 
 Religious Freedom in France . . . . .9 
 
 Lamartine advocates separation of Church and State . . 10 
 
 Evils of Church Independence . . . . .10 
 
 His Theory that all Men have a right to Share in the Government . 1 1 
 His inconsistencies — such a measure would bring in its train Com- 
 munism and Socialism . . . . . .12 
 
 Narrative of the Revolution . . . . . .13 
 
 Lamartine proceeds to the Chamber . . . , .14 
 
 Scene with the Newspaper Representatives . . . .15 
 
 The Fate of France is placed in his hands . . . .15 
 
 Power of the Daily Press . . . . . .16 
 
 Lamartine refuses to support the Regency . . . .17 
 
 He proposes a Republic . . . . . .19 
 
 Scene in the Chamber — entrance of the Duchess of Orleans . . 21 
 
xii Contents of the First Volume. 
 
 A rrovisional Government suggested 
 
 Lamartine is asked to name it ... . 
 
 Entrance of the Mob and withdrawal of the Duchess 
 
 Tlie Government installed in the Hotel de Ville 
 
 Accounts of Cremieux and Chenu .... 
 
 Account of Caussidiere ..... 
 
 Lamartine's view of his own Conduct 
 
 Reasons why no form of Government is stable in France 
 
 Lamartine believes the majority of the French to be Republican 
 
 Reasons for disbelieving this assertion 
 
 Instability of the Republic ..... 
 
 Violence of the Conflict on February 24 overstated . 
 Struggles on the Boulevard planned by the Conspirators, who made 
 a theatrical use of the results .... 
 
 The Soldiers had orders not to Resist 
 
 Humanity of Louis-Philippe .... 
 
 A Night Scene ...... 
 
 The Red Republicans ..... 
 
 Consisting of the Terrorists, the Liberated Convicts, and the 
 Communists . . ... 
 
 Socialists not yet included . . . ' . 
 
 Formidable numbers of the Rouges .... 
 
 Contrast between the Red Flag and the Tricolor 
 Lamartine is saved by a Beggar .... 
 
 Legislation of the Provisional Government . 
 
 Decrees of February 25 and 26 ... . 
 
 Decrees of the Liberation of Political Offenders and the Dissolution 
 of the Municipal Guard ..... 
 
 The Government not really a Republic but an Oligarchy 
 Arbitrary nature of its Decrees .... 
 
 Their inconsistency with a Provisional Government . 
 
 Four months afterwards Monarchy was re-established in the person of 
 
 Cavaignac, and afterwards of Louis Napoleon 
 Autocratic power of the President .... 
 
 Ateliers Nationaux ...... 
 
 They lead to Socialism and Communism 
 
 The State cannot engage to find employment 
 
 Organisation of the Ateliers ..... 
 
 All relief- work is merely nominal .... 
 
 More than one-half of the population applied to the Ateliers 
 Apprehension of a Battle with the Ateliers Nationaux 
 Rebellion of June caused by the Droit an Travail . 
 
 PAGE 
 22 
 
Contents of the First Volume. 
 
 xiu 
 
 Subsistence may be safely guaranteed, but not employment 
 
 Disastrous effects of encouraging Combinations 
 
 The days of June caused by these measures . 
 
 Foreign Policy of Lamartine 
 
 French desire War for the purpose of Conquest 
 
 Warlike principles of Lamartine 
 
 Manifesto of the 6th of March 
 
 He considers the Treaties of i8 15 no longer binding 
 
 Every disadvantageous Peace is extorted by Force 
 
 If Treaties are to be disregarded, all Wars must become War 
 
 of Extermination ..... 
 His offers of assistance to oppressed Nationalities 
 His desire to seize Savoy 
 To Increase the Army . 
 
 General Responsibility of a Minister 
 
 Not applicable to Lamartine 
 
 Dissensions in the Government 
 
 Two practical questions divide the Government — the duration of th 
 Government and interference with the Election of an Assembly 
 
 Ledru Rollin opposes Lamartine 
 
 Dangerous Circulars of Ledru Rollin 
 
 Proclamation of Lamartine . 
 
 Debate of the i6th of March 
 
 Demonstration of the Rouges 
 
 Requirements of Blanqui 
 
 The Government proposes a Compromise 
 
 Lamartine promises not to bring back the Regular Troops 
 
 Louis Blanc thanks the Rouges in the name of the Government 
 
 The Rouges gain strength and influence 
 
 Lamartine's measures for preserving Peace . 
 
 He attempts to conciliate the Rouges 
 
 Ledru Rollin postpones the Elections 
 
 Doubt as to the conduct of the National Guards 
 
 Threatened Manifestation of the Ultra-Republicans 
 
 Blanqui and Ledru Rollin betray the Plans of the Agitators to La 
 martine .... 
 
 They concert measures of Resistance 
 
 Lamartine repairs to the Plotel de Ville 
 
 Changarnier calls out the National Guards 
 
 They disperse the Insurgents 
 
 Return of the Regular Army 
 
 Meeting of the Assembly 
 
XIV 
 
 Contents of the First Volume. 
 
 Lamartine's Popularity is at its height 
 
 The Presidency is offered to him .... 
 His motives for not accepting .... 
 
 The Power is vested in the hands of Five Commissioners 
 Subsequent events show that Lamartine's Decision was wrong 
 His Influence is lost ..... 
 
 JOURNAL IN 1S4S. 
 
 Proposed Republican Fete 
 
 Communist opinions in the country . 
 
 Lord Normanby regrets Lamartine's loss of Influence 
 
 Discontent excited by the Postponement of the tete 
 
 Faucher's opinion of Lamartine 
 
 Effect of the ' Girondins ' 
 
 Timidity of the Chamber 
 
 Demonstration in favour of Poland . 
 
 Advance of the Troops 
 
 Fraternisation of the Line and the National Guards 
 
 They march towards the Hotel de Ville 
 
 The Assembly for nearly four hours in the hands of the Mob 
 
 Horace Say on the Financial Dangers of the Country 
 
 Dangers of the Droit au Travail 
 
 Scene in the Chamber — explanation of its Conduct on the 15th May 
 
 Extraordinary Procrastination 
 
 General fears of Responsibility 
 
 Inferiority of the Assembly to the Assembly of 1 7S9 
 
 Beaumont's opinion of Lamartine 
 
 Proposed Constitution 
 
 Objections to the President being made Responsible 
 
 Constitutional Monarchy not understood in France 
 
 France cannot tolerate Defects 
 
 Dull Discussion in the Club of the Atelier 
 
 Arrivabene on Italian Affairs 
 
 Horace Say on the ' Octroi ' . . 
 
 Bastiat on excessive Military Expenditure 
 
 Michel Chevalier predicts the Days of June . 
 
 Expense of Living in Paris . 
 
 M. le Nomiand's Account of the Attack on the Assembly 
 
 Louis Napoleon is proclaimed President 
 
 119 
 
Contents of the First Volume. 
 
 XV 
 
 JOURNAL IN MAY 1849. 
 
 French Expedition to Rome . 
 
 Displeasing to the Republicans . 
 
 Alarming to the friends of Peace 
 
 Considered as an Arbitrary Act . 
 Debate in the Assembly 
 Violent Scene .... 
 
 Arduous duties of Faucher . 
 Salary and duties of a Conseiller d'Etat 
 Faucher desires to have more power over the Nomination of the 
 
 Maires . . . 
 
 Rapid Recovery of Prosperity 
 Faucher's sensations in addressing the Assembly 
 The Opposition a majority in the Assembly . 
 Apprehensions of the Moderate Party 
 The Cour d' Assises .... 
 Resignation of Faucher 
 
 His Defence ..... 
 Probability of a new Cabinet 
 Peculiarities of a French Trial 
 Beaumont on the Socialist Doctrines 
 
 They consider poverty and toil to be the results of Human Insti 
 tutions .... 
 
 To be cured by the abolition of Rent, of the National Debt ; by 
 throwing all Taxation on the Rich ; by supplying workmen 
 with Capital and providing Employment 
 Some think that the Government should control Mortgages, regulate 
 
 Wages and Prices, and supply Law gratis . 
 Foreign Policy'of Francs .... 
 Disastrous Effects of the Treaty of 1840 
 Foreign Policy of England one of non-intervention . 
 Lord Normanby regrets the Resignation of P'aucher . 
 Probable Results of the Elections 
 Lord Normanby thinks that the Scenes of the preceding Tune will be 
 
 renewed ..... 
 Faucher agrees with him 
 Danger of the Droit an Travail 
 Dangerous Clauses in the Constitution 
 Mischievous Resolutions of the Assembly 
 They abolish Taxes to the amount of Sixty Millions 
 
XVI 
 
 Contents of the First Volume. 
 
 They refuse to sanction the Union of the Commands of the National 
 
 Guards and of the Garrison in tlie hands of Changarnier 
 Conversation with Abercromby on Italian Affairs 
 Causes of the Defeat of Novara 
 Gloomy Expectations of Beaumont . 
 He considers the Republic the only chance of safety 
 Both the Rouge and the Moderate Parties are likely to be warlike 
 Fortifications of Paris 
 Danger of giving Votes to the Army 
 A Government may make eveiybody Poor, it cannot make everybody 
 
 Rich ..... 
 
 Three means of governing the Uneducated Majority 
 
 To exclude them from a share in the Suffrage 
 
 To inspire a blind devotion 
 
 Or to use Military Force 
 George Sumner on Hungarian Affairs 
 Gallina on the State of Piedmont 
 Character of Charles Albert . 
 
 Rejection by Piedmont of the Frontier of the Mincio 
 Defence of Lord Palmerston . 
 Safety of Visitors during an Emciitc . 
 Fall in the Funds .... 
 Warlike Debate in the Assembly 
 
 JOURNAL IN JULY. 
 
 Charitable Duties of a Minister's Wife 
 
 Lamartine on the Chances of War 
 
 Conversation with Dunoyer . 
 
 Causes of the Fall of Charles X. 
 
 Difficulties of Louis-Philippe . 
 
 Hasty Conduct of the Opposition 
 
 Socialism is merely the Paternal System logically carried out 
 
 Debate in the New Assembly .... 
 
 Hungary had better remain an influential province of Austria 
 
 Debate in the Assembly on the Encouragement of Labour . 
 
Contents of the First Volume. 
 
 XVI 1 
 
 VISIT TO THE PYRENEES, AUGUST, 
 SEPTEMBER, AND OCTOBER, 1849. 
 
 Eaux Bonnes 
 
 Conversation with a Guide . 
 
 
 
 
 179 
 . 180 
 
 His Experience in the Army 
 His Pontics 
 
 
 
 
 . 180 
 180 
 
 Bear Hunting 
 Deceptive Appearance of Villages 
 Universal Begging . 
 Beauty of the Population 
 Rides over the Mountains 
 
 
 
 
 iSi 
 
 I S3 
 
 184 
 1 84 
 185 
 
 The Palombiere 
 
 
 
 
 186 
 
 Dangerous Dogs 
 
 Condition of the People 
 
 Conversation with the Maire of La Basscre 
 
 
 
 
 187 
 187 
 188 
 
 With a Maker of Millstones 
 
 
 
 
 188 
 
 Biarritz .... 
 
 Spanish Banditti 
 
 High Tide in the Bay of Biscay 
 
 A Spanish Marriage . . . . 
 
 Praise of Lord Clarendon 
 
 
 
 
 190 
 191 
 193 
 193 
 194 
 
 PARIS, OCTOBER, 1S49. 
 
 Despondency of Lord Normanby 
 
 Legitimist Opinions ..... 
 
 Dissensions between the Legitimists and Orleanists . 
 
 Debate in the Chamber on the Recall of the Bourbons 
 
 ' Proclamation du Conseil Municipal in 1 848 ' 
 
 Importance of the Possession of the Hotel de Ville . 
 
 Conversation with V. .... 
 
 Separation between the Nobles and ' Roturiers ' 
 France Intolerant of a Constitutional Monarchy 
 Difficulties of a Parliamentary Government in France 
 Universal Unpopularity of Lamartine . 
 
 Conversation with Dumon .... 
 Imminence of Bankruptcy 
 
 V. on the French Army .... 
 
 Haute Cour at Versailles .... 
 VOL. I. a 
 
 195 
 196 
 197 
 197 
 200 
 201 
 201 
 202 
 203 
 203 
 204 
 204 
 205 
 205 
 207 
 
xviii Contents of the First Volume. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Conversation with V. ..... . 208 
 
 On Paying the Clergy ...... 208 
 
 On the Condition of the Peasantry .... 208 
 
 Marshal Bugeaiid's Account of the Revohition of 1848 . .210 
 
 Letter from Tocqueville . . . . .214 
 
 Conversation with Faucher . . . . . .215 
 
 Gloomy Anticipations . . . . . .215 
 
 France essentially Monarchical . . . . .216 
 
 The Legislative Assembly not bound by the Decrees of its predecessor 216 
 Depression in Paris . . . . . .218 
 
 Folly of the Revolution of 1848 . . . . .218 
 
 MAY, 1850. 
 
 Faucher believes in the imminence of an emeitte 
 Conversation with Lord Nonnanby . 
 
 On Greek Affairs 
 
 On the new Electoral Law 
 
 On the probability of an Emeiite 
 Outline of the new Electoral Law 
 Dinner of the Political Economists . 
 Conversation with Faucher . 
 
 On the Electoral Bill - 
 
 Probability of a prolongation of the PresideiTt's 
 
 Estimation of Cavaignac 
 Conversation with Z. . . . 
 
 On Greek Affairs 
 
 On the Electoral Bill 
 
 On the probability of a Montagnard Assembly 
 Conversation with George Summer . 
 
 Republican Views 
 Conversation with Beaumont 
 
 On Greek Affairs 
 
 On the mischievous effects of the new Electoral 
 
 Probability of a sanguinary conflict 
 
 Politics of a Rouge Government 
 
 He places Cavaignac high 
 Conversation with Viel Castel 
 
 Thieving propensities of Parisian Emeiitiers 
 Dangerous Classes in Paris 
 Indignation against Lord Palmerston 
 
 Power 
 
 Law 
 
 220 
 221 
 221 
 221 
 221 
 222-225 
 225 
 225 
 225 
 227 
 228 
 228 
 228 
 229 
 230 
 230 
 230 
 
 231 
 231 
 
 233 
 234 
 235 
 236 
 236 
 236 
 238 
 238 
 
Contents of the First Votiune. 
 
 XIX 
 
 Michel Chevalier on Free Trade 
 
 Parisian Salons ...... 
 
 Luxury in Paris ...... 
 
 Debate in the Assembly on Controlling the Newspaper Press 
 Dinner at Beaumont's ..... 
 
 How the Greek Question arose .... 
 
 Lanjuinais's Character of the President . 
 
 Beaumont thinks that France should have assisted Piedmont 
 
 Austria the only Power which gained by the Revolution of 1848 
 Chasm between Gentilhomme and Roturier 
 French Marriages generally made for Money 
 Lahitte's Letter 
 
 Mdme. de Circourt's Reception 
 French opinion of Lord Palmerston . 
 Conversation with Sumner . 
 
 His opinion of the Republican Party 
 
 Moderation of their Newspapers 
 Schaffer's Studio 
 
 Effect of a Republican Government in Lausanne and Geneva 
 Difficulty of obtaining Republican Newspapers in Paris 
 Article from the ' Ami du Peuple ' . 
 Conversation with Gioberti 
 
 Compact between France and Austria . 
 
 His belief that the Republican Party will triumph in France 
 
 Reason why there was no great Piedmontese General 
 Conversation at Anisson Duperron's . 
 
 Dangers of an Assembly elected by Univei^sal Suffrage 
 
 Wish for Peace with England 
 Conversation with Beaumont 
 
 Recall of Drouyn de I'Huys 
 
 Responsibility of the President 
 Polish Politics 
 
 Reasons for Polish Insubordination 
 Russian-Poland the best governed 
 Barbarous feeling of Nationality 
 Reactionary Politics . 
 Republican Dangers . 
 Restoration of Alsace and Lorraine 
 Lamartine connecting himself with the Reds 
 Conversation with Dunoyer . 
 
 No liberty without Free Trade 
 The Cwmri and the Gaels 
 
 PAGE 
 
 239 
 240 
 240 
 241 
 242 
 242 
 244 
 
 245 
 246 
 
 247 
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 249 
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 261 
 262 
 262 
 263 
 263 
 263 
 264 
 264 
 265 
 
XX 
 
 Contents of the First Volume. 
 
 Prophecies of Gioberti 
 
 Temporal Power of the Pope at an end 
 
 Conversation with A. 
 
 Behef in Lord Pahnerston's Enmity 
 Conversation with De BiUing 
 
 Discussion on Greek Affairs in the Chamber 
 
 Education of the Middle Classes 
 
 Our haste in Recognising the Provisional Government 
 
 Unpopularity of Lord Palmerston and Lord Normanby 
 
 A Military Despotism probable . 
 Believers in the present Constitution 
 The Measures that Chevalier would propose 
 
 An Income-tax, a Poor law, Reconstruction of tlie Army 
 
 Probable conduct of a Republican Assembly 
 
 OCTOBER, 1S50. 
 
 Conversation with Beaumont 
 
 Chance of Savoy belonging to France . 
 
 Passion for Territorial Aggrandisement subsiding 
 
 Suppressing anonymous writing 
 
 How information is conveyed to the Newspapers 
 Conversation with Faucher .... 
 
 Events of the last five months described 
 Conversation with Beaumont and Sir J. Stephen 
 
 Reasons for and against a Poor Law 
 
 JOURNAL IN ITALY. 
 TURIN, NOVEMBER. 
 
 Conversation with Prandi 
 
 Character of the King . 
 
 Of the different Ministers 
 
 Siccardi Law 
 Conversation with Sauli 
 
 Modern Italian Literature 
 Conversation with Cavour 
 
 Sanguine anticipations . 
 
 Character of Azeglio 
 Chamber of Deputies 
 
Contenis of the First Volume. 
 
 XXI 
 
 Character of Charles Albert . 
 Conversation with Mdme. Arconati 
 
 Conduct of Austrian Government towards the Arconatis 
 
 Politics of a Venetian Lady 
 
 Austria checks improv'ement 
 
 Italian Dialects . 
 
 Siccardi Law 
 Conversation with Balbo 
 
 Difficulties of Italian Composition 
 
 Piedniontese Debt 
 
 War demanded by the People . 
 
 Declared by the Ministry 
 
 Dinner at the Palace. 
 Conversation with Alfieri 
 
 Agrees that War was unavoidable 
 
 Urged on by Gioberti 
 
 Public Speaking 
 
 Society in Naples spoilt by Tyranny 
 
 Neapolitan Prisons 
 Cavouron Gennan Politics . 
 Sauli on Political Duels 
 Conversation with Massari and Collegno 
 
 Italy not ripe for a Representative Government 
 
 Honesty of Charles Albert and Victor Emmanuel 
 
 Dishonesty of King Bomba 
 
 Accusation of Massari . 
 
 Disastrous Campaign of 1848 
 
 Fatal Reaction . 
 
 Corruption of Justice in Naples 
 
 Neapolitan Judges 
 
 Popularity of Palmerston 
 
 His Conduct restrained the Demands of Austria 
 
 What those Demands would have been . 
 
 Probable Conduct of England and France 
 Splendour of Italian Houses . 
 Collegno on Italian Unity 
 Cavour on creation of Romish Sees in England 
 Manzoni's Politics .... 
 Conversation wdth Sclopis 
 
 Nobles and Bourgeois . 
 
 Position of the Learned Professions 
 Marquis Cavour's Opinion of English Conveyancing 
 
 P.\GE 
 
 288 
 289 
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 307 
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 309 
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 3" 
 312 
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XXll 
 
 Contents of the First Volume. 
 
 Cordova on the Sicilian Insurrection 
 Conversation with Alfieri 
 
 Opinion of Schwartzenberg 
 
 Education in Piedmont . 
 Immigration into Sardinia 
 Astonishment at Lord John's Letter 
 Generalship of Chrzanowski . 
 Conversation with Collegno . 
 
 Piedmontese and Savoyard Military Races 
 
 Constraction of Sardinian Army 
 
 Length of Training to produce Efficiency 
 
 Army of Radetzky 
 
 Opinion of Chrzanowski 
 Dinner at Balbo's 
 
 Ministry saved by Cavour 
 
 Weariness of Azeglio 
 
 High spirits of Cavour . 
 
 Sardinian Navy . 
 Sauli in opposition . 
 Arconati's Account of the Debate 
 
 GENOA, NOVEMBER i6. 
 
 Prince Butera on Sicilian Affairs 
 Conversation with Abercromby 
 
 His Opinion of the Piedmontese Ministry 
 
 Of Alfieri Sostigno 
 
 Convent at Biella 
 Opera in Genoa .... 
 
 Indignation at the French Expedition to Rome 
 Austrian Rule preferable to Neapolitan 
 Government desired by Sicily 
 
 PISA, NOVEMBER 21. 
 
 Palaces in Pisa 
 
 Contempt inspired by the Grand Duke 
 
 Conversation with Giorgini . 
 
 Manzoni forced to return to Milan 
 Military Ardour of Students 
 
Contents of the First Volume. xxiii 
 
 FLORENCE, NOVEMBER 23. 
 
 Conversation with Salvagnoli . . . . . 
 
 The Duke proposes to take the Leader of the Insurrection into 
 the Ministry . 
 
 Salvagnoli's advice is disregarded 
 
 Difficulty of writing Italian 
 
 Duomo of Florence 
 Conversation with Serra di Falco 
 
 Denies that he was a Rebel 
 
 Explanation of his Mission to the Duke of Genoa 
 Conversation with Mdme. Lajatico . 
 
 Inconvenience of party spirit 
 
 Hatred of the Austrians 
 
 Italian Architecture 
 
 Taste of the lower orders 
 
 Ball at the Palace 
 Conversation with Buonarotti 
 
 Mischief produced by the Republicans 
 
 Trial by Jury unsuited to Italians 
 Conversation with Serra di Falco 
 
 His life in Florence 
 
 Disgust with Politics 
 Conversation with Salvagnoli 
 
 Deplorable state of the Tribunals 
 
 Tuscany not prosperous 
 Conversation with Galeotto 
 
 Suppression of Newspapers 
 
 Unpopularity of the Government 
 Deplorable state of Venice . 
 Conversation with Sir Frederick Adam and Serristori 
 
 State of the Tuscan Army 
 
 Comparison between the Austrian and Prussian Armies 
 
 Tuscan Law of Succession 
 
 Noble and Roturier 
 Serra di Falco 's story of the Dey of Algiers 
 Madame Ristori 
 Italian Bores 
 
 Parlatore on Sicilian vegetation and age of trees 
 Phillips and Spence on Italian Art , 
 
 PAGE 
 
 335 
 
 336 
 336 
 337 
 
 337 
 
 338 
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xxiv Co7ite?its of the First Volume. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Conversation with Serra di Falco ..... 350 
 Sicily's hatred of Naples ..... 350 
 
 Treatment of Sicily by the King of Naples . . -351 
 
 Reception of Lord William Bentinck by Queen Caroline . 351 
 
 Tyranny of Naples the effect of the Congress of Vienna . 351 
 
 Epitaph on a Horse ...... 352 
 
JOURNALS 
 
 KEPT IN 
 
 FRANCE AND ITALY, 
 
 1848— 1852. 
 
 SKETCH OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1848.^ 
 
 The theory to which we attribute the revolution of 
 1848 is a disguised Socialism. It is the theory which 
 almost every Frenchman cherishes, as respects himself — 
 that the government exists for the purpose of making his 
 fortune, and is to be supported only so far as it performs 
 that duty. His great object is, to exchange the labours 
 and risks of a business, or of a profession, or even of a 
 trade, for a public salary. The thousands, or rather tens 
 of thousands, of workmen who deserted employments at 
 which they were earning four or five francs a day, to get 
 thirty sous from the ateliers nationaux, were mere exam- 
 ples of the general feeling. To satisfy this universal 
 desire, every government goes on increasing the extent 
 of its duties, the number of its servants, and the amount 
 
 * From an article on Lamartine's ' Histoire de la Revolution de 1848,' 
 written by Mr. Senior in 1849, and published in the Edinburgh Review for 
 January 1850. Now republished with the permission of Messrs. Longman. 
 ,,. VOL. I. B 
 
2 Sketch of the Revolution of 1 848. 
 
 of its expenditure. It has assisted to subject every 
 Frenchman to the slavery of passports — because they 
 give places to -some thousands of officials. It preserves 
 the monopoly of tobacco^because that enables it to 
 give away 30,000 debits dc tabac. It takes to itself both 
 religious and secular instruction. It has long taken 
 charge of highways, bridges, and canals, the forwarding 
 of travellers and letters. It has secured the reversion of 
 all the railways, and threatens to take immediate pos- 
 session of them. It proposes to assume insurance of 
 life and against fire ; mining ; lighting, paving, and 
 draining towns ; and banking. Even with the branches 
 of industry which it still leaves to the public, it interferes 
 by prescribing the modes in which they are to be carried 
 on ; and by favouring some by bounties, others by loans 
 or gifts, and others by repelling competitors. For these 
 purposes it pays and feeds 500,000 soldiers and 500,000 
 civilians ! For these purposes the 500 millions of expen- 
 diture, which were enough during the Consulate, rose to 
 800 in the Empire — to 970 under the Restoration — to 
 1,500 under Louis-Philippe — and to 1,800 millions under 
 the Republic. 
 
 M. Dunoyer, from whose ' Revolution du 24 Fevrier' 
 we borrow many of our remarks, thus sums up the in- 
 fluences of this mode of government on the national 
 character : — 
 
 The natural effects of these measures have been, to turn 
 aside more and more public attention from real reforms, and to 
 excite more and more the bad passions of the nation ; to feed 
 and to extend, with the rapidity and generality of an epidemic, 
 the taste, already so strong and so diffused, for the pursuit of 
 
Universal Place-huntins^. 
 
 '<b 
 
 government employment and government favours ; to pass it on 
 from the Chambers to the electoral colleges, and from thence to 
 every class of citizens ; to transform the relations between the 
 governed and the government into one organised system of 
 universal place-hunting ; to induce the government to make 
 full use of the innumerable powers of interference which it has 
 accumulated ; to trade not merely with its offices, but with its 
 administrative functions ; with its right to grant mines, to make, 
 or to allow, or to refuse roads, to authorise the cultivation of 
 wastes or forests, to allow theatres to be opened, and with 
 hundreds of other powers, all more or less stained by injus- 
 tice or usurpation. The government was tempted to strive to 
 multiply and extend, from day to day, these mischievous 
 powers ; and to exercise them with reference only to the im- 
 portance of the applicants and their means of repayment. And 
 it yielded to the temptation, without compunction or even hesi- 
 tation. It professed to be indulgent, to know the world, to 
 understand and to humour the weakness of human nature. It 
 may still have wished for ability in its servants ; but it is not 
 certain that it was equally anxious for integrity : this was not 
 thought a practical quality. I am not sure that in certain quar- 
 ters, where cleverness and dexterity were highly prized, it was 
 not the fashion to say that a government could do without the 
 esteem of the people. ' 
 
 We do not of course believe that the great bulk of 
 those who actually made the revolution were actuated 
 by the hope of power or of place. That the majority of 
 the educated revolutionists were thus actuated, we have no 
 doubt. We have no doubt that the editors and writers 
 of the ' National ' and the ' Reforme ' intended to do 
 precisely what they did — to make themselves the minis- 
 ters, or functionaries, or /r<?/c^t\y, the Thiers', the Rolands, 
 
 ' La Rcz'oliition du 24 FJz'Her, par M. Dunoyer, Conseiller d'Etat, 
 Membre de I'lnstitut, p. 44. 
 
4 Sketch of the Revohition of \^\^. 
 
 or the Mignets of a new form of government. The masses 
 could have no such pretensions. Still they hoped to profit 
 by a revolution ; not as individual objects of the favour of 
 the new government, but as partakers of the blessings 
 which the triumph of Socialism was to diffuse. 
 
 The place-hunting of the higher orders, the socialism 
 of the lower, the intense centralisation of France, the 
 paternal administration of Austria, arise from the same 
 deep-rooted error as to the proper functions of govern- 
 ment. All arise from a theory that it is in the power of 
 the State to correct the inequalities of fortune. And the 
 error is a plausible one. Men, whose reasoning faculties 
 are either uncultivated, or perverted by their feelings or 
 their imagination, see the great power of the State, and 
 do not perceive its limits. They see that it disposes of 
 great resources, and do not perceive how easily these 
 resources may be not only exhausted, but dried up. 
 They are struck by the contrast between great superfluity 
 and great indigence, between lives shortened by indolence 
 and lives shortened by toil, by wealth squandered unpro- 
 ductively while cultivable lands lie waste and labourers 
 ask in vain for employment. When excited by such a 
 spectacle, what is more natural than to propose laws, by 
 which the toil which appears to them excessive shall be 
 forbidden, by which the government shall provide the 
 strong with employment and the weak with relief; and 
 obtain the necessary funds, partly from the superfluity of 
 the rich, and partly by taking possession of the productive 
 instruments which their present owners are too idle or too 
 timid to turn to the best advantage .'' It requires a long 
 
The PaT-ties in Opposition. 5 
 
 train of reasoning to show that the capital on which the 
 miracles of civiHsation depend is the slow and painful crea- 
 tion of the economy and enterprise of the few, and of the 
 industry of the many, and is destroyed, or driven away, 
 or prevented from arising, by any causes which diminish 
 or render insecure the profits of the capitalist, or deaden 
 the activity of the labourer ; and that the State, by 
 relieving idleness, improvidence, or misconduct from the 
 punishment, and depriving abstinence and foresight of 
 the reward, which have been provided for them by 
 nature, may indeed destroy wealth, but most certainly 
 will aggravate poverty. 
 
 Besides these, there was a third class of important 
 actors in the revolution — those who took part in it from 
 a mere puerile love of excitement. It is humiliating to 
 be forced to believe that the destinies of France, and, to 
 a considerable extent, those of the whole Continent, have 
 been influenced, and perhaps may be influenced for cen- 
 turies to come, by a riot got up by a few hundred lads, 
 by way of a lark. But such was the case. Boys of 
 fifteen or sixteen — ilhistres gamins, as they are seriously 
 called by M. Caussidiere ' — took a principal part in the 
 little of real fighting that took place. A spectator of 
 the revolution told us that he saw a boy of eleven years 
 old lurk behind a wall and fire on an officer as he rode 
 by. The man fell, mortally wounded : the child ran 
 away, frightened and crying. Of course it is absurd to 
 suppose that such champions could have been actuated 
 :by the serious motives, by the ' idees morales,' the ' soif 
 
 • AldDioires, vol. i. p. 40. 
 
6 Sketch of the Revolution of 1 848. 
 
 de perfectionnement,' or the ' aspiration vers un meilleur 
 ordre de gouvernement,' with which M. de Lamartine 
 endows the heroes of February 24 ; or even by the 
 desire for power, or place, or patronage, for themselves, 
 or for socialist institutions for their country, which we 
 believe to have been the motives of the adult rioters. 
 Such feelings and such desires do not belong to children, 
 however precocious the Parisian gamin may be. But 
 for two or three years they had been reading and seeing 
 representations of the Great Revolution. Theatres were 
 opened, in which it was acted in pieces that lasted, we 
 believe, for whole weeks. The shops and the stalls 
 along the Quays and the Boulevards, and in the Courts 
 of the Louvre, were covered with portraits of its chiefs, 
 and with prints exhibiting its principal scenes. Thou- 
 sands of copies of M. de Lamartine's ' Girondins ' were 
 sold in cheap forms, in numbers, or by subscription ; and 
 probably as many thousands more were lent out to read 
 at a price which the lowest workman could afford. The 
 picturesque vividness with which that remarkable book 
 is written, the dark grandeur with which its sanguinary 
 heroes are invested, the success of every insurrection 
 that is described, the irresistible power which is ascribed 
 to the people, not only familiarised the populace with 
 ideas of revolt and street war, but created in young and 
 ill-regulated minds, thirsting for a new excitement, an 
 intense desire to reproduce such scenes. They wished 
 to see a lOth of August — so they made one ! 
 
 M. de Lamartine is a poet, an orator, a philosopher, 
 an historian, and a statesman. His statesmanlike quali- 
 
Position of Lamar tine. 7 
 
 ties may be collected from the story which we are about 
 to relate. His merits as an historian we considered two 
 years ago,' and we see no reason to alter our verdict. 
 His claims as a poet and an orator cannot be disputed. 
 They are matters not of inference but of fact. The ob- 
 ject of a poet is to please — that of an orator to per- 
 suade ; and the man who obtains eminent success in his 
 art is a great artist. In France, the success of M. de 
 Lamartine's poetry has been rapid and universal ; he 
 stands at the head of her living poets. 
 
 M. de Lamartine's success as an orator has been still 
 more brilliant. The words of no other living speaker 
 have so much affected the destinies of mankind. His 
 influence has resembled that of Mirabeau and O'Connell 
 united. Both Mirabeau and O'Connell, indeed, pre- 
 served their influence much longer ; Mirabeau, in fact, 
 kept his till death, O'Connell until extreme age and 
 bodily weakness. M. de Lamartine's is, for the present, 
 suspended. But, while it lasted, it was more decisive, 
 more instantaneous in its effects, and exercised under 
 less advantageous circumstances, than either of theirs. 
 
 O'Connell could inflame only those who wished to be 
 inflamed. He could govern only those who wished to 
 be governed : he could push them forward only in the 
 way in which they wished to advance. Against a hostile 
 audience he was powerless. But M, de Lamartine has 
 preached peace to those who panted for war ; miodera- 
 tion to those who desired nothing but extremes ; and 
 reason to those who knew only passion. And, armed 
 
 ' No. clxxv. of Edinburgh Review. 
 
8 Sketch of the Revolution of 1 848. 
 
 with no force but his own voice, he has convinced the 
 prejudiced, guided the passionate, and subdued the 
 ferocious. Mirabeau entered an assembly which had no 
 ascertained duties, no defined powers, and no fixed pur- 
 poses. He persuaded that assembly to assume supreme 
 legislative authority, and to exercise that authority by 
 creating a constitution. He showed great courage, great 
 eloquence, and wonderful presence of mind and rapidity 
 of decision ; but it cannot be said that he displayed 
 these qualities in the face of any great difficulties. The 
 associates over whom he acquired the mastery were 
 unaccustomed to public life. They were not arrayed in 
 parties, disciplined by mutual confidence, and accus- 
 tomed to obey recognised leaders. The Assembly was 
 a mob ; and, like a mob, submitted at once to the 
 guidance of the boldest, the most decided, and perhaps, 
 we may add, one of the least scrupulous, of its members. 
 M. de Lamartine did not acquire over his colleagues in 
 the Chamber of Deputies any permanent ascendancy. 
 He never frankly attached himself to any party. His 
 opinions, as we shall see hereafter, were inconsistent 
 with the maintenance of the existing institutions of 
 France — perhaps with the permanence of any institu- 
 tions whatever. And he was opposed to several of the 
 most experienced and most dexterous debaters, and to 
 one or two of the greatest speakers, in Europe. But he 
 enjoyed one half-day of influence such as seldom falls to 
 the lot of man. It was the last morning of the Chamber. 
 When he entered the Palais Bourbon on February 24, 
 it seems to be admitted that on him it depended 
 
Lamartine s Philosophy of Government. 9 
 
 whether the next event should be the march of the 
 Duchess of Orleans to the Tuileries — or the march of a 
 provisional government to the Hotel de Ville. Whether 
 he acted wisely in selecting the latter alternative, we 
 must not nov/ discuss, as we are not now considering his 
 merits as a statesman ; but to have had the power of se- 
 lecting, and to have selected, for France one of these two 
 events, was an almost unparalleled triumph for an orator. 
 
 Universal suffrage in politics, and what is called the 
 voluntary system in religion,' are M. de Lamartine's two 
 instruments for the regeneration of mankind. He 
 thought their acquisition worth the certain calamities, 
 and even the uncertain dangers, of a revolution. 
 
 If France had been in the state of Spain during the 
 Inquisition, or of Ireland under the penal laws, or even 
 of England during the reigns of the Georges — when all 
 but the members of one sect were by law excluded from 
 office and trust, when to deny the doctrine of the Trinity 
 subjected the offender to heavy penalties, and no one 
 could be married without using the rites of the Church 
 of England — a considerable sacrifice, though not the 
 terrible one contemplated by M. de Lamartine, might 
 have been wisely made in order to escape from such a 
 thraldom. But the 7'eligioiis freedom of France is per- 
 fect. A man's faith has nothing to do with his advance- 
 ment in the world, or with his position in society. Louis- 
 Philippe's last prime minister ^ was a Calvinist ; the 
 wife selected for the heir of his throne was a Lutheran.^ 
 Among the members of the Provisional Government was 
 
 * Vol. i. pp. 75-81. * M. Guieot. ' The late Duchesse d'Orleans. 
 
lo Sketch of the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 a Jew.' The ministers of all religions are salaried ; and 
 as nineteen-twentieths of the French were Roman Catho- 
 lics, the Roman Catholic clergy of course receive the 
 principal share of the ecclesiastical budget, and have the 
 use of the public ecclesiastical buildings. The change 
 for which M. de Lamartine is willing to pay a revolution 
 is the suppression of this salary. He must believe that 
 a clergy dependent altogether on their flocks for their 
 support would teach a purer doctrine, enforce a sounder 
 morality, and give more useful advice than the present 
 cures, who are almost completely maintained at the 
 public expense. He must suppose that when their sub- 
 sistence depends solely on the favour of their hearers 
 they will utter more boldl}^ unpalatable truth's ; and that 
 they will be more active in correcting the prejudices and 
 reproving the faults of their congregations, though they 
 know that by doing so they may incur dismissal or im- 
 poverishment. He must shut his eyes to the profitable 
 superstitions and, we fear we must add, to the profitable 
 immoralities which it must be the interest of a clergy 
 living from the dues and the offerings of the uneducated 
 classes to tolerate, and even to promote. And he must 
 forget what are likely to be the political notions of a 
 priesthood sprung from the lower classes — attached by 
 blood, by sympathy, and indeed by social intercourse, to 
 those who must appear to themselves to have drawn the 
 blanks of the social lottery — and excluded by the re- 
 strictions of their profession from the moral discipline 
 
 ' Cremieux. He was Minister of Justice during the Prussian siege of 
 Paris under the Government of National Defence, and one of the Delegates 
 at Tours and Bordeaux last March. — Ed. 
 
Lamartme s Political Creed. i \ 
 
 which other men receive from the struggles of active life 
 and the endearments of domestic life. Wc have had 
 some experience of the working of the voluntary system 
 in a Roman Catholic country — in connexion, to be 
 sure, with a Protestant establishment. We know what 
 is the sort of religion, the sort of morality, and the sort 
 of political feelings which have been its consequences 
 among the priests and among the people ; and we 
 earnestly hope that France may escape this enormous 
 addition to her other sources of error and disturbance. 
 
 M. de Lamartine's other great measure, for which he 
 was ready to offer his life, and in fact did offer it a 
 hundred times, was ' the obtaining by the masses poli- 
 tical rights, as a means of their obtaining justice ; that is 
 to say, equality among all classes in position, in know- 
 ledge, and in welfare. Institutions which should give to 
 the whole body of citizens a perfectly equal personal 
 share in the government, and thence in the moral and 
 material advantages of society. [Lois et formes de 
 gouvernement qui donnent a I'universalite des citoyens 
 la part la plus egale d'intervention personnelle dans le 
 gouvernement, et par la bientot dans les benefices moraux 
 et materiels de la societe.] ' 
 
 These opinions are not taken from the commonplaces 
 of political philosophy. The received doctrine up to 
 this time has been, that men ought to obtain political 
 power by means of knowledge, morality, and property ; 
 not knowledge, morality, and property by means of 
 political power. The novelty, however, of opinions is 
 no absolute objection to their soundness; their incon- 
 
1 2 Sketch of the Revolution ^y 1848, 
 
 sistency is. And M. de Lamartine's creed contains 
 doctrines which we find it impossible to reconcile. 
 Communism fills him with horror, Socialism with pity. 
 The possessors of property are to keep it ; they are to 
 transmit it to their children. The landlord and the 
 tenant, the capitalist and the labourer, the lender and 
 the borrower, are to make their own bargains. To take 
 from one man in order to give to another appears to 
 him not progress, but robbery, ruinous to both parties. 
 
 But, upon these terms, how does he propose * appeler 
 a la propriete I'universalite des citoyens.''' We can 
 quite understand how the masses, once admitted to ' a 
 perfectly equal personal share in the government of a 
 country,' would produce in that country a ' niveau de 
 lumiere et de bien-etre ; ' but what we cannot under- 
 stand is, how are they to do this, except by means which 
 raise M. de Lamartine's horror or pity — by Communism 
 or by Socialism — by destroying all property, or by 
 taking from one in order to give to another. Before he 
 pities the schemes of Socialism, M. de Lamartine ought 
 to unfold his own. He should tell us by what means 
 he proposes to correct the inequalities of fortune, ori- 
 ginally produced by differences in talent, differences in 
 economy, differences in industry, and differences in good 
 luck, and aggravated by gift, by marriage, and by 
 inheritance : and, if he cannot correct these inequalities, 
 what becomes of the justice which he promises .-* What 
 becomes of his ' egalite de lumiere et de bien-etre ' .'' 
 
 We do not believe that any organic changes whatever 
 are worth the evils and the risks of an insurrectionary 
 
The 2A^tIi of February. 13 
 
 revolution ; at least, to the generation that makes it. 
 But, if there were any motive that could induce us to 
 encounter these evils and to incur those risks, it would 
 be the prospect of escaping from M. de Lamartine's 
 favourite institutions — universal suffrage in politics and 
 the voluntary system in religion. 
 
 Had Louis-Philippe shown any intention to adopt 
 these institutions, M. de Lamartine tells us that he 
 would have supported the monarchy. But none was 
 shown ; and he therefore saw without regret the approach 
 of the only means by which they could be introduced — 
 a revolution. 
 
 We now proceed to the narrative itself 
 
 On the evening of February 23, 1848, Lamartine had 
 gone to bed, convinced that the riot was over for the 
 night, and that the announcement of a new ministry 
 would prevent its recurrence the next morning. And 
 these anticipations were reasonable. No one could have 
 expected, or even have taken into his calculations as 
 possible, the follies committed by the government on 
 the morning of the 24th. No one could have supposed 
 it possible that, at seven o'clock that morning, the new 
 ministry would have required Marshal Bugeaud, the 
 commander of the garrison of Paris, to recall his troops, 
 which had penetrated without interruption to the heart 
 of the insurrection, and were in possession of the prin- 
 cipal barricades ; or that an hour or two later, just as 
 the insurrection was recommencing. Marshal Gerard 
 would have been substituted for Bugeaud ; or that, when 
 the rioters attacked the posts of the Gardes Municipaux, 
 
14 Sketch of the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 in the Place de la Concorde, and began to break into 
 the Palais Royal, the troops would have been forbidden 
 to resist them. Qjios Dens vtUt pcrderc priiis dcvicntat. 
 
 At half-past ten in the morning of the 24th Lamar- 
 tine was still at home. He did not intend to go to the 
 Palais Bourbon, merely to hear the names of the new 
 ministers announced. But he was now told that it was 
 thought possible that the rioters might attack the 
 Chamber, and, if there were any danger, it was his 
 duty to be present. ' Yesterday,' he said, as he went 
 out, alluding to the events of 1792, 'was a 20th of June. 
 It forebodes a loth of August. A king who capitulates 
 with an insurrection is no longer king. The loth of 
 August will come ; but it is still distant' As he passed 
 through the gateway leading to the Chamber, two 
 generals, on horseback, met. ' What news ? ' said one. 
 ' Nothing of importance,' answered the other, who was 
 General Perrot, commanding the cavalry occupying the 
 Place de la Concorde : ' the crowd is not numerous, and 
 scatters at the least movement of my squadrons ; and 
 the best troops in Europe could not force this bridge.' 
 The order prohibiting resistance was not then generally 
 known ; and Lamartine entered the Palais Bourbon con- 
 vinced that he had been brought there by a false alarm. 
 
 We now come to perhaps the most remarkable reve- 
 lation in the whole work. In the vestibule he found 
 seven or eight persons waiting for him. Who they were 
 we are not told — or what they were, except that they 
 belonged to the newspaper press. Even the names of 
 the papers with which they were connected are not ex- 
 
Scene with the Newspaper Representatives. 1 5 
 
 pressly stated — though the ' National ' and the ' Re- 
 forme ' are indicated. 
 
 They demanded a secret conference. Lamartine took 
 them into a distant apartment ; the door was locked, 
 and one of them thus addressed him in the name of the 
 whole : — ■ 
 
 We are republicans, and we continue republicans ; but we 
 can postpone the Republic if France is not yet ripe for it, if 
 she would not yield to it without resistance, if there be more 
 danger in launching her at once into the fulness of her destined 
 institutions than in holding her on their brink. These are our 
 doubts : resolve them. The people calls on you — it trusts you 
 — what you say will be re-echoed — what you will, will be done. 
 The reign of Louis-Philippe is over. But might a temporary 
 sovereignty, in the name of a child, in the hands of a woman, 
 guided by a popular minister appointed by the people and 
 esteemed by the republicans — might such a phantom of mo- 
 narchy suspend the crisis, and prepare the nation for the Re- 
 public % Will you be that minister ? Will you be the guardian 
 of our dying royalty and of our infant liberty, by governing the 
 child, the woman, and the people % In our persons the repub- 
 lican party gives itself up to you : we formally engage to bear 
 you to power, by the irresistible impulse of the revolution which 
 you hear roaring without. We will keep you there, by our 
 votes, by our journals, by our secret societies, and by our dis- 
 ciplined forces in the deepest strata of society. Your cause 
 shall be ours. France and Europe will believe you to be the 
 minister of the Regent : we shall know that you are the minister 
 of the Republic.^ 
 
 Lamartine does not appear to have been surprised at 
 the proposal. He does not appear to have doubted the 
 
 ' Vol. i. p. 161. 
 
1 6 Sketch of the Revolutioii of 1848. 
 
 power of seven or eight journalists to dethrone a king,- 
 create a regent, and appoint a minister ! And he was 
 right. The ' National ' and the ' Reforme,' whose repre- 
 sentatives stood before him, did more than all this, a 
 couple of hours after. The scene reminds one of 
 Tacitus's description of the revolution which deposed 
 Galba. The only difference is the substitution of the 
 modern force, the press, for the Roman force, the 
 army. 
 
 Suscepere duo manipulares imperium Populi Romani trans- 
 ferendum — et transtulerunt. 
 
 He asked, however, time for reflection ; not a day or 
 an hour — such periods are not given in revolutions — but 
 five minutes. And for five or six minutes he reflected, 
 leaning his elbows on the table, and covering his eyes 
 with his hands. At length he raised his head, and thus 
 addressed them : — 
 
 Gentlemen, you are devoted republicans [republicains a tout 
 prix] — I am not. I look indeed, as you do, on republican go- 
 vernment — that is to say, on the government of the people by 
 their own reason and their own will — as the only purpose of 
 civilisation ; as the only means by which great general truths 
 can become laws. Other governments are guardianships, ad- 
 missions by the people that they are still minors — imperfections 
 in the eyes of a philosopher, disgraces in the eyes of an his- 
 torian. But I have no impatient or fanatical desire for any 
 given form. All that I require is a progressive government — a 
 government neither preceding nor lagging behind the advanc- 
 ing column of the people, but keeping pace with the desires 
 and instincts of its time. I am not, like you, a thoroughgoing 
 republican ; but I am a statesman ; and as a statesman I think 
 
Address to the yournalists. 1 7 
 
 it my duty to refuse my aid in retarding the birth of the Repub- 
 Hc, As a statesman I declare that I will not pull down the 
 throne, but if it fall I will not lift it : I will be a party to no revo- 
 lution but a complete, that is to say, a republican, revolution.' 
 
 ' Here,' says Lamartine, ' there was a moment of 
 silence. His audience looked astonished, stupefied, and 
 somewhat incredulous.' He continued : — 
 
 ' I will tell you my reasons. A great crisis requires a great 
 force. If the king be deposed to-day, it will be the beginning 
 of one of the greatest crises which a people has ever gone 
 through in its progress towards a settled government. A reign 
 of eighteen years, by a single man representing a single class, 
 has accumulated behind it a mass of revolutionary ideas, im- 
 patience, resentment, and hatred, which it will be impossible 
 for any new monarchy to satisfy. The undefined reform which 
 triumphs to-day in the streets cannot assume an outline, can 
 not submit to limits, without throwing into instant opposition 
 all the classes who will be excluded from power. Republicans, 
 Legitimists, Socialists, Communists, and Terrorists, however 
 opposed in their ulterior objects, will fling together their vio- 
 lence to overthrow the feeble barrier of a transition government. 
 The peers share the odiousness of the Court. The press has 
 rendered the deputies unpopular, and corruption has made 
 them despicable. Their present constituents are an impercep- 
 tible minority. The army has lost its spirit, and doubts whether 
 firing on the citizens would not be parricide. The National 
 Guards will go with the opposition. The old respect for the king 
 has been destroyed by his obstinacy and by his failures. With 
 what elements of force will you surround the throne on which 
 you put your child ? Reform ? It is merely a flag used to con- 
 ceal the Republic. Universal suff"rage ? It is a mystery : witli 
 a breath it will blow away your fragment of a monarchy, your 
 shadows of ministers, your phantom of an opposition. Its 
 second word may be monarchy or empire — its first will be 
 
 VOL. I. C 
 
1 8 Sketch of the Revolution of 1 848. 
 
 Republic. You are merely preparing for it a royal prey. Who 
 are to be the friends of the regency? The great proprietors? 
 Their hearts are with Henry V. The middle classes? They 
 think only of themselves and of their profits — a disturbed 
 minority to be followed by a reign of chronic sedition would 
 ruin them — they will demand the stability of a republic. The 
 people ? It is in arms, it is victorious, it is triumphant : the 
 doctrines with which it has been fed for fifteen years drive it 
 on to destroy not merely royalty, but authority. 
 
 ' The regency would be a new Fronde, with the addition of 
 democracy, socialism, and communism. Society defended only 
 by a small minority and by a quasi-royalty, neither monarchical 
 nor republican, will be battered from its crest to its foundation. 
 This evening the people may be pacified by a regency — to- 
 morrow they will come to snatch something else : every assault 
 will tear away some limb from the Constitution. Your suc- 
 cessors will be more violent than you. They will find left by 
 you just enough royalty to irritate without restraining. Your 
 20th of June will certainly have a loth of August — perhaps a 
 2nd of September. One day the feeble sovereign will be re- 
 quired to erect the scaffold — another to draw the sword. Any 
 refusal will occasion violence — the people will taste blood — 
 woe be to them if they acquire a thirst for it ! You will have 
 a civil war of hunger against property; the horrors of 1793, 
 with socialism added to them. In endeavouring to prevent a 
 woman and a child from sliding down the inclined plane of a 
 tranquil dethronement, you will open an abyss of anarchy and 
 blood, in which the rights of property, the ties of family, the 
 whole civilisation of France, will perish.' 
 
 ' The audience,' says Lamartine, ' seemed moved.' So 
 he continued : — 
 
 ' As to myself, I see clearly the succession of catastrophes 
 which I should prepare for my country, if I were to attempt to 
 stop the avalanche of the revolution on a slope where every 
 
Address to the yotima lists. 19 
 
 moment that it stays will add to the weight of its mass and to 
 the ruin of its fall. One power only can avert the dangers of a 
 revolution in such a social condition as ours — it is the power 
 of the people itself ; it is the suffrage, the will, the reason, the 
 interest, the hands, and the weapons of all — it is the Republic. 
 
 'Yes, it is the Republic which alone can save you from 
 anarchy, from civil war, from foreign war, from confiscation, 
 from the scaffold, from the overthrow of society from within, 
 and from invasion from without. It is an heroic remedy; but, 
 in such times as these, the only effectual policy is a policy as 
 bold, almost as violent, as the crisis itself Give to the people 
 the Republic to-morrow, and call it by its name, and you 
 change its anger into joy, and its fury into enthusiasm. All 
 who cherish in their hearts republican feelings — all whose 
 imaginations dwell upon republican visions— all who regret — 
 all who hope — all who reason and all who meditate in France 
 — all the secret societies — all the active and all the speculative 
 republicans — the people, the demagogues, the young men, the 
 students, the journalists, the men of action and the men of 
 thought — all will utter only one cry, will crowd round only one 
 standard — at first in confusion, afterwards in disciplined order — 
 to protect society by the government of all its members. Such 
 a power may be disturbed, but cannot be deposed, for its base 
 is the nation. It is the only force which can protect itself — 
 the only force that can moderate itself — the only power that 
 can bring the voice, the hands, the reason, the will, and the 
 arms of all, to protect, on the one hand, the nation from servi- 
 tude, and, on the other hand, property, morality, the relations 
 of kindred and society, from the deluge which is washing away 
 the foundations of the throne. 
 
 ' If anarchy can be subdued, it is by the Republic. If com- 
 munism can be conquered, it is by the Republic. If the 
 revolution can be guided, it is by the Republic. If blood can 
 be spared, it is by the Republic. Therefore, as a rational and 
 conscientious statesman, free from all illusion and fanaticism, I 
 
20 Sketch of the Revolution of 1 848. 
 
 declare, before God and before you, that, if this day is big with 
 a revolution, I will not conspire for a half revolution. 1 will 
 conspire, indeed, for none ; but I will accept only a complete 
 one — a Republic. 
 
 ' But,' he added, rising from the table, ' I still hope that God 
 will spare my country this trial. I accept revolutions ; I do 
 not make them. To assume such a responsibility, a man must 
 be a villain, a madman, or a god .' 
 
 ' Lamartine is right,' said one of the auditors ; ' he has more 
 faith in our own ideas than Ave have.' 'We are convinced,' 
 they all cried. ' Let us separate ; do what, under the inspira- 
 tion of events, you think best.' 
 
 We have extracted this conversation at full length, 
 partly because it is a fair specimen of M. de Lamartine's 
 eloquence, and partly from its great historical interest. 
 Without naming them, it points out the real authors of 
 the revolution. It tells us when and on what motives 
 their determination to substitute an organic for a 
 dynastic revolution was formed, and who was the in- 
 stigator of that determination. After having related 
 this interview, and the events of the next two hours, 
 M. de Lamartine vainly disclaims the responsibility of 
 the revolution. We do not believe him to be a villain — 
 or a god. But if we were members of a tribunal before 
 which he was tried for conspiracy to overthrow monarchy 
 in France, we should not hesitate to say, ' Guilty, upon 
 our honour.' 
 
 Let us shortly run over the events as they are told by 
 him. We have seen that at about eleven o'clock a depu- 
 tation from the Republican conspirators, including repre- 
 sentatives of the ' National ' and the ' Reforme,' proposed 
 to him to substitute for Louis-Philippe the Comte de 
 
Lamartiiie in the Chamber. 2 1 
 
 Paris as king, and the Duchess of Orieans as regent, 
 and to place Jdni over them as minister; that he ob- 
 jected to their scheme that such an arrangement would 
 not last, and declared himself in favour of a republic, 
 based on universal suffrage; that they expressed their 
 conviction, and separated, agreed apparently on the 
 course of action to be pursued. 
 
 Lamartine entered the Chamber, and sat apart, with- 
 out exchanging a word with any of his colleagues. For 
 the first hour nothing took place. From time to time a 
 discharge of musketry shook the windows. Seme of the 
 deputies went out in quest of information ; others got on 
 the platform over the portico, and looked on at the un- 
 intelligible movements of the troops and the people in 
 the Place de la Concorde. Suddenly the large door of 
 the Chamber opened, and the Duchess of Orleans, lead- 
 ing her sons, and accompanied by the Due de Nemours, 
 entered. M. Dupin announced from the tribune that 
 Louis-Philippe had abdicated and transmitted the crown 
 to the Comte de Paris, with the Duchess as regent. 
 This was not strictly true ; Louis-Philippe had not indi- 
 cated the Duchess, but the Due de Nemours, as regent ; 
 as, indeed, had been settled by a law. But as the Due 
 de Nemiours obviously yielded his pretensions to those 
 of the Duchess, this irregularity might easily have been 
 got over.* 
 
 ' After the text of these pages had been printed, we received, from 
 a man* of the highest pohtical eminence in France, a letter, from 
 which we extract the following passage; — 'The Duchess of Orleans and 
 
 M. de Tocqueville. — Ed. 
 
2 2 Sketch of the Revolution of 1 848. 
 
 This, however, was not the intention of the conspirators. 
 First rose M. Marie, and after remarking the illegahty of 
 the proposed regency, suggested the usual revolutionary 
 expedient — a Provisional Government. He was followed 
 by Cremieux, who proposed that it should consist of five 
 members, to be named by the Chamber. Laroche- 
 Jacquelin, with the usual perverseness of the Legiti- 
 mists, then aimed a blow at the only remaining autho- 
 rity — the Chamber. ' You are no longer,' he cried, ' a 
 Chamber — you are nothing.' A body of rioters now 
 rushed into the hall, but stood silent, rather as spectators 
 than as actors. M. Marrast, the editor of the ' National,' 
 Avho was in the gallery appropriated to the ' Journalists,' 
 watching the progress of the revolution, went out to 
 
 her sons had just entered, and were at the foot of the tribune. An un- 
 authorised mob had penetrated into some of the pubhc galleries. It was 
 unarmed, turbulent, and factious ; but showed no disposition to outrage, 
 or even to menace. The Assembly was deeply agitated, but it was impos- 
 sible to say in what direction. It resembled the sea in the first minutes of 
 a storm, while the wind is perpetually shifting. Tired of this fruitless 
 tumult, I left my seat at the top of the left centre, and made my way to 
 Lamartine, who was at his usual place at the extreme right. He was 
 standing, overlooking, from his height and his position, the whole scene, 
 his countenance unmoved and inscrutable. I laid my hand on his arm, and 
 whispered, "Lamartine, you see that the question now is not reform, but 
 revolution. In half an hour, perhaps, our powers of control, or even of 
 nterference, will be over." He made a sign of assent. I continued : " Your 
 voice alone can master this tumult ; your position, unconnected with any 
 party, inspires confidence : ascend the tribune, or we are lost." His eyes 
 were fixed on the group formed by the Duchess and her sons. He did not 
 turn them towards me, but pointing to the tribune said, " While that woman 
 and that child are there, I am silent." These words showed me that his 
 mind was made up — and very differently from my expectations. I returned 
 to my place without replying.' This anecdote confirms M. de Lamartine's 
 representation, both as to the importance attached to his decision, and as to 
 the early period in the debate when it was made. 
 
Lamartine names the Provisional Government, 23 
 
 bring in a bolder mob ; and Ledru Rollin occupied the 
 time, at first, by declaiming against the proposed re- 
 gency, and then, at the suggestion of M, Berryer, the 
 other head of the Legitimist party, by proposing a 
 Provisional Government and a Convention. There was 
 now a cry for Lamartine ; and he mounted the tribune, 
 feeling, as he says, that his voice was to be decisive. 
 We have seen that his conduct was pre-arranged. 
 
 ' The people requires,' he said, ' a government national, 
 popular, and irremovable. Where is its base to be found 
 among the floating timbers of this shipwreck, in this tempest 
 which has swept us all before it, among these breakers, where 
 wave after wave swells the tide that has overwhelmed us ? 
 Where is it to be found ? — Only by going down to the bottom of 
 the people and of the country ; by extracting from our national 
 rights the great mystery of the sovereignty of all^ — the source 
 of all order, of all liberty, and of all truth. In the name of the 
 blood which is flowing, in the name of peace, in the name of 
 the people exhausted by its glorious work of three days, I 
 demand a Provisional Government.' 
 
 ' Here,' he tells us, 'the whole Chamber resounded with 
 acclamations.' 
 
 ' A government,' he continued, ' which shall predetermine 
 nothing on the subjects which now inflame our resentment, our 
 anger, or our desires ; or as to the nature of the definitive 
 government which the nation, when it has had an opportunity 
 of expressing its will, may think fit to adopt.' 
 
 •' Here,' he adds, ' a thousand voices applauded this 
 reserve of the rights of the nation. " Name them, name 
 the members of the Provisional Government ! " they 
 cried,' 
 
24 Sketch of t lie Revolution of 1848. 
 
 ' The first duty,' he continued, ' of this government will be to 
 put an end to the contest which is now raging ; the second to 
 call together the whole electoral body — and by the ivhole body, 
 I mean all ivJw are citizens because they are men — because they 
 are beings endowed with an intellect and a will.' 
 
 Here he was stopped by the irruption of a fresh body 
 of about three hundred rioters — those whom M. Marrast 
 had gone to fetch. They came fresh from the sack of 
 the Tuileries. The Duchess, with her children, and the 
 Due de Nemours then fled. M. Sauzet, the President, 
 disappeared. Lamartine remained in the tribune, and 
 desired Dupont de I'Eure to take the vacant chair, which 
 rises immediately above the tribune. Lamartine was 
 called upon to name the Provisional Government. He 
 says that he refused. But, as far as we can understand 
 his very obscure statement, he also says that he com- 
 plied. His words are, ' II se borne a souffler tout bas 
 aux scrutateurs les noms qui se presentent le plus 
 naturellement a son esprit.' The scrutateurs handed 
 these names up to Dupont de I'Eure, who proclaimed 
 them to the mob. They were, according to our author, 
 Marie, Lamartine, Ledru Rollin, Cremieux, Dupont de 
 I'Eure, Arago, and Garnier Pages. The four first, it will 
 be observed, had prepared the way for their own appoint- 
 ment, by proposing in the debate a Provisional Govern- 
 ment, and Dupont de I'Eure by aiding as president. 
 
 Scarcely had this list been proclaimed and assented 
 to than the mob began to wish to alter it. Lamartine 
 therefore, with some of his new colleagues, hurried away 
 from the scene of election, which might soon have been 
 
The Government installed in the Hotel de Ville. 25 
 
 turned into one of dismission, to instal themselves at 
 once as a government, in the Hotel de Ville. 
 
 It is to be observed that the ' Moniteur,' whose ac- 
 count of these proceedings M. de Lamartine generally 
 follows, ascribes the nomination of Garnier Pages to 
 Ledru Rollin. It states, also, that after the first six names 
 had been proclaimed, Lamartine and Dupont de I'Eure 
 left the Chamber to seize the H6tel de Ville, and that 
 Ledru Rollin then read over again the list, adding the 
 name of Garnier Pages. 
 
 In the meantime an event had occurred which M. de 
 Lamartine passes over in silence, though its influence on 
 subsequent events was important, and has not ceased 
 even yet. It is best told in the evidence appended to 
 the Report of the Commission of Inquiry on the events 
 of May and June 1848. 
 
 M. de Lamartine describes the manner in which M. 
 Flottard introduced him and his colleagues into a small 
 room in the Hotel de Ville, which was their abode 
 during the first twenty-four hours of their reign. From 
 his story we are led to infer that they found it empty ; 
 and that the subsequent addition of Marrast, Flocon, 
 Louis Blanc, and Albert to the Provisional Government 
 was a voluntary act of the seven who had been nomi- 
 nated in the Chamber of Deputies. But neither of these 
 statements appears to be strictly true. M. Cremieux, 
 who was one of the seven, thus relates the state of 
 things at the Hotel de Ville : — 
 
 ' When we reached the Hotel de Ville, to take possession of 
 the government, we found, in the little room in which we 
 
26 Sketch of the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 passed the night of the 24th and 25th of February, Messrs. 
 Marrast, Flocon, Louis Blanc, and Albert, who had got there 
 before us. "Who are you?" we asked. "Members of the 
 Provisional Government," they answered. " By whom ap- 
 pointed"?" we enquired. I think that they answered, "By the 
 Democratic Society." If we ourselves had been asked who 
 appointed us, we might have answered that we were appointed 
 in the Chamber of Deputies, but certainly not by the Chamber. 
 Our only origin was a popular acclamation, and they claimed 
 the same title. So we took them as secretaries, and afterwards 
 as colleagues.' ' 
 
 Even this is scarcely correct. It is only in the 'Moni- 
 teur' of February 25 that they are termed secretaries. 
 In that of the 26th, and in all subsequent numbers, they 
 appear as members of the government. In the 'Bulletin 
 des Lois' they are never called secretaries, but a slight 
 blank separates their names from those of the others for 
 the first two days. On the third it disappears, and they 
 are confounded with the others. In the ' Moniteur' of 
 February 27 (the third day of the existence of the Pro- 
 visional Government), its members are arranged thus : — - 
 MM. Arago, Dupont de I'Eure, Albert {ouvritr), F. Mar- 
 rast, F. Flocon, Lamartine, Marie, L. Blanc, Cremieux, 
 Ledru Rollin, Garnier Pages. 
 
 Some further light as to the nomination of the Pro- 
 visional Government is thrown by the evidence of 
 Adolphe Chenu : — ■ 
 
 * I was,' he says, ' one of the twelve persons who, in the 
 bureau of the " Reforme," on February 24, after the capture of 
 the Tuileries, created the Provisional Government — at least that 
 
 ' Rapport, vol, i. p. 266. 
 
Formation of the Provisional Government. 27 
 
 part of it which was not left to be created by the " National." 
 At this meeting, with the assistance of some persons whom I 
 added to it, we appointed Ledru Rollin, Louis Blanc, Flocon, 
 Albert, and, I rather think, Francis Arago, though I am not 
 sure whether he may not have been appointed by the other 
 meeting [that of the " National"]. We then appointed Etienne 
 Arago Director of the Post Office. Sobrier asked to be Prefect 
 of Police ; Caussidiere was generally preferred : ultimately we 
 appointed both. I went and installed E. Arago at the Post 
 Office, and then conducted Caussidiere and Sobrier to the 
 Prefecture of Police.' ^ 
 
 A consistent account is given by Caussidiere : — 
 
 ' After leaving the Tuileries I went to the bureau of the 
 " Reforme," where a body of insurgents were nami)ig a govei'fi- 
 ment. When the citizens so appointed were gone to the Hotel 
 de Ville, to install themselves, two important places remained 
 to be filled up — the Post Office and the Police. The Post 
 Office was given to E. Arago. I proposed Baune for the 
 Police ; he refused. Flocon and Baune then proposed me, 
 jointly with Sobrier. I refused at first, but was persuaded to 
 accept. '2 
 
 Another extract from Caussidiere gives a glimpse of 
 the early relations to one another of the members of the 
 Provisional Government. On February 26, forty-eight 
 hours after the revolution, he visited them as Prefet de 
 Police : — 
 
 ' I found them,' he says, ' sitting round a large table. They 
 were absolutely buried in mountains of torn paper, which filled 
 the room up to one's middle. I stood in a window and looked 
 on. They were at work on the draft of a decree, which was 
 soon torn up and added to the heaps at their feet. The war 
 
 ' Rapport, vol. i. p. 187. * Memoires de Caussidiere, vol. i. p. 63. 
 
2 8 Sketch of the Revolution ^1848. 
 
 between the moderate and democratic portions of the Provi- 
 sional Government was raging. The most violent seemed to 
 me to be Flocon and Garnier Pages — the former for energy, 
 the latter for delay. In a short time Albert came up to me. 
 " We are not getting on," he said ; "I am out of my place 
 here ; I am very much inclined to resign."'^ 
 
 All this is not very consistent with M. de Lamartine's 
 account of his having himself created the Provisional 
 Government — by whispering to certain persons whom he 
 calls scrutateicrs the names that most readily occurred to 
 him. The truth we believe to be, that, besides the pre- 
 paratory meeting in the bureau of the ' Reforme,' there 
 was also one either in the bureau of the ' National,' 
 or, if held elsewhere, composed of the writers in that 
 journal ; and that at that meeting some, at least, of the 
 names afterwards proclaimed in the Chamber were de- 
 cided on. 
 
 With respect to the propriety of M. de Lamartine's 
 conduct on that eventful morning we feel little doubt. 
 If we implicitly admit his premisses, indeed, he acted 
 wisely as well as boldly. His premisses are, that the 
 Regency could not maintain itself, and that the only 
 stable government was a Republic based on universal 
 suffrage. Now we have already stated our belief, that 
 until the people of France have corrected their present 
 errors as to the proper, or rather as to the practicable, 
 duties of government — while they persist in thinking that 
 its great business is to provide places and salaries for 
 professional men, privileges and monopolies for mer- 
 
 ' Memoires de Caussidiire, vol. i. p. 90. 
 
Average Dtwation of Forms of Government. 29 
 
 chants and tradesmen, and wages and employment for 
 the labouring classes — no stable government is possible. 
 Every successive dynasty or assembly may fret its hour 
 upon the stage ; but it will be overturned by its disap- 
 pointed friends and by its hungry enemies. But if the 
 claims of the Duchess of Orleans and of the Count of 
 Paris had been as adroitly supported as those of her pre- 
 decessor were — if she had been a Louis-Philippe, or had 
 had a La Fayette, a Lafitte, and a Casimir Perrier as her 
 seconds — we see no reason for doubting that she and her 
 son might have enjoyed an average period of power. 
 During the fifty-six years between 1792 and 1848 six 
 sovereignties occupied the throne or the chair — that of 
 the Convention, of the Director}^ of the Consulate, of 
 the Empire, of the Restoration, and of 1830 — giving an 
 average of about nine years to each. And we see no 
 sufficient ground for doubting that the seventh might 
 have had its nine years also. 
 
 Lamartine endeavours to persuade his readers, and' 
 seems to have persuaded himself, that in the beginning 
 of 1848 an overwhelming majority of the French were 
 republicans. 
 
 Tout ce qui a le sentiment re'publicain dans le coeur (he says, 
 speaking in February 1S48), tout ce qui a le reve de la repu- 
 blique dans rimagination, tout ce qui regrette, tout ce qui aspire, 
 tout ce qui raisonne, tout ce qui reve en France, re'publicains 
 des societes secretes, republicains militants, republicains specu- 
 latifs, peuple, tribuns, jeunesse, ecoles, journalistes, hommes 
 de main, hommes de pensee, ne poussent qu'un cri. 
 
 This we utterly disbelieve. 
 
30 Sketch of the Revolution <?/ 1848. 
 
 Emile Thomas, who had good means of judging, tells 
 us that even on the evening of February 24, 1848, there 
 were not in Paris 10,000 avowed republicans.^ We our- 
 selves have spent a considerable portion of the last two 
 years in France. We have mixed with persons of every 
 class, in the provinces as well as in Paris, and, with the 
 exception of a few socialists, we never met with a theoretic 
 republican — that is to say, with anyone who wished for 
 that form of government, or even approved of it, or who 
 did not consider the revolution of 1848 as a bitter mis- 
 fortune. The ccolcs, perhaps, the undisciplined youth 
 of the Polytechnic, and a few dreamers like Lamartine, 
 were honest republicans. A much greater number of 
 ambitious demagogues, like Ledru Rollin, and of con- 
 spirators, like Caussidiere and Barbes, and the general 
 body of journalists, who live by excitement, were dis- 
 honest republicans. Others, again, who usurped that 
 title, were anarchists, who desired not the government 
 of all, but the government of none. The rest were com- 
 munists and socialists, whose object, to which they gave 
 the name of a republic, was a class of institutions to 
 which M. de Lamartine is quite as much opposed as 
 Guizot or Louis-Philippe could be. In fact, M. de 
 Lamartine himself, in a subsequent part of this work, 
 confesses that he was mistaken. He tells us that it 
 was the unpopularity of republican institutions that de- 
 cided him, at the meeting of the Assembly, to remain 
 united to his ultra-republican associates. ' Republican 
 feelings,' he then said to his friends, ' are weak in France. 
 
 ' Histoire da Ateliers nationaiix, p. 14. 
 
Instability of the Reptiblic. 31 
 
 They are chiefly represented by men who excite horror 
 or terror. The Repubhc itself was a surprise, to which 
 the prudence of the Parisians {sagcsse) and our modera- 
 tion enabled us to give a miraculous success. But such 
 impressions are brief As soon as the majority of the 
 people, which, in an enthusiasm of terror, threw itself 
 into the hands of a moderate Republic, shall have re- 
 covered its presence of mind, it will accuse those who 
 have saved it, and turn on the republicans.' ' The pas- 
 sage which we have quoted from the first volume shows 
 what were Lamartine's opinions on February 24 ; that 
 which we now give from the second, the utter change 
 which had taken place in them by May 4. He writes, 
 however, as if he were perfectly unconscious of incon- 
 sistency. 
 
 M. de Lamartine's other motive, the stability of a 
 republic, all the subsequent events have shown to be 
 erroneous. His 'force supreme, qui peut avoir ses agita- 
 tions, jamais ses detronements ou ses ecroulements,' his 
 ' gouvernement qui porte sur le fond meme de la nation,' 
 his ' etablissement stable, national, populaire, inebran- 
 lable enfin,' has been the most unstable of all the 
 governments which have succeeded its republican prede- 
 cessor — the Convention. Within two days after its for- 
 mation it was on the brink of ruin under an attack from 
 the Terrorists. Three weeks later, on March 17, it was 
 saved from destruction merely by the vacillation of its 
 enemies. A few weeks afterwards, on April 15, Lamar- 
 tine burnt his papers, and tells us that when he went to 
 
 ' Vol. ii. p. 405. 
 
32 Sketch of the Revolution (9/1848. 
 
 bed he did not expect to survive the insurrection of the 
 next day. Again in a few weeks, on May 15, there 
 were some hours when a new revolution was triumphant. 
 A month later, a civil war of four days ended in a dic- 
 tatorship. General Cavaignac had the moderation to 
 resign his power after a reign of six months ; but during 
 those six months the ^ ctablisscnicnt incbrajilable^ was not 
 merely shaken but prostrate. So little confidence is 
 there in its present stability, that it was with great diffi- 
 culty that the Assembly could be persuaded last August 
 to adjourn for six weeks. It was seriously feared that a 
 coup d'etat would prevent its ever meeting again. La- 
 martine's theory is founded on the most dangerous of all 
 political arguments — a metaphor. A building is firm in 
 proportion to the depth of the stratum on which its foun- 
 dations rest. A government resting on universal suffrage 
 may, metaphorically, be said to rest on the deepest 
 stratum of society. But that depth confers no firmness. 
 If we, too, might venture to be metaphorical, we should 
 say that the lowest stratum of society is a quicksand. 
 
 We cannot quit M. de Lamartine's history of the 
 events which preceded the appointment of the Provi- 
 sional Government without remarking that it is cal- 
 culated (though, perhaps, that is too strong a word) to 
 give an erroneous impression as to the violence of the 
 conflict. He admits, indeed (p. 6^), that no blood 
 flowed on the first day ; nor does he describe any actual 
 fighting as taking place on the second. He says, in- 
 deed, that the barricades were abandoned as soon as 
 they were raised. The only sanguinary event of this 
 day was the single discharge on the Boulevard des 
 
The Battle of the Revolution ^1848. 33 
 
 Capucins.^ During the night of the 23rd the riot 
 swelled into an insurrection — partly in consequence of 
 the feebleness of the previous day's resistance, partly in 
 consequence of the arrival in Paris of large bodies of 
 Socialists, and Communists, and released convicts, who 
 had been summoned from the large provincial towns, 
 but, above all, in consequence of the slaughter at the 
 Boulevard des Capucins, and the use made of it by the 
 conspirators who had planned it. ' The bodies,' says 
 Lamartine, 'were grouped upon the tombereaux, their 
 arms hanging over the sides of the carriages, the wounds 
 displayed, the blood streaming over the wheels, and 
 dragged by torchlight through the streets.' ^ On the 
 morning of the 24th a considerable body of insurgents, 
 probably from 10,000 to 15,000, had assembled. A 
 larger body of soldiers was arrayed, apparently to with- 
 stand them. But it was a mere appearance. They had 
 received orders to make no resistance. A body of 
 rioters attacked the corps de garde of the Gardes IMuni- 
 cipaux in the Champs Elysees. They were murdered 
 at their posts, or in the arcades of the Hotel de la 
 Marine, in the presence of battalions of infantry and 
 
 ' The Quarterly Review of June 1849, No. 169, p. 283, states that the 
 shot from tlie mob which provoked this discharge was fired by Lagrange. 
 That it was fired intentionally, and to produce the result which followed, 
 there can, we think, be no rational doubt. The circumstance mentioned by 
 Lamartine, that tombereaux, ready harnessed, were in waiting to receive 
 the dead, and exhibit them in all the streets of Paris, is alone a sufficient 
 proof. But what is the evidence, except indeed the character of the man, 
 fixing it on Lagrange ? 
 
 * Vol. i. p. 99. 
 
 VOL. L D 
 
34 Sketch of the Revolution ^1848. 
 
 squadrons of cavalry, who were prevented, says Lamar- 
 tine, by their orders, from rescuing them.' The principal 
 column marched on the Tuileries, sacking the Palais 
 Royal on its way. A battalion of infantry abandoning, 
 in obedience to the general order, the defence of the 
 Palais Royal, took refuge in the Chateau d'Eau, imme- 
 diately opposite to the gate. It was set fire to, and the 
 wounded and prisoners whom it contained perished in 
 the flames. * All this passed,' says M, de Lamartine, 
 ' within a few steps of numerous bodies of troops, who 
 stood motionless, petrified with astonishment, under the 
 command of chiefs whom the king and his new minister 
 forbade to fight.' * By the time this column had reached 
 the Tuileries the royal family had fled ; the troops were 
 in retreat, and it entered the palace without resistance. 
 From thence it proceeded, equally unresisted, to the 
 Chamber of Deputies, and scattered the representatives 
 as easily as it had frightened away the monarch. This 
 was the battle of the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 Si pugna est ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum. 
 
 But a cursory reader of Lamartine, or even an atten- 
 tive one, unless his attention were particularly called to 
 the question, would suppose that the Revolution of 1848 
 was, like that of 1830, the result of three days' hard 
 fighting. He repeats, without comment, Ledru Rollin's 
 enormous falsehood that 3,000 men had fallen.^ He 
 
 ' Vol. i. p. I4O. ^ Ibid. p. 142. 
 
 * p. 200. The total loss of the Gardes Municipau.x, who bore the brunt 
 of the action, was nine men killed and five who died of their wounds. — 
 Dunoyer, La Revolution du 24 Fcvrier, p. 10. 
 
False Accusation of Louis-Philippe. 
 
 OD 
 
 speaks of the mob which entered the Chamber as ' in- 
 flamed by a battle of three days.' ' The weapons through 
 which he penetrated to reach the Hotel de Ville were 
 brandished by arms ' sanglants, tremblants encore de la 
 fievre de trois jours de combat.' - The road to it is 
 described as covered with the dead bodies of men and 
 horses, and constantly crossed by litters carrying the 
 wounded and the dead.^ All who come from the streets 
 have their arms red with blood, and their faces blackened 
 with powder. There is a sort of military halo of smoke 
 and fire over all his pictures, which is not justified by 
 the real events. 
 
 Connected with this subject is one which we approach 
 with great pain. M. de Lamartine tells us that the first 
 proclamation of the Provisional Government was written 
 by himself. It begins thus : ' A retrograde and oli- 
 garchical government has been overthrown by the 
 heroism of the people of Paris. This government has 
 fled, leaving behind it a trace of blood, which prohibits 
 its return. The blood of the people has flowed as it did 
 in July (1830) — but this time a generous people shall 
 not be deceived.''* 
 
 We are not going to blame very severely the coiipling 
 the revolution of 1 830 and that of 1848 ; though the one 
 was an aggression on the part of the crown, the other 
 on the part of the people — though Charles X. fell for 
 
 ' P. 211. 2 p_ 232. 3 p. 230. 
 
 * We translate the official document, which differs a little from M. de 
 Lamartine's version. 
 
 D 2 
 
o 
 
 6 Sketch of the Revolution of 1 848. 
 
 endeavouring to break the law, and Louis-Philippe for 
 having endeavoured to maintain it. Such misrepresen- 
 tations are usual among great orators. But what we do 
 blame is the wicked calumny cast on Louis-Philippe of 
 having left behind him a trace of blood. We presume 
 that M. de Lamartine does not hold Louis-Philippe re- 
 sponsible for the accident on the Boulevard des Capucins ; 
 and the blood that was shed elsewhere, little as it was, 
 was nearly all of it the blood of his own servants. As 
 well might the deaths of those who fell on August 10 
 be imputed to Louis XVI. as the deaths of those who 
 fell on February 24 to Louis-Philippe. It was precisely 
 to their determination not to shed blood, precisely to 
 their refusal to use their means of self-defence, that 
 Louis XVI. sacrificed his life and Louis-Philippe his 
 crown. And so will fall every government in Paris that 
 suffers itself to be attacked with impunity. If Louis 
 Philippe had acted in 1848 as he did in 1832 and 1834, 
 the eniciitc of February 24 would by this time have been 
 forgotten. We have often lamented that a man like M. 
 de Lamartine should have sigjicd a paper containing a 
 false and cruel accusation of a fallen man. We should 
 not have believed on any evidence but his own that he 
 had zvritten it. 
 
 The picture of the first day of the Provisional Govern- 
 ment is wonderfully vivid. It places in the brightest 
 light the courage, self-devotion, and eloquence of M. de 
 Lamartine. We are not inclined, however, to make any 
 extracts from it. The constant representation of mental 
 and bodily struggle becomes at length fatiguing even to 
 
A Night Scene. 37 
 
 the reader. We prefer the repose of a night scene, 
 and we will give it in the original : — 
 
 Lamartine sortit a minuit de I'Hotel de Ville. La nuit e'tait 
 orageuse at sombre. Le vent pluvieux chassait les nuees basses 
 dans le ciel, les fume'es rampantes des lampions allumes sur la 
 Crete des barricades, et faisait gemir sur les toits les girouettes 
 et les bouches de fer des chemine'es. A I'entre'e de toutes les 
 rues des factionnaires volontaires ,du peuple veillaient, le fusil 
 charge a la main, sans autre consigne que leur zele. De dis- 
 tance en distance on trouvait de grands feux allumes, autour 
 desquels bivouaquaient sur un peu de paille des groupes de 
 combattants endormis. De temps en temps seulement on 
 entendait de rares detonations, et des balles sifflaient de loin en 
 loin dans I'air. C'etaient des postes de combattants, qui tiraient 
 au hasard, pour avertir les troupes, dont on ignorait les disposi- 
 tions, que I'armee du peuple etait debout. 
 
 Apres avoir change' ses vetements, mis en lambeaux par les 
 tumultes de la journee, et pris deux ou trois heures de sommeil, 
 il repartit a pied a quatre heures du matin, pour I'Hotel de 
 Ville. 
 
 Les heures tardives de la nuit avaient assoupi plus complete- 
 ment la ville. Les feux s'e'teignaient sur les barricades. Les 
 factionnaires du peuple dormaient — le coude appuye sur la 
 bouche de canon de leurs fusils. On entendait une certaine 
 rumeur sourde sortant des rues profondes et noires qui entou- 
 rent la Place de Greve ; des groupes de quatre ou cinq hommes 
 arme's traversaient ^a et la le quai, les rues, les places, d'un pas 
 precipite. lis s'entretenaient a voix basse en marchant, comme 
 des conjure's. Ces hommes e'taient en gene'ral autrement vetus 
 que le reste du peuple. Des redingotes de couleur sombre, des 
 casquettes de drap noir a passe-poil rouge, des pantalons et des 
 bottes d'une certaine e'le'gance, des barbes toufiues sur le men- 
 ton et sur les levres, soigneusement coupe'es et peigne'es, des 
 mains delicates et blanches, plus faites pour tenir la plume que 
 
vD 
 
 8 Sketch of the RevoliUion of 1848. 
 
 I'outil, des regards intelligents mais soupgonneux et ardents 
 comme le complot, attestaient que ces hommes n'appartenaient 
 pas, par leurs travaux du moins, aux classes prole'taires, — mais 
 qu'ils en e'taient les meneurs, les agitateurs et les chefs. La- 
 niartine put apercevoir, a la lueur des feux de bivouac, qu'ils 
 poitaient des rubans rouges a leur boutonniere et des cocardes 
 rouges a leur chapeau. II crut que c'etait un simple signe de 
 ralliement, arbore pour se reconnaitre entre eux, pendant les 
 jours de combat qui venaient de s'ecouler. II entra sans 
 soup^on a I'llotel de Ville, et releva son coUegue Marie, qui 
 alia a son tour voir et rassurer les siens. 
 
 Le calme, le silence, et le sommeil regnaient a cette heure 
 dans toutes les parties de ce vaste edifice, si tumultueux 
 quelques heures avant. Lamartine reprit son poste dans I'en- 
 ceinte, un peu elargie, h, moitie evacue'e et raieux prote'ge'e du 
 gouvernement provisoire. II y attendit, en redigeant des 
 ordres et en preparant des decrets, la renaissance du jour et le 
 retour de quelques-uns de ses collegues.^ 
 
 The appearance of the small bodies of men distin- 
 guished by red symbols, whom M. de Lamartine so well 
 describes, was an event of great importance. It marked 
 the formation, out of several elements, of a party which 
 has menaced from that day the institutions which the 
 Provisional Government and the Constituent Assembly 
 have endeavoured to give to France — has four or five 
 times been on the point of overthrowing them — has 
 once occasioned them to be suspended for six months — 
 and is destined, we believe, ultimately to destroy them ; 
 not indeed by substituting its own schemes, but by 
 frightening the higher classes into some form in which 
 
 ' Vol. i. p. 320. 
 
Re. i Rep ublicans. 3 9 
 
 the monarchical element shall be even more prepon- 
 derant than it now is — we mean, of course, the Terrorist 
 party — the Red Republicans. 
 
 M. de Lamartine gives two somewhat different descrip- 
 tions of the class who constituted the leaders and the 
 nucleus of the ultra-revolutionary party. He first de- 
 scribes it as consisting of those to whom the object of a 
 revolution is the madness of the revolution itself — of 
 men with no desires of progress, no visions of political 
 improvement, free from the chimeras of those who think 
 that the social edifice can be reconstructed without 
 burying a generation under its ruins, and from the 
 theories of those who look on governments as the in- 
 struments of public welfare. ' Such men,' he says, 
 ' without faith, and without principle, but full of passions 
 and of violence, wish for a state of society as violent as 
 themselves. Their theor}^ of government is a prolonged 
 revolution ; without morality, without law, without peace, 
 and without end.' ^ 
 
 He subsequently describes the Terrorists as the pro- 
 duce of the revolutionary literature which flourished 
 during the Restoration and under Louis-Philippe ; which 
 repeated in cold blood the ferocities of Danton and the 
 maxims of St.-Just, which looked with pity on all who 
 scrupled to attribute to the public men of a revolution a 
 right to proscribe and destroy their enemies and their 
 rivals, and reversed the ordinary judgment of history, 
 by heaping honour on the destroyers and contempt on 
 the victims. In the nomenclature of this literature, the 
 ' Vol. i. p. 326, 
 
40 Sketch of the Revolutioji of 1848. 
 
 Republic meant the violent triumph of a party over the 
 nation — the substitution of tyranny from below for 
 tyranny from above, its arbitrary will for law, anger for 
 justice, and the scaffold for government' 
 
 The believers in this creed (he says) were generally young 
 men, blanched in the shade of secret societies, their minds 
 poisoned from infancy by the classics of the Reign of Terror, 
 accustomed to deify Danton for his audacity in murder, and St.- 
 Just for his insensibility, ascribing grandeur to crimes that 
 were merely enormous, irritated by the want of sympathy, 
 and ready to buy notoriety at any price — men whose sleep 
 was disturbed by the immortality of Marat and Babeuf ^ 
 
 Such, according to Lamartine, were the chiefs of the 
 Terrorist party. The subordinate members — the rank 
 and file of the revolutionary army — he divides into three 
 classes. First he places the dregs of society — the out- 
 casts from civilised life, who infest every large town. 
 Among these are the liberated convicts, who pass their 
 time between crime and imprisonment; those who live 
 by the expedients of the day — many by practices more 
 shameful than crime itself; those who, having lost by 
 misconduct the means of an honest livelihood, keep up 
 a permaneut warfare against law and order, who think 
 vice a profession, and crime a glory ; and, lastly, those 
 who, in his words, to all of which we cannot attach a 
 definite meaning (probably because the animal de- 
 scribed is peculiar to France), ' ont en eux-memes le 
 vertigo continu du desordre, le souffle sans repos de 
 
 ' Vol. i. pp. 338-339- * Ibid. p. 343. 
 
The Socialists. 41 
 
 I'agitation, la volupte du chaos, la soif du sang.' ^ This 
 class of ruffians he estimates at 20,000. Next he puts 
 the Communists — the systematic enemies of rent, of 
 profit, of wages, of inheritance, of capital, of property 
 — in short, of all the results of civilisation. To these 
 he adds, as the third element, the mere ignorant, indi- 
 gent population of Paris, thrown out of work by three 
 days of tumult — ready to believe any statements and 
 to trust to any promises, however monstrous, and to 
 follow any leaders, whatever might be their course. 
 
 Such is M. de Lamartine's description of the party 
 which assumed the red flag as their standard. He 
 denies that, at the commencement of this revolution, 
 the Socialists, as distinguished from the Communists, 
 sympathised with the Terrorist party. Their schemes, 
 however impracticable and absurd, were not then tainted 
 by violence. Plrmly convinced of the truth of their 
 theories, they believed that, if once their plans could be 
 put into action, even on a small scale, the prosperity and 
 happiness which they would diffuse would lead to their 
 universal and voluntary adoption.^ 
 
 We shall see that the Socialists did not long retain 
 their fidelity to the moderate Republic. But, even 
 without their assistance — even in spite of their oppo- 
 sition — the Red party was, on February 25, very for- 
 midable. M. de Lamartine estimates (p. 359) the 
 number of those who made the first rush on the Hotel 
 de Ville at between thirty and forty thousand ; and the 
 
 ' Vol. i. p. 346. 2 Ibid. p. 334. 
 
42 Sketch of the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 number who, later in the day, filled the Place de Greve 
 and the courts of the building he supposes (p, 386) to 
 have been from sixty to eighty thousand. If these esti- 
 mates are tolerable approximations, the Red party, up 
 to the end of the day, formed one-half of those present, 
 and, in the morning, were an overwhelming majority ; 
 while the Provisional Government had absolutely no 
 force to oppose to it. Their second proclamation the day 
 before had in fact, for the time, destroyed the National 
 Guard, by declaring that all the citizens made a part of 
 it. The greater part of the regular troops had retired 
 from Paris ; and those who remained could not be relied 
 on in opposition to what seemed now to be the supreme 
 authority— any crowd calling itself the people. The 
 Garde Mobile — the happiest of Lamartine's creations — 
 did not yet exist. The means of resistance then pos- 
 sessed by the government were merely eloquence, reason, 
 and authority ; and the vigour, the courage, the perse- 
 verance, and ultimately the success, with which they 
 were employed, have shed a lustre on this day of M. de 
 Lamartine's life, which no other portion of his career, 
 brilliant as it has been, has obtained. We ascribe the 
 honours of this day to M. de Lamartine, because none 
 of his colleagues have claimed much share in them. 
 Dupont de I'Eure, Arago, and Ledru Rollin were absent 
 during the struggle. Lamartine bears his testimony to 
 the exertions of Marie, Cremieux, Garnier Pages, and 
 Marrast ; but no trace has been preserved of them. 
 Flocon was employed at Vincennes, and Louis Blanc 
 
Contrast between the Red Flag and the Tricolor. 43 
 
 and Albert sympathised — the former partially, the se- 
 cond entirely — with the enemy. 
 
 The public is familiar with the general outline of these 
 events. Lamartine's contrast between the red flag — 
 which never went farther than round the Champ de 
 Mars, dragged through the blood of the people — and 
 the tricolor, which had gone round the world, carrying 
 with it the name, the glory, and the liberty of France — 
 is classical throughout Europe. The further details 
 which he has now given to us are as graphic and pic- 
 turesque as it is possible for a narrative to be. Such, 
 for instance, is the description (p. 356) of the sudden 
 appearance before the Hotel de Ville of the red colour 
 of the party, of the manner in which the government 
 whom it menaced saw it run through rank and rank of 
 the crowd in the Place de Greve, and along the Quays, 
 and blaze from the opposite windows and roofs ! 
 Such, too, is his description of the Communist delegate 
 who first penetrated into the room occupied by the 
 Provisional Government, and bore to them the ultima- 
 tum of the people.' 
 
 We had believed that the victory was gained by 
 Lamartine's celebrated comparison of the fortunes of 
 the red flag and the tricolor; but we now find that this 
 was only an incident in the struggle. The mob to 
 which it had been addressed was pouring back with 
 shouts of ' Vive Lamartine ! ' 'Vive le drapeau tricolor!' 
 when it was met and passed through by a body of revolu- 
 
 * Vol. i. p. 376. 
 
44 Sketch of the Revolution of 1 848. 
 
 tionists more fierce and more implacable than any of the 
 previous columns. ' A bas Lamartine ! ' ' Mort a Lamar- 
 tine ! ' they screamed. ' Point de paroles ! Le decret, le 
 decret ! ou le gouvernement des traitres a la lanterne ! ' 
 Lamartine had placed himself before the great gate, 
 raised on a chair above the small knot of devoted ad- 
 herents who stood between him and a band of ruffians 
 whose bayonets and swords almost reached his body, 
 and, indeed, slightly wounded one of his hands. His 
 voice could not now be heard in the tumult. He would 
 not retreat ; yet, if he remained, the only result seemed 
 to be, his being thrown down and trampled to death by 
 the mob. 
 
 He was saved, as in no other place in Europe he 
 could have been saved, by a beggar, who rushed between 
 him and his assailants ; invoked him as the brother, the 
 father, the god of the people ; embraced him, kissed 
 him, and at length obtained for him all that was neces- 
 sary to his triumph — a hearing. For whenever a Pari- 
 sian mob hears Lamartine it is subjugated. He subdued 
 this last detachment of the Red party as he had subdued 
 its predecessors : the tricolor was raised again over the 
 great gates, the mob dispersed, and after eight hours of 
 struggle the Place de Greve was again empty. The 
 contest had left the members of the government in a 
 state of mind which M. de Lamartine thinks peculiarly 
 favourable to wise legislation. 
 
 Tout (he says) etait de nature a susciter dans Tame ces 
 grandes pensees qui jaillissent du cceur, et qui sent la souve- 
 
Legislation of the Provisional Government. 45 
 
 raine politique — parce qu'elles sont la souveraine nature et la 
 souveraine verite. L'instinct est le supreme le'gislateur, celui 
 qui I'e'crit en loi, ^crit sous la dictee de Dieu. 
 
 Every member of the Council sought, in the depths of his 
 heart and of his intellect, for some great reform, some great 
 legislative, political, or moral improvement. 
 
 Some proposed the instantaneous abolition of negro slavery. 
 
 Others, the abolition of the restrictions imposed by the laws 
 of September upon the press. 
 
 Some, the proclamation of fraternity among nations, in order 
 to abolish war by abolishing conquest. 
 
 Some, the abolition of the qualification of electors. 
 
 And all, the principles of mutual charity among all classes of 
 citizens. 
 
 As quickly as these great democratic truths, rather felt than 
 discussed, were converted into decrees, they were printed in a 
 press set up at the door of the council-room, thrown from the 
 windows to the crowd, and despatched by couriers through the 
 departments. A whole century, to which the revolution had 
 restored speech, suddenly raised its voice ; and poured forth 
 all the Christian, and philosophical, and democratic truths 
 which had slumbered for fifty years in the meditations of the 
 wise, and in the vague desires of the nation. But the ex- 
 perience of those fifty years had also ripened the intellect of 
 the country, and of the men whose decrees were proclaimed in 
 its name. That experience sat with Dupont de I'Eure, Arago, 
 Marie, and Carnot, at the table where these truths became 
 realities. And it is remarkable that at this meeting, so in- 
 spired and so fruitful, not one instance of rashness or of exag- 
 geration tainted the acts or the words of this government of 
 enthusiasm. Not one of these legislators had afterwards to 
 efface one of the engagements which he now made to the 
 country and to posterity. Every one of these decrees passed 
 as a law into the hands of the National Assembly.^ 
 
 ' Vol. i. p. 442. 
 
4-6 Sketch of the Revolution of 1 848. 
 
 It is remarkable that the proclamation of fraternity 
 among nations and of the abolition of war and conquest 
 does not appear among the printed acts of the Provi- 
 sional Government. The invasion of a friendly state, 
 and the siege and occupation of its capital, ' in order to 
 maintain the proper influence of France in Italy,' is a 
 curious comment on it. It is also to be observed that 
 the decree containing the abolition of the electoral 
 qualification bears date March 4; that repealing the 
 restrictions on the press, March 6 ; and the decrees 
 relating to the abolition of slavery in the French 
 colonies, March 4 and April 27 ; and therefore are 
 not among the ' grandes verites democratiques ' which 
 were converted into decrees in this ' seance inspiree et 
 feconde.' The important decrees, which actually bear 
 date February 25 or 26, and which may therefore be 
 referred to this evening of instinct, inspiration, and en- 
 thusiasm, are these : — 
 
 The 1 8th, which sets at liberty all persons detained 
 on political grounds. 
 
 The 19th, by which the government — 
 
 1. Engages to secure the existence of the operative 
 (puvrier) by employment. 
 
 2. Engages to secure employment [garantir du travail] 
 to all citizens. 
 
 3. Admits that operatives ought to combine in order 
 to enjoy the fruits of their labour. 
 
 4. And promises to return to the operatives, whose 
 property it is, the million which will fall in from the 
 civil list. 
 
Decrees of February 25 and 26. 47 
 
 The 22nd, which dissolves the Municipal Guards. 
 
 The 26th, which declares that the actual government 
 of France is republican, and that the nation will im- 
 mediately be called on to ratify by its votes this reso- 
 lution of the government and of the people of Paris. 
 
 The 29th, which declares that Royalty, under any 
 name whatever — Legitimacy, Bonapartism, or Regency 
 — is abolished ; and that the government has taken all 
 the steps necessary to render impossible the return of the 
 former dynasty or the accession of a new one ; 
 
 And the 30th, which directs the immediate establish- 
 ment of national workshops {ateliers nationaiix)} 
 
 We confess that we agree with Lamartine in thinking 
 that they bear the stamp of instinct much more than 
 that of reason. 
 
 The liberation of all political offenders and the dis- 
 solution of the Municipal Guard were united by a 
 ciiriosa iufclicitas. One set free a band of conspirators, 
 who very soon did their utmost to destroy the govern- 
 ment that had released them ; and the other deprived 
 Paris, when it most wanted protection, of the only police 
 which it possessed. The cruelty with which this ad- 
 mirable body of men, whose crime was that they had 
 for many years protected the persons and property of 
 the Parisians, were left utterly unprovided for, is a dis- 
 graceful part of the history of the Provisional Govern- 
 
 ' We extract these decrees from the Recucil complet des Actes dii Gouverne- 
 tnent proviso ire. Paris : 1848. 
 
48 Sketch of the Revohition of 1848. 
 
 ment. It was an unmanly concession to the \vors,t 
 feelings of the worst part of the populace.' 
 
 The declaration that the actual government of France 
 was republican is defended by Lamartine on the ground 
 that the Provisional Government had only three courses 
 to take — to proclaim no form of government, which 
 would have been anarchy ; to proclaim monarchy, which 
 would have been civil war ; or to proclaim a republic. 
 Now the first answer to this is, that the declaration * que 
 le gouvernement actuel de la France est le gouvernement 
 republicain,' was palpably untrue. The actual govern- 
 ment of France at that time was as far removed from 
 republicanism as it was possible for a government to be. 
 It was a many-headed Dictatorship — a despotic oli- 
 garchy. Eleven men — some appointed in the offices of a 
 newspaper, and the others by a mob which had broken 
 into the Chamber of Deputies — ruled France, during 
 three months, with an absoluteness of which there is no 
 other example in history. The most tyrannical Asiatic 
 or African monarch, the Emperor of China, the King of 
 Dahomi or of the Ashantees, could not venture on one 
 
 ' Their story is well told by M. Emile Thomas. He thus describes their 
 state when they applied to him, as director of the ateliers nationaux, for 
 relief: — 'lis avaient tout perdu dans I'incendie de leurs casernes; ils 
 venaient, presqu'en haillons, tremblants, affames, s'exposer, dans les rangs 
 des ouvriers, aux insultes, et aux menaces, qui ne leur faisaient pas faute, 
 pour obtenir les secours offerts a tons. 
 
 ' Le Gouvernement provisoire avait eu la cniaute de les repousser, de 
 briser leur carriere, signalee par de longs et d'honourables services, et de 
 les laisser en proie a la misere la plus affreuse.' — Histoire des Ateliers na- 
 tionaux, p. 128. 
 
 General Cavaignac had the courage to recall them to the service of the 
 public. It was one of the first measures of his dictatorship. 
 
Despotism of the Republic. 49 
 
 tenth of the arbitrary acts which they crowded into their 
 hundred days. They dissolved the Chamber of De- 
 puties ; they forbade the peers to meet ; they added 
 200,000 men to the regular army, and raised a new me- 
 tropolitan army of 20,000 more at double the ordinary 
 pay; to meet this expense they added 45 centimes to 
 the direct taxes ; they restricted the Bank from cash 
 payments ; they made its paper a legal tender, and then 
 required it to lend them fifty millions ; they broke the 
 public faith with the depositors in savings' banks ; they 
 abolished old taxes and enacted new ones ; they declared 
 at an end the treaties which regulated the base of the in- 
 ternational law of Europe ; they dismissed judicial officers 
 who by law were irremovable ; they sent commissioners 
 through the country invested with powers as absolute as 
 those which they had assumed themselves ; they altered 
 the hours of labour throughout France, and subjected to 
 heavy fines any master who should allow his operatives 
 to remain at work for the accustomed period. They be- 
 haved, in short, in a manner in which no government 
 could behave, except one that was restrained by no op- 
 posing or moderating force, and in which a government 
 so perfectly unrestrained might perhaps be expected to 
 behave. And this state of things they describe by say- 
 ing that ' the actual government of France is republican.' 
 If this be a sample of republican government, we far 
 prefer to it a Turkish despotism or even a Venetian 
 aristocracy. 
 
 It is probable, however, that the first of these decrees 
 is not to be understood according to the apparent import 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
50 Sketch of the Revolution <?_/" 1848. 
 
 of its words. It is probable that, instead of a statemenc 
 of fact, it is a declaration of will — that the word actual 
 means future ; and that what was intended to be an- 
 nounced was, that the Provisional Government had de- 
 cided that the government which was to succeed their 
 dictatorship should be republican. This may have been 
 a wise decision ; but it was one not merely beyond the 
 competence of a provisional government, according to all 
 ordinary notions as to the functions of such a power, but 
 peculiarly beyond the competence of the Provisional 
 Government which was sitting on February 25, 1848. 
 That government had been created on the express con- 
 dition that it ' ne prejugerait rien sur la nature du gou- 
 vernement qu'il plairait a la nation de se donner, quand 
 elle serait interrogee.' Lamartine himself tells us that 
 there was a burst of applause when, on first proposing 
 a provisional government, he made this reserve of the 
 rights of the nation. The next day, however, if this be 
 the meaning of the decree, this reserve was forgotten ; 
 nor is it of any consequence that this declaration was 
 made subject to the ratification of the future Assembly. 
 Every law that is passed by one government is of course 
 liable to be altered by another. England is now a mon- 
 archy ; but subject to the power of Parliament to change 
 it, in the next session, into a democracy or an oligarchy. 
 All doubts, however, as to the meaning of the 26th 
 decree are removed by the 30th, which absolutely 
 abolishes royalty, and announces that the Provisional 
 Government has taken all the measures necessary to 
 render impossible the return of the former or the acces- 
 
Monarchical Element strong in France. 5 1 
 
 sion of a new dynasty. Thus the government which was 
 to prejudge nothing takes all the measures necessary to 
 render impossible a return to the institutions under 
 which, with the exception of the seven most miserable 
 years that she ever endured, France had lived ever since 
 the times of Caesar. 
 
 We do not attach, however, much importance to these 
 two decrees. Great as was the power of the Provisional 
 Government, it could not render impossible either the 
 return of the old dynasty or the accession of a new one : 
 it could not prevent the French nation from re-establish- 
 ing Monarchy if it should so think fit. And in fact, not 
 four months afterwards, Monarchy — real, though tem- 
 porary — was re-established in the person of General 
 Cavaignac. And under the existing constitution the 
 monarchical element is stronger in France than in almost 
 any part of Europe. Louis-Napoleon has more real 
 power than any of his contemporary sovereigns, except 
 the Czar. We are writing in October. Perhaps by the 
 time that these pages are before the public the revolution 
 will have passed into a new phase. But at this instant 
 the French are more the subjects of a single will — un- 
 controlled, and, within very large limits and for several 
 yearSj legally uncontrollable, by the people or by its 
 representatives — than they have been under any king 
 since the death of Louis XIV. — than they were during 
 the times when their king was most autocratic, during 
 the early part of the reign of Louis XVIII. and the 
 latter part of that of Louis-Philippe. 
 
 The 19th and 30th decrees — the universal guarantee 
 
 E 2 
 
52 Sketch of the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 of employment by the former, and the creation of atehers 
 nationaux by the latter — were less palpably absurd, but 
 more extensively, and, we fear, more permanently, mis- 
 chievous. The engagement to secure employment to all 
 citizens is, when all which it necessarily implies is ex- 
 pressed, an engagement to supply to all applicants 
 materials, tools, and — until those materials have been 
 worked up, sold, and paid for — subsistence. Or, in 
 other words, to provide every applicant with capital ; 
 and when he has lost it, or destroyed it, to give him 
 fresh supplies ; to take the property of the rich — that 
 is to say, the fruits of industry, abstinence, and skill, 
 and transfer it to the poor — that is to say, to those 
 who, by idleness, or vice, or imprudence, or the ill luck 
 which is the result of unobserved defects of character, 
 have been deprived of wealth, or have been unable to ac- 
 quire it. To produce equality, but certainly not equality 
 of happiness. 
 
 M. de Lamartine, as we have seen, looks on Socialists 
 with pity, and on Communists with horror ; but M. de 
 Tocqueville, in his great speech on the droit an travail, 
 clearly showed that, if enforced, these decrees must end 
 in the one or the other. 
 
 If the State (says M. de Tocqueville) attempts to fulfil its 
 engagement by itself giving work, it becomes itself a great 
 employer of labour. As it is the only capitalist that cannot 
 refuse employment, and as it is the capitalist whose work- 
 people are always the most lightly tasked, it will soon become 
 the greatest, and soon after the only great, employer. The 
 public revenue, instead of merely supporting the Government, 
 will have to support all the industry of the country. As rents 
 
Ateliei^s nationatix. 53 
 
 and profits are swallowed up by taxes, private property, now 
 become a mere incumbrance, will be abandoned to the State ; 
 and, subject to the duty of maintaining the people, the Govern- 
 ment will be the only proprietor. This is Communism. 
 
 If, on the other hand, the State, in order to escape from 
 this train of consequences, does not itself find work, but takes 
 care that it shall always be supplied by individual capitalists, it 
 must take care that at no place and at no time there be a 
 stagnation. It must take on itself the management of both 
 capitalists and labourers. It must see that the one class do 
 not injure one another by over trading, or the other by com- 
 petition. It must regulate profits and Avages — sometimes re- 
 tard, sometimes accelerate, production or consumption. In 
 short, in the jargon of the school, it must organise industry. 
 This is Socialism.' 
 
 The necessary consequence of the 19th decree, pro- 
 mising employment to all applicants, was the creation of 
 the ateliers nationaux by the 30th. These workshops 
 were immediately opened in the outskirts of Paris. A 
 person who wished to take advantage of the offers of 
 the Government took from the person with whom he 
 lodged a certificate that he was an inhabitant of the 
 Departement de la Seine. This certificate he carried to 
 the mairie of his arrondissement, and obtained an order 
 of admission to an atelier. If he was received and em- 
 ployed there, he obtained an order on his mairie for 
 forty sous. If he was not received, after having applied 
 at all of them, and found them all full, he received an 
 order for thirty sous.^ Thirty sous is not high pay ; but 
 it was to be had for doing nothing ; and hopes of ad- 
 
 ' Seance du ii sept. 1848. Assemblee Constituante. 
 
 ^ Histoire des Ateliers nationaux, par Emile Thomas, p. 80. 
 
54 Sketch of the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 vancemcnt were held out. Every body of eleven persons 
 formed an escouade ; and their head, the escouadier, 
 elected by his companions, got half a franc a day extra. 
 Five escouades formed a brigade ; and the brigadier, 
 also elected by his subordinates, received three francs a 
 day. Above these again were the lieutenants, the chefs 
 de compagnie, the chefs de service, and the chefs d'arron- 
 dissement, appointed by the Government, and receiving 
 progressively higher salaries.' Besides this, bread was 
 distributed to their families in proportion to the number 
 of children.^ 
 
 The hours supposed to be employed in labour were 
 nine and a half ^ We say supposed to be employed, be- 
 cause all eleemosynary employment, all relief work, all 
 parish work (to use expressions which have become 
 classical in Ireland and England), is in fact nominal. 
 When the relations of the labourer and the capitalist are 
 in the state which in a highly civilised society may be 
 called natural, since it is the form which, in such a society, 
 they naturally tend to assume when undistorted by mis- 
 chievous legislation, the diligence of the labourer is their 
 necessary result. As he is paid only in proportion to 
 his services, he strives to make those services as valuable 
 as he can. His exertions perhaps ought more frequently 
 to be moderated than to be stimulated. A large pro- 
 portion of our best artisans wear themselves out prema- 
 turely. In another state of society, which is also natural 
 
 * Histoire dcs Ateliers nationaux, p. 58. 
 - Ibid. p. q7. 
 
 Ibid. p. 97. ^ Ibid. p. 70. 
 
Ateliers nationaux. 55 
 
 in a lower civilisation — that of slavery — a smaller, but still 
 a considerable, amount of industry is enforced by pun- 
 ishment. But in eleemosynary employment there is 
 absolutely no motive for the labourer to make any 
 exertion, or for the employer, a mere public officer, to 
 enforce it. The labourer is, at all events, to have sub- 
 sistence for himself and his family. To give him more 
 would immediately attract to the public paymaster all 
 the labourers of the country ; to give him less, and yet 
 require his services, would be both cruelty and fraud. 
 He cannot be discharged — he cannot be flogged — he 
 cannot be put to task work — since to apportion the 
 tasks to the various powers of individuals would require 
 a degree of zealous and minute superintendence which 
 no public officer ever gave. When the attempt was 
 made in Paris, men accustomed to the work earned fif- 
 teen francs a day, those unaccustomed to it not one. 
 
 This semi-military organisation, regular payment, and 
 nominal work produced results which we cannot suppose 
 to have been unexpected by the Government. M. Emile 
 Thomas tells us that in one mairie, that containing the 
 Faubourg St.-Antoine, a mere supplemental bureau 
 enrolled, from March 12 to 20, more than 1,000 new 
 applicants every day.' We have before us a list of 
 those who had been enrolled on May 19, and it amounts 
 to 87,942.^ A month later it amounted to 125,000 — 
 representing, at 4 to a family, 600,000 persons — more 
 than one half of the population of Paris. 
 
 To suppose that such an army as this could be regu- 
 
 * Histoire des Ateliers nalionaux, p. 1 72. * Ibid. p. 376. 
 
56 Sketch of the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 larly organised, fed, and paid, for months in idleness, 
 and then quietly disbanded, was a folly of which the 
 Provisional Government was not long guilty. They 
 soon saw that the monster which they had created could 
 not be subdued, if it could be subdued at all, by any 
 means short of civil war. 
 
 Do you wish to know (says Lamartine in his ' Conseiller du 
 Peuple ' of October \ 849) why some of us consented to retain 
 power after the meeting of the Constituent Assembly? This is 
 the secret. It was because we saw the inevitable approach of 
 a battle with the ateliers nationaux, and we thought it our duty 
 to cover the Assembly, at least during that battle, with our 
 breasts and our popularity. 
 
 Nearly a similar statement is to be found in the work 
 which we are reviewing. 
 
 A thunder-cloud (says M. de Lamartine) was always before 
 our eyes. It was formed by the ateliers nationaux. This army 
 of 120,000 workpeople, the great part of whom were idlers and 
 agitators, was the deposit of the misery, the laziness, the va- 
 grancy, the vice, and the sedition which the flood of the revolu- 
 tion had cast up and left on its shores. The Provisional 
 Government had created these ateliers as a means of tem- 
 porary relief, to prevent the unemployed workpeople from 
 plundering the rich or dying of hunger ; but they never con- 
 cealed from themselves that the day when this mass of im- 
 perious idlers was to be broken up, scattered over the country, 
 and employed in real work, must bring a change which could 
 not be effected without resistance, without a conflict, without a 
 formidable sedition.' 
 
 M. de Lamartine's justification of a measure which 
 ' Vol. ii. p. 458. 
 
Ateliers nationaux. 57 
 
 assembled and disciplined in Paris an army of 120,000 
 enemies is, as we have seen, necessity. Trade and 
 manufactures were stopped by the revolution, and Paris 
 was in danger of being sacked. Paris, however, has 
 passed through many revolutions without ateliers na- 
 tionaux, and without being plundered. Without doubt 
 the course that the revolution of 1 848, under Lamartine's 
 guidance, had taken, the subversion which he encouraged 
 of royalty, and the promise which he made of pure 
 democracy, had spread an unusual amount of terror 
 among capitalists. There was probably greater alarm, 
 and therefore greater want of employment, than in 1830. 
 It may have been consequently necessary to provide 
 relief on a larger scale ; but we firmly believe that such 
 relief might have been given by means comparatively 
 innocuous. It was not the 20th decree, creating the 
 ateliers nationaux, which occasioned the rebellion of 
 June. It was the 19th — that which guaranteed employ- 
 ment to every citizen, and recognised the right of work- 
 people to combine. Had not that decree been issued, 
 relief to the unemployed would have been given, as relief 
 It might have been subjected to conditions to which 
 none but the destitute would have submitted ; and, 
 though subject to these conditions, if tendered as charity, 
 it would have been accepted with gratitude. But the 
 19th decree converted it into a debt ; and the first con- 
 sequence was to deprive the Government of all power of 
 selection. Lamartine tells us that the greater part of 
 the applicants were idlers and agitators ; that the ateliers 
 became deposits of laziness, vagrancy, vice, and sedition. 
 
58 Sketch of the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 Under the 19th decree this was inevitable. The decree 
 guaranteed employment — not to the diligent or to the 
 well-disposed, but to all. Now, to guarantee subsistence 
 to all — to proclaim that no man, whatever be his vices 
 or even his crimes, shall die of hunger or cold — is a 
 promise that in the state of civilisation of England, or of 
 France, can be performed not merely with safety, but 
 with advantage ; because the gift of mere subsistence 
 may be subjected to conditions which no one will volun- 
 tarily accept. But employment cannot safely be made 
 degrading, and cannot practically be made severe. 
 
 The latter part of the decree, which was a public 
 encouragement of combinations, aided by the 42nd 
 decree, published three days after, which proclaimed 
 that the revolution had been made by the people and for 
 the people, and that it was time to put an end to the 
 long and unjust sufferings of the labouring population, 
 of course produced an immediate crop of combinations. 
 They followed their accustomed tactics — the unions 
 of the different trades appointed committees, the com- 
 mittees ordered strikes, and the ateliers nationaux ena- 
 bled those orders to be carried into execution. 
 
 ' Les dififerents comites,' says Carlier, Directeur de la 
 Police, ' ont obtenu par intimidatmi la cessation des 
 travaux dans les ateliers des fabricants, et ont rejete les 
 ouvriers dans les ateliers nationaux.' ' 
 
 The workpeople were told: 'You may fold your arms ; 
 the Government cannot starve you ; you will have it all 
 
 ' Enqucte stir V Imurrcctmi dii 23 yuin et i^ Mai, toroe ii. p. 16. 
 
The Days of June caused by these Measures. 59 
 
 your own way. Quit your masters, or ask wages that 
 will force them to discharge you ; their establishments 
 must be closed, the Government will take possession of 
 them, and hand them over to you.'' 
 
 As they were managed, the ateliers nationaux, it is 
 now admitted, produced or aggravated the very evils 
 which they professed to cure or to palliate. They pro- 
 duced or continued the stagnation of business which 
 they w^ere to remedy ; and, when they became absolutely 
 intolerable, the attempt to put an end to them occasioned 
 the civil war wdiich they were to prevent. When men 
 to whom employment had been guaranteed — men ' whose 
 long and unjust sufferings were now to be terminated' — 
 men ' by whom and for whom the revolution had been 
 made,' were told that all from seventeen to twenty-five 
 years old must enter the army, that the rest must accept 
 whatever employment, and on whatever terms, private 
 individuals offered them or the Government imposed on 
 them, and that all who refused compliance would be dis- 
 missed,^ they resisted, as Lamartine foresaw that they 
 would do. They took to their arms — not without some 
 pretence of justice; and no one who was at Paris during 
 the four dreadful days of June, 1848, can say that on 
 the first, or the second, or even the third day the contest 
 was not doubtful. 
 
 It was not until the sixth evening that Lamartine 
 could turn his attention to his own department — foreign 
 
 ' See the evidence of M. Goudchaux ; Enqitete, tome ii. p. 290. 
 ^ See a note of these Orders ; Enqucte, tome ii. p. 1 61. 
 
6o Sketch of the Revolution of 1 84 8. 
 
 affairs — and take possession of the hotel on the ill-omened 
 Boulevard des Capucins : — 
 
 They opened (he says) to the new minister the apartments of 
 M. Guizot. They seemed still tenanted by his shade. The 
 room, the bed. the tables still scattered over with papers, in the 
 state in which the supporter of the monarchy had left them on 
 the night of the 23rd, showed the sudden departure of a 
 minister who thought that he had left his home for an instant 
 — and had left it for ever. A woman in M. Guizot's confi- 
 dence accompanied him. Lamartine placed in her hands the 
 private documents and the few movables which belonged to 
 his predecessor, and left an apartment which seemed to bring 
 no good fortune to its inhabitant. He desired his mattress to 
 be spread in the naked rooms of the ground-floor, more gloomy 
 in themselves, but less so in their associations.^ 
 
 We have ourselves received M. Guizot's testimony to 
 the perfect good faith with which all his private papers 
 were delivered to him, unmutilated and unexamined — 
 preserved by iVI. de Lamartine not only from plunder, 
 but from curiosity. 
 
 Lamartine tells us that he passed the night in reflec- 
 tions on the foreign policy of France. He has generally 
 been considered a pacific foreign minister. It is true 
 that, as he tells us in this histoiy, and in his ' Conseiller 
 du Peuple' of last June, he believed that war in 1848 
 would have been fatal to the Moderate Republican 
 party. He saw that war, successful or unsuccessful, 
 would lead to increased expenditure and diminished 
 income, double taxation, forced loans, national bank- 
 
 ' Vol. ii. p. 9. 
 
Foreign Policy of Lamartine. 6i 
 
 ruptcy, inconvertible paper currency, destruction of 
 manufactures, suspension of commerce, insurrection of 
 workmen, the emigration of the rich, the rage of the 
 poor, and a reign of terror, which, by the copious use of 
 its own powerful instruments, might be prolonged inde- 
 finitely. He laboured, therefore, anxiously to preserve 
 peace at that particular period. But we are constrained 
 to say that the general tendency of his political feel- 
 ings is not pacific, for it is ambitious ; and ambition is 
 always warlike — especially in France. One of his com- 
 plaints against Louis-Philippe is, that France under his 
 government could not increase her territory. In his 
 general view of the policy which France ought to adopt, 
 he proposes only two courses — each of iheni imwlving 
 war for tJic purpose of conquest — and decides in favour of 
 the more violent, the more unprincipled, and the more 
 ambitious : — 
 
 The treaties of 1815 (he says) drove back France into limits 
 too narrow for her vanity and for her activity. They left her with- 
 out an ally, and therefore restless and suspicious. There were 
 two modes by which we might have reconstructed our alliances, 
 and established a French system on the Continent and on the 
 ocean. One was to ally ourselves with Germany, against Rus- 
 sia and England; the other, to ally ourselves with Russia, 
 against Austria and England. In the former case, we might 
 extetid our territory in Savoy, in Switzerland, and in the Prussian 
 provinces on the Rhine — by granting to Austria an extension 
 in Italy, on the Lower Danube and on the Adriatic. If we 
 adopt the second alternative, we may stifle Austria between 
 ourselves and Russia ; extend ourselves freely over Italy, repossess 
 ourselves of Belgium and of the Rhine, and reassume our irifluence 
 
62 Sketch of the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 d'cr Spain. Granting Constantinople, the Black Sea, the Dai- 
 danelles, and the Adriatic to Russia would insure to us these 
 advantages ! Our alliance with Russia is proclaimed by nature 
 — it is revealed by geography. // is an alliance of war, to pre- 
 serve tzvo great races frofn danger : it secures an equilibrium of 
 peace, by placing two great weights on each side of the Conti- 
 nent, to keep do\m the centre, and by banishing England, as 
 their satellite, to the sea and to Asia.^ 
 
 The deliberate proposal by M. de Lamartine of an 
 object so violent and aggressive in itself, and attainable 
 only through years of universal v^^ar, is a curious com- 
 ment on ' La fraternite proclamee en principe, entre les 
 peuples, pour abolir la guerre en abolissant les conquetes.' 
 But these are not barren speculations. From M. de 
 Lamartine's principles of conduct we turn to his acts. 
 
 The first is the celebrated manifesto of March 6. 
 
 In that manifesto he declares that the French Re- 
 public considers the treaties of 18 15 as no longer binding 
 on her; though she admits as a matter of fact their 
 territorial demarcations. And, further, ' that when the 
 hour for the reconstruction of any oppressed nationali- 
 ties shall appear to France to have arrived, in the 
 decrees of Providence, the French Republic will think 
 herself justified in arming for their protection.' 
 
 Among the attacks which have lately been made on 
 that weak defence of civilisation, international law, this 
 manifesto appears to be the boldest and the most mis- 
 chievous. As Lamartine, while repudiating in the name 
 of the French Republic the treaties which, as he himself 
 
 ' Vol. ii. p. 14. 
 
Manifesto of the 6t/i March. 6 
 
 J 
 
 admits, have for the last thirty-four years formed the 
 base of the pubHc law of Europe, does not state the 
 cause through which they have ceased to be obligatory, 
 we are left to conjecture it. 
 
 Is it that Russia, by incorporating the kingdom of 
 Poland, and Austria, by seizing the republic of Cracow 
 — both of which acts were violations of the Act of the 
 Congress of Vienna — has released France from her 
 obligations ? It may be so. But how do those events 
 affect the rights of England ? The treaty of November 
 20, 1815, between France and England, was an indepen- 
 dent treaty ; not referring to the Act of the Congress 
 signed many months before — before the battle of 
 Waterloo — and to which France, then under the go- 
 vernment of Napoleon, was not really a party. Eng- 
 land, who took not merely a substantial but an active 
 part in the Act of the Congress, was as much injured by 
 the violations of it as France. To hold, then, that these 
 violations had the effect of depriving England of the 
 benefits of the engagements made to her by France, 
 would render nugatory all complicated arrangements ; 
 or all at least to which France may be a party. 
 
 We cannot suppose that the Republic means to 
 disclaim the obligations of the Monarchy. This would 
 be an extremity of bad faith, of which no one ought to 
 be accused till he avows it. 
 
 The only remaining pretext that occurs to us is, that 
 the treaties of 18 15 were extorted from France by force. 
 Of course they were extorted by force. Every disad- 
 vantageous peace is extorted by force. The treaty 
 
64 Sketch of the Revolution of 1 848. 
 
 which recognised the independence of the United States 
 was extorted from England by force. The treaty which 
 gave Norway to Sweden was extorted from Denmark 
 by force ; that which gave Finland to Russia was ex- 
 torted from Sweden by force ; that which ended the 
 late war between Austria and Piedmont was extorted 
 from Piedmont by force. But are these treaties there- 
 fore void } or, what is the same thing, valid only until 
 the beaten party is strong enough to repudiate them } 
 If this be the law of nations, the practice of nations must 
 revert to what it was 2,000 years ago. If the beaten 
 party is not to be bound by stipulations longer than he 
 is too weak to repudiate them, the consequence will be 
 that he must be rendered incapable of ever doing further 
 injury. If he cannot purchase safety by engagements, 
 he must be destroyed. All wars must become wars of 
 extermination. 
 
 The offer of assistance to oppressed nationalities, when 
 translated into intelligible language, is an offer of the 
 armed interference of France to detach from their exist- 
 ing government any portions of a composite empire, 
 distinguished by race or language from their fellow-sub- 
 jects, which she may think fit to consider oppressed, and 
 called by Providence to separate independence. When 
 we recollect that almost every kingdom of Europe is a 
 union of distinct nations — that neither the Swedish, the 
 Danish, the Russian, the Prussian, the Austrian, the 
 Turkish, the Neapolitan, the Sardinian, the Belgian, 
 the Dutch, nor the British state is homogeneous — this is, 
 in fact, a threat on the part of France to interfere by 
 
Lamartine s Foreign Policy aggressive. 65 
 
 force in the domestic concerns of almost every govern- 
 ment in Europe — and to interfere for the express pur- 
 pose of dismembering it. It is an open encouragement 
 to the barbarous feeling which leads men to quarrel 
 because they differ in language or in race ; which drives 
 the Irish to clamour for repeal, the Holsteiners to de- 
 mand separation, and the Croats to attack the Magyars ; 
 and has done more, within the last year, to retard the 
 civilisation of Europe than can be repaired during the 
 remainder of the century. So little did Lamartine know 
 what he was doing, that his comment on this manifesto 
 is, that it created no source of war, but removed many ; 
 that it abolished ambition and conquest. 
 
 His second measure was to assemble an army on the 
 frontier of Savoy, in order, as is not obscurely insinuated, 
 to make the war between Piedmont and Austria a means 
 of seizing on Savoy. ' Whatever,' he says, ' were the 
 results of that war, the French army was to pass the 
 Alps, in order to act or negotiate in arms.' This was 
 Lamartine's policy. His successors abandoned it. He 
 does not judge their conduct — he only relates it' 
 
 A third measure was, in a time of profound peace, and 
 with a national income inferior by about twelve millions 
 sterling to the national expenditure, to endeavour to 
 raise the army from 370,000 men to 580,000 ;- that is 
 to say, to about one person in fifty-eight of the whole 
 population, or to about one in fourteen of the able- 
 bodied males. In the course of the year, he tells us 
 that the number of 520,000 was actually reached; or 
 
 • Vol. ii. p. 278; see also p. 2S3. - Vol. ii. p. 51. 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
66 Sketch of the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 about one in sixty-four of the whole population, and on(i 
 in sixteen of the able-bodied males — a military force 
 which, in proportion to the population of the country, is 
 about three times as large as that of England, and twice 
 as large as that of Russia — an army not exceeding, per- 
 haps, the amount which a foreign policy of ambition and 
 interference might require, but destined, if it be main- 
 tained, from its magnitude when compared with the 
 resources of the country, to ruin its finances, and ulti- 
 mately to destroy the little that it has retained of 
 liberty. 
 
 In general a minister is held responsible for all the 
 acts of the cabinet. He is so responsible, because he 
 voluntarily joined them and voluntarily remains with 
 them. It is assumed that he knew beforehand what 
 would be the outline and general course of their policy ; 
 and if he finds that they propose anything which he 
 thinks seriously mischievous, he ought to resign. But 
 we do not apply this rule to M. de Lamartine. He 
 knew little — indeed it was impossible that he could 
 know much — of his associates. We believe that he 
 exercised little influence — much less than might be 
 inferred from his own narrative — on their selection. He 
 firmly believed that any change in the Provisional Go- 
 vernment before the meeting of the Assembly would 
 destroy it, and leave France in the midst of the tempest 
 without a steersman. With this belief, he could neither 
 resign himself, nor require, or indeed permit, the resig- 
 nation of any of his associates, however numerous and 
 deep-rooted might be their subjects of disagreement. 
 This system must have been fatal to his influence. The 
 
Dissensions in the Government. 67 
 
 lever with which the member of a cabinet acts on his 
 colleagues, in ordinary circumstances, is the threat of 
 resignation. He uses it against measures, and, as a last 
 resource, he uses it against men. But Lamartine could 
 do neither. However he might disapprove of those 
 whom he generally indicates as ' the minority in the 
 government' (though it is clear that they often were 
 the majority), he could not quit them, and he could 
 not displace them. The evidence of several of his col- 
 leagues, taken by the Commissioners of Inquiry into the 
 events of June 23 and May 15, contains some curious 
 revelations. We will quote a few of them, beginning 
 with that of one of the most eminent of the number — 
 M. Arago : — 
 
 I admit that there was a disagreement in the Government ; 
 it contained two opposing elements — a republic of moderation, 
 and one of violence. We (that is, the moderate partj') were 
 attacked, sometimes by reasoning, sometimes by threats. It 
 was not only in the streets, but at the council-table, that the 
 red flag was proposed. I answered that I had rather be cut 
 to pieces than adopt that symbol. As the discussion became 
 violent, I said, ' Call in your partisans : I will have the rappel 
 beaten, and we will fight it out.' They were always ready to 
 threaten us with the musket. ' Well, be it so, the musket ! ' 
 I used to answer. 1 
 
 He is followed by Garnier Pages : — 
 
 The Provisional Government contained several elements. 
 There was the Socialist element, represented by Louis Blanc 
 
 ' Enqucte, tome i. pp. 224-230. The original is, ' Des coups de fusil, 
 nous disait-on alors assez facilement. Eh bien, soil, des coups de fusil 
 repondais-je.' 
 
 F 2 
 
68 Sketch of the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 and Albert ; there were the advanced republicans, represented 
 by Ledru RoUin and Flocon. From February 24 to June 
 24 we were in a perpetual struggle. In order to hold toge- 
 ther, without resignation or rupture, till the meeting of the 
 Assembly, we were forced to submit to one continued system 
 of compromise.^ 
 
 The next witness is M. Marrast : — 
 
 There were (he said) three parties in the Provisional Govern- 
 ment — Socialism and Communism, represented by Louis Blanc 
 and Albert ; the Violent Republic, represented by Ledru Rolhn 
 and Flocon ; and the Moderate Republic, by Dupont de I'Eure, 
 Arago, Lamartine, Gamier Pages, Marie, and himself There 
 was a constant war between himself as Mayor of Paris and 
 Ledru Rollin as Home Minister. Once Ledru RoUin resigned. 
 Lamartine persuaded him to continue. On the question of de- 
 laying the election of the Assembly he was inexcusably violent. 
 ' When one has 200,000 men at one's command,' he said, ' one 
 may venture anything, and the Assembly itself shall not 
 stop me.'^ 
 
 We shall end these extracts by the evidence of two 
 witnesses not actually members of the Government, but 
 nearly connected with it. One is M. Carlier, Directeur 
 de la Police : — 
 
 There were in fact four governments — one that of Louis 
 Blanc and Albert, who wished for Communism ; another that 
 of Ledru Rollin, who desired the Red Republic and Terror ; 
 the third that of M. de Lamartine, who wished to conciliate 
 everybody, and thought that he could do so by his eloquence ; 
 and the fourth that of Arago, Marie, Gamier Pages, and Mar- 
 rast, who represented the moderate party. The evil influences 
 worked separately and silently on ordinary occasions ; but 
 whenever there was an insun^ection they united. 
 
 1 Euquete, p. 284. 2 Ibid. pp. 246-247. 
 
Conflicting wishes of the Government. 69 
 
 The other is M. Goudchaux, for a short time their 
 Minister of Finance : — 
 
 The disagreement in the Provisional Government was con- 
 stant. Lamartine gave up his opinions one by one. He let 
 himself be overpowered and carried away. He wished to stand 
 always as a sort of umpire, and thought that with his eloquence 
 he could manage everybody. Ardour with him was capacity. 
 He hoped to use the violent, and to control them.^ 
 
 To add to the difficulties of the moderate party, two 
 of the most important of the subordinate ministries, the 
 Postes and the Police, were occupied by E. Arago and 
 Caussidiere — men appointed, as we have seen, in the 
 bureau of the ' Reforme ' newspaper, and claiming, 
 therefore, an independent title and a sort of indepen- 
 dent authority, and throwing their influence on the side 
 of the violent party. 
 
 The great practical questions that first divided the 
 Government were, the period at which they were to be 
 superseded by the meeting of the National Assembly, 
 and the degree in which they ought to endeavour to 
 give a decided character to that Assembly. Lamartine 
 was wisely and sincerely anxious to retire as soon as 
 possible from his slippery post ; and desired that the 
 Assembly, which was to provide for the immediate, and 
 for the future, government of France, should fairly repre- 
 sent the opinions and wishes of the French people. But 
 the violent party, both in the Government and in the 
 streets, were anxious to prolong the existing state of 
 things, under which Paris dictated to France, and they 
 
 ' Enquete, pp. 289-310. 
 
70 Sketch of the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 dictated to Paris. And they were still more anxious 
 that, when at last the Assembly miust meet, it should 
 be found to contain a majority which would give effect 
 to tJu'ir theories, and maintain tJicvi in power. 
 
 The first open conflict between the two parties seems 
 to have taken place with respect to the latter question. 
 In the beginning of March, Ledru RoUin, as Minister of 
 the Interior, issued circulars to the Commissioners, who 
 had been sent, as a kind of proconsuls, into the pro- 
 vinces. In the first of them, that of March 8 : — 
 
 Take as your rule (he said) that political functions, whatever 
 be their rank, must be entrusted only to tried republicans. 
 Those who have obeyed the contemptible power which the 
 popular breath has just blown away cannot serve the people. 
 Place everywhere men whose hearts and courage are 7vith us, 
 men who will give us an Assembly capable of understanding 
 and carrying out tlie will of the people ; in a word, men dc 'a 
 vcille, d pas dii Icndcmahi} 
 
 By the second, dated March 12, he informed them 
 that their powers, like those of the government which 
 they represented, were absolute. 
 
 The victory of the people (he said) has thrown on you the 
 duty of completing its work, and for that purpose it invests 
 you with its sovereignty : you are irspoiisiblc only to your oion 
 consciences. Whatever the public safety requires, you must do. 
 Your great business is with the ekctions. Be on your guard 
 against those who, having served a king, now profess to serve a 
 people. The Assembly must be animated with the spirit of 
 the revolution. Those who ask a seat in it must be pure from 
 the traditions of the past. Let the word everywhere be, new 
 
 ' Actes du Gouveriiuncni provisoirc^ 2de partie, p. 91. 
 
Lamar tines Proclamation. 7 1 
 
 men ! and, if possible, from the mass of the people. No com- 
 promises, no compHances. Let the day of the election be the 
 triumph of the revolution. ' 
 
 These circulars (says Lamartine) rang like a tocsin through 
 the country. They suddenly roused it from its dreams of con- 
 cord and peace. Men shuddered at the words ' Your powers 
 are boundless '■ — which brought again to mind the Commis- 
 sioners of the old Convention. The attempt to confine political 
 power to the republicans de la vcille was an attempt to dis- 
 franchise nearly the whole nation ; for if the number of those 
 whose reason preferred a republic was immense, that of those 
 who would have taken steps to obtain one was very small. ^ 
 Lamartine felt that, if these circulars were not disavowed, the 
 Republic would become the tyranny of a minority, to be upheld 
 by terror within and by war without, by disturbance, by ex- 
 actions, by dismissals — in short, by revolutionary violence in all 
 its forms. He and the majority of his colleagues were resolved 
 to suffer a thousand deaths rather than bear, before God, before 
 history, and before their own consciences, the responsibility of 
 so execrable a government.^ 
 
 He summoned, therefore, a meeting of the whole 
 Government for March 16. The debate was violent, 
 and lasted for several hours. It ended in the adoption 
 and publication of a proclamation drawn up by Lamar- 
 tine, and intended to be a disavowal of the circulars of 
 Ledru Rollin. But we must confess that it appears to 
 us a very faint disavowal. The strongest passages are 
 
 * Actes die Gotiveniement provisoii-e, 2de partie, p. 125. 
 
 2 Vol. ii. p. 184. We are not sure that we have discovered the sense of the 
 last of these sentences. The original is this : — ' Car si le nombre des re- 
 publicains de raison etait immense, le nombre des republicains de faction 
 etait bien petit.' 
 
 ^ Vol. ii. p. 185. 
 
72 Sketch of the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 those which urge the people to respect in others th^, 
 freedom of suffrage which they demand for themselves 
 — not to scrutinise the names which those whom thej' 
 may think their enemies write on their cards, but to 
 trust that they are those of true republicans. ' Trust,' 
 it says, ' the good sense of the people — give it liberty, 
 and it will give you back the Republic' ' 
 
 The next day, however, the celebrated March 17, the 
 minority took a signal revenge. The Socialist and Red 
 party, as usual, combined. Under the direction of Caus- 
 sidiere, Louis Blanc, Blanqui, Barbes, Sobrier, and the 
 other veterans of insurrection and conspiracy, a demon- 
 stration — to use the revolutionary name — was prepared, 
 which was to carry to the Government the will of the 
 people. 
 
 At noon on the 17th (says M. de Lamartine) the members of 
 the Government were assembled at the Hotel de Ville. From 
 time to time they went out on the balcony to watch for the 
 column. At length it showed itself over the approaches of the 
 bridge. At its head were about 600 men, the leaders of the 
 clubs, in ranks of about forty abreast. Before each club was its 
 flag, borne by two or three men, and a woman wearing the 
 hideous bonnet rouge. Immediately behind marclied a broad 
 compact column of workmen, of all professions, decently dressed, 
 grave, modest, inoffensive, abstaining from every alarming ges- 
 ture or word, and appearing to think that they were performing 
 an act of calm and holy patriotism. The first ranks of this 
 column filled the Place de I'Hotel de Ville, and its centre and 
 rear extended back to the extremity of the Champs Elysees. 
 Its number was estimated at from 100,000 to 140,000 men.^ 
 
 ' Actes dii GoHvenieincnt provisoire, lere partie, p. 148. 
 • Vol. ii. p. 207. 
 
Demonstration of the ijtk March. 73 
 
 About 100 of the leaders were admitted, and received 
 by the Provisional Government in the great hall of the 
 Hotel de Ville, the most historical room now remaining 
 in Paris ; the hall in which sat the formidable Com- 
 mune de Paris ; from whose window Henriot was 
 thrown ; on whose floor Robespierre lay wounded on 
 the morning of the loth Thermidor. 
 
 Blanqui, speaking in the name of the people, in decent 
 but imperious terms, required the postponement for ten 
 days of the election of the officers of the National 
 Guard ; the postponement for an indefinite time of the 
 meeting of the National Assembly, then fixed for April 20 ; 
 and the perpetual exclusion from Paris of the regular army. 
 
 He was answered by Louis Blanc and Ledru Rollin — 
 whose expressions of indignation must have been amus- 
 ing to those who were in the secret — by Cremieux, by 
 Marie, and by Dupont de I'Eure. ' The answers,' says 
 Lamartine, * were not very clear. It w'as admitted that 
 we agreed with them in some points, that we differed in 
 others, and we promised to deliberate on all' He has 
 given us his own speech. It contains a promise to 
 consider the question as to the National Guard, and 
 denies any intention to bring back the troops to Paris. 
 ' We never have thought,' he said, ' of doing so ; we 
 do not think of doing so ; we never shall think 
 of doing so. This is the truth. Tell it to the 
 people. The Republic wants at home no defenders but 
 the people in arms.' As to the postponement of the 
 meeting of the Assembly, he refused to make any 
 engagement inconsistent with the rights of the whole 
 
74 Sketch of the Revolution of 1 848. 
 
 country ; *but promised, as his colleagues had done, to 
 make it the subject of serious deliberation. The fate of the 
 Government now depended on the will of the instigators 
 of the movement — Blanqui, Barbes, Sobrier, Raspail, 
 and Cabet. Cabet took the lead, and advised his fol- 
 lowers to grant the proposed terms of capitulation. The 
 other leaders acquiesced ; the delegates retired, and Louis 
 Blanc harangued the people from the balcony, and 
 thanked them in the name of the Provisional Govern- 
 ment for the irresistible force which they had placed at 
 its disposal. 
 
 The majority of the Government (says Lamartine) affected to 
 be pleased and grateful ! But their hearts were torn by the 
 audacity and success of the conspirators. They now began to 
 distrust a force over which there was no control. Lamartine 
 himself understood what had passed. He saw that the mode- 
 rate majority had received a signal defeat, and that those who 
 called themselves their supporters were in fact their tyrants.' 
 
 But the measure of his humiliation was not yet full. 
 The next day he had to sign a proclamation in which 
 the Provisional Government solemnly thanked the people 
 of Paris for ' la manifestation si imposante dont vous 
 avez donne hier le magnifique spectacle.' ' The Pro- 
 visional Government,' it added, ' has seen its power con- 
 firmed by 200,000 citizens, marching with the calmness 
 of power. People of Paris, you have been as great in 
 this manifestation as you were courageous behind your 
 barricades. Again the Government thanks you. The 
 elections of the National Guard are postponed to April 
 
 ' Vol. ii. pp. 225 227. 
 
Effects of the Manifestation. 75 
 
 5.'' The best comment on these transactions is that of 
 a very inteUigent bystander, M. Kmile Thomas, the 
 director of the atehers nationaux, whose intimate con- 
 nection both with the Provisional Government and with 
 the working classes of Paris gave him better opportu- 
 nities of ascertaining the progress of events than were 
 enjoyed by perhaps any other individual. 
 
 The eftect (he says) of the manifestation of March 17 was 
 terrible. It struck with consternation the moderate portion of 
 the Government ; it gave triumphant influence to Ledru Rollin 
 and his friends ; and it showed to the workpeople the extent of 
 their power. It may be well to state what was the previous 
 state of the Government. Before March 1 7 it stood thus : on 
 one side Lamartine, Marrast, Garnier Pages, Arago, and 
 Marie ; on the other, Ledru Rollin, Flocon, Cre'mieux, Louis 
 Blanc, and Albert. I omit the venerable Uupont de I'Eure, 
 whose age, and still more whose character, kept him aloof 
 from these struggles of ambition. After March 17 the mode- 
 rate party was reduced to Marrast, Arago, and Marie. Garnier 
 Pagbs was undecided ; Lamartine, terrified by the nature and 
 by the strengtli of the popular current, hesitated before the 
 alternative of civil war. He was neutral for a time ; but it 
 was to unite himself afterwards with the man who seemed to 
 have the popular sympathy on his side. Cremieux, Louis 
 Blanc, and Albert connected themselves more strictly Avith 
 Flocon and with Ledru Rollin, who afterwards alone gave to 
 the Provisional Government its impulse, modified only by the 
 wild preaching of Louis Blanc, which a month after threw him 
 out of the sphere of his colleagues into that of Raspail, Barbes, 
 and Blanqui.^ 
 
 Lamartine's own narrative, on the whole, confirms 
 
 ' Actes du Gouvcrncment provisoire, lere partie, p. 152. 
 ^ Histoire des Ateliers nationaux, par Emile Thomas, p. 98. 
 
76 Sketch of the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 Emile Thomas. Between March 17, he says, and the 
 meeting of the Assembly, lay an abyss of anarchy. The 
 wisest of his friends denied that it could be crossed. 
 
 Never (they said) will the Ultra-Republican party, already 
 entrenched within the Government, commanding 200,000 men 
 in Paris, its commissioners and clubs in the departments, and 
 the artisans everj'where ; masters of the police, of the Luxem- 
 bourg, of the streets, of the National Guard from the suburbs, 
 and of the ateliers nationaux — never will this party allow the 
 election of an Assembly to tear it from power. Lamartine 
 knew well all these sources of danger ; but the lot was cast. 
 His death, if he was to die in the attempt, would be avenged. 
 And so he proceeded, resolved to work his way, by concession 
 or by force [decide a transiger ou a combattre], to his two great 
 objects — the preservation of peace abroad, and the meeting of 
 the Assembly.^ 
 
 The means which he adopted were, as he tells us, two : 
 taking measures for putting, as soon as possible, Paris, 
 or at least the Government, under the protection of a 
 regular army, and seeking to acquire an influence over 
 the subordinate conspirators. For the first purpose, he 
 entered into correspondence with Negrier, the com- 
 mander of the army of the North, and ascertained that 
 he could rely on his assistance, if an insurrection should 
 drive the Provisional Government out of Paris ; he also 
 persuaded General Cavaignac to accept the War Office ; 
 and he urged the clothing and training of the Garde 
 Mobile, which, though only three weeks had passed since 
 the date of the decree which created it, already amounted 
 to several thousands. His endeavours to bring over, or 
 
 ' Vol. ii. p. 229. 
 
Attempts to conciliate the Ultra-Republicans. ']-j 
 
 at least to mollify, the inferior members of the ultra- 
 republican party, appeared to him to succeed with the 
 leaders of the principal clubs — with Cabet, with Barbes, 
 with Raspail, and with Sobrier. If he could not per- 
 suade them all to abandon their schemes, he obtained at 
 least an adjournment. He has given us an interesting 
 account of his interview with one of the fiercest of the 
 conspirators — Blanqui.' It ended in Blanqui's pouring 
 out to Lamartine his whole soul. He told him the 
 history of his life, which had been passed in plotting 
 against every government under which he had lived ; he 
 described his passion for a woman, who had shared his 
 sufferings until they killed her ; his solitary meditations, 
 his religious aspirations, his dislike of bloodshed, 
 and at last his irresistible craving for conspiracy — a 
 taste which long indulgence had made a second nature. 
 Lamartine thought that he perceived in him the tact and 
 sagacity of a negotiator, and asked him if he would 
 exchange his life of treason for one of diplomacy. 
 Blanqui, he says, seemed inclined to accept the offer. 
 If it had been carried into effect, it would have been an 
 amusing incident in the revolutionary phantasmagoria. 
 He did not confine his seductions to the leaders of 
 the clubs. The popular demagogues of the turbulent 
 districts — St.-Margeau, St.-Antoine, and the Bastille — 
 passed whole nights in the gilded saloons of the Hotel des 
 Affaires Etrangeres, discussing with him unreservedly 
 the domestic and foreign policy of the Government, and 
 
 ' Blanqui was one of the band of insurgents who seized the Hotel de 
 Ville last March.— Ed. 
 
yS Sketch of the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 the economical and social questions which are still per- 
 plexing the half-educated population of the great towns 
 of France. Sometimes he convinced them that their 
 opinions were absurd and their plans mischievous ; but, 
 at the worst, he thus learned what those opinions and 
 plans were, and he believes that this knowledge enabled 
 him to save Paris and the Assembly. 
 
 In the meantime, the factions in the Government 
 became more and more hostile. Their meetings, says 
 Lamartine, were few, short, and full of suspicion and 
 irritation. One party was suspected of aiming at counter- 
 revolution and restoration ; the other of striving to keep 
 by force the power which accident had thrown into their 
 hands. On March 26, Ledru Rollin, on the pretext that 
 the National Guards had not yet received their arms and 
 uniforms, forced an adjournment of the election of the 
 Assembly from April 9 to 27. This produced a truce, 
 but a short one. 
 
 The two camps (says M. de Lamartine) which were now 
 established in the Government were the centres of opposite 
 tendencies and systems. The partisans of each, violent and 
 suspicious, were grouped round their chiefs, irritated their 
 mutual dislike, resentment, and mistrust, and at last led them 
 to plot against one another, to lend their names and their cause 
 to factions, and to urge those factions to extremities. The 
 place of meeting was frequently changed. Precautions were 
 taken against an assault. Two or three hundred men were 
 often brought together secretly and posted in the neighbour- 
 hood of the Ministere des Finances (in the Rue de Rivoli), or 
 of the Ivuxembourg, to prevent a surprise. Each party kept 
 watch on the other. ' 
 
 ' Vol. ii. p. 303. 
 
Intrigues of the Agitators. 79 
 
 By the end "of the second week of April the National 
 Guard had elected its officers and received its arms, but 
 was not fully equipped. It had not yet been called out, 
 and no one could foresee what would be its opinions ; 
 there seems, however, to have been a suspicion that it 
 would side in general with the moderate party ; for we 
 are told that the violent party wished the decisive 
 struggle to take place before it could be called out. 
 The dissensions in the Government became fiercer. 
 Ledru Rollin seldom appeared at their councils. Louis 
 Blanc and Albert, masters of the army of thirty or forty 
 thousand workmen, whose delegates met at the Luxem- 
 bourg, reported to the Government, without justifying 
 them, the demands and threats of their followers. On 
 April 14, at a council which lasted long into the night, 
 they confessed, in a tone partly of grief and partly of 
 complaint, that a manifestation resembling that of 
 March 17 was likely to take place, to obtain a further 
 postponement of the elections, and redress of other 
 grievances of the people. They promised, however, to 
 endeavour to prevent it. The next day, the 15th, they 
 lamented that their endeavours had been unsuccessful ; 
 but assured their colleagues that they had obtained a 
 promise from the agitators that the character of the 
 manifestation should be free from violence. Lamartine 
 answered, in a tone of despair, that the violence con- 
 sisted in the number ; that a visit from 1 50,000 remon- 
 strants, however calm their demeanour, was enough to 
 overthrow a defenceless government. 
 
 At night, Lamartine, before he went to bed, burnt his 
 
So Sketch of the Revolution of 1 848. 
 
 papers. He was roused in his first sleep by some of his 
 friends from the clubs, who brought him news that the 
 conspirators had resolved the next day to collect 100,000 
 men on the Champ de Mars at noon, to march along 
 the quays to the Hotel de Ville, to expel the Provisional 
 Government, and to substitute a Committee of Public 
 Safety, consisting of Ledru Rollin, Louis Blanc, Albert, 
 Arago (whose opinions they misunderstood), and some 
 of the most violent of the subordinate agitators. Accord- 
 ing to the evidence of M. Marrast, of which we have 
 already cited a part, the Committee of Public Safety, as 
 finally settled at Sobrier's, after having been discussed at 
 Ledru Rollin's, was to consist of Ledru Rollin, Flocon, 
 and Albert, with the addition of Raspail, Blanqui, 
 Kerausie, and Cabet. Ledru Rollin, however, refused 
 to be associated with Blanqui, and Blanqui with Ledru 
 Rollin;^ and this probably prevented the success of the 
 conspiracy. Blanqui appears to have announced what 
 was going on to Lamartine on the night of the 15th. 
 The next morning, at about eleven, while Lamartine, 
 still at his own house, was listening to reports of the 
 gradual increase of the meeting in the Champ de Mars, 
 Ledru Rollin was announced. He came — as his rival. 
 Blanqui, had done a few hours before — to reveal the 
 plans of the conspirators, which he professed to have 
 learned only during the night. He was full, of course, 
 of indignation, and of resolution to prefer death to trea- 
 son. In a few hours, he said, we shall be attacked by 
 more than ioo,oco men. What is to be done .'' 
 
 ' Enquitc, tome i. p. 322. 
 
The i6ik of April. 8i 
 
 Of course (said Lamartine) to beat the rappel, and call out 
 the National Guard. You are Minister of the Interior ; it is 
 your business. I will go to the Hotel de Villa and shut myself 
 up there with such battalions of the Garde Mobile as I can 
 find. If the National Guard comes to my assistance, the in- 
 surrection will be destroyed between two fires. If it do not 
 answer to the rappel, I shall die at my post. ^ 
 
 They separated, apparently agreed on this course of 
 action. Lamartine got together four companies of the 
 Garde Mobile, and placed himself in the Hotel de Villa, 
 He found there Marrast, Mayor of Paris, and General 
 Changarnier. Lamartine gave to the latter the command 
 of his little garrison. It did not exceed four hundred 
 men. In three hours he thought that the National 
 Guard might be expected. Changarnier answered for a 
 resistance of seven hours. The column of attack was 
 by this time in motion. The scouts reported that its 
 head had already reached the Ouai de Chaillot, not 
 three miles from the Hotel de Ville, and the rappel was 
 not to be heard. Ledru Rollin had forgotten his pro- 
 mise. There is some doubt as to the person to whom 
 the actual calling out of the National Guard is due. 
 Lamartine says that it was done by himself, Marrast, 
 and Changarnier. 
 
 The following is Changarnier's own story : — 
 
 On the morning of the i6th I was an ambassador. At a 
 quarter after twelve I went to M. de Lamartine's to take his 
 final instructions, and to request that I might be sent off to 
 Berlin immediately. I found there a secretary, and asked 
 
 1 Vol. ii. p. 347. 
 VOL. I. G 
 
82 Sketch of the RevoltUion of 1848, 
 
 some questions about Holstein. ' Don't talk of Holstein,' he 
 said; ' at this instant M. de Lamartine maybe killed.' Madame 
 de Lamartine entreated me to go to the Hotel de Ville. I 
 found there Marrast. Lamartine soon arrived. He seemed 
 disturbed, talked of the divisions of the Government, and 
 complained of Louis Blanc and Ledru Rollin, whom he be- 
 lieved to be engaged in the insurrection. As he took no 
 steps, I acted of my own accord. General Courtais had sum- 
 moned only a piquet from each legion. I thought that the 
 rappel gene'ral ought to be beaten. Marrast wrote the order, 
 at my dictation ; and this was the summons which called out 
 the National Guards,' 
 
 The tenants of the Hotel de Villa looked anxiously 
 up the river to see whether the attack or the relief would 
 arrive first. At the northern end of the Pont Royal a 
 cokimn of insurgents, about thirty thousand strong, 
 headed by some of the fiercest Clubbists and Socialists, 
 encountered a body of National Guards marching along 
 the Quay of the Louvre. The National Guards let it 
 pass, closed up behind it, and marched after it along the 
 quay. The red flags of the first ranks of the insurgents 
 had just shown themselves on the Place de Greve, when 
 a forest of bayonets shone on the other side of the 
 river. It consisted of thirty or forty thousand National 
 Guards from the left bank of the Seine. They rushed 
 at once into the Place de Greve, interposed themselve.s 
 between the insurgents and the Hotel de Ville, and 
 forced them to disperse under the pressure of two armed 
 bodies of superior numbers. The day ended as usual — 
 
 ' Enqiiete, vol. i. p. 260. 
 
Meeting of the Assembly. 83 
 
 with harangues by Lamartine on the steps, in the courts, 
 and from the windows. 
 
 This 1 6th of April is one of the most important days 
 which have occurred during the present revolution. It 
 was the first check received by the democratic party. 
 The success of the Government seems, however, to have 
 depended on the accidental presence of General Chan- 
 garnier at the Hotel de Ville. For it is clear that La- 
 martine was afraid to incur the responsibility of calling 
 out the National Guards. Though warned for some 
 days of what was coming, he did not think of this, the 
 only effectual defence, till late in the morning of the 
 1 6th, when the enemy was already in force in the Champ 
 de Mars. He left it to be done by Ledru Rollin, with- 
 out seeing that he did it, and though he knew that 
 Ledru Rollin was engaged in the conspiracy. And 
 when, as might be expected, it was left undone, Chan- 
 garnier describes him as helpless. He tells us that on 
 the 15th he and his colleagues ' left to God and to the 
 people the fate of the next day.' ^ He thinks this, how- 
 ever, the finest day of his political life.^ Five days 
 after, on the 21st, the regular army was brought back 
 to Paris. 
 
 On the 27th the election of the Assembly took place. 
 On May 4 it met. Lamartine was now the most popular 
 man in France. The extent to which he had promoted 
 the revolution was not generally known, and his con- 
 duct in the Chamber of Deputies was forgotten in the 
 gratitude inspired by his resistance to the Ultra-Repub- 
 ' Vol. ii. p. 340. 2 ii3ij_ p ^22. 
 
84 Sketch of the RevohUion of 1848. 
 
 lican faction. The New Assembly was, as he tells us, 
 ' non republicaine, ou peu republicaine.' ^ The great ma- 
 jority were country people, little acquainted with public 
 business or with Paris, oppressed by the new respon- 
 sibility of having in their hands the destiny of a great 
 nation, and terrified by the dangers, physical as well as 
 moral, of their strangely acquired position. They had 
 been warned by the Provisional Government that the 
 people of Paris, if dissatisfied with their votes, would 
 exercise against them the sacred right of insurrection. 
 They knew that at the elections of the officers of the 
 National Guard, and even of the Garde Mobile, the 
 question ' How will you act if the Assembly does not 
 sympathise with the people .'' ' had been frequently 
 asked, and that the popular answer had been, ' March 
 against it.' 
 
 Their first reception by their new subjects could not 
 have been encouraging. They were made to walk on 
 foot, through ranks of men under arms, from the Place 
 Vendome to the Palais Bourbon ; and when they arrived 
 there, instead of enjoying, in pursuance of the engage- 
 ment of the Provisional Government, absolute freedom 
 in the choice of a constitution, they had to cry 'Vive la 
 Republique !' according to the best computation, seven- 
 teen times in one day. They were required, in the name 
 of the heroic people of Paris, to interrupt their debates, 
 present themselves before the mob under their portico, 
 and shout for the Republic. It has been said that they 
 
 ' Vol. ii. p. 406. 
 
Lamartine hesitates to accept the Presidency. 85 
 
 were shown in their vaults an armoury, containing 900 
 muskets, and informed that it might be necessary to use 
 them in self-defence. Lamartine and Ledru Rollin were 
 at that time supposed to represent the opposite extremes 
 of moderation and of violence, of peace and of war, of 
 order and of anarchy. The great majority were ready 
 to throw themselves at the feet of Lamartine, and im- 
 plore his advice, his assistance, and his protection ; and 
 — in order to enable him to afford them — to appoint 
 him by acclamation the temporary President of the 
 Republic. 
 
 All the Assembly, all Paris, all France, indeed all Europe (he 
 says), had their eyes fixed on him — eager to applaud him if he 
 accepted the dictatorship, to revile him if he refused it. He 
 could not conceal from himself that his popularity had become 
 an absolute passion — that the ten different elections which made 
 him a sort of member for France, the seven or eight millions of 
 votes which were offered to him if the voice of the people 
 should become necessary, and the support of six or seven hun- 
 dred of the nine hundred representatives, pointed him out as 
 the man predestined to exercise undivided power. He felt 
 that he had the necessary strength; and he beheved that he had 
 the necessary prudence. The glory of having not only called 
 forth the Assembly, but established it — of becoming the first 
 lawful authority of his country, after being her first revolutionary 
 ruler — of being the founder and protector of her infant freedom, 
 offered to him a brilliant and permanent place in the records of 
 distant ages.^ 
 
 Two motives, however, overbalanced this strong temp- 
 tation. In the first place, he now believed, as we have 
 
 1 Vol. ii. p. 203. 
 
86 Sketch of the Revohition of 1 848. 
 
 already stated, that neither France nor the Assembly 
 was at heart republican ; and that the jealousy which his 
 elevation — supposing him able to maintain it — would 
 excite would break into factions the republican party, 
 and open a breach for the return of Monarchy. 
 
 In the second place, he did not believe that he could 
 maintain himself in the Assembly, if he admitted among 
 his ministers the Ultra-Republican party ; or in Paris, 
 if he excluded them. 
 
 The Assembly (he said to his friends) will name me president, 
 on a tacit understanding that I exclude from office the repub- 
 licans. If I admit them, I declare war against the Assembly, by 
 imposing on it ministers whom it distrusts and fears. If I ex- 
 clude them, all my rivals in the Provisional Government, and 
 many of my friends, all the Republicans, whether Socialist, 
 Terrorist, or Moderate, all the three or four hundred represen- 
 tatives who owe their seats to their democratic opinions, will 
 combine against me. These men (the violent republicans) dis- 
 pose of 120,000 men in the ateliers nationaux, an army now 
 obedient, but which their voice can call into insurrection ; they 
 dispose also of the delegates of the different trades who meet at 
 the Luxembourg, and of the 50,000 workpeople who are their 
 fanatical followers ; they dispose of the proletaires ^ of the Na- 
 tional Guard, at least 60,000 bayonets ; they are masters of the 
 clubs, which they can rouse into insurrection in a single night ; 
 they have at their command the police, and the Montagnards, 
 the Lyonnais, the Gardes Re'publicains, the Gardiens de Paris, 
 the Guides — in short, all the armed revolutionary bands which 
 are under its influence. The day after I shall construct my ex- 
 clusive ministry the Assembly will be attacked, will be con- 
 
 ' This word has no EngUsh equivalent, nor is its French signification fixed. 
 Sometimes it is used by Lamartine as signifying persons without political 
 po'rer ; sometimes, as in this case, without property. 
 
He decides on refusing it. 8 7 
 
 quered, and either degraded into a tool of the conquerors, or 
 stain with its blood the halls in which I have seated it.' 
 
 A third course, however, was proposed to him — to 
 retire from official life, and let France endeavour to do 
 without him. 
 
 This course (answered Lamartine) would be the most agree- 
 able, and for me, personally, the wisest ; but, if I retire from the 
 Assembly, it will instantly get rid of all my colleagues. It will 
 place power in hands suspected by the republicans. That party 
 will be irritated ; Paris will rise at its call. There will be the 
 same calamities, though my name may not be mixed with them. 
 I shall save, perhaps raise, myself by ruining the Assembly, 
 the Republic, and the country. I will do the contrary — ruin 
 myself to save the Assembly.^ 
 
 On these grounds Lamartine impliedly refused the 
 Presidentship of the Republic, by supporting the motion 
 of Domes, that the Assembly should vest the executive 
 power in a body of five Commissioners ; and he depre- 
 cated the exclusion of the Ultra-Republicans frorn that 
 commission. ' The members of the Provisional Govern- 
 ment,' he said, ' notwithstanding differences which were 
 rather presumed than real, had separated the day before, 
 full of mutual esteem, mutual gratitude, and mutual con- 
 fidence.' The Assembly, after two days' debate, ac- 
 cepted — according to Lamartine from weariness, accord- 
 ing to our suspicion from fear — what he calls ' this 
 unsatisfactory but necessary measure.' It revenged 
 itself, however, for his adherence to the anarchists by 
 placing him fourth on the list — above Ledru RoUin, but 
 
 ' Vol. ii. pp. 406-410. 2 jijJi^^ p ^12. 
 
88 Sketch of the Revolution of 1 848. 
 
 below Arago, Garnier Pages, and Marie. The Com- 
 missioners selected their ministers, says Lamartine, in 
 the same spirit of compromise. Among them were 
 Cremieux, Flocon, and Trelat, and, what was still more 
 significant, Caussidiere. So that the police, which in 
 Paris is almost the Government, remained in the hands 
 of one who was known to have been for three months a 
 traitor and conspirator. Lamartine, with benevolent 
 simplicity, believed in his reformation. 
 
 Subsequent events have shown that in thus yielding 
 Lamartine committed a grievous error. The very next 
 week the Assembly was attacked and overpowered ; and 
 not six weeks later it had to sustain a long and doubtful 
 battle.i 
 
 ' A further extract from the letter which we have already quoted furnishes 
 a cotemporary account of Lamartine's feelings : — 
 
 ' The first time,' says our correspondent,* ' that I spoke to Lamartine after 
 the 24th of February was on the 4th May. We had then rather a warm 
 discussion : I maintained that we ought to seize the opportunity to make use 
 of the feeling exhibited by the nation, and to employ our parliamentary 
 majority in energetic measures for the re-establishment of order. "That 
 must bring with it," said Lamartine, "a frightful battle." "A battle," 
 I replied, "is inevitable, do what we will ; and, if it comes immediately, 
 we shall gain it." " I had rather," he answered, "try to avoid one, and I 
 think that I shall succeed." He was mistaken in thinking that the battle 
 could be avoided ; but when I saw the terrible days of June I excused his 
 shrinking from it. He had been nearer to the revolutionary army than I 
 had been ; and if he exaggerated its terrors, perhaps I undervalued them. 
 Now I am inclined to think that the interval between the meeting of the 
 Assembly and the great civil war was more profitable to us than to the 
 enemy. Everyone saw that the questions at issue could be decided only by 
 force. Each party employed these five weeks in preparation ; and I think 
 that we employed them best. I am not sure that those who conquered in 
 June might not have been beaten in May. ' 
 
 M. de Tocqueville. — Ed, 
 
Lamarhne s Influence is lost. 89 
 
 We shall imitate Lamartine in passing rapidly over 
 the rest of his political life. The confidence which he 
 had inspired at the meeting of the Assembly, already 
 much diminished by his alliance with Ledru Rollin, was 
 further shaken by May 15, and utterly destroyed by 
 June 23. By that time, indeed, the people of France 
 had become tired of a collective executive, and they 
 restored the monarchical element — first in General 
 Cavaignac, and afterwards, more effectually, in Louis 
 Napoleon. 
 
JOURNALS KEPT IN FRANCE AND 
 ITALY FROM 1848 TO 1852. 
 
 Journal, May 1848. 
 
 May 14, 1848.— We (T. Phillips and I) reached Bou- 
 logne on the 13th, and started at half-past thr'ee the 
 next morning by the Paris Railroad. Our companions, 
 besides three Englishmen whom I did not know, were a 
 young French republican, about 25, and an aristocrat of 
 about 45. They began to talk of the fete which was to 
 take place that day at Paris, and the aristocrat ridiculed 
 the ^OQJcuncs filles who had been enrolling themselves 
 at the Prefecture of the Police to act the part of Lacede- 
 moniennes. 
 
 The republican denied the fact. 
 
 * Mais je I'ai vu,' said the aristocrat. 
 
 ' C'est possible,' said the republican. 
 ' Mais c'est vrai,' said the aristocrat. 
 
 * II faudrait I'avoir vu pour y croire,' said the repub- 
 lican. 
 
 ' Mais vous le croirez sur ma parole,' said the aristo- 
 crat. 
 
92 journals kept in Finance and Italy. [1848. 
 
 By this time we had reached a station, and the re- 
 pubHcan changed his carriage, so that his powers of 
 belief were no further tested. The aristocrat assured us, 
 I have no doubt with truth, that if his friend had remained 
 incredulous he should have asked for his company the 
 next day somewhere in the outskirts of Paris. ' These 
 are not times,' he said, ' when one can suffer such canaille 
 to tread on one's toes.' He went on to describe the 
 state of things in his own commune, a village near Abbe- 
 ville. ' The people there,' he said, ' had decided on the 
 impropriety of any man's being richer than his neigh- 
 bour ; and had expressed their intention of pillaging 
 his house and that of his " fermier," which alone were 
 worth plundering.' In a short time, he believed that 
 the country would be unsafe for the rich ; they must 
 live in the towns, where they could defend one another. 
 He could get no rent — a state common to him, he said, 
 with all other proprietors. 
 
 We got to Paris at about half-past eleven instead of 
 half-past ten, our appointed time. Since the revolution 
 the trains go with less speed and regularity. 
 
 We have the entresol of the Hotel Bristol, Place 
 Vendome, three rooms and an antechamber, for twelve 
 francs a day. I believe we are the only strangers in the 
 hotel, and most of the other hotels are equally empty. 
 There are, however, fifty-six Americans at Meurice's, 
 The first person I called on was J. Austin.^ I found 
 
 ' John Austin, the well-known author of Lectures on Jurisprudence. 
 Mrs. Austin was the translator of Ranke's History of the Popes, and of many 
 other works; besides which, she contributed to several reviews and periodicals. 
 
1848.] Postponement of the Fete. 93 
 
 him, on the whole, pleased with the turn which events are 
 taking. He thought Lamartine wise in conciliating the 
 Ultra-Republican party — a party who could do enormous 
 mischief if pushed to despair, but would be little dan- 
 gerous if admitted to share power with a majority 
 sufficient to swamp them. From him I went to Lord 
 Normanby. He said that the last week had been a very 
 painful one to him : that he had watched the decline in 
 influence, and in the right to influence, of a man whom 
 he wished highly to esteem — Lamartine. He thinks that 
 Lamartine has coalesced with Ledru Rollin partly from 
 a desire of popularity and partly from jealousy of the 
 old opposition, such as Odillon Barrot, Thiers, &c., 
 whose parliamentary experience is likely to render them 
 formidable rivals. 
 
 The postponement of the fete, which was to have 
 taken place to-day, has excited much discontent, espe- 
 cially among the delegates from the departments, who 
 have come, some of them, forty or fifty miles to be 
 actors or spectators. The motive, according to Lord 
 Normanby, is the refusal of the mtvriers connected with 
 the Commission sitting in the Luxembourg to take part 
 in it. They are supposed to amount to 20,000, and when 
 the National Guards are at the Champ de Mars such 
 a body of violent men might make themselves masters 
 of the city or of the Faubourg St.-Antoine. The people, 
 however, do not understand these reasonings. The Place 
 
 The Austins lived much on the Continent, and wherever they went they 
 collected round them the best society. Mrs. Austin's salon in Paris was 
 extremely agreeable. — Ed. 
 
94 yoiLrnals kept in France and Italy. [1848. 
 
 Vendome, in which the Minister of Justice hves, has been 
 full of groups, demanding an explanation, and comment- 
 ing on the cowardice and indecision of the Government 
 in no measured terms. At the corner of every street, 
 indeed, there are groups, of which the nucleus is two 
 men, engaged in a violent political dispute. The by- 
 standers join in it, and parasitic discussions follow, with 
 new sets of listeners, till sometimes what was a group of 
 six persons, with two disputers in the middle, becomes 
 one of thirty or forty, with half-a-dozen pairs of talkers 
 enclosed in it. 
 
 From the Embassy I went to Leon Faucher's,' and 
 found at home Mdme. Faucher, a Pole, the sister of 
 Wollowski,^ the deputy. She talked politics after the 
 fashion of Poles — demanding English and French inter- 
 vention to drive the Russians out of Russian Poland. 
 
 ' Bom in l8o6, Leon Faucher began life as a teacher in 1827. He soon 
 gave up this occupation, and became the editor successively of several news- 
 papers till 1842, when he devoted himself to less ephemeral productions. 
 He published several works on economical questions, the most remarkable 
 of which was his Studies on England. He was elected Deputy in 1846, 
 but he did not distinguish himself in the tribune till after the Revolution of 
 1848, when his speech on the 'Ateliers nationaux' placed him at once in 
 the first rank of politicians. He served under Louis Napoleon as Minister 
 of the Interior several times, as will appear in the following pages. After 
 1852 he gave up public life. He died in 1854. — Ed. 
 
 ^ Louis WoUowski was bom at Warsaw in iSio. He pursued his studies 
 in Paris from 1823 to 1827, when he retumed to Poland, and took an active 
 part in the Polish Revolution of 1831. He came in that year as Secretary 
 of Legation to Paris, where he remained, in consequence of the failure of 
 his party in Poland. He was naturalised a Frenchman in 1834. He is 
 a member of the Institute. He has especially devoted himself to questions 
 of political economy, and in 1833 founded the Rez-ue de Legislation et de 
 Jii' ispriidence. He was the right hand of M. Faucher, and is now one 
 of the most ardent advocates of Free Trade and one of the first political 
 economists in Europe. — Ed. 
 
1848.] Fa2iche7''s Opiiiioii of Lamar tine. 95 
 
 Prussia and Austria, she said, would willingly give up 
 their own shares, and the old kingdom might be recon- 
 structed as a barrier to Russia. As for the Treaty of 
 Vienna, she said that had been broken by Russia when, 
 in 1831, she had put an end to the separate administra- 
 tion and nationality of Poland, and by Russia, Prussia, 
 and Austria when they destroyed the liberties of Cracow. 
 I admitted that if any country ever was justified in rising 
 against its existing government, Poland is that one ; that 
 its rulers have not even the right given by conquest in 
 war ; but that I could not believe that it was the interest 
 of England or of France to make war on Russia in order 
 to assist her. On which she was very angry with my 
 egoism. 
 
 In the evening Leon Faucher and Austin drank tea 
 with us. 
 
 Faucher's view of Lamartine's conduct and character 
 agrees with Lord Normanby's. He believes that vanity, 
 ambition, and jealousy all lead him to wish to perpe- 
 tuate an unsettled state of things, in which, standing 
 between the two great parties of Levellers and Conser- 
 vatives, he can receive the adoration of both. I said 
 that everybody described his ' Girondins ' to me as a 
 wicked book, as an apology for Robespierre, and even 
 for Danton, as a provocative of revolution ; but that it 
 appeared to me to give quite as vivid a picture of the 
 horrors of the Revolution as of its glories ; perhaps to 
 raise the intellectual reputation of Robespierre, but to 
 leave base, malignant selfishness almost more burnt into 
 him than before, and to make the Girondins so hateful 
 
96 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1848. 
 
 that one comforts oneself, during the first four or five 
 volumes, with the recollection that they are all to perish 
 in the last. Austin and Faucher assented to this ; still 
 they said that the ' Girondins,' if not a most wicked, had 
 been a most mischievous, book ; that it was written with 
 so picturesque a vividness that it not only familiarised 
 the people with ideas of revolt and street war, but in 
 many ill-regulated minds, thirsting for a new excitement, 
 it created an intense desire to reproduce such scenes. 
 ' The 24th of February,' they said, ' was a copy of the 
 loth of August, and to-morrow we are threatened with 
 a 31st of May. Ledru Rollin thinks himself a Danton, 
 and Lamartine a Robespierre without his cruelty.' 
 
 Faucher thinks the Chamber ignorant, but still more 
 timid. It is afraid of the Republicans, afraid of the 
 Legitimists, but, above all, afraid of war. He was in 
 hopes that Lamartine would have joined the immense 
 majority of the Chamber, which is highly Conservative, 
 and crushed at once the Republican party. His present 
 conduct has disgusted the Conservatives and encouraged 
 the Republicans to endeavour to drive out the Assembly, 
 and it is not impossible that an attempt will be made to- 
 morrow, w^hen the Anarchical party is to meet at the 
 Place de la Bastille and march to the Assembly, to pre- 
 sent a petition in favour of Polish intervention. 
 
 Monday, May 15. — This morning, at about half-past 
 8, Phillips went to the Place de la Bastille, and I to 
 the Palace (Palais Bourbon), where the Assembly sits. I 
 found it impossible to get in except by taking my place 
 at the end of the queue in the sun, and even then it 
 
1848.] Polish Demonstration. 97 
 
 seemed unlikely that I could enter, as those before me 
 were enough to fill the public tribune. As I was leaving 
 the Palace, at about 11, I met Phillips. He had seen a 
 body of from 8,000 to 10,000 people meet at the Place 
 de la Bastille, very sinister in their appearance and 
 violent in their language, and left them proceeding to 
 march towards the Palais. I went to meet them on the 
 Boulevards. I saw a few companies of them pass, walk- 
 ing in ranks about six abreast, with colours on which 
 'Vive la Pologne!' and 'Vive la Republique!' were 
 painted. I went on to the Rue Bleue, where I found Ma- 
 dame Say, and stayed with her till about half-past 12. 
 
 The streets were quite quiet as I returned. At the 
 hotel I found Phillips. He had remained near the 
 Palais until the Polish demonstration reached the iron 
 rails before the portico. Within these rails and on the 
 steps leading to the portico were as many of the Garde 
 Mobile as the space could hold. As the column ap- 
 proached, the Garde Mobile expressed their sympathy, 
 cried ' Vive Barbes!' (the summoner of the meeting) and 
 'Vive la Pologne!' and dropped their ramrods into their 
 guns, to show that they were not loaded. 
 
 The column, as far as Phillips could perceive, dispersed 
 after it reached the Palace. He supposed that Barbes, 
 who is a member of the Assembly, had taken in the pe- 
 tition. He had heard some alarm expressed as to what 
 would happen when the answer to it, which must be 
 unfavourable, should be given. 
 
 At about 2 I left the hotel to call on Madame de Pey- 
 ronnet in the Champs Elysees. As I passed through the 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
98 yoiLvnals kept in Frajice and Italy. [1848. 
 
 garden of the Tuileries I found it crowded, but nobody 
 seemed to know what had happened. Suddenly a drum, 
 attended by twenty National Guards, crossed the Place 
 de la Concorde beating the rappel, and produced an ex- 
 citement which I could not understand. A crowd ran 
 towards them shouting and cheering. While I was at 
 Madame de Peyronnet's her husband came in. He 
 brought two reports — one that six delegates had been 
 allowed to enter the Chamber with their petition ; the 
 other, which he disbelieved, that the mob had broken 
 into the Chamber and driven out the members. 
 
 I left the Peyronnets at about 3, crossed the river by 
 the wooden bridge, and went towards the Palais by the 
 Quai d'Orsay. It was lined by two cavalry regiments 
 of National Guards and by large bodies of infantry. 
 At the Pont de la Concorde, opposite to the Palace, I 
 was stopped. The bridge was filled with troops, who 
 allowed no one to cross. Everything was quiet, ver^' 
 few spectators were present ; but about 30,000 National 
 Guards were posted along the Quai and in front of the 
 Palace. I loitered about under the trees on each side of 
 the Place des Invalides. About half-past 3 two regi- 
 ments of cuirassiers of the line came in by the Place ; one 
 stationed itself in front of the Palais, the other crossed 
 the wooden bridge and went towards the Rue de Rivoli. 
 
 At about half-past 4 the column of the infantry regi- 
 ment of the line was seen approaching from the top of 
 the Place des Invalides, which is about half a mile from 
 the Quai, and a gun went off apparently within the 
 court of the Palais. The bystanders seemed to think 
 that something was to happen, and a lemonade vendor 
 
1848.] Advance of the National Guard. 99 
 
 begged us to take ' encore un verre avant que ^a ne 
 commence.' 
 
 By the time the regiment of the line had reached the 
 Quai a large battalion of National Guards, stationed in 
 front of the Palais, began to move, among the cheers of 
 the people around, met the line as it was taking up its 
 position on the Quai, and saluted it with great cordiality, 
 the two colonels kissing one another, broke open a 
 gateway in front of some unfinished buildings on the 
 side of the Palais which communicate with it, marched 
 in, and disappeared behind the buildings. It was then 
 nearly 5. I had to be at Lord Normanby's at 7, and 
 must return by the Champs Elysees, as they would not 
 let me cross the stone bridge. So I returned by the 
 Quai d'Orsay and the wooden bridge and the Place de 
 la Concorde. On my way home through the Tuileries 
 I went to the terrace looking over the river, and found 
 that by that time the number of National Guards was 
 much increased. I had left from 30,000 to 40,000 in 
 front of the Palais and on the Quai. Now there seemed 
 to be 100,000. It was now about a quarter to 6. Sud- 
 denly this immense mass put itself in motion, and pro- 
 ceeded with the utmost rapidity over the bridges, and 
 on each side of the quais towards the Hotel de Ville. 
 I watched their march for about a quarter of an hour, 
 then went home, dressed, and got to Lord Normanby's 
 at 7. 
 
 Then and there I first heard what had taken place. 
 It seems inconceivable, but so it was, that for three hours 
 and three quarters — from i o'clock, when Phillips saw the 
 
 H 2 
 
lOO yoiirnals kept in France and Italy. [1848, 
 
 head of the column reach the iron rails before the Palace, 
 till a quarter to 5, when I saw the battalion of National 
 Guards enter the buildings which communicate with it — 
 the National Assembly, though surrounded by 30,000 
 National Guards, most, indeed nearly all, of them its 
 devoted adherents, was in the hands of a mob of less 
 than 2,000 ruffians, few of them armed, whom a couple 
 of companies of determined troops would have put to 
 flight, and who, in fact, did take to flight the instant the 
 first detachment of National Guards, not exceeding forty, 
 made its appearance in the hall. Lord Normanby did 
 not quite stay it out. He was in the diplomatic gallery 
 when the mob broke in. Two men, each with bayonets 
 under their blouses, entered the gallery, and one of them 
 told Lord Normanby that he was one of the leaders and 
 would be responsible for the safety of the ladies. So 
 they stayed there till about half-past 4, when the timbers 
 of part of the hall seemed to bend under the load of the 
 people on the upper gallery, and one of the mob told 
 Lord Normanby that he had been employed in building 
 the hall, knew its strength, and did not think it equal to 
 the pressure that it was undergoing. So Lord Normanby 
 and the ladies in the gallery made their escape. One 
 of his attaches, however, Mr. Stewart, who had entered 
 with the mob, remained, and from him we heard the 
 denouement. 
 
 Lord Normanby could tell little of what had occurred. 
 The diplomatic gallery is so far from the tribune, and 
 the noise was so great, that he could only tell us that 
 there was a great deal of noise, gesticulation, reading, 
 
1848.] Reception at the Academy. loi 
 
 and shouting — but for what purpose he could not un- 
 derstand. Mr. Stewart did not know much more ; but 
 he had remained till the National Guards entered at 
 about 5, and the mob ran out as fast as they could. 
 
 The dinner was very gay, but little was said about 
 what had happened in the Assembly. Not one of the 
 French guests seemed to take any interest in it. 
 
 Tuesday, j\Iay 16. — I drank tea this evening with 
 the Tocquevilles. He attaches much more import- 
 ance to the events of yesterday than was given to them 
 at the Embassy.' 
 
 Wednesday, ]\Iay 17. — I went in the morning to the 
 Institute, to be present at the reception of M. Am- 
 pere^ as member of the Academy. Half of the- am- 
 phitheatre was filled with ladies and well-dressed men, 
 the rest with the Academicians in their green em- 
 broidered coats. M. Ampere made a speech full of 
 gcntillcsses in praise of his predecessor, M. Giraud ; 
 and M. Merimee answered by a speech in praise of 
 M. Ampere in the same style. The whole scene was as 
 unrepublican as possible. 
 
 ' This conversation is reserved for a future publication. 
 
 - Jean-Jacques Ampere was the son of tlie celebrated mathematician. 
 His tastes, unlike those of his father, were not scientific, but literary. He 
 was professor successively at the Athenee at Marseilles, and at the Sorbonne 
 and the College de France. His lectures were published, and, together with 
 his articles and his travels — for he was an indefatigable traveller — form several 
 charming volumes. But he was still more eminent as a talker than as a 
 writer. His early days were spent in the society of Madame Recamier, 
 Ballanche, and Chateaubriand, and he possessed, as his friend Tocqueville 
 said of him, the real old French tsprit. He was veiy animated ard full of 
 action. He read aloud admirably, and was a most delightful companion 
 and friend. He died in 1866. — Ed. 
 
I02 Jotirnals kept in France and Italy. [1S48. 
 
 In the evening, I drank tea with the Tocquevilles. 
 
 One of the guests, a National Guard living in the 
 Faubourg St.-Germain, near the Palace, told us that on 
 the 15th, at about 3 o'clock, he heard of the state 
 of the Assembly; that having no summons, he ran 
 into the street with his musket, called out his friends 
 from door to door, and thus raised a force, which 
 marched towards the Palace by the Rue de Burgogne. 
 But they could not penetrate farther than the corner of 
 the street. The space on that side before the door was 
 filled by the insurgent mob, who kept cr^'ing out to 
 them to unfix their bayonets and go home, and were suffi- 
 ciently numerous to effectually prevent their advance. 
 
 Thursday, May 18. — Horace Say' breakfasted with 
 us. He spoke with great alarm of the financial state 
 of the country. ' Every measure of the Government 
 tends to increase the expenditure and to diminish the 
 receipt. The persons employed by the ateliers na- 
 tionaux exceed 115,000; of these many were earning 
 three or four francs a day, and might continue to earn 
 as much, but prefer idleness at thirty sous. Again, the 
 business in which they are employed — removing earth — 
 is unfit for persons of weak body and sedentary occupa- 
 tion.' He mentioned a young man who had been driven 
 to it by destitution, but was forced to give it up and 
 
 ' Horace Say was son of the celebrated political economist, Jean-Baptiste, 
 and was himself equally distingiiished as a writer on that science. A 
 quiet vein of satire ran through his conversation in spite of the benevolence 
 beaming from his countenance. M. de Tocqueville used to say of him 
 that his esprit was full ol fitiesse. He died in iS6o. He was the father 
 of Leon Say, now at Versailles. — Ed. 
 
1848] Dangers of the ' Droit au TravaiV 103 
 
 have recourse to hawking newspapers as a ' crieur,' a 
 new occupation which the abundance of cheap news- 
 papers has created. Say has a house in Paris, but can 
 get no rent. The occupiers are shopkeepers, and can 
 pay none, as they sell nothing. No one buys who can 
 avoid it. Old clothes are worn, newspapers are read 
 instead of books, and trade in all luxuries is at a stand. 
 The promise made by the Provisional Government of 
 employment at good wages has sunk deep into the 
 minds of the people, and renders poor law on the 
 English system — that of affording relief on terms less 
 acceptable than wages — impossible. * The French,' he 
 says, 'accustomed to the constant and powerful inter- 
 ference of their Government, believe it to be omnipotent, 
 and the working classes, who are told that they are the 
 " peuple souverain," require this omnipotence to be exer- 
 cised for their benefit. They believe that it is in the 
 power of the Government to put them all in easy circum- 
 stances, and, on that supposition, are justly enraged if it 
 have not the will' 
 
 Friday, May 19. — Tocqueville got us into the Cham- 
 ber. It resembles our House of Commons, with gal- 
 leries for spectators all round, and the President's 
 seat, and below it the tribune, at the end. There is 
 ample room for the 900 members, and for about 500 
 spectators. When the house is silent, a person speaking 
 loud from the tribune is well heard ; but the speaker 
 must be as loud as he can, which is fatal to good speak- 
 ing — and the house must be very silent, which it seldom 
 was while I was there. The noise and bustle were con- 
 
I04 yournals kept in France and Italy, [1848. 
 
 stant, the speeches very short, and more, I think, was 
 said by the President than by anybody else. I recollect 
 Leon Faucher's telling me, some time ago, that nothing 
 can be more appalling than the first instant that a man 
 finds himself in the tribune with the Assembly ready to 
 hear what he has to say. In the present noisy Chamber, 
 where no one is attended to, there is, I suspect, less 
 room for this alarm. No one seemed to feel it. They 
 all screamed out (for otherwise they were not audible) 
 their opinions and explanations with perfect self-pos- 
 session. 
 
 The principal subjects of discussion were two. One 
 was personal — the explanations of the President and of 
 Etienne Arago of their conduct on the 1 5th. The Pre- 
 sident admitted that, in obedience to the mob, he had 
 signed orders prohibiting the rappel from being beaten, 
 and therefore impliedly forbidding the interference of 
 the National Guard. But he did not believe that any 
 well-disposed person would act on such orders. Every- 
 body, he thought, must see at once that they had been 
 extorted from him by violence, and he believed that his 
 signing them was an act, not of weakness, but of pru- 
 dence. The object was to gain time. A refusal might 
 have produced an instant massacre. E. Arago admitted 
 that he had been ordered by M. Degousee, the Ouestor 
 of the Assembly, to go out and take measures to have 
 the Assembly delivered from its invaders ; that he met 
 M. Charras, the Minister of War ; that the papers signed 
 by the President, forbidding the rappel to be beaten, 
 were shown to him ; that he and the minister admitted 
 
1848.] General Fear of Responsibility. 105 
 
 the authenticity of the signature, and said that all good 
 citizens ought to obey it ; and that he consequently 
 went to the Post Office, in which he has a high office, 
 leaving the Assembly to its fate. So, while the Chamber 
 was in the hands of the mob, two ministers thought a 
 scrap of paper signed by the President a sufficient autho- 
 rity to advise the National Guards not to attempt to 
 rescue it. 
 
 What is most alarming, perhaps, is the general fear of 
 
 responsibility. M. O ^ called on me this morning 
 
 before he went to the Assembly. He was on duty on 
 Monday as a National Guard before the Palace. I asked 
 him at what time he heard of what had occurred within. 
 
 ' At about half-past 3.' 
 
 * And why did not you and those around immediately 
 enter and deliver the Assembly .-* ' 
 
 * Mon Dieu ! — we had no orders.' 
 
 This terror is peculiarly strong when the question is 
 whether the populace, or, as they call themselves, the 
 ' peuple,' are to be resisted. It seems that anyone who 
 has caused the blood of the people to be shed, however 
 justly, is thenceforth a moral outlaw. The discharge 
 before M. Guizot's door was an act — very rash, without 
 doubt — of self-defence. The mob had fired on the com- 
 mander of the troops. The men who returned the fire, 
 or rather the officer who ordered them to do so, might 
 have been punished. Instead of this, the death of the 
 fifty persons killed by it was expiated by a revolution. 
 This feeling, however, is not found among the people 
 
 ' The initials throiighout this publication are purposely feigned. — Ed. 
 
io6 yoiirnals kept in France and Italy. [1848. 
 
 when acting against the officers of the Government. 
 Then there is not the least repugnance to bloodshed. 
 In the last revolution, boys of ten years old were en- 
 couraged to lurk at the corners of the streets and shoot 
 the officers as the troops marched by. A post of men 
 opposite the Palais Royal refused to lay down their 
 arms. The building, the Chateau d'Eau, was burnt 
 with its garrison. 
 
 The other matter that occupied this sitting was the 
 settling a proclamation from the Assembly to the 
 nation. A draft was proposed, and 900 critics set to 
 work to pick holes and suggest amendments. The con- 
 fusion was indescribable, and the Assembly got through 
 it at last by voting without hearing. 
 
 On the whole, unless the Assembly very much im- 
 proves, it cannot retain the respect of the nation. Those 
 who fixed its numbers at 900 have much to answer for ; 
 much ignorance, if they fancied that 900 men, 800 of 
 whom are unaccustomed to public life, could act well 
 tQgether either as administrators or as legislators ; much 
 wickedness, if, as is generally suspected, they intended 
 their instrument to work ill, 
 
 I asked Tocqueville, who hopes little from the 
 Assembly, why it need work worse than the National 
 Assembly of 1789, of which the members were still 
 more numerous and equally inexperienced } He an- 
 swered, ' Because then we had the cream of France, now 
 we have only the skim milk. The members of the late 
 ministerial party cannot show themselves ; we of the 
 opposition party have been re-elected indeed by great 
 
1848.] Proposals for a Constitution. 107 
 
 majorities, but we are suspected, with truth, of being 
 Monarchists. We cannot take any lead in the Chamber. 
 
 'The Legitimists, of wliom there are about 120, are 
 naturally objects of still greater suspicion. So we leave 
 the field to the 680 merchants, lawyers, and proprietors, 
 whom the provinces have sent to us — timid, pacific, well- 
 intentioned men, but quite new to public business.' 
 
 Saturday, May 20. — Beaumont ^ breakfasted with us, 
 and stayed till near i o'clock. 
 
 He thinks that Lamartine has managed foreign affairs 
 honestly and ably, with an earnest wish for peace, but 
 that the rest of his conduct has been vain, selfish, and 
 timid. Ten days ago he would have been elected 
 President by acclamation, now he would be chosen only 
 to keep out somebody worse. 
 
 He thinks that the Committee for making a Constitu 
 tion, of which he and Tocqueville are members, wiLi 
 report in about two months. 
 
 He is anxious for two Chambers, but fears great 
 opposition. The President will, he thinks, be named for 
 
 ' Although M. Gustave de Beaumont was for a short time in 1848 Am- 
 bassador at our Court — an appointment which he threw up as soon as Louis 
 Napoleon was elected President — he is best known in England as the 
 biographer of Tocqueville. When the latter became Minister for Foreign 
 Affairs, Beaumont was appointed French Ambassador at Vienna. He after- 
 wards sat in the Assembly and supported Tocqueville's party till the coup 
 d'etat took place. From that time he gave up politics and devoted himself to 
 literature and to the education of his son. Tocqueville looked on him in the 
 light of a brother. They entered public life together, travelled together, and 
 suffered together. He was loyal, straightforward, a most devoted friend, and 
 agreeable companion. He died in 1868. M. de Beaumont and M. de Cor- 
 celle married two sisters, the granddaughters of the great Lafayette. — Eu. 
 
io8 yoiirnals kept in France and Italy. [1848. 
 
 four years, and be re-eligible. I said that I hoped they 
 would alter the voting by departments and lists. He 
 said that he hoped not ; that, being one of six members 
 for a department with a population of 300,000, he was 
 independent, had not to canvass for his election, or to 
 ask places for his constituents, or to account to them 
 for his votes ; whereas, if he represented only 50,000 
 people, he would be their slave. This is the best defence 
 of departmental representation that I have heard. 
 
 I asked him if Thiers would return to power. 
 
 He said, certainly not at present. That his having 
 accepted office under Louis-Philippe had ruined his 
 popularity. 
 
 Recurring to the subject of the President, I said that 
 if they made him responsible he must govern ; for a 
 Constitution, not admitting the advice of his ministers 
 as a defence of his conduct, impliedly required him 
 to act on his own opinions, and that in that case they 
 would have a Prime Minister irremovable for four years, 
 though the majority of the Assembly, and even of the 
 whole country, might disapprove his policy, or detest his 
 character, or despise his abilities. I hoped, therefore, 
 that they would make him irresponsible, and therefore 
 bound to follow the advice of his ministers, and there- 
 fore bound to obey the majority of the Chamber. He 
 said that all that was quite true, but that nevertheless 
 the Constitution would certainly declare the President 
 to be responsible ; for otherwise what would distinguish 
 him, except his being elective, from a constitutional 
 king .-* And if that were the only distinction, would it 
 
1848.] Constitutional Government not tmderstood. 109 
 
 not soon cease ? And what should we have got by 
 changing the Orleans dynasty for a Lamartine or a 
 Bugeaud one ? The Republican experiment may not 
 last, but it must be tried. It is the only experiment 
 which the men of this generation have not made. They 
 had absolute monarchy under the Emperor, as much 
 aristocracy as France can supply under Louis XVIII., 
 as much constitutional government as we can bear 
 under Louis-Philippe, and now we must undergo a 
 republic. 
 
 I objected to his calling the government of Louis- 
 Philippe constitutional, since Louis-Philippe was his 
 own Prime Minister — a most unconstitutional proceeding, 
 according to our notions. 
 
 ' Yes,' he said, ' according to your notions, but not 
 according to ours. We have not yet adopted the true 
 faith, the faith of the cocJion a t'cngrais} To preserve 
 our respect our sovereign must act. And this, perhaps, 
 makes us incapable at present of your Constitutional 
 Government. If our sovereign, whether you call him 
 president or king, merely takes the members whom the 
 Assembly points out to him, keeps them so long as they 
 can keep their majority, follows their advice implicitly, 
 and dismisses them as soon as they lose their majority, 
 he becomes King Log, and we despise him. If he acts 
 he must sometimes make mistakes, and still oftener be 
 thought to do so. He will sometimes offend the good 
 sense of the nation and oftener its susceptibilities, and 
 we shall hate him. This is the objection to a president 
 ' Buonaparte's idea of a constitutional king. — Ed. 
 
I lo yoiir7ials kept in France and Italy. [1848. 
 
 for life ; he would inevitably in time become hated or 
 despised, or both, and then we should go into the 
 streets and depose him. For in France,' he added, ' we 
 are not good balancers of inconveniences. " Nous 
 sommes trop logiques." As soon as we see the faults of 
 an institution, nous la bvisons. In England you calcu- 
 late ; we act on impulse. We should never have tolerated 
 your Hanoverian kings, with their German favourites 
 and their German policy. We should have turned them 
 out in a year. You kept them until they were acclima- 
 tised, and gradually became the best royal stock in 
 Europe. Unless we greatly improve, we never shall 
 have any permanent institutions ; for as we destroy 
 every institution as soon as we discover its faults, and 
 no one is free from them, nothing can last.' 
 
 He would not guess who will be elected President. 
 The great difficulty is that there is no marked person 
 whose election would not humiliate some large party. 
 Henri V., the Comte de Paris, Lamartine, Changarnier, 
 would all be offensive to millions ; so would every person 
 of any distinction. And there is not yet any well- 
 organised party who could carry through an obscure 
 person, like Polk in America. The great advantage 
 possessed by the older Bourbons and by the Buonaparte 
 family is, that they have both been so long exiled. 
 They have no personal enemies, and that more than 
 counterbalances the want of personal friends. Henri V., 
 however, is for the present impossible, and he is perhaps 
 the only person of whom that can be said. 
 
 In the evening we went to the club of the atelier, held 
 
1848.] Club of the Atelier. iii 
 
 in one of the lecture-rooms of the Ecole de Medecine. 
 The committee or bureau, consisting of four persons, 
 were on the platform at the end, the visitors on benches 
 rising towards the ceiling. The propositions to be dis- 
 cussed were two : — First, that the power of the majority 
 of the people is limited, since it can do nothing that is 
 opposed to morality. Secondly, that it can make no 
 permanent delegation of its power. In other words, that, 
 though it may appoint officers or representatives for 
 fixed periods, it can the next day, or the next minute, 
 revoke that appointment and resume its original power. 
 
 One of the members of the committee opened the first 
 question. A visitor, in answer, requested him to explain 
 the meaning of morality {la morale). ' Why,' he answered, 
 ' everyone knows that morality is the difference between 
 " le bien et le mal." ' 
 
 This did not satisfy the querist, and I left them in 
 high metaphysics, discussing the foundation of morals. 
 The whole thing was eminently dull. I suspect that 
 since the meeting of the Assembly the clubs have lost 
 their interest. 'La Gazette des Clubs' has ceased to 
 appear. The second proposition was worth discussing. 
 It is obviously anarchical, but I dare say was unani- 
 mously affirmed. The emcnte of the 15th was an 
 attempt to give it a practical application. 
 
 Sunday, May 21. — I walked before breakfast to see 
 the preparations for the fete. From the Tuileries to 
 the Arc de I'Etoile there are ranges of lamps, with 
 pyramids from time to time, and garlands of lanterns 
 suspended in the middle. In the Champ de Mars is a 
 
112 JotLrnals kept in France and Italy. [1848. 
 
 gigantic plaster female in the centre and a dozen more 
 on each side. They were putting on their heads when 
 I was there, at about half-past 7. 
 
 In the middle of the day Count Arrivabene' arrived 
 from Brussels. He thinks it his duty to be in Lombardy, 
 but he does not perform it very readily — he is too old, 
 he says, for revolutions. Belgium, he says, is ultra-loyal. 
 The King has delighted the people by living three 
 months in Brussels. The electoral qualification is to be 
 reduced to a florin — the lowest qualification which the 
 Constitution allows. 
 
 He rather fears that he may be a member of the 
 Upper Chamber of Lombardy, but hopes still to be 
 able to live half the year at Brussels. He thinks that 
 Austria could now sell independence to Lombardy for 
 a considerable sum — that is, could persuade Lombardy 
 to take twenty millions sterling of her debt. If the war 
 goes on, she will spend that money in vain attempts at 
 reconquest, and probably have to surrender her sove- 
 reignty without an equivalent. He thinks highly of 
 Charles Albert's abilities, and has no doubt of his be- 
 coming King of Northern Italy. In the evening we 
 went to see the illuminations. The finest thing was the 
 
 ' Count Giovanni Arrivabene is a native of Mantua, and was imprisoned 
 in 1821 for not having denounced Silvio Pellico. He was exiled, and lived 
 for some years in England, France, and Belgium. He was naturalised a 
 Belgian subject in 1840. He was elected, as he expected to l^e, Member 
 of the Upper Chamber of Lombardy in 1848, and he still contmues to 
 divide his time between Italy and Belgium. He is a great political econo- 
 mist, has written on the subject, and translated some of the writings of Arch- 
 bishop Whately and Mr. Senior into Italian. When in England he lived a 
 great deal in Mr. Senior's house, where he was a most welcome visitor. — Ed. 
 
1848.] Advantages of the Octroi. 113 
 
 view from the Arc de I'Etoile — two miles and a half of 
 light and of spectators, 300,000 people, at least, must 
 have been collected between the Arch and the Tuileries. 
 The splendid architecture of the Place de la Concorde, 
 marked by the ranges of lamps along the architraves 
 and at the bases of the porticoes, was the finest thing 
 of the kind that I have ever seen. 
 
 Monday, May 22. — Horace Say breakfasted with us. 
 We talked of the octroi. As a member of the Conseil 
 Municipal of Paris he has to distribute it, and therefore 
 is not quite impartial on the question of its continuance. 
 It affords Paris about thirty-two millions a year, nearly 
 half its revenue, and he cannot see how they are to do 
 without it or supply its place. A rate on houses, the 
 English plan, would not do, as the whole rental of Paris 
 does not exceed eighty-two millions. A rate of 40 per 
 cent., therefore, would not produce the required sum, 
 even if rents did not fall in consequence ; and it is to be 
 remembered that the octroi supplies Paris, not only with 
 the funds for all its ordinary municipal expenses, such 
 as paving, markets, and police, but with many things 
 which with us are supplied by public companies, such as 
 lighting and water, and for others which we support by 
 voluntary subscriptions, such as hospitals, and the hos- 
 pitals of Paris are enormous. One-third of the population 
 die in them. 
 
 Tuesday, May 23. — I walked in the morning with 
 Bastiat' He sees but one possible remedy for the pro- 
 
 ' A distinguished writer on political economy. He was member of the 
 Assemblee Nationale in 1S48. — Ed. 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
1 14 Jotirnals kept in France and Italy. [1848. 
 
 vincial distress, and that is the diminution of the miHtary 
 expenses, which might easily be done, since they have 
 been increased by eight milHons during the last eight 
 years. Every Frenchman, he says, in a tete-a-tete, 
 admits the necessity of this, and, as the means, the pro- 
 priety of a system of non-intervention. But the instant 
 three Frenchmen meet they talk of nothing but the 
 necessity of extending French influence over Europe, 
 and vote by acclamation for military expenditure. He 
 is very desponding. The example of the ateliers 
 nationaux is catching. Other workmen than those 
 of Paris wish for light work at 30 sous a day. Can- 
 didates, among whom is D'Alton Shee, pledge them- 
 selves to the doctrine that it is the duty of the State 
 to maintain the children of the poor, to give work to 
 able-bodied, and pensions {rctraites) to the old. He 
 cannot guess how it is to end, and foresees nothing 
 except the non-payment of the interest on the debt. 
 
 Wednesday, May 24. — Michel Chevalier came over 
 from Versailles. He is much bolder than Bastiat, for 
 he dares to prophesy. This will end, he says, and 
 within three months, by a battle in the streets. The 
 Anarchists were very near success on the 15th, and 
 think themselves still nearer. They see that the 
 bourgeoisie and the Assembly are their enemies. They 
 see that the National Guard, in their fear of responsi- 
 bility, will allow them to make all their preparations and 
 choose their time for attack. They were expected to 
 make an attack yesterday, and 50,000 extra National 
 Guards were called out. He does not believe that the 
 
184S.] Prediction of the Days of June. 1 15 
 
 Anarchists will suffer the labourers in the ateliers 
 nationaux to be dismissed or materially reduced. As 
 soon as this is attempted an attack will be made on the 
 Assembly, and this time not, as was the case on the 
 15th, by men without arms. He has little doubt, how- 
 ever, of the victoiy of the friends of order, but he thinks 
 that it will be a sanguinary one. The National Guards 
 are so disgusted with the loss of time and money occa- 
 sioned by the present state of agitation and insecurity, 
 that they will show no mercy. He thinks that Thiers 
 will acquire great influence in the Assembly, and that 
 he will use it usefully. But he will not prophesy 
 further. 
 
 TJmrsday, May 25. — Austin had given me some hopes 
 that he would return with me. I found him, however, 
 not quite ready for next Saturday, which must be my 
 day of departure. He is beginning, he says, to doubt 
 whether he was quite right in determining to break up 
 his establishment in Paris. Paris gave him good society 
 on very easy terms. ^ Everything is so near that he 
 could walk to his friends' houses and they could walk to 
 his. He had very good apartments at 60/. a year, 
 could give an evening party once a week at the expense 
 of a little extra tea and extra candles, and found the 
 bulk of the people among whom he lived little richer 
 than himself What made him resolve to leave Paris 
 was not any fear of personal danger to Mrs. Austin or to 
 himself, but the spectacle of misery all round him. All 
 
 ' The Empire changed all this. A year ago living was more expensive 
 in Paris than in London. — Ed. 
 
1 1 6 Joitrnah kept in France and Italy. [1848. 
 
 his friends were ruined, or thouglit themselves on. the 
 verge of ruin. And though, without doubt, prosperity 
 will return to Paris, it may not return to the same 
 people. He is inclined now, however, to think that the 
 extent of suffering will be shorter than he at first sup- 
 posed. May 1 5 was, he thinks, a turning-point ; it 
 proved that the Anarchical party was a minority, with- 
 out able or even recognised leaders. Were Lamartine 
 frankly and decidedly to separate himself from it, it 
 would lose all weight in the Chamber. His adhesion to 
 it will probably occasion him to share its fall. Every 
 day sinks Ledru RoUin lower into infamy. Lamartine 
 seems unable to extricate himself from his embrace, so 
 they will go down together. 
 
 After leaving Austin, I called on M. and Madame Le 
 Normand.^ I had not seen them since the early morning 
 of the 15th. She could talk of nothing but the events 
 of the 15th. M. Le Normand was returning home at 
 about half-past 2, when he heard the rappel. He 
 instantly armed, joined the rendezvous of his battalion, 
 and they reached the Pont de la Concorde at about 4. 
 Between them and the Palace was a crowd of people, 
 who told them that the Assembly was dissolved, that 
 there was nothing more to be done, and 'that they had 
 better go home. Their colonel said that he could not 
 move without orders ; so said the lieutenant-colonel ; 
 both of them M. Le Normand believes to have been in 
 the plot. Half an hour was lost before the rest of the 
 officers and the privates could resolve to act ; at length 
 ' The biographer and niece of Mdme. Recamier. — Ed. 
 
184S.] Conversation in the Railway Cari^iage. 117 
 
 they put themselves in motion, and were the battahon 
 whom I saw break into the yard adjoining the Palace, 
 and so enter it by the side. It was not until 6 o'clock 
 that Madame Le Normand heard of the result. The 
 interval she had, of course, spent in intense anxiety. 
 Both M. and Madame Le Normand believe that it was 
 part of the scheme to murder from forty to fifty of the 
 members, and that persons were employed to point them 
 out. 
 
 I then went to pay a visit to Thiers, who came to 
 Paris yesterday. I found him, however, so busy with 
 electioneering that I could have little conversation with 
 him, and as he goes this evening we shall not meet again. 
 He begged me (which is significant) to send him a col- 
 lection of poor-law documents. 
 
 Afterwards I called on Madame de Tocqueville. 
 
 Saturday, HI ay 27. — Yesterday, at 12, I left Paris, 
 got to Boulogne by 7, started at 4 this morning, and 
 was at Folkestone before 6. 
 
 In the railway were some Americans and an English- 
 man, who left Naples on the evening of the i6th. The 
 Americans were incredulous when I said that the Re- 
 public was unpopular in France. They believed the 
 French to be ready to suffer any temporary inconve- 
 nience in order, to use their expression, ' to govern them- 
 selves.' Another Englishman took up my side, and I 
 left them in high dispute, to talk to the traveller from 
 Naples. He said that he understood that there were 
 differences of opinion between the king and the deputies, 
 and that a party among the National Guards determined 
 
1 18 yottrnals kept in France and Italy. [1848. 
 
 to prevent his opening the Assembly on the 15th. That 
 for this purpose early in the morning they raised barri- 
 cades between his palace and the hall of the Assembly. 
 That the troops were called out, and that about 2,500 
 National Guards took post behind their barricades and 
 in the houses on each side of them. That after the 
 parties had stood some time looking at one another a 
 shot was fired by the National Guards. That the troops 
 returned it, and the National Guards, after a slight 
 resistance, abandoned their barricades and entered the 
 houses, from which they fired on the troops, especially 
 on the Swiss. That the troops attacked the houses, 
 broke open the doors, often with cannon, and frequently 
 killed all whom they found inside. That the great 
 majority of the inhabitants, including all the lazzaroni, 
 sided with the king, otherwise he could not have suc- 
 ceeded, as the troops did not exceed 7,500. He thinks 
 that the loss of the National Guards was about 500, and 
 that of the troops 200, of whom 150 were Swiss. He 
 does not think that above sixteen were shot after the 
 action : they were persons detected in an attempt to set 
 fire to the prisons. He was told that in the evening of 
 the I 5th the Diplomatic body complimented the king on 
 his firmness and congratulated him on his victory. 
 
 The battle in the streets predicted by M. Michel 
 Chevalier (page 114) occurred in less than a month 
 after Mr. Senior quitted Paris. The members of 
 
1848.] Louis Napoleon is pi^oclaimed President. 119 
 
 the Executive Council (Arago, Ledru Rollin, Garnier 
 Pages, Lamartine, and Marie) resigned. After six days 
 of desperate fighting and romantic incident, General 
 Cavaignac, who commanded the army and the Garde 
 Mobile, succeeded in defeating the insurgents and re- 
 storing order. On June 29 General Cavaignac was 
 named temporary President of the Republic. Five 
 months were now spent in organising a Constitution, 
 during which time the popularity of Cavaignac declined, 
 while that of Prince Louis Napoleon, who had been 
 elected deputy by four constituencies, made such pro- 
 gress that he was proclaimed President by universal 
 suffrage and an immense majority on December 20. 
 
 The Ministers appointed by him were — 
 
 M. Odillon Barrot, President of the Council and 
 Minister of Justice. 
 
 M. Drouyn de I'Huys, Foreign Affairs. 
 
 M. de Malleville, Interior. 
 
 M. Passy, Finance. 
 
 M. Bixio, Commerce. 
 
 General Bulhieres, War. 
 
 M. de Tracy, Marine. 
 
 M. de Malleville resigned his portfolio within a week 
 of his appointment, in consequence of the President's 
 demand that the documents respecting the affairs of 
 Strasbourg and Boulogne should be given up. M. Fau- 
 cher then became Minister of the Interior. 
 
 Shortly before Mr. Senior's visit in 1849 the French 
 expedition in support of the Papal Government had 
 taken place. — Ed. 
 
1 20 yoiLvnals kept iii Frajue and Italy. [iS49- 
 
 I 849. 
 
 [Mr. Senior accepted an invitation from ]\Irs. Grote to 
 spend a few days with her in Paris in May, 1849.] 
 
 May 12, 1849. — I reached Paris this morning at a quar- 
 ter to 1 1, and proceeded to the Maison Fenci, 63 Champs 
 Elysees. It is a charming apartment, about 500 yards 
 from the Arc de I'Etoile, looking west towards Chaillot, 
 Passy, and the left bank of the Seine. 
 
 Mrs. Grote had got tickets for the Assembly, so we 
 went there directly after breakfast. It was about one 
 o'clock : the debate had not begun, but the Tribune was 
 full — the practice being to give tickets for about one- 
 half more than it can hold. We w^ere told that some- 
 body would probably go and make room for us. We 
 loitered about, waiting for this chance, when we met 
 Madame Leon Faucher going to her place in the Tribune 
 Diplomatique. She took me under her protection, and 
 after many repulses, and invoking the aid of one questeur 
 and huissier after another, she got me in. 
 
 The debate was a v^xy important one. To make it 
 intelligible, I must go back a few days. 
 
 The invasion of the Roman States in 1849 was a 
 counterpart of the Protectorate of Otaheite in 1843. 
 It was an exertion of strength Avithout any purpose of 
 
1S49.] French Expedition to Rome. 121 
 
 permanent advantage. The Government seem to have 
 thought that an intervention in favour of the Pope would 
 please the priests, who are expected to exercise great 
 influence over the elections, and that the reappearance 
 of the French flag in Italy would flatter the vanity of 
 those whose constant desire is that France should do 
 something, whatever that something may be. 
 
 It displeased, however, the Republicans, as it denied 
 to a sister republic the right of existence and to the 
 Roman people the right of revolution. It alarmed the 
 friends of peace as a dangerous little war, and, as a gross 
 breach of international law, disgusted those who wish to 
 strengthen that weak restraint on royal and national 
 ambition. If, however, the French had been welcomed 
 in Rome as mediators and friends, and the Pope had 
 been re-established by them as a constitutional sove- 
 reign reigning under the influence of France, it is pro- 
 bable that the injustice and rashness of the enterprise 
 would have been forgotten in its success. Its failure, 
 of course, aggravated its original sins. There was also 
 a general belief, which now turns out to have been well 
 founded, that the expedition had not been managed 
 constitutionally ; that Oudinot had received some direct 
 instructions from the President, and that his other in- 
 structions had been communicated to only a part of the 
 cabinet. The selection, too, of Oudinot, a Legitimist, 
 was suspicious ; and a letter to him from the Presiden»t, 
 approving his conduct and promising him reinforcements, 
 was thought a very monarchical proceeding. Under 
 such circumstances, on May 7, the previous Monday, 
 
122 yotirnals kept in France and Italy. [1849- 
 
 the Assembly had resolved that the expedition ought no 
 longer to be diverted from its proper purposes. What 
 those purposes were it was difficult to say, but the vote 
 amounted to a censure, and if it had been passed by an 
 Assembly in any but an expiring state it must have 
 compelled the resignation of the ministry. 
 
 To-day the opposition followed up the blow by pro- 
 posing a resolution that, since the Italian expedition, 
 the ministry had lost the confidence of the Assembly. 
 
 When I got in, Ledru RoUin, who had opened the 
 debate about half an hour before, was still speaking, or 
 rather screaming, from the tribune. He is a large, red- ^ 
 faced man, with an enormous voice and violent action. 
 His speech, and indeed that of every speaker, on that 
 day, was not a continuous discourse. It was a series of 
 short sentences, each of which was interrupted or fol- 
 lowed by an explosion of fierce denial or furious abuse 
 from the one side or from the other of the Assembly. 
 His voice, I have said, was powerful, but he mouthed his 
 words in order to give them emphasis, and dropped his 
 voice at the end of each sentence, so that amidst the 
 general roar I caught little of what he said. 
 
 Odillon Barrot followed, and it was still worse. With 
 certain persons, he said, the repulse of our troops is a 
 ' bonne fortune.' One person shouted out, ' C'est un 
 mensonge!' another, 'C'est une infamie!' another, 'C'est 
 le langage de 1 8 1 5 ! ' another, ' C'est une lachete ! ' another, 
 ' Les Cosaques pourtant ne sont pas encore a nos portes ! ' 
 Then the President was requested by the Left to call 
 the speaker to order ; by the Right to call the inter- 
 
1 849-] Scene ill the Assembly. 123 
 
 rupters to order. Then he rang his bell, and screamed 
 out ' A I'ordre ! a I'ordre ! ' Then Odillon Barrot cried out, 
 ' The policy which you are attacking has given to us at 
 least peace.' 
 
 ' Peace ! ' interrupted Clement Thomas ; ' * it is your 
 policy that has brought us to the brink of civil war, and, 
 if the Chamber does not save us, see what will happen 
 to-morrow.' 
 
 ' We thank,' replied Barrot, ' M. Thomas for giving 
 us this notice. It is not the first that we have received. 
 It is time to tear away the veil, since we have violence 
 and ph}'sical force before us.' 
 
 Then Clement Thomas w^as allowed to occupy half 
 the tribune, and make a speech in explanation of his 
 interruption, and maintain that it was not ' un dcfi, mais 
 une appreciation.' 
 
 Then followed a few minutes of calm, the screamers 
 being apparently exhausted, and Odillon Barrot ma- 
 naged to get through his speech, which was, in fact, not 
 a defence of the Italian expedition, but a declamation 
 against anarchy. 
 
 He was followed by Jules Favre, who attempted to 
 read a letter from Rome. Unfortunately for him, the 
 second sentence was a statement that many of the 
 
 ' Shot on the i8th of last March by the mob. Clement Thomas was 
 an ardent Republican. He entered the army as a volunteer. He con- 
 spired against I.ouis-Philippe in 1835, was imprisoned, exiled, and returned 
 to Paris as soon as his offence was pardoned. He became editor of the 
 National, and in 1848 was elected a Representative. His conduct in 
 May was rewarded by the command of the National Guard, which he was 
 forced to surrender to Changarnier in June. He left France during the 
 Empire, and lived in Belgium till the late lamentable events. — Ed. 
 
124 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1S49. 
 
 French prisoners had oftered to serve in the Roman 
 ranks. Then the storm raged, if possible, more vio- 
 lently than before. Some cried that it was false, others 
 that, whether true or false, the ears of Frenchmen ought 
 not to be disgusted by such statements. Favre was 
 imprudent enough to attempt to justify the imputation. 
 ' The soldier,' he said, ' is intelligent, and when he knows 
 that his orders are against the will of the countr}^ ' 
 
 ' No ! ' they cried, ' he is not intelligent ; in war he 
 knows nothing but his colours.' 
 
 ' You know well,' said De Malleville, ' that such conduct 
 would denationalise him.' 
 
 ' I ask,' said Favre, ' w^hat would Monsieur de iSIalle- 
 ville have done in such a situation 1 ' 
 
 ' Stuck to my colours,' said JMalleville. 
 
 So Favre had to apologise for having ' blesse une 
 legitime susceptibilite.' He tried to continue to read 
 his letter. ' La Grande Corniche de St.-Pierre,' he cried. 
 
 'We won't hear any more !' exclaimed I\I. Taschenau. 
 
 ' You have no right to interrupt,' said the President. 
 
 ' What .'' ' said Taschenau ; ' we have no right to in- 
 terrupt t ' 
 
 ' La Grande Corniche de St.-Pierre,' repeated Favre. 
 
 ' Assez de Corniches ! ' said the Right. 
 
 ' La Grande Corniche de St.-Pierre ' Then there 
 
 was a greater hubbub than ever. 
 
 Then Manuel rose to order, and maintained that if a 
 document was attempted to be read, ' qui blessait pro- 
 fondement et legitimement les susceptibilites de I'As- 
 semblee,' the President was bound by the reglement to 
 
i849-] Ardzious Diities of Faiiclier. 125 
 
 take the opinion of the house whether the reading 
 should continue or not. The President, however, said 
 that he could find no such passage in the rtglcvicnt, and 
 decided that the speaker was entitled to read whatever 
 he thought fit. The rcglevient, however, seems to con- 
 tain no passage obliging the Assembly to listen ; so that 
 Favre folded up his letter, and we are ignorant up to 
 this time what has been the fate of the ' Grande Corniche 
 de St.-Pierre.' What he had read, however, was enough 
 to turn the majority against him. General Leflo rose, 
 and was received with acclamations when he protested 
 against letters being read from a tribune frangaise which 
 ' insultent le drapeau.' * You tell us,' he said, ' that the 
 enemy has taken one of our colours. You know it is 
 impossible, for only five hundred men are said to have 
 fallen on our side ; but before a colour could be taken 
 whole regiments must have died.' This bit of eloquence 
 was followed by round after round of applause. And 
 the real question, the management of the expenditure, 
 having been quite lost sight of in a cloud of incense to 
 the drapeau, the Assembly, by a majority of thirty- 
 seven, passed to the order of the day. 
 
 We drank tea in the evening with the Leon Fauchers< 
 They attached great importance to the vote. Had 
 Favre's vote of a want of confidence been carried, we 
 should have had, said Faucher, the barricades to-morrow. 
 The duty of preventing an einciite falls on the Minister 
 of the Interior, and an arduous one he finds it. Mdme. 
 Faucher told me that the night before last her husband 
 was twice called up after midnight by messages from the 
 
1 26 Journals kept m France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 Prefet de Police, announcing an insurrection on the point 
 of exploding. 
 
 We went this morning to the Chamber, but, warned 
 by experience, an hour and a half before the discussion. 
 We got good places, therefore, and could have heard if 
 there had been anything worth hearing ; but there was 
 not, and, after spending four hours in very bad air, we 
 refreshed ourselves in the Luxembourg Gardens. 
 
 In the afternoon we had a visit from Horace Say. 
 He has just been elected Conseiller d'Etat — a place of 
 great importance, though, according to our notions, not 
 highly paid : only 9,000 francs a year, the salary of a 
 representative. The members are elected by the As- 
 sembly for six years, but are re-eligible, and therefore 
 may expect to sit for life ; and the Conseil is not only 
 independent of the Government, but exercises over it 
 considerable authority. Every law which the Govern- 
 ment proposes must be submitted to its revision ; and 
 all ' reglements d'administration publique ' (which means, 
 I suppose, rules for the transaction of public business) 
 are formed by it, and, when required so to do by the 
 Assembly, it frames them without appeal. Besides 
 which, the Constitution gives to it a general power of 
 superintendence and control. 
 
 Sunday, May 13. — We drove to St. Cloud, lounged 
 for a couple of hours over the beautiful park, and then 
 dined with the Leon Fauchers. We met the Wollowskis, 
 Horace Says, and M. Buffet,^ Minister of Commerce, 
 
 ' Member of the late Ollivier Ministry. He resigned as soon as it ceased 
 to perform its promise of being a Liberal Administration. — Ed. 
 
1S49] Rapid Recovery of Pj^osperity. 127 
 
 During the whole of dinner, and in the evening, 
 Faucher was receiving telegraphic despatches as to the 
 progress of the elections — that is, as to the number of 
 voters and the tranquillity. The nature of the votes will 
 not be known for some days. Faucher and Buffet dis- 
 cussed the propriety of some legal changes. One was 
 the increasing the caiitionncmcnt of the journals. In 
 this they agreed. The other was the giving the nomi- 
 nation of the maires, now elected, to the Executive. On 
 this they disagreed. 'There are 32,000 of them,' said 
 Faucher ; ' we are in direct correspondence with them, 
 we are responsible for their errors and neglects, yet we 
 have no power to obtain good people, or to dismiss bad 
 ones, or to enforce obedience.' M. Buffet, admitting 
 the difficulty occasioned by the insubordination of the 
 maires, said that he thought that the Government 
 would find a still greater difficulty than the communes 
 in making good choices. Perhaps the best plan would be 
 that which we adopted on the appointment of officers 
 under the new Poor Law. They are elected by the 
 Boards of Guardians, but the Commissioners have the 
 power both of dismissing them and of retaining them in 
 office. So that, once elected, they become the servants 
 of the Commissioners. The same result would follow if 
 the maires held office at the will of the French Execu- 
 tive. Faucher spoke with great and justifiable pride of 
 the prosperity of France under the present ministry. 
 ' Never,' he said, ' was so much done in five months. 
 At Rouen, at Havre, at Marseilles, and above all at 
 Miihlhausen, business is in full activity. Paris, of course. 
 
1 28 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1S49. 
 
 will be among the last to recover completely ; but it is 
 in rapid convalescence.' 
 
 The hotels are full, and apartments are scarce. Prices 
 are, however, still comparatively low. I found the Curries 
 in an apartment in the Hotel Wagram, on the first floor, 
 for which they pay 30 francs a day. We had the corre- 
 sponding apartment in October in 1847, ori the second 
 floor, and paid 250 francs a week — the first floor was 
 then 300 francs a week. 
 
 I reminded Faucher of his description, a couple of years 
 ago, of his feelings in addressing the Chamber of Depu- 
 ties. He then told me that the moment in which he took 
 possession of the tribune, and saw the deputies silent 
 and listening, was more awful than he could express. 
 That his knees trembled and his mouth got dry, and it 
 was not till after the third or fourth sentence that he 
 recovered complete self-possession ; and I asked him 
 whether the present Assembly was as formidable. He 
 replied, ' For an independent member, not ; nobody 
 listens, and nobody is silent. It is difficult to speak well 
 to such an audience, if audience it can be called, but 
 tolerably easy to go on. The difficulty is chiefly phy- 
 sical, the exertion of voice necessary to be audible to 
 the reporters. But to address this Chamber as a 
 minister is absolutely frightful. To face four or five 
 hundred enemies screaming out against you denial and 
 obloquy, distorting your premisses, refusing your infer- 
 ences, and trying to exhaust on you all the forms of 
 hatred and contempt, with a consciousness that every- 
 thing that you say, and everything that is said to you, 
 
i 
 
 1849.] Power of the opposition. 129 
 
 will be read by thirty millions of people ; that every 
 insult which you have had to endure, and every indis- 
 cretion into which you may have been hurried, will be 
 perpetuated in the " Moniteur," is far more terrible than 
 even the silence of unapproving listeners.' 
 
 Great apprehension was expressed by everyone as to 
 the probable conduct of the Assembly during the next 
 fortnight, especially if a large portion, as is expected, 
 should not be re-elected. There are some fears, though 
 none of our guests seemed to feel them, that it may 
 attempt a coup d'etat — put off the meeting of the new 
 Chamber for three months, and take some pretext to 
 declare the elections void, or Louis Napoleon ' dechu,' 
 and appoint a temporary dictator. What Faucher, 
 Buffet, and Wollowski fear is, that it may endeavour, 
 as to a certain extent it has been endeavouring ever 
 since the election of Louis Napoleon, to prevent good 
 government, to force the ministry on bad measures, to 
 deprive it of the means of effecting good ones. These, 
 indeed, are generally the tactics of an opposition, espe- 
 cially of a French opposition ; but in the other consti- 
 tutional governments of Europe the opposition is always 
 a minority, and is kept within some bounds by the ex- 
 pectation of having to hold office and to incur the 
 responsibility of carrying out its doctrines or the shame 
 of retracting them. In the present Assembly the oppo- 
 sition is the majority, and a large portion of it, if they 
 are not re-elected to-morrow, have no hopes of public 
 life during more than a fortnight longer. The majority 
 of an omnipotent Assembly elected by universal suffrage, 
 VOL. I. K 
 
1 30 Journals kept hi France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 whose will becomes law without any further sanction, 
 has obviously the power to do, even in a single fortnight, 
 almost any amount of mischief; and the present Govern- 
 ment and its friends believe that it will not let its power 
 sleep. They think that it will try to die like a whale, 
 lashing Avith its tail and spouting blood. The ministry 
 and their adherents, and generally the moderate party, 
 hope to prevent this by absenting themselves, so that 
 the Assembly may not be in the number 500, which is 
 necessary to a vote. Several have left Paris. It is 
 obvious that this is a very dangerous expedient. Unless 
 it is completely successful it must fail completely, and 
 the hostile majority will have everything their own way. 
 They are now a little restrained by the debate, though 
 they can generally carry the vote. 
 
 We talked of the article of the Constitution which 
 excludes representatives from paid public functions in 
 the gift of the Executive. It not only excludes them 
 while representatives, but prohibits their appointment 
 during the existence of that Assembly, even if they 
 resign their seats. Thus, M. Bethmont, having been a 
 representative, and having resigned, was unable to take 
 the office of President of the Court of Appeal of Paris. 
 This general rule is subject to exceptions, embodied in 
 the organic electoral law ; but that law has added other 
 restrictions. Thus, a representative cannot be a director 
 of a railway. 
 
 I asked Wollowski if there was anything interesting 
 in the Court. He said that to-morrow the trial of the 
 Carabys and Coetlogon comes on in the Cour dAssises, 
 and we agreed to go there together. 
 
•] 
 
 Cotir d' Assises. 
 
 IM 
 
 Monday, May 14. — Wollowski procured me, in the 
 character of Master in Chancery, admission to a seat 
 behind the President in the Cour d'Assises — a very 
 coveted place, for the trial excited so much interest that 
 crowds were in waiting before the public entrance for 
 hours before the door was opened, and a large portion 
 of the bar were unable to get in. 
 
 The followincf is the arrangement of the court : — 
 
 + 
 
 DIM 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 + 
 
 
 
 
 Prisoners. 
 
 d 
 
 
 
 
 
 + 
 
 
 Oveffier. 
 
 + 
 
 + + + + + 
 
 
 
 + 
 
 
 
 Advocates. 
 
 s 
 
 
 lA 
 
 
 y^ 
 
 
 
 
 '~4 
 
 
 / + 
 
 
 . TJ 
 
 X 
 
 
 0, + 
 
 in 
 
 
 <-• 
 
 ii 
 
 in 
 
 / ^ 
 
 U 
 
 \ "^ 
 
 <u 
 
 C 
 
 
 
 M. Caraby. 
 Gendarme. 
 Coetlogon. 
 Gendarme. 
 
 .ness examine 
 
 
 52 
 
 u 
 
 Oh 
 
 1 + 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 1) 
 
 
 + 
 
 
 
 
 •s.iaXAVB'j 
 
 <a 
 
 
 + 
 -y 
 
 
 + 
 
 + + + + + + 
 
 1 
 
 
 + 
 
 + + + + + 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 •Xanf 
 
 
 
 + 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 It will be observed that the three accused — Mdme. 
 Caraby, M. Caraby, and Coetlogon — with a gen- 
 darme between each, were on the left of the President, 
 within a few yards of the privileged spectators. As 
 Mdme. Caraby did not wish to see either her husband 
 or her lover, she turned her face constantly towards 
 
132 yoitrnals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 us, and I happened to be exactly opposite her. I do 
 not thhik I ever saw anything more beautiful. She has 
 a good figure, rather below the middle size, a clear, pale 
 complexion, small mouth, straight well-chis,elled nose, 
 black hair, straight black eyebrows, long black eye- 
 lashes and dark eyes, such as I never saw in any face, 
 except that of young Dwarkanath Tagore. Europe never 
 produced any so large and so soft ; she must owe them 
 to her New Orleans extraction. I ought not, however, 
 to describe her, for the advocate against her, Chaix- 
 d'Est Ange, spoke of her as ' si belle qu'il faut renoncer 
 a trouver des expressions pour la depeindre.' A spec- 
 tator next to me said, * Did you ever see such eyes .-' ' One 
 of the gendarmes came too near to her, and she gave 
 him a look which made him start back three yards and 
 fall over the benches. These eyes, however, we seldom 
 saw, except when she had to raise them to the President 
 during her examination. At other times she generally 
 looked down. Nothing could exceed the expression of 
 sorrow on her countenance. It seemed a settled despair, 
 which made her indifferent to the result of the trial, 
 indifferent to the effect of her answers, indifferent even 
 to the public exposure. And yet it did not distort her 
 features, or apparently diminish her beauty. She put 
 me constantly in mind of the Cenci head, which, like 
 hers, is the perfection of beauty and of grief.' 
 
 Tuesday, May 15. — In the evening we had a visit 
 from Mdme. Leon Faucher. 
 
 ' I came,' she said, ' to tell you that we are out.' ' Out ! ' 
 
 ' The trial was of no public interest ; it is therefore omitted. — Ed. 
 
I 
 
 1849.] Resig7iation of Faucher. 133 
 
 we said. ' Yes, out ; I did not wish you to see it first in 
 the newspapers.' She then told us of the circular which 
 Faucher had sent on Saturday by telegraph to many of 
 the departments, announcing the triumph of the Govern- 
 ment on Friday ; saying that it had saved the country 
 from immediate civil war, and adding the names of the 
 voters on each side. This, she said, had been denounced 
 by the opposition as unconstitutional and dishonest — 
 unconstitutional as an attempt to influence the elections ; 
 and dishonest, as implying that all who voted against 
 the Government, or abstained from voting, wished for 
 civil war. She was present during the debate, and 
 described it as more violent even than that of last 
 Friday. 
 
 Faucher's defence, she thought, had been triumphant 
 in argument. 
 
 The departments, he had said, were full of falsehoods 
 circulated by the Anarchists. One country paper 
 announced that Louis Napoleon had been deposed, 
 another that he had chosen Ledru Rollin as his minister, 
 another that Marrast and Ledru Rollin had been ap- 
 pointed dictators, and another that Louis Napoleon had 
 proclaimed himself emperor. To stop these reports he 
 had merely stated the truth. It was true that the 
 Assembly had refused to blame the Government. It 
 was true that a contrary vote was the signal for which 
 the men of the barricades were waiting, and it was true 
 that the votes of the members were such as the circular 
 stated them to have been. The ' Moniteur ' would have 
 published them the next day. What was the crime of 
 publishing them twenty-four hours earlier ? 
 
1 34 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 But he had been feebly supported by Odillon Barrot, 
 the only one of his colleagues who had spoken, and, to 
 his and her astonishment, violently attacked by Laroche- 
 Jacquelin. 
 
 This was the part of the debate which had most 
 annoyed her. When Laroche-Jacquelin rose she had 
 fully expected that it was as a friend ; but his speech 
 was as malicious as he could make it. He was the first 
 who introduced into the debate the accusation of dis- 
 honesty. He refused to accept Faucher's denial of an 
 intention to impute anarchical wishes to the opponents of 
 the Government. She added that Faucher had been 
 personal in his reply, and that ' ils s'etaient dit des 
 choses tres-dures.' The Government plan of not making 
 a House ought, she said, to have succeeded, for when 
 they came to the vote there were little more than 400 
 members present ; so that the House ought, according 
 to its rtglancnt, to have instantly separated. But that a 
 ballot had been demanded, and the President, Marrast, 
 had kept it open for an hour, until a hundred more 
 members, principally Montagnards and Legitimists, had 
 been collected. 
 
 She doubted indeed whether, even at the end, there 
 were 500 real voters, for the Montagnards frequently 
 put more than one paper into the urn, and the bureau, 
 being all rouge, assists in the fraud. 
 
 The vote of censure had, however, been carried by 
 some hundreds to five, and Faucher, the instant it was 
 over, had sent his resignation to the President, and she 
 had no doubt it would be accepted. As far as her 
 
1849.] Peculiarities of a French Trial. 135 
 
 husband was concerned, she rejoiced at this, for the 
 fatigue and anxiety were ruining his health ; but she 
 trembled for the country. The men of vigour and 
 firmness in the Cabinet were Faucher and Falloux, and 
 Falloux's subordinate position gives him Httle influence. 
 The Cabinet itself, indeed, cannot survive the loss of its 
 most efficient member. 
 
 So that in a fortnight hence there will be, she thinks, 
 a new Cabinet as well as a new Assembly. The Presi- 
 dent, indeed, is a permanent prime minister, but he is 
 an emigre, who from the time he was eight years old to 
 his election was never in France except as a prisoner, 
 and can know nothing of the country or of the people. 
 
 I perceived from her conversation that Faucher 
 thought that the President interfered too much ; but 
 his defence is, 'I am responsible, and therefore I must 
 act.' 
 
 Mdme. Faucher remained with us all the evening ; she 
 did not like to go home, where she would be exposed to 
 visits and condolences. 
 
 Wednesday, ]\Iay 16. — Mrs. Grote and I rode, before 
 breakfast, for a couple of hours, in the Bois de Boulogne. 
 When we came home we found in the morning's papers 
 the verdict and sentences in the Caraby trial. 
 
 The peculiarities of a French trial are, first, the free 
 admission of re-evidence. Our rule, that the best evi- 
 dence only is to be received, is unknown. 
 
 One witness was asked what another had told him, 
 though that other was also examined, so that more than 
 half of the evidence was mere hearsay, and no question 
 
3 
 
 6 journals kept in Fj'ance and Italy. [1849. 
 
 was objected to by either side ; and secondly, the ex- 
 amination of the witnesses by the judge, instead of our 
 examination-in-chief by the counsel on one side and 
 cross-examination on the other. This is favourable to 
 the eliciting of truth from an honest witness. It pre- 
 vents the disgraceful browbeating and tricks by which 
 in England a stupid or timid person is often frightened, 
 or confused, or entrapped into contradictions. But it 
 must be unfavourable to the detection of dishonesty. 
 Though the counsel can cross-examine through the 
 judge, such a process gives so much time to the witness 
 that he must be very dull if he is not prepared with his 
 answer by the time that the question has reached him. 
 
 After breakfast I went to see the Beaumonts. I found 
 there, besides ourselves, La Fayette and M. deCorcelle.' 
 We talked of the Parisian elections, and of the Socialists, 
 who are said to have headed the poll. 
 
 I asked what were precisely the measures which were 
 to be feared from the Socialist party. Beaumont said 
 that the Socialist party was like the Protestant Church, 
 an aggregate of many sects, each holding some peculiar 
 doctrines, but all agreeing in some others. The points 
 
 ' M. de Corcelle shared the pohtical opinions of M. de Tocqiieville before 
 tlie Revolution of 1848, but after that time his ardent Catholicism drew him 
 nearer to Montalembert. Tocqueville never thoroughly approved of the 
 French intervention at Rome, while Corcelle was one of its warmest sup- 
 porters. In 1849 he represented France at the Papal Court, and assisted 
 the Pope in restoring the Papal Government. The Pope entreated him to 
 remain, and to become his Prime Minister, but M. de Corcelle refused to 
 forsake his OMTi country. From 1852 to 1871 he took no active part in 
 politics. He is now at Versailles, and last March there was some question 
 of his going on a mission to Rome. — Ed. 
 
1 849-] Socialist Doctrines. 137 
 
 of faith in which they agree are, that poverty and exces- 
 sive toil are the result of human institutions, and could 
 be prevented by a more equitable distribution of wealth, 
 and by restricting the hours of labour ; that the only 
 lawful source of revenue is labour; and that rent and 
 profit are abuses — abuses even when they arise from 
 acquired property, still more so when from inherited 
 property. That the steps to be taken towards the sup- 
 pression of these, abuses are, first, the abolition of the 
 national debt, which will instantly restore to the com- 
 munity about six milliards ; secondly, the abolition of 
 the rent of land, the occupier being turned into the 
 owner, or, where the farm is too large for a single owner, 
 the excess being divided among the peasants who have 
 no land ; thirdly, the wipot progrcssif snr la fortune 
 presuince, by which means all taxation is to be thrown on 
 the rich, and in proportion to their wealth. This, he said, 
 as the most direct road to equality of fortune, was the most 
 approved Socialist claptrap at the elections. Fourthly, 
 the Government to enable the workmen to act without 
 capitalists, by supplying them with capital to be managed 
 by themselves ; fifthly, the Government to provide em- 
 ployment for those out of work, allowance in aid of 
 insufficient wages, and pensions and asylums for the 
 aged, and foundling hospitals and schools for the young. 
 To these general principles of action some sects add 
 the reduction of the hours of labour, others the creation 
 of an inconvertible paper-money to be a legal tender. 
 This is a favourite measure for the extinction of the 
 enormous weight of mortgages which oppresses the small 
 
o 
 
 8 yotirnals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 proprietors. The Government is to lend to the mort- 
 gagor government paper, at a very low interest (which 
 it can afford to do, as it will cost nothing), with which 
 he will pay off the mortgage. The Government is also 
 to lend its paper at a still lower interest to working men, 
 on the security of the income they expect to earn. 
 Wages are no longer to depend on the tyranny of 
 masters ; they are to be equitably fixed by public 
 officers, and to be proportioned to the wants of the 
 labourer and of his family. And, to prevent a rise of 
 wages, in consequence of the emission of so much paper, 
 they are to be fixed from time to time by officers elected 
 by the people, but paid by the Government. All foreign 
 commerce by sea and by land is to be managed by 
 national corporations for the benefit of the nation, 
 assisted by consuls to represent the Republic in all 
 foreign towns. In all the centres of population maga- 
 zines are to be established by the Government, in which 
 all objects of consumption —that is, cf the frugal con- 
 sumption which becomes equal fraternal republicans — 
 are to be sold at the cost of production or equitably 
 bartered. Law is no longer to be the luxur>' of the rich. 
 Judges, advocates, and attorneys are to be paid by the 
 Government, and the suitor is to get not only his deci- 
 sion but his pleadings for nothing. The army is never 
 to be diminished, even in peace. It is to be employed in 
 public works. 
 
 I asked if the Socialists were likely to be warlike. 
 Not, he said, avowedly for the extension of territory, 
 but certainly for the extension of influence. One of 
 
1849.] Fo7'eign Policy of France. 139 
 
 their schemes is a propagandc Jnivianitaire for the eman- 
 cipation of nations and races and the diffusion of social 
 democracy, of which France is to be the apostle and the 
 soldier. 
 
 We then went to the general foreign policy of France, 
 and one of the interlocutors said that the usual feeling 
 among the French was not so much ambition as sensi- 
 tiveness and suspicion ; that they are always ready to 
 believe themselves injured or insulted, and rush into 
 wild enterprises lest they should be suspected of cowardice 
 or weakness. He attributed to this feeling, acted on by 
 the events of 1840, the present misfortunes of France and 
 of Europe. The French thought themselves insulted ; 
 Guizot and Louis-Philippe would not let them go to war 
 and revenge themselves on England and Lord Palmer- 
 ston ; so, being in want of a victim, they turned on Guizot. 
 He tried to gratify the national anger and vanity by 
 refusing to ratify the Slave Trade Treaty, by taking 
 possession of Otaheite, by increasing the naval force, 
 and, at last, by the Spanish marriages. But as all these 
 measures, though offensive to England, and so far ac- 
 ceptable, were bad in themselves, Guizot's unpopularity 
 went on accumulating. It enveloped the king, as his 
 supporter, and the body politic became so predisposed 
 to inflammatory action that what in its healthy state 
 would have been a mere street riot burst out a revo- 
 lution. 
 
 The Treaty of July 1840 was, he said, the turning- 
 point of the destinies of Europe. Had not the French 
 mind been poisoned by having to endure that insult, 
 
140 Jotumals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 France would still have been a Constitutional Monarchy, 
 and Germany would have been governed by sovereigns 
 instead of by mobs. 
 
 We then went to the foreign policy of England. 
 
 I maintained that it ought to be one of non-interference, 
 but they were all against me. It would be all well, they 
 said, if no one else interfered, but France cannot suffer 
 Russia and Austria to crush Hungary, Germany, and 
 Italy, which they will certainly try to do if you stand 
 aloof. Engaged in such a struggle, we shall be forced 
 to use the tremendous power which our misfortunes give 
 us. We shall speak as a democracy to democrats, and 
 they are not wanting, even in Prussia. You will see us 
 surrounded by new Cisalpine and Ligurian, and Rhenal 
 and Batavian, and, perhaps, Swabian and Bavarian re- 
 publics, and one of two events, each formidable to you, 
 will happen : either an enormous increase of French 
 power and influence if we succeed, or an enormous in- 
 crease of Russian power and influence if we are beaten. 
 Give us your support ; let it be known that England 
 will not suff"er Italy to become Austrian, and Hungary to 
 become Russian, and you may find in Hungary a bulwark 
 against Russia, and in Italy a bulwark against us. A 
 general war must destroy the European balance of 
 power, and it is only by assisting us that you can pre- 
 vent one. 
 
 Friday, May 1 8. — After breakfast Mdme. Leon Faucher 
 came. To-morrow they return from the splendid salons 
 of the Rue de Grenelle to their modest third floor in the 
 Rue Blanche. She offered us the Ministerial box at the 
 
1849.] Probable Result of the Elections. 141 
 
 Theatre Frangais to-night, to see Rachel in ' Adrienne 
 Lecouvreur.' Faucher, she said, who was anxious to 
 see us, but too busy to get out in the morning, would 
 come. 
 
 After breakfast I went to the Embassy, and found 
 Lord Normanby at home. He expressed much regret 
 at the resignation of Faucher, on whose vigilance, honesty, 
 and courage he has much reliance. It will precipitate, 
 he says, the fall of the whole Cabinet, which has been 
 tottering for some weeks. 
 
 It has had, indeed, a long life for a revolutionary 
 Ministry — not less than five months. One of the worst 
 effects of these short administrations is, the number of 
 persons whose political character is damaged ; for scarcely 
 anyone quits office with as much reputation as he had 
 when he entered it. 
 
 We talked of the elections. It is supposed that out of 
 the 750 members of the new Assembly nearly 250 are 
 Socialists — a compact, unscrupulous minority, opposed 
 to a majority consisting of Orleanists, Legitimists, and 
 Moderate Republicans. To these four parties, and to a 
 Prime Minister, called the President of the Republic, the 
 framers of the Constitution have committed, for three 
 years, the government of France. During those three 
 years the Constitution cannot be altered, the Assembly 
 cannot be dissolved or even prorogued, and the President 
 cannot be changed. The President and the four hostile 
 factions which constitute the Assembly are turned out in 
 an arena walled round by the law, with no legal power 
 in any party to obtain a decisive superiority by ejecting 
 
142 yoiiniah kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 its opponents. Lord Normanby, however, thinks that 
 this legal fence will be broken through by violence, and 
 that within a short period — a month at the least, three 
 months at the most — the struggle of last June will be 
 renewed. He hopes that it may be delayed till the latter 
 time. There will then probably be a steady Govern- 
 ment and a tolerably disciplined Chamber. 
 
 A month hence will be a time of disorganisation. The 
 new Assembly will not know its business ; the friends of 
 order will not have found one another out ; no one will 
 know whom to trust. He fears much from an anciitc 
 in June, but looks with tolerable confidence to the result 
 if it take place in August. 
 
 In the evening I went to the Francais. Faucher did 
 not come, so I left the theatre at the end of the second 
 act. 
 
 Saturday, May 19. — I went to the Fauchers, and found 
 them reinstalled in the Rue Blanche. Faucher agrees 
 with Lord Normanby as to the probability, almost the 
 certainty, of another sanguinary struggle. ' All parties,' 
 he says, ' seem to be preparing for it, and all have elected 
 men of extreme opinions.' He thinks, too, that it will 
 occur within three months. He hopes that it may 
 take place soon. Now he thinks that the army and 
 National Guard will act together and put down the 
 Socialists. Three months hence he cannot answer for 
 the army. I hear that Bugeaud is of the same opinion. 
 
 He looks with alarm on the 8th Section of the Pre- 
 amble of the Constitution, which declares it to be the 
 duty of the State to provide for the destitute either 
 
1849.] Danger OILS Clauses in the Constitution. 143 
 
 work or relief. Such a duty imposed on the State 
 imphes a corresponding right in the poor. It authorises 
 everyone who is in want to consider that want not as 
 a misfortune, but as an injustice ; as a breacli of the 
 duty which the Constitution imposes on the Government. 
 It sanctions the ferocious cry of the Lyonese, ' Vivre en 
 travaillant ou mourir en combattant !' 
 
 The Constitution contains two provisions which seem 
 almost intended as pretexts for insurrection. One is the 
 68th, which declares that if the President obstruct the 
 Assembly in the exercise of its functions (inct obstacle 
 a rcxercice de son mandat) he is ipso facto deposed 
 {dec/m), the people are bound to refuse to obey him, and 
 all executive power vests instantly in the Assembly.^ 
 
 Under this clause, on an assumed event, all obedience 
 except to the Assembly is to cease. Who is to decide 
 whether the event which releases the citizens from their 
 obedience and gives absolute power to the Chamber has 
 happened } The citizens or the Assembly } No other 
 tribunal is provided. Among the citizens are the army. 
 So are the National Guards. If either force, or any 
 regiment, or any company, or any individuals in either 
 force, think that the event by which the President for- 
 feits his power has occurred, they are bound to disobey 
 all orders proceeding from him. 
 
 It may be supposed that an event, the consequences 
 of which are so vast, is precisely defined. But the 
 words used seem studiously vague. 
 
 ' See Tocqueville's account of the cotip d'etat in vol. ii. of the present 
 work. — Ed. 
 
144 yotirnals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 Perhaps what was meant was the arrest of a member 
 of the Assembly, or an armed interruption of its debates. 
 The words, however, are capable of a wider construction. 
 Any disobedience to the orders of the Assembly may be 
 said to be an obstruction to the exercise of its functions. 
 The Assembly, for instance, ordered, on the 7th of this 
 month, that the army in the Roman territory should no 
 longer be diverted from its proper objects. Since that 
 time the army has been employed just as it was before 
 — namely, in attacking the Roman Republic. Is it clear 
 that the Assembly has not been obstructed in the exer- 
 cise of its functions .'' Is there not doubt enough to 
 afford a pretext for an anaitc} Is there not doubt 
 enough to afford a pretext to the Assembly for seizing 
 all executive power .'' On the other hand, there clearly 
 is doubt enough to authorise the President to deny 
 that the case has occurred, and, as no arbiter is ap- 
 pointed, he can try the question only by civil war. 
 
 The other anarchical clause is the iioth, which en- 
 trusts the Constitution and the rights which it gives to 
 the custody of all the French people {dc tons Ics Fran- 
 cais). How are all the French people to protect the 
 Constitution .-* How are they to act as a body, except 
 by an insurrection ? If the Assembly declares the con- 
 stitution violated, and calls on the people en masse to 
 support it, will not this clause authorise them to rise in 
 arms for that purpose } 
 
 From Fauchers' I went to Kay Shuttleworth, at 
 Meurice's. He was at Amiens when Faucher's circular 
 arrived. He ventured at the table d'hote to disapprove 
 
iS49-] Mischievous Resolutions of the Assembly. 145 
 
 it, but was borne down by the company, who said that 
 the time for half-measures was passed ; that the friends 
 of order ought to know one another, and support one 
 another, and that the circular would have an excellent 
 effect on the elections of the department. This, of 
 course, is precisely the objection to it. 
 
 In the afternoon I dined at the Embassy. Among 
 the guests were Abercromby,' just come from Turin, 
 and Dudley Fortescue, from Rome. Fortescue was there 
 for the two months preceding the entrance of the 
 French into Civita Vecchia, and says that Rome was 
 never better governed or more quiet and safe. Aber- 
 cromby does not say the same for Piedmont. The Re- 
 publican party is strong and unscrupulous, utterly 
 indifferent to the Italian nationality, of which we have 
 heard so much, and anxious merely to propagate de- 
 mocracy. It is ready to give up the independence of 
 the country and become the slave of France, if it can 
 get rid of its king and aristocracy. 
 
 Lord Normanby joins in the fear that the Assembly 
 may go on doing mischief all next week. Yesterday it 
 resolved that the duty on fermented liquors should cease 
 at the end of this year, the Government being required 
 in the meantime to provide a substitute. This is a loss 
 of more than 100 millions. Taxes producing about 60 
 millions have already been abolished. So that the 
 dying Assembly has diminished the revenue by above 
 six millions sterling. Lord Normanby does not believe 
 it possible to carry through the next Assenibly, or, if 
 
 ' The late Lord Dunfermline. — Ed. 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 carried there, to enforce a set of new taxes producing 
 six millions sterling. 
 
 Yesterday's sitting has been called ' Dialogues of the 
 Dead,' for almost all who took part in it were among 
 those whose political life has been terminated by their 
 failure in the elections. The survivors let them have it 
 all their own way, and were conversing in groups, till 
 Marrast, the President, was scandalised, and cried out, 
 *We are voting away 100 millions, and no one pays the 
 least attention. If this goes on, I must adjourn the 
 House.' He told us that this morning it had taken a 
 step not perhaps so permanently mischievous, since it 
 can more easily be remedied by the new Assembly, but 
 more immediately dangerous. It had refused to sanc- 
 tion the union in Changarnier's hands of the command 
 of the National Guards and of the garrison of Paris. 
 This union is illegal. It has existed, however, ever 
 since the accession of the present ministry. 
 
 The separation of the two commands in June is sup- 
 posed to have been one of the causes which enabled the 
 insurrection to make such progress during the first two 
 days, and one of the first acts of the present ministry 
 was to vest in Changarnier alone the command of the 
 whole force. The Assembly has always complained of 
 this, and marked its disapprobation by refusing Chan- 
 garnier the salary and allowances which belong to the 
 commander of the National Guard, and to-day it has 
 rejected a bill introduced by the Government to autho- 
 rise the double command in Changarnier for three 
 months longer. He must resign, therefore, one of them. 
 The Provisional Government, said Lord Normanby, was 
 
1849] Defeat of the Piedmontese Army. 147 
 
 accused of doing all that it could to render difficult the 
 task of this Assembly. And this Assembly is doing all 
 that it can to embarrass that which is to come. 
 
 Sunday, May 20. — I called on Abercromby. He 
 does not think that any generalship could have saved 
 the Piedmontese cause. The army had been remodelled 
 after its defeat last year, and was still imperfectly or- 
 ganised. The men were not acquainted with their 
 officers, or the officers with their generals ; the materiel 
 was deficient ; in short, they were quite unprepared for 
 the contest. 
 
 I asked how it came, then, that they chose that time 
 to begin it. It was they that put an end to the armistice, 
 not Radetzki. It was the work, he answered, of the 
 Republican party, whose object it was to get the army 
 across the frontier, and then revolutionise the country. 
 But the coup de gj^dce was Ramorino's treachery. When 
 the Austrians advanced from Pavia, instead of opposing 
 them he fell back on Alexandria, in the hope of seizing 
 that fortress for the Republicans. An insurrection was 
 to have broken out at the same time in Genoa and in 
 Turin, and when once the Republic was established the 
 French were to fraternise with it, and drive back the 
 Austrians. This movement of Ramorino, by enabling 
 Radetzki to pass to the south of the main Piedmontese 
 army, was what rendered its defeat at Novara fatal. It 
 was cut off from Turin, Alexandria, Casale, Genoa, in 
 short, from all its fortresses, and driven up towards the 
 Lago d'Orta and the Lago Maggiore, and disbanded in 
 the Alpine valleys. 
 
148 yournals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 When I returned I found the carriage at the door to 
 take us to St. Cloud. Beaumont came up just as we 
 were starting, and we passed a long morning in the park. 
 Beaumont's expectations are ver}^ gloomy. ' We are on 
 the shore,' he said, ' of an unknown ocean ; we are step- 
 ping into a boat, and have no means of conjecturing 
 what will be the course or the termination of our voyage. 
 All that we know is, that it will depend much more 
 on the currents and the winds than on the rudder.' He 
 blamed what may be called the late ministry — for it is 
 dying — for having acted as if the President were a con- 
 stitutional monarch, a branch of the Legislature, instead 
 of being, as he is, merely its head servant. The double 
 command given to Changarnier, the sanction given to 
 his disobedience of the orders of the Assembly, the ex- 
 pedition to Rome, undertaken without its consent, and 
 carried on in a manner opposed to its wishes, the mon- 
 archical tone of the President's letter to Oudinot, were 
 all instances. They were acts of rebellion against the 
 sovereign. Their whole conduct betrayed an arritrc- 
 pcnscc that the Republic cannot work, and is merely a 
 transition to some new dynasty. 
 
 Whereas, said Beaumont, I believe that the Republic 
 is our only chance of safety. We have tried eveiy other 
 anchor, and every other anchor has parted. It is the 
 only Government compatible with the restless, sus- 
 picious, ill-tempered disposition in which we have been 
 for some years. To avoid hating or despising our 
 governors we must be made to believe that we govern 
 ourselves. 
 
1849] Fortificatio7is of Paris. [49 
 
 Within a few months we shall have to fight another 
 battle with the Anarchists, and this time it will be more 
 decisive than last year. No quarter will be given, no 
 prisoners will be taken ; one side or the other will be 
 destroyed. If we fight for a dynasty I have no hopes ; 
 if we fight for a republic I am sanguine. 
 
 We then talked of foreign politics, and he agreed 
 with me that the Hungarians will probably be a match 
 for the Russians, so as to make French interference in 
 that quarter unnecessary. 
 
 The chances of war, he thinks, are two. First, if the 
 Rouge party become masters, they will rush on Belgium, 
 to revenge the repulse of ' Risquons Tout,' and flatter 
 the popular desire for the Rhine. On the other hand, 
 if the moderate party remain in power, they may think 
 it necessary to occupy the army, and preserve it from 
 socialism by carrying it across the frontier. In this 
 case, however, they will endeavour to avoid quarrelling 
 with England. They will therefore turn towards Italy 
 or Poland, and choose Austria and Russia for enemies. 
 
 He agrees with Faucher that war under any circum- 
 stances is commercial and manufacturing ruin, but he 
 doubts whether even the Anarchists desire it for those 
 purposes. They may wish for confiscation and terror, 
 but they do not steadily foresee and predetermine that 
 their road shall pass through war, national bankruptcy, 
 and assignats. They may accept this road if it be the 
 only one open to them, but they do not seek it. 
 
 As we passed through the fortifications, he pointed to 
 them as a gigantic monument of national folly. I 
 
1 50 yottrnals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 defended them. I said that Paris, with such fortifica- 
 tions, and with 250,000 men armed and, unhappily, 
 practised in war, both foreign and civil, is impregnable ; 
 and that its extent is too great to be invested and 
 starved. That while Paris was an open town, not three 
 days' march from the frontier, it was always uneasy, and 
 that this feeling had been one of the causes which turned 
 French ambition towards Belgium, in order to throw 
 back from Paris the northern frontier ; and the security 
 given to Paris by its fortifications was cheaply bought at 
 the cost of 300,000 francs. 
 
 Beaumont answered that, when he called the fortifica- 
 tions a gigantic folly it was in reference to the intentions 
 of those who proposed them. The real object for which 
 they were erected was the coercion of Paris, and for this 
 purpose they have proved quite ineffectual ; but he agreed 
 with me that they had relieved the Parisians from the 
 fear of foreign invasion, and that this relief was well 
 worth all that they had cost. 
 
 At the Barriere de Passy we fell into the crowd 
 returning from the review. This led us to talk of the 
 army, and we all agreed that one of the most dangerous 
 innovations of the Provisional Government was the 
 giving votes to the soldiers. Socialism — that is to say, 
 the belief that the inequality of conditions is remediable — 
 is natural to all the uneducated. Much reflection and 
 the power of following and retaining a long train of 
 reasoning are necessaiy to enable men thoroughly to 
 master the premisses which prove that, though it is in the 
 power of human institutions to make everybody poor, 
 
1849.] How to Govern tJie Uneducated. 151 
 
 they cannot make everybody rich ; that they can diffuse 
 misery, but not happiness. Among philosophers this is 
 a conviction ; among the higher and middle classes — that 
 is to say, among those to whom an equal distribution of 
 wealth would be obviously unfavourable — this is a preju- 
 dice founded partly on the authority of those to whom 
 they look up, and partly on their own apparent interest. 
 But the apparent interest of the lower classes is the 
 other way. They grossly miscalculate the number and 
 value of the prizes in the lottery of life, they think that 
 they have drawn little better than blanks, and believe 
 those who tell them that if all the high lots were 
 abolished everybody might have a hundred-pound prize. 
 As long as this is the political economy of the poor, 
 there seem to be only three means of governing a 
 densely peopled country in which they form the large 
 majority. One is to exclude them from political life. 
 This is our English policy, and where we have deviated 
 from it, as has been done in some boroughs, the sort of 
 constituents that the freemen make show what would 
 be our fate under universal suffrage. Another is the 
 existence among them of a blind devotion to the laws 
 and customs of the country. The small cantons of 
 Switzerland, Uri, Schweitz, Unterwalden, Glarus, Zug, 
 Appenzell, and the Grisons are p,ure democracies. The 
 males of legal age form the sovereign power, without 
 even the intervention of representatives. But they 
 venerate their clergy, their men of birth and of wealth, 
 and their institutions, and form practically the aristo- 
 cratic portion of Switzerland. A third plan is to rely 
 
152 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 on military power — to arm and discipline the higher 
 and middle classes, and support them by a regular army 
 trained to implicit obedience. 
 
 This seems to be the only course open to France. 
 She cannot recall universal suffrage and withdraw the 
 attention of the poor from politics. She has promised 
 them the election of a sort of king every four years, of a 
 sovereign Assembly every three years, and of mayors 
 and justices almost every day. 
 
 The only law in France for which any affection is 
 felt is the law of equal partition ; the only body for 
 whom there is any respect are the parochial clergy ; and 
 they are valued principally in consequence of the 
 Socialist tendency of the former and the Socialist opinions 
 of the latter. All their other institutions may be said to 
 exist on trial, and without much expectation or even 
 desire of their permanence. 
 
 There remains, therefore, only the third instrument, 
 military force. The majority of the National Guards 
 may be depended on, for they belong to the higher and 
 middle classes, but the army is taken almost exclusively 
 from the lowest. So far as they are politicians, they are 
 Socialists. To a certain extent this is unavoidable. An 
 army in which the average period of service does not 
 exceed six years must share in some measure the feel- 
 ings and opinions of the people. The So,ooo new con- 
 scripts that join it every year must share them com- 
 pletely. Experience, however, shows that an army 
 separated from the rest of the world, and fully occupied 
 in the performance of its duties, quickly acquires an 
 esprit de corps of its own, and forgets its early opinions. 
 
1 849-] Affairs of Hungary. 153 
 
 The French armies in the first revolution soon ceased 
 to sympathise with the people. The giving votes to the 
 soldiers seems to be an expedient for preventing this 
 change. It reminds the soldier that he is a citizen and 
 a proletaire, a member of the vast indigent majority 
 whom the wealthy few rob and oppress. After having 
 given in May his vote to a Socialist Committee, is he 
 likely in July to be the foremost to storm a Socialist 
 barricade .'' 
 
 Monday, May 21. — I called before breakfast on 
 George Sumner.' He knows Kossuth well, thinks him 
 very honest, as well as very able, and believes that 
 nothing but extreme necessity will ever force him to 
 renounce his allegiance to the House of Hapsburg. 
 That allegiance, how^ever, is due to King Ferdinand, not 
 to the person who calls himself Joseph, King of Hun- 
 gary. Ferdinand's abdication was forced, therefore 
 void ; and Joseph's seizure of the crown equally void, 
 not only because the throne is full, but because his 
 accession has not been assented to by the States, or 
 confirmed by his taking the coronation oath. Sumner 
 is angry, therefore, with those who call the Hungarians 
 rebels. The rebels are those who support the Archduke 
 Joseph against their king and his. Sumner maintains 
 that the Hungarians have been in the right throughout. 
 Their connection with Austria was precisely that of 
 England with Hanover. If William IV. had issued a 
 proclamation uniting England and Hanover, fixing the 
 seat of Government in Zell, summoning there a mixed 
 
 ' Brother of the Senator of the United States. Mr. George Sumner 
 died several years ago. — Ed. 
 
154 yoiirnals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 parliament to manage the affairs of the United King- 
 dom, and fixing at his own will the proportion of Eng- 
 lish and Hanoverian deputies, would the English people 
 have obeyed ? 
 
 Hungary is nearly as superior in extent and popula- 
 tion to Austria proper as England is to Hanover. She 
 has a history of her own, and a constitution of her own, 
 which has lasted for 1,000 years, and which she will not 
 exchange for a new one depending on a grant from the 
 crown instead of on the habits and experience of 
 centuries. 
 
 I cannot make out the precise nature of the quarrel 
 between Hungary and Croatia. The demand of the 
 Hungarians that the Magyar language should be spoken 
 in the Diet does not seem a sufficient ground for civil 
 war. Hungary proper is on every side surrounded by 
 other parts of the Austrian Empire. This accounts for 
 our knowing so little of what is going on there. The 
 route by which travellers from Hungar}'- now generally 
 reach us is the Danube, Constantinople, and the Medi- 
 terranean. The restoration of the old connection between 
 her and Croatia is of the utmost importance to her, as it 
 ^\^ould give her a sea-coast, and it would enable her to 
 effect a purpose which she earnestly desires — to open a 
 direct commerce with England. 
 
 After breakfast, Prandi ' and Count Gallina came to 
 
 ' Prandi left Italy in 1 82 1, and lived as a refugee for many years in 
 England, where he was well known in the best society, and much liked. 
 He returned to Italy about the year 1847, and was elected deputy in 
 the Piedmontese Parliament. He'subsequently engaged in some unfor- 
 tunate commercial undertakings, and lost his mind. He died in 1868. — Ed. 
 
1849] State of Piedmont. 155 
 
 us. Gallina gave an interesting account of his last 
 interview with Charles Albert in 1844, when he ceased 
 to be his minister. He then told the King that 
 he saw clouds in the horizon — that he believed that 
 times of difficulty were coming, and that when they 
 came he should offer his services. They are now 
 come, and he has accepted a mission to England, to 
 endeavour to obtain, through our mediation with 
 Austria, a redemption of the contribution which she 
 exacts from Piedmont. It amounts altogether, or rather 
 is likely to amount (for a large part is yet unfixed), to 
 about twelve millions sterling — equal, when w^e compare 
 the wealth and population of the two countries, to a fine 
 of seven times that amount imposed on the British 
 Islands. And this sum, if paid at all, must be paid 
 almost exclusively by Piedmont proper ; that is to say, 
 by a population not amounting to three millions. For 
 Savoy had the good sense to protest against the war, 
 and will join France if she is asked to contribute. The 
 Nice territory is too poor, and the territory of which 
 Genoa is the capital, though the richest portion of the 
 whole kingdom, and next to Piedmont the most popu- 
 lous, never has paid, and never will pay, its share of any 
 public expenditure. In deference to its strength and to 
 its disaffection, it has ahvays been left comparatively 
 untaxed. To raise this sum in the present state of 
 Piedmont, broken down by an unsuccessful war, he 
 believes to be impossible without an amount of suffering 
 and discontent which would overturn not merely the 
 ministry, but the throne. He does not believe that any 
 
156 yo2Lnials kept in France and Italy. [1S49. 
 
 ministiy will attempt it, and, if Austria insists, the con- 
 sequence must be the occupation of Piedmont by her 
 armies. This must bring in the French. A Republican 
 Government will not be able to restrain its subjects when 
 they see Savoy and Piedmont in the hands of Austria. 
 The Austrians will probably be ultimately driven out, 
 Savoy will revert to France, and Piedmont and Genoa 
 will be republics under her influence. This result is 
 contemplated by the Austrians as possible. Schwartz- 
 enberg has said, ' I shall give Piedmont such a lesson 
 that she will not hold up her head again for a centuiy. 
 And if she throws herself on French assistance, the 
 Republicans will give her King a lesson quite as severe, 
 though of a different kind.' He described Charles 
 Albert as shy and reser\-ed, but capable of exerting 
 considerable influence over those with whom he comes 
 in contact. Both these characteristics belong frequently 
 to kings. Gallina was his minister for nine years, from 
 1835 to 1844 — first of finance, and afterwards both of 
 finance and the interior.^ The labour ruined his consti- 
 tution, destroyed the sight of one eye, and injured the 
 other. His average work was twelve hours a day. This 
 excess of business was partly owing to the continental 
 habit of over-recording and over-auditing, and partly 
 to the habits of his master. Charles Albert rose at 4 
 and worked till about 10, then breakfasted and reviewed 
 his troops, gave audiences till dinner, worked again after 
 
 ' He was subsequently Sardinian Minister in Paris and in London. He 
 was a very agreeable man and a man of talent. He died several years 
 ago. — Ed. 
 
iS49-] Character of Charles Albert. 157 
 
 dinner, and went to bed at 9. He read, or attempted to 
 read, every paper that was presented to him, and asked 
 for written remarks on them from his ministers. A 
 great MS. pamphlet was often put into Galhna's 
 hands in the evening, on which the King wished for 
 his opinion the next morning, and he sat up all night to 
 give it. 
 
 Both the military and political studies of Charles 
 Albert have been mischievous. The first led him to be 
 his own general, the second to be his own prime minister. 
 He rather wished his ministers to act without concert, 
 and sometimes kept men in office together who would 
 not speak to one another. Gallina put into his hands 
 in 1835 Tocqueville's introduction to ' La Democratic,' 
 in which the great writer bows in religious terror before 
 democracy, and recognises the finger of God in its irre- 
 sistible progress. But he does not seem to think that 
 the King understood it. It certainly was very long 
 before he acted on it. 
 
 I said that the opinion in England was that the war 
 with Austria was owing partly to the ambition of Charles 
 Albert and partly to the passions of his people, and that 
 either cause would have been sufficient. That his eager- 
 ness to become King of Northern Italy would have led 
 him to invade Lombardy, even if the Piedmontese had 
 not urged him on ; and that, even if he had been anxious 
 for peace, the enthusiasm of the Piedmontese in the 
 Italian cause would have driven him forward. In short, 
 that he had to choose between war and abdication. Gal- 
 lina said that both these opinions were wrong. That 
 
158 yoiirnals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 Charles Albert was vain rather than ambitious, desirous 
 of fame rather than of power ; and that he would hav^e 
 been satisfied with the glory of being the head of the 
 Liberal party in Italy, without any extension of terri- 
 tory. And, as to the feelings of the people, that there 
 was no strong war party in any part of the kingdom 
 except in the Genoese province. That Genoa had 
 always been disaffected, always thinking of its own tra- 
 ditional glories, and desirous of connection rather with 
 Milan than with Turin. That when a change of ministry 
 took place in March 1848, he had himself recommended 
 Pareto, a Genoese, and was thunderstruck when he heard 
 that the first article in the programme of the new 
 ministry was war with Austria. It so frightened the 
 person whom they had intended for their Chancellor 
 that he took his hat and disappeared without saying a 
 word. As for the King having to choose between revo- 
 lution and war, it was nonsense. If he had resisted, as 
 it was his duty to do, he would have been supported by 
 all the kingdom, excepting Genoa. He admitted, how- 
 ever, that the war was popular. It was supposed that 
 it would be easy and short. And the treachery and 
 injustice of an attack, without warning, on a friendly 
 power, were concealed by calling it a war, not for 
 the conquest of Lombardy, but for the freedom of 
 Italy. 
 
 I asked him the real history' of the rejection by Pied- 
 mont of the frontier of the Mincio. He threw the blame 
 on Genoa. Both from her hatred of Turin and her 
 connection with Milan, Genoa wishes Milan to be the 
 
1849.] Defence of Lord Palmerston. 159 
 
 capital of the kingdom of Sardinia. But if the Mincio 
 were the frontier, Milan would be almost a frontier 
 town. If the Venetian provinces were added to the 
 kingdom, Milan would be in its centre, and would 
 almost necessarily become the capital. Neither the 
 strength of Austria nor the weakness of Piedmont was 
 suspected when Austria made the offer of the Mincio. 
 It was believed that three months more of war would 
 drive her troops beyond the Tagliamento. 
 
 Pareto kept the offer in his desk for a fortnight without 
 showing it to his colleagues, and then forwarded it without 
 a syllable of comment to the King. And the King 
 was afraid to accept it on his own responsibility. He 
 said to Franzini, the only minister who was with him, 
 ' See how I am treated. Of course they do not wish me 
 to accept, or they w^ould say so. But they will not take 
 on themselves the responsibility of advising me to 
 refuse.' 
 
 Gallina believes, I think, that the gift of Genoa to 
 Piedmont in 1815 was a cruel kindness. Genoa never 
 acquiesced in it, did not help the general revenue 
 during peace, and has ruined the United Kingdom by 
 provoking and misconducting a war. 
 
 Gallina said that he had heard with astonishment 
 Lord Palmerston accused of intriguing against Austria 
 in 1847. He knew, he said, of his own knowledge, that 
 Lord Minto always said to the Piedmontese Government, 
 ' England cannot countenance any attack on Austria. 
 She thinks the maintenance of the Austrian power intact 
 essential to the safety of Europe.' 
 
j6o yoiirnals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 In the evening we went to hear ' Le Prophete.' The 
 house was very full, as indeed all places of amuse- 
 ment appear to be. The probability, indeed, in the 
 opinion of most persons, the certainty, that in a few 
 weeks Paris will be a bloody field of battle, seems to 
 weigh on nobody's spirits. 
 
 At night, Pierre, the valet dc place, gave us an account 
 of the review. The Government evening papers describe 
 it as an enthusiastically loyal demonstration. Pierre 
 says that it went off very coldly ; that many officers 
 cried 'Vive Napoleon!' but few soldiers; and that the 
 only really enthusiastic shouters were about 300 spec- 
 tators who followed the President, and whom Pierre 
 believes to have been paid. 
 
 Pierre is, however, I suspect, somewhat rouge. He 
 would not tell us for whom he voted ; said, indeed, that 
 he should not tell his wife. 
 
 I went this morning to pay my visits of adieu, but 
 found nobody at home, except Mdme. Faucher and 
 Mdme. de Beaumont. 
 
 Both ladies begged me to urge Mrs. Grote not to re- 
 main in Paris more than three weeks longer: for that 
 time they think that she is safe. Probably, indeed, 
 where she is, she would run little risk, even if an cmaitc 
 took place, provided she lived in the back rooms. The 
 only danger would be that of her house being occupied 
 as a military post. But that can scarcely take place in 
 the Champs Elysees. The road is too broad to be 
 barricaded, and the insurgents will not meet the troops 
 in a fair fight without defences. Besides which, as the 
 
1849] Last Days of the Assembly. 161 
 
 road slopes towards Paris, it would give the assailants a 
 great advantage. During the three or four days that 
 the battle may last she would have to stay at home, and 
 keep the windows closed and the wooden blinds open, 
 with lights at night on the outside, but none within, 
 such being the rcglcmcnt of an emciite. 
 
 It would be advisable to be victualled for a week, as 
 it is often dangerous to go out for supplies. Should the 
 Government triumph, that would be, of course, the whole 
 amount of inconvenience. Nor is it likely that the 
 success of the insurrection would produce much more. 
 
 Frequent as such events have been in Paris during the 
 last sixty years, not one of them has been followed by 
 the only thing to be feared by strangers — a general 
 pillage. 
 
 There w^ould be a difficulty, however, in getting away. 
 The railroads would be broken up to stop the troops, 
 and the country round might remain disturbed and un- 
 safe long after Paris had become quiet under the sceptre 
 of Ledru Rollin and Proudhon. 
 
 ' Such are the topics of a morning visit in Paris in May 
 1849. 
 
 The Funds fell yesterday 7 per cent. When I reached 
 Paris, ten days ago, the Five per Cents were at 91 ; they 
 are now at 'J'J. 
 
 The alarm began with the vote of the Assembly 
 against Leon Faucher, was increased by the refusal of 
 the duty on liquors, and aggravated to a panic by the 
 vote against Changarnier. 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
1 62 yournals kept in France and Italy. [1S49. 
 
 It now appears that out of its 900 members only 3 1 2 
 have been re-elected. 
 
 An attempt was made on Saturday to persuade it to 
 adjourn to-morrow, the 23rd, in order to enable some 
 alterations to be made in the room. But it refused^ and, 
 if 500 of its members can be kept together, will retain 
 its power of mischief till the 26th. 
 
 After leaving Madame de Beaumont, I called on Count 
 Gallina, and agreed to travel with him and Prandi by 
 the 8 o'clock train to-night. 
 
 Between 5 and 6, as we were going to dinner, Prandi 
 entered fresh from the Assembly. He came to say that 
 Gallina could not quit Paris this evening. He had left 
 the Assembly, after a scene of violence far exceeding 
 anything Italian, on the point of virtually declaring war 
 against Austria and Russia. And Gallina and he must 
 stay a day or two to write to their Court. 
 
 This was his report of the sitting. 
 
 A M. Sarrans, one of the politically dead, gave notice 
 yesterday that he should ask the Foreign Minister what 
 were the intentions of the Government with respect to 
 the Russian intervention in Hungary', and should require 
 the Assembly before its dissolution to repudiate a foreign 
 policy * which showed talent only in its cunning, and 
 decision only in its cowardice.' 
 
 To-day, he asked his question, prefacing it by a long 
 speech, in which he denounced the Russian manifesto 
 as a declaration of war against liberty, or, to use the 
 Russian term, against anarchy. At this instant, he said, 
 315,000 Russians are in Hungary, or on their march; 
 
1849-] Wa7'like Debate in the Assembly. i6 
 
 J 
 
 200,000 Austrians are moving to join them. Do you 
 believe that it requires more than half a million of men 
 to suppress the Hungarian revolt ? The thing to be 
 suppressed is Democracy, the common enemy of Russia, 
 Prussia, and Austria, and the coalition which has deter- 
 mined to do this is far more formidable than that which 
 was concocted at Pilnitz. Never before was civilisation 
 exposed to such a danger. If the Ministry are passive, 
 or even irresolute, in its presence, they deseive the 
 execration of Europe. If the Assembly separates with- 
 out forcing them to declare their intentions, it deserves 
 the contempt of France. 
 
 Drouyn de I'Huys' answer was, that when a similar 
 question was asked him a few days ago he had replied 
 that France could not see the entry of the Russians into 
 Hungary with indifference, and that the Government 
 were in communication on this subject with the Courts 
 of St. Petersburg, Berlin, Vienna, and London. Such 
 was still the state of things. If anyone had any other 
 course to suggest, in plain words if anyone preferred 
 war to diplomacy, let him get up and say so. 
 
 On which M. Joly, who had been standing just below 
 the tribune, rushed into it and cried out, ' I accept the 
 challenge ! I accept the responsibility, if responsibility 
 there be ! I declare that I prefer war to infamy ! I pre- 
 fer war to counter-revolution ! I prefer war to such peace 
 as we are now enduring !' And two or three hundred of 
 the Gauche rose, shouting, ' La guerre, la guerre ! plutot 
 la guerre que I'infamie ! ' ' Plutot la guerre que les Bour- 
 bons ! ' 'La guerre, la guerre ! nous voulons la guerre.' 
 
 M 2 
 
164 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 This lasted for some minutes, and then Joly continued, 
 and compared the Russian manifesto to that of the 
 Duke of Brunswick, and 1849 ^o 1792. * In 1792,' he 
 said, ' the Government opposed the coaHtion only with 
 the arms of diplomacy. The Assembly left this folly 
 or this crime unpunished, and the result was the loth of 
 August, and the loth of August was followed by the 2nd 
 of September. Are the sovereigns who now conspire 
 against us less hostile, is the Government less timid, are 
 the people less intelligent, less patriotic, or less daring .-' ' 
 After this threat he proposed an ordrc dit jojir motive, 
 by which the Assembly expressed its alarm at the 
 prospect of Russian intervention in the affairs of Ger- 
 many, and required the Government to use the most 
 energetic means to prevent it. 
 
 In vain some member of the Government — Prandi was 
 not sure who — endeavoured to convince the Assembly of 
 the absurdity of voting the loss of a revenue of 120 
 millions one day, and a war with Austria and Russia the 
 next. The love of war, or of mischief, or the hatred 
 of Russia, was irresistible. Even Cavaignac was carried 
 away ; he proposed an amendment on Joly's order of 
 the day, rather less offensive in terms, but little less so 
 in substance ; and when Prandi left the House they 
 were proceeding to vote, the best hope being that there 
 might not be 500 voters. 
 
 I left Paris at 8 that evening. 
 
i849-] Chm'-itable Duties of a Minister s Wife. 165 
 
 [The new Assembly, the Assemblee Legislative, as it 
 was called, met on June i. Odillon Barrot remained 
 Prime Minister, and Dufaure,Tocqueville, and Lanjuinais 
 were appointed in the places of Faucher, Drouyn de 
 I'Huys, and Buffet. The expected insurrection of the 
 Rouges occurred on June 12, but General Changarnier's 
 measures were so well conceived and executed that the 
 €nic2itc was quickly put down. M. de Tocqueville was 
 Minister for Foreign Affairs when Mr. Senior next visited 
 Paris, on his way to the Pyrenees, in July. — Ed.] 
 
 Paris, Jtdy 26. — We, Mrs. Senior and I, have our 
 old apartments in the Hotel Bristol, and are nearly the 
 only guests. 
 
 July 27. — We went at about 12 o'clock to Mdme. de 
 Tocqueville, whom we found sitting with a large bag 
 of five-franc pieces before her, and an employe in the 
 Foreign-office, who is her secretary of charities, by her 
 side, making out a list of the people among whom the 
 contents of the bag were to be distributed. The table 
 was covered with begging letters. I looked at two or 
 three of them. One was from the widow of a litterateur ; 
 another from a tradesman ruined by the revolution. 
 None of them were supported by any peculiar claims 
 on the Foreign Minister. He was applied to merely as 
 supposed to have a large income. Mdme. de Tocque- 
 ville says that, of course, she makes enquiries, but that 
 they are necessarily superficial, and that she must be 
 constantly deceived, and, at a great sacrifice of time 
 and money, probably does more harm than good. A 
 poor-law seems to be as much wanted for the relief of 
 the rich as of the poor. 
 
1 66 yournals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 We talked of the chances of a prorogation. She said 
 that from the moment it had been suggested an alarm 
 had been spread of a coiip d'etat intended by the Presi- 
 dent. She admitted that many of those around him 
 were urging him to seize monarchical power, and that, if 
 his character had not altered since 1840, he might be 
 supposed accessible to such a temptation ; but she thinks 
 that he has too much sense to make an attempt, the 
 temporary success of which is very doubtful, and the 
 permanent success impossible. And she is sure that 
 none of his Ministers Avould assist him. ' They believe 
 us,' she said, ' to be ambitious conspirators ; but all that 
 we attempt and all that we hope is to keep our own 
 heads and properties, and to protect those of our country- 
 men. We ourselves have removed nothing from our 
 own house. We are mere birds of passage in this 
 hotel.' 
 
 Saturday, July 28. — I went to the weekly meeting at 
 the Institute. It was thinly attended and not very in- 
 teresting. 
 
 We dined with the De Tocquevilles. 
 
 ^ ^ "k ^ ^ 
 
 Sunday, July 29. — I went over with Bancroft ' to 
 visit Lamartine at his house, called ' Madrid,' a pretty 
 villa close to the Neuilly gate of the Bois de Boulogne. 
 We found him confined to the sofa by what he called 
 rheumatism, but, as I suspect, rheumatic gout. He does 
 not expect to enter the Assembly for the next three 
 
 ' Minister of the United States in London in 1849. He is now American 
 Minister in Berlin. — Ed. 
 
1S49] Conversation with Lamar tine. 167 
 
 months. We talked of the chances of war. He thinks 
 that peace is in danger from two parties — those who 
 look to foreign war as a source of internal tranquillity, 
 and those who look to it as a source of internal disorder. 
 The first think that war would preserve the troops from 
 Socialism, that it would divert public attention from 
 anarchical projects of Government, that it would aftbrd 
 hope to disappointed ambitions and employment to un- 
 occupied energies, that it would open a career to the 
 men too highly educated for their actual social position 
 who swarm in Paris more than in any other capital, 
 that it would give popularity and force and patronage 
 to the Executive ; in short, that it would be at the same 
 time a safety valve and a source of power. These views 
 he thinks utterly wrong. Those who entertain them 
 forget that war may be totally unsuccessful, and is sure 
 to be partially so. Every defeat, and there must be 
 many, would occasion outcries against the Ministers and 
 against the generals, complaints of inefficiency, sus- 
 picions of treason, the murder of generals by their 
 troops, the assumption of direct military power by the 
 commissaires of the Assembly, and soon the dictatorship 
 of the Assembly. If the moderates draw the sword, 
 they give to the anarchists the axe. The anarchists see 
 more clearly. They see that war, successful or unsuc- 
 cessful, is increased expenditure and diminished income, 
 double taxation, forced loans, national bankruptcy, in- 
 convertible paper currency, destruction of manufactures, 
 suspension of work, the emigration of the rich, the rage 
 of the poor, and a reign of terror which, by the discreet 
 
1 68 youriials kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 use of that powerful instrument, they hope to prolong 
 indefinitely. The selfish anarchists, who look to a reign 
 of terror as a mere source of power to themselves, are 
 but icw ; but the fanatics, who believe it to be a necessary 
 step in the transition to their Socialist Utopia, are quite 
 numerous enough to be formidable. 
 
 In the evening Bancroft dined with us, and we went 
 together to Thiers'. We found there the ladies of the 
 house, to whom we were not introduced, and about 
 twenty men — among them Lord Normanby and Mignet. 
 Thiers spoke with the utmost contempt of the new 
 Constitution, and laughed heartily at Bancroft for calling 
 himself a democrat Lord Normanby was not more 
 favourable to the Constitution than Thiers. He said that 
 the agricultural part of the population was universally 
 monarchical — not all, of course, in the same sense, but 
 all anti-republican. He joins in the common opinion 
 that this form of government cannot last, and that the 
 next will contain a much stronger infusion of the monar- 
 chical element. 
 
 Monday, Jidy 30. — We called on Mdme. de Tocque- 
 ville, and found her, as before, with her bag of five-franc 
 pieces and her almoner, deciding on petitions. She said 
 that the rising on June 13 was far more serious than it 
 was generally supposed to be. As the Hotel des Affaires 
 Etrangeres is very exposed, she removed all her papers 
 and valuables to her own house, and the ccononie, or 
 house-steward, contributed to the establishment by 
 Bastide, entertained her with assurances of the triumph 
 of the Republique Rouge. 
 
1849.] Conversation with Diinoyer. 169 
 
 ' I thought/ she said, ' after you left us yesterday, how 
 much your conversation showed that you belonged to a 
 settled Government. You are to be absent for three 
 months, and you have no doubt that when you return 
 Queen Victoria will be still on her throne, and Lord John 
 Russell still her Minister, and Mr. Senior still Master in 
 Chancery. No Frenchman can look forward for three 
 months, or indeed for three weeks.' 
 
 From the Affaires Etrangeres I went to Dunoyer's,^ 
 and introduced Bancroft to him. Like the rest of the 
 French world, he could talk only politics. Nothing can 
 be more gloomy than his expectations.^ ' The French,' 
 he says, ' utterly misconceive the purposes for which a 
 Government ought to exist, and if that misconception 
 continue they will fall from revolution to revolution, and 
 from distress to distress, till they end in bankruptcy, 
 anarchy, and barbarism. They think that the purpose 
 of Government is not to allow men to make their for- 
 tunes, but to make their fortunes for them. The great 
 object of every Frenchman is to exchange the labours 
 and risks of a business or a profession, or even a trade, 
 for a public salary. The thousands of workmen who 
 
 ' Dunoyer had from an early age fought in the cause of liberty. In 
 1814 he was one of the founders of the ' Censeur,' a paper which sustained 
 for several years an animated struggle with the ruling powers. When at length 
 the paper was suppressed, M. Dunoyer and his colleague Charles Comte 
 were punished by fine and imprisonment. Dunoyer then gave himself up 
 to studying economical questions, under the guidance of Jean-Baptiste Say, 
 and published several important works. In 1849 he was elected Conseiller 
 d'Etat. He wrote against the principles of the Socialists, and upheld the 
 electoral law of the 31st May, 1850. He took no part in politics after 1S52. 
 He died several years ago. — Ed. 
 
 ^ The substance of the first part of this conversation is contained in the 
 ' Sketch of the Revolution of 1848,' pages i, 2, and 3 of this volume. — Ed. 
 
170 yotirnals kept in France and Italy. [1S49. 
 
 deserted employments at which they were earning four 
 or five francs a day to get 30 sous from the ateliers 
 nationaux were mere examples of the general feeling. 
 To satisfy this desire every Government goes on in- 
 creasing the extent of its duties, the number of its 
 servants, and the amount of its expenditure. It subjects 
 every Frenchman to the slavery of passports, because 
 they give employment to some thousands of officials. 
 It preserves the monopoly of tobacco, because that 
 enables it to give away 30,000 debits de tahac. It 
 has taken on itself both religious and secular instruction. 
 It has long taken charge of highways, bridges, canals, 
 and the forwarding travellers and letters. It has secured 
 the reversion of all the railways, and threatens to take 
 immediate possession of them. It proposes to assume 
 insurance both of life and fire, banking, lighting, paving, 
 and draining towns, and mining. Even with the branches 
 of industry which it leaves to the public it interferes, by 
 prescribing the modes in which they are to be carried on, 
 and by favouring some by bounties, others by repelling 
 competitors, and others by advances of money. And 
 finally, it promises by the Constitution to furnish to 
 ever}^one employment or relief For these purposes it 
 pays and feeds 500,000 soldiers' and 500,000 civilians. 
 For these purposes the 500 millions of expenditure, 
 which were enough during the Consulate, rose to Soo 
 in the Empire, to 970 in the Restoration, to 1,500 
 millions under Louis-Philippe, and to 1,800 millions 
 under the Republic' 
 
 Dunoyer attributes all the revolutions since the i8th 
 
1849-] FailiLve of siLcccssive Gove7'nments. 171 
 
 Brumaire, partly to the violence, exaction, and fraud on 
 which every Government has been forced in order to 
 keep up this system, and partly to the animosity of the 
 parties, which endeavour to upset every existing govern- 
 ment in the expectation of forming part of that which 
 they hope to put in its place. 
 
 ' Napoleon was always opposed to the Republicans and 
 the Legitimists : the Legitimists took the lead in over- 
 throwing him in 18 14, the Republicans in 18 15. The 
 Government of the Restoration was besieged by all the 
 Faubourg St.-Germain, by all its emigrant friends, and 
 by a whole army of the functionaries of the Republic 
 and of the Empire, driven back upon France from the 
 territories which were relinquished. It strove to provide 
 for them by recalling as many as it dared of the abuses 
 of the old regime, by carefully maintaining, and where 
 it could by increasing, those of the Revolution and of 
 the Empire, by repressing every liberty through which 
 its profligacy could be attacked, by dispensing with 
 juries, by suspending the freedom of the press, by inter- 
 fering with the elections, and, when it was met for the 
 second time by an irresistible majority, by abolishing 
 the Constitution. And it fell because it had sacrificed 
 things to persons, because instead of trying to benefit 
 the whole country it had striven to purchase a part of it, 
 and because it had nothing to oppose to the united 
 attack of the Republicans and Buonapartists, except an 
 army which was Buonapartist, and a set of favourites and 
 officials debased by eighteen years of wealth, patronage, 
 and power. Then,' he said, ' came Louis-Philippe. He 
 
1 72 Joiunials kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 found the political world divided into Republicans, Im- 
 perialists, and Legitimists. The Legitimists, of course, 
 were his enemies. The Republicans and Imperialists, to 
 whom he owed his throne, he tried to purchase in the old 
 way by place, and power, and protection, and privilege. 
 But, though the unparalleled prosperity of France under 
 his reign enabled him to raise the public expenditure 
 from 970 millions to 1,500 millions, the number whom 
 he could satisfy was, of course, small compared to the 
 number of those whom he was compelled to disappoint. 
 The Republican and Imperialist parties, which had 
 united to crown him, broke up into four factions. One 
 consisted of the Louis-Philippists, strong in the Chamber 
 but weak in the country ; another formed the Opposition 
 Dynastique, which wished to change the Ministers but 
 to retain the King, or at least the family ; another con- 
 sisted of the Imperialists, who sighed for a Buonaparte 
 and an Empire ; and the fourth of the real Republicans, 
 who desired not to change the Monarch, but to subvert 
 the throne. Of the two last parties, one was formidable 
 from its violence, the other from its numbers, and each 
 has since, to a certain extent, succeeded. But it was not 
 till the end of 1847 that either seemed likely to obtain 
 much influence. Much more was expected from a fifth 
 party, the Legitimists, who, though they entered the 
 Chamber of Deputies in small numbers, were a constant 
 nucleus of disaffection, always endeavouring to make the 
 existing Government work ill. Though Louis- Philippe 
 was able to bribe a steady majority in the Chamber, and 
 to enable that majority to bribe a majority of the electors, 
 
iS49-] Catises of the Revohition of I'^A^Z. 173 
 
 though he could buy hundreds and enable those hundreds 
 to buy thousands, yet he could not purchase millions. 
 Eveiy year, at the beginning of the session, some griev- 
 ance was seized or invented, blown up into gigantic 
 dimensions, and suffered to collapse into insignificance 
 as soon as the address was voted. One time it was 
 the rccenscmcnt dcs partes et dcs fcnctrcs, another time 
 the affairs of Poland, another the droit de visitc, another 
 the Pritchard indemnity, another the Spanish marriages. 
 All were forgotten as soon as they had served their turn. 
 In 1848 it was political corruption and, as its cure, par- 
 liamentary reform. This was the most dangerous mode 
 in which the Government could be attacked ; first, be- 
 cause the imputation of corruption was well-founded, 
 though not peculiar to Louis-Philippe ; and secondly, 
 because the frightful and disgraceful events of the 
 autumn of 1847 filled France with terror and disgust, 
 and led men to look with hate or contempt on a Go- 
 vernment among whose high functionaries were such 
 men as Teste, Cubieres,' and Choiseul-Praslin.^ Then, 
 too, the Opposition Dynastique joined the Republican 
 and Legitimist factions, fancying that it could lead those 
 whom, when the contest came, it was forced to follow. 
 Had it not done this, had it not been too impatient to 
 wait the slow process of parliamentary warfare, it must 
 in time have obtained parliamentary reform, and, what 
 
 ' General Cubieres was interested in a salt mine. He and his associates 
 bribed M. Teste, at that time Minister of Public Works, in order to obtain 
 his support. They were convicted, and Teste tried to commit suicide. — Ed. 
 
 - The dreadful murder of the Duchesse de Praslin by her husband can 
 scarcely yet be forgotten. — Ed. 
 
1 74 yoiirnals kept in France and Italy. [1S49. 
 
 was its real object, office and power. By joining 
 the anti-dynastic parties, by appearing at banquets at 
 which the King's health was not to be drunk, by coun- 
 tenancing all the truths and some of the calumnies with 
 Which the Court was assailed, they produced in the 
 Parisian bourgeoisie and in the National Guard the dis- 
 affection which made them favour the cmeitte during the 
 two first days, when the slightest exertion would have 
 stifled it, and the third day made them obey, in stupid 
 astonishment, the handful of ruffians who proclaimed the 
 Republic' 
 
 He laughed at the prevailing outcry against Socialism. 
 ' Socialism,' he said, ' is merely the present system logi- 
 cally carried out. It is the theory of a paternal Govern- 
 ment, which treats its citizens as children, to be all taken 
 care of by the State. Thiers, who speaks and writes so 
 well against Socialism, is a Socialist so far as he is an 
 Imperialist and a Protectionist.' 
 
 This is a very imperfect sketch of a conversation which 
 lasted a couple of hours. It was not indeed a conversa- 
 tion, but a monologue ; for Dunoyer was anxious to pour 
 out to an American and an Englishman his indignation 
 against paternal government and centralisation, and 
 Bancroft and I were delighted to hear him. 
 
 After leaving Dunoyer I went to the Assembly. The 
 Legislative Assembly were to-day rather less noisy than 
 my recollections of the Constituent, and M. Dupin ^ in- 
 terferes less than M. Marrast.^ Still the interruptions 
 
 ' President of the Assemblee Legislative. 
 * President of tlie Assemblee Constituante. 
 
1S49] Debate in the Assembly. 175 
 
 prevented much continuous speaking. The subject dis- 
 cussed was a motion by M. Creton, that the decision 
 of the Constituent Assembly of May 19, ordering the 
 tax on hquors to cease on January i next, the Govern- 
 ment being required to find a substitute in the mean- 
 time, should be recalled. M. Passy, the Minister of 
 Finance, moved that the question be adjourned to next 
 week, before which time he will have brought forward 
 his budget ; and, according to the rcglancnt as ex- 
 pounded by the President, the question of adjournment 
 only could be debated. He was unable, however, to 
 prevent speaker after speaker from discussing the merits 
 and demerits of the tax. M. Mauguin, for instance, 
 proclaimed that the question was whether an unjust, 
 demoralising, impious tax should be continued — or 
 rather, attempted to be continued — for he warned the 
 minister that he would be resisted by force. In short, 
 the question was whether they would or would not have 
 a new revolution. M. Passy replied that, without de- 
 fending this tax in particular, he must say that when 
 the Constituent Assembly required the Government to 
 find a substitute for a tax producing 4 millions sterling 
 a year, it required what was impossible in France, and, 
 indeed, in any country in the world. At last the ad- 
 journment was adopted. 
 
 In the afternoon v/e dined with Bancroft, and then 
 
 went to the Vaudeville to see ' La Foire aux Idees.' It 
 
 is a merciless satire on the Republic and on all who 
 
 administer it, and was receivecj with great applause by a 
 
 ■full audience. 
 
176 y our nals kept in Fra7ice and Italy. [1849. 
 
 I finished the evening with the Horace Says. He is 
 waiting with anxiety for the Budget, which is promised 
 a week hence, and is to contain a plan for equahsing the 
 revenue and expenditure. How this is to be done in the 
 present state of French poHtics, foreign and domestic, 
 Say cannot conjecture. 
 
 Tuesday, July 31. — Sumner and Twisleton breakfasted 
 with us. Sumner still expects the Hungarians to main- 
 tain their independence against the Austrians and 
 Russians, but should this fail he thinks that rather than 
 return to Austria they will become Russian. I have 
 heard this language in London from Pulski and others, 
 and I remember saying to Teleki that I thought it a 
 strong proof of the extent to which national folly can 
 go. As a portion, and the most important single por- 
 tion, of the Austrian Empire, Hungary must always 
 exercise great influence over the central power, and may 
 in time obtain general good government. As a province 
 of Russia it has nothing to hope but permanent sub- 
 mission to a semi-barbarous despotism. Purgatory' is 
 bad, but from hell 7nilla est redemptio. 
 
 After breakfast Ave met M. Wohrman at the Exposi- 
 tion de rindustrie. He is a Courlander, and has been 
 kept for some years in Paris by the Russian Govern- 
 ment, to report to them on the improv^ements in French 
 manufacturing processes. Until lately the Government 
 advanced large funds to the Russian manufacturers, and 
 its agents of this kind were numerous. Since the Hun- 
 garian war it has discontinued these advances, and with- 
 drawn the greater part of its commercial missionaries. 
 
1849.] Plan for encouraging Labour. 177 
 
 Wohrman, however, is retained. He talked of a speech 
 of Cobden's at some meeting on the Hungarian question, 
 in which the Russian army was described as ill paid and 
 ill fed, and the Russian finances as distressed. It will 
 do, he thinks, great harm to the cause of free trade in 
 Russia. Cobden is considered there as the representa- 
 tive of free trade, which has become popular there chiefly 
 on his authority. This speech will be considered a 
 tissue of errors and calumnies, and among the Russians, 
 who are not good logicians, it will throw discredit on his 
 other opinions. 
 
 From the Exposition I went to the Assembly. The 
 matter debated was a motion by M. Roselli-Moret, that 
 a plan for encouraging labour by advances on moral 
 security should be examined by a committee. 
 
 His views, as far as they were shown in the discussion, 
 were these : — 
 
 Labour to be profitable must be assisted by capital. 
 The man who has no capital can obtain it only by 
 oftering a security, which may be physical or moral. 
 Ever)^one who can offer a sufficient security of either 
 kind ought to be able to obtain an advance of capital, 
 and as individuals cannot be forced to advance it, it must 
 be advanced by the Government. 
 
 To this it was objected that such a proposition went 
 beyond Ic droit an travail, since to propose to give to 
 every labourer a right to as much capital as his em.ploy- 
 ment requires, is to give to the labouring classes a right 
 to the whole capital of the country : in fact, a right to 
 more than the whole capital, for there is no branch of 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
1 78 yournals kept in France and Italy. [1849- 
 
 industr>' that could not profitably employ more capital 
 than it can obtain. 
 
 All these plans, said another member, rest on three 
 propositions : the State is to supply capital ; it must 
 supply it in the form of paper money, since it has no 
 other funds capable of indefinite extension ; and this 
 paper money must represent either nothing or property 
 belonging, not to the State, but to individuals. Disguise 
 it as we may, it is a scheme to take the wealth of those 
 who have, in order to place it in the hands of those who 
 have not. 
 
 The proposition was rejected by 323 votes to 162 ; a 
 formidable minority. 
 
 Bancroft dined with us, and at 9 o'clock we went to 
 Mdme. de Tocqueville's Reception. The arrangement 
 was very German. Mdme. de Tocqueville sat in an arm- 
 chair by the mantelpiece, and the ladies as they arrived, 
 about twenty in all, were ranged in a line by her side. 
 The men stood in groups in the middle of the room. 
 Once or twice Mdme. de Tocqueville escaped from her 
 throne and sat on an ottoman, but she soon returned — 
 and she told us that even this was an innovation. Her 
 predecessors never rose. The whole was stiff. 
 
 [On Wednesday, August i, Mr. Senior left Paris. He 
 had suffered from bronchitis in the spring, and was 
 ordered to try the mineral waters of Eaux Bonnes. He 
 visited likewise Cauterets, Bagneres de Bigorre, and 
 
tS49.] Eaiix Bonnes, \ 79 
 
 Biarritz, besides all the great towns which lay in his way. 
 Descriptions of them, and of the long walks and rides 
 which he took among the mountains, are contained in 
 the journals ; but I have omitted all but a few extracts, 
 to make room for more important matter. — Ed.] 
 
 Eaux Bonncs; Wednesday^ A Kg. \ 5 .—Walked by the 
 Chaussee to Eaux Chaudes to breakfast ; then took a 
 guide and returned by the Goursie and the mountain 
 which rises immediately above the town — I believe it 
 to be the Brecque. The walk by the Chaussee took 
 me an hour and a half, the return by the mountains 
 five hours and three-quarters, three of which were em- 
 ployed in the ascent from Eaux Chaudes to the pla- 
 teau of the Go'ursie— more than two-thirds of this 
 was a pathless scramble up a nearly perpendicular 
 steep. The view from the plateau was magnificent. 
 Due north v/as the valley of Ossau, Pau, and then the 
 plains of France for fifty or sixty miles farther ; due 
 south was the Pic du Midi, standing alone, and seen 
 from its base to its summit ; on every other side high 
 mountain ridges. If I were a millionaire I would build 
 myself a house on the Brecque at the point where it 
 overlooks Eaux Bonnes. I should pass July and 
 August there, in the finest air and some of the finest 
 scenery in Europe. Nothing, to be sure, could reach me 
 on wheels, but I should have a very good horse-commu- 
 nication with Eaux Bonnes, and keep cov/s and grow 
 vegetables on the mountain. 
 
 My guide was thirty-seven years old, a day labourer, 
 
i8o journals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 without property and unmarried. He could earn thirty 
 sous a day, or more, and if he was out of work 
 went into the mountains, cut a beech and made a 
 cart, and thought himself better off than the small pro- 
 prietors. From twenty to twenty-seven he was in the 
 1 6th Regiment of Foot, and liked the ser\ace much. 
 He probably would have remained in it if his Colonel 
 had not quarrelled with his immediate superior, who 
 endeavoured, according to my informant, to oppress 
 both the Colonel and his men. The Colonel tried to 
 break his sword on parade, and, not being able to do so, 
 threw it on the ground, and said that Avhoever liked 
 might pick it up — he never would. And 400 of the 
 men, whose time of service had expired, left the sendee 
 with him. As a private he was well fed, lodged, and 
 clothed, and had five centimes (a halfpenny) a day to 
 spend, and was as neat as a gentleman. He thought 
 the service so popular that the conscription was unneces- 
 sary. More than enough volunteers would enter. I 
 asked if the years spent in the army at all disqualified 
 the peasantry for ordinary work. He said. No; what 
 had been early learned was not forgotten. He set to 
 Avork the day after he returned, and did not find himself 
 the worse workman. I asked if the Republic was 
 popular. ' O yes,' he said ; ' we all voted for Louis Na- 
 poleon, partly because of his uncle, who was the greatest 
 man that ever lived. To be sure he was too ambitious ; 
 he said that there ought to be only one God, one sun, 
 and one emperor in the world — which was trop fort — 
 but then he made all the laws which govern France. 
 
1849] Politics of a Peasant. 181 
 
 And his nephew is the richest man in the world ; he 
 supports all the poor in Paris. He offered to supply the 
 Treasury with all the money of which Ledru Rollin 
 robbed it. He would certainly be king or emperor for 
 life, which would not much signify, as, if they disliked 
 him, they should turn him out, as they did his prede- 
 cessors. They knew nothing of Guizot, or Odillon 
 Barrot, or Cavaigiiac in his country ; the only names 
 known were Lamartine, Ledru Rollin, and Louis Na- 
 poleon. As for Lamartine, he was a qucrellaLr, a 
 taquineur. Ledru Rollin was a thief There were 
 40,000 people in Paris who paid him forty sous a day 
 a-piece. He intended to make himself king. It was 
 the money which he had carried away which made the 
 Republic poor.' 
 
 I asked him if he had seen bears in the mountains. 
 He said not unfrequently. The bear is afraid of man, 
 and if he perceives you at a distance steals off. If you 
 come suddenly upon him he rises on his hind legs in an 
 attitude of defence, but does not attack. But if wounded 
 he is a most dangerous enemy. Nothing but a bullet 
 will pierce his hide. A single wound, though it may be 
 mortal, does not stop him ; he rushes on desperately as 
 long as his strength lasts. About three years ago a 
 Garde Champetre killed one on the Pic de Ger, which 
 was the largest ever seen — as big as a cow. By tracking 
 its footsteps he found the spring at which it drank, lay 
 hid behind a rock near the path, fired as it passed, and 
 wounded it. It stopped, and he fired the other barrel, 
 and wounded it again. The bear, not seeing its enemy. 
 
1 82 yoiiTuals kepi in France and Italy. \iH9- 
 
 posted itself at the root of a large beech, so that it could 
 not be attacked from behind. The huntsman loaded, 
 but was forced to come from his cover to fire. The 
 instant the bear saw him it rushed at him. He fired, 
 hit it in the head, and it fell ; but though a very bold, 
 indeed rash, man, he was too much alarmed to wait to 
 see the result, but scrambled away down the mountain. 
 The next day he returned, and found the bear dead. 
 They tried to eat its flesh, but it was coarse and rank. 
 
 M. Moncald, the author of the * Itineraire aux Eaux 
 Bonnes,' tells the story of a bear-hunt in v.-hich he 
 was one : — 
 
 My six companions and I (he says) were posted separately 
 in the most promising paths, up to our middles in snow, and in 
 a sun of a hundred degrees. For eight mortal hours we stood 
 sentinel — as to six of us, in vain ; but the seventh, a mighty 
 hunter, was more fortunate. Suddenly we heard two shots in 
 his direction. Guides, sportsmen and all, we ran towards him, 
 and found him in the highest excitement, hurrahing, gesticu- 
 lating, shouting to us that he had wounded the bear, but that 
 the brute had trotted by him at the distance of seventy or 
 eighty feet, so that he was not sure where the ball had lodged. 
 There were no traces of blood on the snow, and we feared that 
 the enemy had escaped without much injury, and that the only 
 result of the day would be my friend's glory in having hit a 
 real live bear. While this was going on, tlie oldest of the 
 guides was looking narrowly about him, and at last, as we 
 are old friends, he said to me aside, ' Come with me, and I'll 
 show you just what has happened. Here I put your friend. 
 Here came the bear along tlris road, just over his head. You 
 may see his footsteps and the stones which he threw down. Now 
 look at the marks of your friend's shoes \ the bear must have 
 passed within a yard of him. But he did what I have known 
 
i849-] Bears. 1 83 
 
 many a one do before him ; he crouched behind the rock, let 
 the beast pass, and fired when he was in no danger of hitting 
 his mark. But take no notice ; we must humour the gentle- 
 man. They pay us well for going out with them in the 
 summer, and in the winter we kill the bears.' 
 
 In the evening I teased my friend with questions, and at last 
 brought him to confess. ' I was delighted,' he said, ' when the 
 noise of the stones, which he displaced, announced the bear's 
 approach. I cocked my gun, and determined to put a ball 
 into his brain. But when he peered over the rocks, just above 
 my head, as big as any four of his fellows in the Jardin des 
 Plantes, I own that I suddenly thought of my wife, and my 
 children, and my friends. I remembered that I had only my 
 gun and my cutlass. The nearest of you was 500 yards off. 
 If I had missed, or slightly wounded him, I might have been 
 eaten up before any of you could come to my assistance. So 
 I resolved to part on good terms with my new acquaintance, 
 and reserved my fire till he was out qI sight.' 
 
 Sunday, Aug. 26. — Rode through Laruns to Louvie 
 in the Val d'Ossau. Nothing can be more decep- 
 tive than the villages seen from a distance. They are 
 charmingly placed, being on little shelves of table-land 
 on the sides of the mountains, or on projecting promon- 
 tories, and always 
 
 Bosomed high in tufted trees. 
 
 I was often tempted to ride up to them. But the 
 moment you enter you find yourself in a lane more 
 rocky and dirty than even the approach to it, among 
 black-looking stone buildings, closely packed together, 
 looking like gigantic pigsties, and in a population of 
 beggars. Children call out from two pair of stair 
 
1 84 yoiirnals kept in France and Italy. [1S49. 
 
 windows, ' Donncz-moi iin soti ; ' women withdraw 
 their hand from the cart-load of hay or wood which 
 they carry on their heads to hold it out to you. The 
 only person who ever abstains is the young, able-bodied 
 man, and he sets his children at you. In this country, 
 Sunday is often the market day. Laruns was almost 
 impassable from the crowds of country people, with 
 their droves of lean goats, sheep, and pigs, and the 
 display of baskets and woollen work and crockery ware 
 that covered the market-place. They are a v&xy hand- 
 some race. The men are tall, with spare figures, good 
 legs, and aquiline noses. The women have black hair 
 and eyes, glowing brunette complexions, and dimpled 
 cheeks. Their figures, too, are often very fine, probably 
 improved by the habit of carrying things balanced on 
 their heads. They are a contrast to the round-shouldered, 
 stooping German peasantry. 
 
 Wednesday, Aug. 29. — Rode by the Brecque nearly 
 to the plateau of the Goursie. It was a day of brilliant 
 sunshine below, but shifting clouds among the moun- 
 tains. The ride from the Brecque to the Goursie lies 
 across some wide cols and round high promontories of 
 mountains, and partly through a wood. The number of 
 cattle, by making tracks of their own, have confused the 
 path. But in clear weather it is easy to get to the 
 Goursie by keeping in its direction, and getting round 
 the natural obstacles that occur. To-day, however, the 
 whole crests of the mountains were generally covered 
 with cloud. From time to time there was a rent, 
 through which the valley of Ossau and the green moun- 
 
1849-] A Mountain Ride. 185 
 
 tain sides were seen in bright sunshine, looking Hke 
 glimpses of Paradise. I observed one remarkable 
 eiTect. The long road through the valley of Ossau 
 looks in clear weather like what it is — sometimes flat, 
 sometimes declining. To-day it was frequently the 
 only object that could be distinguished, the sun's rays 
 being swallowed up by the green of the fields and woods, 
 but reflected from the white surface of the roads with 
 sufficient strength to pierce the mist. So seen, it seemed 
 to mount almost perpendicularly. I could have fancied 
 that it rose up before me to the skies. What the eye 
 sees must be an upright surface, a wall ; but aerial 
 perspective corrects the impression, and shows that 
 much of what looks perpendicular is horizontal. Here 
 there was nothing to correct the visible appearance. I 
 believe that once or twice I got within three or four 
 hundred yards of the plateau, but I was constantly 
 losing the right direction, and at last thought it prudent 
 to return. This, however, was not very easy. I lost 
 myself again and again, went backwards and forwards 
 over the same mountain ridges, and skirted the same 
 beech woods, and I began to speculate on the chances 
 of my being missed and discovered from Eaux Bonnes, 
 till the mist suddenly cleared for half a mile round me, 
 and I found a track that I remembered. 
 
 Thursday, Aitg. 30. — A clear day. I rode to the 
 Goursie, this time without difficulty. The effect, how- 
 ever, of the bright sun and perfectly unclouded moun- 
 tains was very inferior to the half-revealed, half-covered 
 prospects of yesterday. The mountains, seen at once 
 
1 86 yoiirnals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 from root to summit, seemed much lower ; the sunshine, 
 uncontrasted by darkness, was less brilliant ; the valleys 
 did not look so green as yesterday. Such scenes as these 
 ought to be visited under different circumstances, but if 
 they can be seen only once it should be on a day when 
 sunshine is partially obscured by mist. 
 
 Tuesday, Sept. 11. — Bagneres de Bigorre. Walked 
 to the Palombiere. It consists of a set of magnificent 
 beech trees, planted two and two along the ridge of a 
 mountain to the northwest of the town, overlooking a 
 sort of sea of lower mountains which stretches along 
 between the high chain and the plain towards the Medi- 
 terranean. Between these trees immense nets, 100 feet 
 high, are extended, so thin, however, as to be scarcely 
 visible. Before them, towards the west, are very high 
 perches, as high as the trees, in each of which a man 
 stands at this time of the year to watch the approach of 
 the wild pigeons. He can see them about a quarter of 
 hour before they arriv^e, and gives notice to those below 
 to get ready the pulleys and strings. As soon as the 
 pigeons approach he throws a piece of wood into the 
 flock. They are alarmed, fly nearer the ground to take 
 refuge among the trees, and are caught in the nets. I 
 found a priest there, in his long ecclesiastical robes, 
 busily employed in attending to the nets. His brother, 
 he told me, rented them. I asked him if the trees had 
 been planted for that purpose, He said certainly, and 
 they must have been planted 300 years ago, for in that 
 exposed situation they grow very slowly. He pointed 
 out a tree which he had known for iZ years, still little 
 
1849-] Pyrenean Dogs. 187 
 
 more than a sapling. When the full season comes, 
 which is not till the middle of October, they catch some 
 times 100 pair a day. 
 
 Friday, Sept. 14. — I walked to La Bassere, an ancient 
 fort on the summit of an insulated slate rock, about six 
 miles from Bagneres. About a mile from La Bassere I 
 passed an enormous dog, on duty over sheep in a neigh- 
 bouring field. He left his sheep to growl and bark at 
 me ; left the field and came down into the road and 
 followed me for half a mile, growling and barking with a 
 v^ery malignant expression. I asked a man whom I 
 met at the castle if there was any danger in passing him. 
 He said, 'Assurement il y a du danger. II est tres- 
 mechant' On my return, by a parallel ridge of hills, I 
 asked my way of a very fine man, a peasant, who said 
 that he was going my way and would show me. Pro- 
 perty, he said, was much divided, few persons possessing 
 more than 100 jonrnccs, which we made out to be 12 
 or 13 acres ; but in this soil and climate, with three or 
 four crops from the same land in a year, this is equal to 
 twenty in England. The people, he said, were poor but 
 industrious, and, on the whole, not ill off. As we passed 
 a cottage, charmingly nestled among walnuts and ches- 
 nuts, on the side of the mountain, he said that it was his 
 house, and asked me to come in and take some milk and 
 bread, which of course I did. On a tree before the door 
 was a Republican tricolor. I complimented him on his 
 patriotism. He answered, ' The children have put it 
 there because I am the Maire of La Bassere.' I asked 
 him what he thought of Leon Faucher's opinion, that the 
 
i88 Jomnials kept in France and Italy, [1849- 
 
 maires ought to be selected by the Minister, instead of 
 being chosen, as they are since the Revolution of 1848, 
 by the people. He said that Faucher (whose name, by- 
 the-bye, he had never heard) was perfectly right. Better 
 people would be appointed, and the Government would 
 hav^e more confidence in them. He did not recollect 
 the names of the representatives of his department, 
 though he was the returning officer of his commune ; he 
 brought me the list, but knew nothing about them. He 
 had voted for Louis Napoleon. Why } For his uncle's 
 sake. Why .'' Because he made the laws which govern 
 France, and because under his reign they paid much less 
 in taxes. Napoleon's military glory did not much affect 
 him. The conscription by which it was bought was a 
 dreadful calamity. He did not recollect it, but heard it 
 spoken of with horror by those who did. The room in 
 which we took our bread and milk was a large ground 
 floor apartment, with two beds, commanding a glorious 
 view. I asked after my acquaintance, the dog. He 
 said that there was not much danger in riding by him 
 on horseback when you passed rapidly, but that it was 
 not safe to walk by him. Such dogs are necessar}- to 
 protect the sheep against the wolves, which in winter 
 come down from the high forests. 
 
 After I left him, I fell in with a man who described 
 himself as a maker of millstones, and wanted me to take 
 a specimen of his work to England. I said that I feared 
 I had not quite room in my carpet bag. I asked him 
 what he thought of the Republic. He answered that he 
 was no politician, for that la politique was merely la 
 
iS49.] Neat Villages. 189 
 
 chasse mix places, and he did not want a place. This 
 is Dunoyer's view. 
 
 Wednesday, Sept. 19. — I rode with Knight Bruce ' to 
 see La Bassere. Here we passed my old acquaintance 
 the dog, who followed us growling and barking for about 
 half a mile. We then wandered among the deep valleys 
 which surround the old castle, crossed the table-land 
 which commands the view of the high chain and of the 
 plains, and returned through some neat, picturesque vil- 
 lages a little off the high road. The villages and farm- 
 houses of this part of France are by far the most civilised 
 that I have seen on the Continent, except in Holland 
 and Switzerland. In many of them there are three or 
 four country houses, generally old, but well kept up, and 
 occupied by gentry ; low, covering much ground, the 
 offices forming usually a separate building. The second 
 floor generally looks into a portico or verandah, open to 
 the south. 
 
 Thursday, Sept. 20. — Crossed the river and rode 
 along the right bank through grotesque old villages 
 covered with trees and vines to Mont Gaillard, and re- 
 turned by Caesar's Camp. Every cottage is surrounded 
 by walnuts, cherry trees, and chesnuts, and the vines, 
 often of most venerable antiquity, with stems as large as 
 a man's arm, climb up to their tops. The" grapes are 
 usually black, and hang in festoons among the branches, 
 sometimes quite concealing the tree. 
 
 Tuesday, Oct. 2. — Drove to Biarritz, four miles from 
 Bayonne, and established ourselves at M. Waltry's — a 
 ' The late Lord Justice. — Ed. 
 
190 yotirnals kept in France and Italy. [1S49. 
 
 detached house in a garden on the cHff overlooking the 
 Bay of Biscay. He is a very fine old man, above %o : 
 he crossed the great St. Bernard with Buonaparte, wears 
 the ribbon of the Legion of Honour, and is employed in 
 the Mairie at Bayonne. His wife, I believe a Spaniard, 
 cooks for us. They have four sons in the army ; one 
 expects immediately to be made an officer. 
 
 Biarritz is an irregular village of white houses, most 
 of them in gardens, and with trees, generally pollard, 
 planes, or figs, before their doors, scattered over two sand- 
 stone promontories advancing into the Bay of Biscay, 
 and wedged into the narrow valley between them. The 
 rocks are eaten by the waves into all sorts of fantastic 
 forms, arches, caves, rocky islands, and promontories, 
 which run out into very deep water, on which a surf 
 beats, even in calm weather, which no one v/lio knows 
 only the German Ocean or the Channel can imagine. 
 To the south are the Pyrenees ; the nearest of them 
 seems about 10 miles off", the most distant, to the west, 
 rwust be those of La Montana. Between Biscay and 
 Asturia, they seem to be about 80 or 90 miles from 
 us ; the most distant that I can make out to the east 
 are the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, about 120 miles dis- 
 tant, and the Pic du Midi de Pau, about 100 ; so that 
 the whole visible line is about 200 miles long. There 
 can be few points in Europe commanding so extensive a 
 range. 
 
 At the entrance of the village, ]\Ir. O'Shea, the great 
 Madrid banker, has built a pretty marine villa, where 
 he spends four or five months every summer. I had a 
 
1S49.] Spanish Banditti. 191 
 
 letter for him from Mrs. Austin, and found him very sen- 
 sible and agreeable. I told him that we thought of 
 running over to St. Sebastian, and asked him about the 
 safety of the roads. He said that they were as safe as 
 in the greater part of Europe ; that he had heard of only 
 two robberies during the last year, one of which took 
 place about two months ago, about 500 yards from the 
 gates of Madrid. Two diligences, containing forty-one 
 passengers, were travelling together ; they were met by 
 three men, who made them drive off by a cross road 
 four or five miles, robbed them, and let them go, after a 
 detention of a couple of hours. He admitted, however, 
 that he had not yet ventured to visit an estate of 7,000 
 acres, which he bought fourteen years ago, near Toledo. 
 But he is a marked man ; his visit would be foreknown, 
 or at least his return, and he might be taken to the 
 mountains for a ransom. That happened to a young 
 American three or four years ago. He disappeared ; 
 and soon after a letter came to his friends to say that he 
 was in the hands of robbers, and would be shot on a 
 given day unless 1,000 dollars were sent. Mr. O'Shea 
 thought that 500 would do, and sent them by a re- 
 claimed robber. The man came back, reported that the 
 money had been refused, and that he himself had been 
 robbed of it on his return ; and, at last, the whole 1,000 
 were sent. It arrived just in time, and his friend re- 
 turned with the messenger, looking very thin. He had 
 not been illtreated, but had been fed with only raw 
 potatoes, the robbers themselves having nothing better, 
 and the diet had not proved wholesome. Mr. O'Shea 
 
T92 JoiLrnals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 cares little about mere road robbery. He has been four 
 times robbed, and always treated with great kindness. 
 The last time the robber gave him back a few dollars 
 to carry him to Valladolid, and took a very affectionate 
 leave of him. 
 
 Wednesday, Oct. 3. — I hired a pony and rode to find 
 the mouth of the Adour. But I got into a labyrinth of 
 sandhills and vineyards, and was forced to make my 
 way to the beach, as the only safe road. The vines are 
 planted on the southern exposure of the sandhills, and 
 kept very low, not above 18 inches high — a contrast to 
 the vines in the higher districts, which are carried to 
 the tops of the chesnuts, cherry trees, and ashes, and 
 hang in festoons from all the branches. On the beach I 
 found some women returning from bathing ; they were 
 walking two and two, and I was struck with the pecu- 
 liarity of their dress — black gowns with white veils. I 
 asked a countryman who they were ; he said, ' Reli- 
 gieuses, from a neighbouring conv^ent.' 
 
 Though October 3, the sun was so hot that I was 
 forced to leave the beach, which I did with regret ; the 
 surf was magnificent ; a land breeze blew off the tops of 
 the waves before they broke, and the spray formed a 
 succession of rainbows. On my return I passed the 
 convent ; it looks like a mere farm-house. 
 
 Tlucrsday, Oct. 4. — To-day was the highest tide of the 
 whole year, and, as it was agitated by a breeze from the 
 south, it was feared that the bathing-houses might be 
 carried away. At about two o'clock, therefore, the whole 
 able-bodied population of Biarritz was active in taking 
 
s849.] High Tide in the Bay of Biscay. 193 
 
 them down. At about 4, though it was raining, all the 
 visitors were scattered over the rocks to watch the 
 breakers. I never saw anything resembling them. The 
 waves came in very slowly at intervals of about 100 
 yards apart, each, as far as I could judge, about 12 feet 
 high. They first broke on outlying rocks, and threw up 
 sheets of spray to 40 or 50 feet, then met with the pro- 
 montories and reefs, and dashed clean over them, rushed 
 through the arches which are eaten through many parts 
 of the reefs, poured into the caves in the cliffs, and when 
 they could get no farther were driven back with a report 
 as loud as that of artillery. The ground where we 
 stood, a rocky promontory, frequently shook beneath 
 us. The finest seas that I have ever seen — that is, at 
 Horn Head and at the Giant's Causeway — are lakes com- 
 pared to the Bay of Biscay, 
 
 Friday, Oct. 5. — The rain of yesterday has been snow 
 in the high Pyrenees. The distant ranges to the east 
 are all white. 
 
 Sunday, Oct. 7. — Drank tea with the O'Sheas. He 
 told me the story of the marriage of his eldest son, now 
 only 21. When he was 20, and young for his age, he 
 told his step-mother that he was in love with a daughter 
 of the Duke of Montemar, a girl of 18. His parents 
 were sorry to hear it — first, because they wished him to 
 marry an Englishwoman ; and secondly, because they 
 thought him too young. But as to the lady, and the 
 connection, there could be no objection. The father 
 was an old friend of O'Shea's, and the children had been 
 playfellows from youth. The first step to be taken was 
 
 VOL. I. O 
 
194 yoiirnals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 that O'Shea should call on the duke and ask for his 
 daughter. The duke was prepared for the visit. He 
 was in full dress, with two secretaries, his family 
 archives, and a sort of Durbar of attendants, O'Shea 
 ought to have gone in state, but lie walked to the house 
 alone in a morning dress, and begged the duke, as an 
 old friend, to talk over the matter in private. By the 
 Spanish law, a husband takes his wife's rank. The 
 duke has a son and three daughters ; thirteen different 
 dukedoms have centred in him, and he can divide them 
 among his children. He has given one to each of his 
 other daughters, and proposed to do the same for the 
 future Mrs. O'Shea. O'Shea objected. His son, he 
 said, would not have a ducal fortune ; but his objections 
 were overruled, and young O'Shea is to be a duke, 
 though, at his father's request, his elevation is for the 
 present postponed. The O'Sheas spoke in very high 
 terms of the Spaniards, as kind, amiable, joyous people. 
 Their houses are always open, though they have few 
 meetings by express invitation. 
 
 Monday, Oct. 8. — Drank tea with the O'Sheas ; they 
 return to Spain to-morrow. He spoke, like all the 
 world, in the highest terms of Lord Clarendon. Since 
 we have had no Minister our affairs have gone admirably. 
 Anything that an Englishman wishes to have done is 
 done more readily than if it had to be asked for 
 officially. 
 
 The tariff will be published in a few weeks. It was 
 facilitated by the cessation of our diplomatic relations. 
 It could not be attributed to our dictation. 
 
1 849-] Revolution leads to Despotism, 195 
 
 I asked him about Salamanca. He is a man, O'Shea 
 says, of great talent, but thoroughly unprincipled ; and 
 it is a defect in the Spanish character that such a man 
 is generally well received. Nothing excludes a man 
 from society, if he is supposed to have the means of 
 getting on. 
 
 Sunday, Oct. 14. — We left Biarritz. I was very sorry 
 to do so. 
 
 Orleans, Oct. 21. — At a quarter after 10 we started by 
 
 the railway and got to Paris by a quarter after i. In 
 
 the evening I went to Mdme. de Tocqueville's. 
 
 ^ ^ -Jf ^ -x- -Sf 
 
 Monday, Oct. 22. — I called on Lord Normanby. He 
 talks rather despondingly. The Legitimist and Mode- 
 rate parties, he says, made it up on Saturday, for the vote 
 on the Roman question — but it is a hollow peace. He 
 fears either a junction of the Legitimist and Republican 
 parties, like that which overset Louis-Philippe in 1848, 
 or a new appeal to force on the part of the Mountain. 
 He agreed with me that the effect of the revolution has 
 been to subject France to monarchical rule ; first under 
 the Provisional Government, the most absolute of des- 
 potisms, next under Cavaignac, and now under Louis 
 Napoleon. I said that I thought Louis Napoleon the 
 sovereign in Europe who had most influence in his own 
 Government next to the Czar; and Lord Normanby 
 assented. Lord Brougham was here last week, in great 
 force. He did good by convincing the Russian Minis- 
 ter Kissilefif that the English protestation against the ex- 
 tradition of the Hungarians was not a mere newspaper 
 
 o 2 
 
196 Jotirnals kept m France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 cry, but the deep feeling of the whole people. Lord Nor- 
 manby was startled a day or two after at seeing the con- 
 versation between Brougham and Kissileff reproduced in 
 the English ' Sun,' and mentioned as having taken place, 
 as in fact it did, at the Embassy. 
 
 Tuesday, Oct. 23. — I breakfasted with the Tocque- 
 
 villes. 
 
 -3f ^ ^ •)«■ -x- -K- 
 
 Afterwards we called on the Culpeppers. Mrs. Cul- 
 pepper says that her Legitimist friends say that France 
 has not yet suffered enough ; that she must be made 
 to taste still more bitterly the fruits of the Revolution of 
 1830 ; that they believe that a year of the Rouge party 
 in power is necessary to a perfect cure ; that they are 
 endeavouring to make the present Government work as 
 ill as possible, in the hope that a Ledru Rollin or Barbes 
 faction may get in, and play such pranks as may force 
 the recall of Henrj^ V. 
 
 In the evening we drank tea with the Fauchers. 
 Faucher looks with some alarm to the motion of M. 
 Creton, which has precedence over a similar one of 
 Napoleon Buonaparte (Jerome's son), for the recall of the 
 Bourbons. 
 
 The matter was discussed about ten days ago at a 
 meeting of the club of the majority, which sits in one of 
 the halls of the Conseil d'Etat ; and Berryer made a 
 speech unfavourable to the continuance of the apparent 
 concurrence of the White and Blue (Legitimist and 
 Orleanist) parties. It disclaimed on the part of the 
 elder branch the propriety, even the possibility, of a 
 
1849.] Disciissio7i as to Recall of the Bo2irbons. 197 
 
 return as simple citizens. They could not, he said, 
 ever forget that their ancestors had enjoyed for cen- 
 turies the highest position that men could hold — that of 
 reigning over the greatest nation in the world — and 
 would become objects of contempt if they condescended 
 to return to mix with the crowd, or to ask for employ- 
 ment in the Republican service. This avowal of a 
 ' continual claim ' in legal language, to the throne, and 
 this more than sneer at the requests made by the 
 Orleans princes, had roused the Orleans party ; they 
 had almost declared that the offer made by the Due 
 d'Aumale and the Prince de Joinville to accept com- 
 mands in the army and in the fleet was no abandon- 
 ment of the rights of their family. ' And at last,' said 
 Faucher, ' I was forced to rise and remind each party 
 that we are living under an established Gov^ernment, 
 which has a right to consider the assertion of such claims 
 as treason ; that we are all now Republicans, and that 
 if we quarrel as to the rights of pretenders we shall let 
 in the common enemy, the Rouge.' 
 
 Wednesday, Oet. 24. — Horace Say breakfasted with 
 us. Say is going to London on Sunday to hear Cobden 
 at Exeter Hall, much to our amusement. He is much 
 struck by Cobden'stact in addressing a French audience. 
 Both his matter and his manner are more lively, more 
 French, than when he speaks to an English public. 
 
 After breakfast. Knight Bruce and I went to the 
 Chamber to hear the discussion as to the recall of the 
 Bourbons. M. Creton opened it heavily. He was fol- 
 lowed by Berryer, whose speech fulfilled Faucher's pro- 
 
198 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 phecy. He maintained that the proposition was not 
 sincere ; that those who made it knew well that the 
 Bourbons could not accept it. ' The inheritors of royalty,' 
 he said, ' may be driven from the throne ; they may be 
 proscribed, they may be exiled, but they cannot be 
 turned into private citizens. Revolutions can command 
 the present and influence the future, but they cannot 
 destroy the past. In every foreign land throughout 
 civilised Europe, where every royal race boasts that its 
 blood has been enriched by that of the House of France, 
 what are these Princes .-" They are the children of the 
 most ancient, of the most illustrious family that has ever 
 governed the earth. They are the children of the family 
 which has governed the great French nation, and has 
 governed it for ages. Are they to be forced, or even 
 to be invited, to forget this glorious past ; to give up the 
 only inheritance which cannot be torn from them .'' If 
 any one of them were to come to us as a mere fellow- 
 citizen, were to seek to be made a duke or a marquis, 
 or to represent a department, or were to ask for a ship 
 or a regiment, I ask you all, I ask those who sit on the 
 highest of those benches of the Left, what would be the 
 sort of feeling that he would inspire .'' Which would 
 despise him the most .'* Those who believed him to be 
 treacherous or those who believed him to be sincere .-* I 
 demand that the proposition be rejected immediately 
 and irrevocably.' 
 
 After a dull speech from M. Duprat, which I did not 
 attend to, Dufaure rose. He is one of the very best 
 debaters that I ever heard. Clear, unembarrassed, sen- 
 
1849.] speech of Prince Napoleon. 199 
 
 sible, and with an enunciation and a voice so perfect 
 that in that enormous hall not a syllable was lost. Ap- 
 proving the principle of the proposition, he thought it 
 premature. ' France is just recovering from a frightful 
 disease, and, like all convalescents, is pretematurally sen- 
 sitive. The presence of a Bourbon at this instant would 
 excite absurd hopes and absurd fears, and in each case 
 interrupt the advance towards stability and repose 
 which the country is slowly making.' 
 
 Then came Napoleon Buonaparte, Jerome's son. Up 
 to the present time the debate had been decorous. 
 Creton and Duprat were too dull to excite opposition, 
 Berryer speaks very seldom ; the House, therefore, was 
 anxious to hear him, and as his speech was very offen- 
 sive to the Orleanists, it pleased the noisy party, the 
 Montagnards. Dufaure was conciliatory, and it was so 
 agreeable to listen to him that no one could bear to 
 interrupt him. But as soon as Buonaparte rose, who 
 was neither conciliatory, nor agreeable, nor sensible, nor 
 a novelty, the interruptions began in good earnest. 
 He said, which was true, that Berryer's speech was a 
 declaration of eternal war between the Legitimists and 
 the rest of the nation. That it affirmed that the As- 
 sembly or the President might be sovereigns de facto, 
 but that at Frohsdorf resided the sovereign dc jure, and 
 that his inalienable rights admitted no compromise. 
 But he asked if there were no Bourbons but the inhabi- 
 tant of Frohsdorf ? and he read the letters of the Orleanist 
 Princes — Joinville, Nemours, and Aumale — asking per- 
 mission to return. As for Dufaure's plan of delaying 
 
200 journals kept in France and Italy. [1S49. 
 
 the recall to a more favourable opportunity, to a period 
 of greater calm, he asked when that period was to come ? 
 Would the nation be calmer three years hence, on the 
 eve of a Presidential election, or four years hence, when 
 revising the Constitution ? Or did M, Dufaure mean to 
 refer to the calm period which is to follow the abolition 
 of the Republic and of universal suffrage ? He succeeded, 
 as the Montagnards generally do, in irritating, by turns, 
 the Legitimists, the Orleanists, and the Buonapartists, 
 and helped to occasion the defeat of his own party by a 
 majority of three to one. 
 
 T/mrsday, Oct. 25. — We went this morning with 
 Horace Say and Knight Bruce to the Hotel de Ville. 
 Say showed us a little room in which the Conseil Muni- 
 cipal met on February 24 ; they knew that the King 
 had abdicated, but not which Government was to follow, 
 and in that extremity proposed to assume the Govern- 
 ment themselves, as the descendants of that formidable 
 body, the Commune de Paris. 
 
 Say drew up a proclamation, of which the following 
 is a copy. It was printed ; but before it could be dis- 
 tributed, the other Provisional Governments — one nomi- 
 nated in the Chamber, the other in the office of the 
 'Reforme* newspaper — had arrived, coalesced, and as- 
 sumed absolute power : — 
 
 Proclamation dii Conseil mimicipal. 
 
 Citoyens, — Le roi vient d'abdiquer. Las chambres sont 
 dissoutes ; en I'absence de tout pouvoir regulier, le Conseil 
 municipal s'est re'uni j il veille sur les interets de la grande cite, 
 
iS49-] The Hotel de Ville. 201 
 
 et son premier besoin est de s'occuper des moyens d'arreter avant 
 tout I'effusion du sang. 
 
 Deja les troupes ont regu I'ordre positif de se retirer et de 
 laisser la garde nationale exclusivement charge'e du service. 
 
 Le Conseil a confiance dans le peuple. 
 
 Respect aux monuments publics et aux proprietees privees. 
 
 La doit s'arreter Taction du Conseil municipal. A la nation 
 seule appartient le droit de regler son avenir. 
 
 De I'Hotel de Ville de Paris, 
 le 24 fevrier 1848, a deux heures apres-midi. 
 
 We saw the back staircase at the top of which Robes- 
 pierre was shot, the room in which he was exposed 
 during the remainder of the night of the 9th Thermidor, 
 and the window out of which Coffinhal was thrown. 
 Thence we went to the room, in a corner at the end of 
 a passage, in which the Provisional Government held 
 their first sittings. I do not wonder that many persons 
 were suffocated or trampled to death in the narrow pas- 
 sage that leads to it. All the apartments on the ground 
 floor are filled with soldiers ; for, as yet, the destinies of 
 France have depended on the possession of the Hotel 
 de Ville. Whoever has that has Paris, and whoever has 
 Paris has France. 
 
 Afterwards I went with V. and Wollowski to 
 the Libraries of the National Assembly and of the 
 Chamber of Peers, to show them some of our parlia- 
 mentary papers. Both are fine rooms — that of the 
 Peers a magnificent one, and the collections are very 
 extensive, not like those of our houses, confined to law, 
 history, and statistics. Wollowski now went to the 
 
202 JoiLrna Is kept ill France and Italy. [1S49. 
 
 Chamber, and V. and I walked for a couple of hours 
 in the Luxembourg Gardens. He is an Orleanist and 
 a friend of Guizot's, at whose house I made his ac- 
 quaintance some years ago. He was a member of the 
 last Chamber of Deputies. I recurred to the subject on 
 which I had talked with Tocqueville — the separation be- 
 tween the gcntilsJionnnes and roturicrs. He agrees with 
 Tocqueville, that it exists in full force — the two classes 
 do not intermarry, or live together, or sympathise. They 
 hate us, said V., and we despise them. They are as 
 rich as we are, and more active, but, as they can give 
 only a portion of their time to society, much less agree- 
 able. Most of the old noblesse have enough to live 
 decently in idleness. The indemnity enabled many old 
 fortunes to be reconstructed. Land was cheap then, and 
 the old families are perhaps less expensive, because less 
 ostentatious, than the new ones. They have in general 
 no pursuit except society, and therefore are masters of 
 its arts. Like everybody else who knows Tocqueville, 
 he considers him as the perfect type of the best society 
 of the old regime. He thinks this separation a great 
 political difficulty. It keeps apart the Legitimists and 
 the Orleanists : even if the Heads could agree their fol- 
 lowers could not. Each party, too, wishes for the mono- 
 poly of power and, what is more coveted, of place. He 
 thinks French centralisation and French place-hunting 
 as mischievous as Dunoyer himself, but sees no prospect 
 of a remedy. Every party when out of power repro- 
 bates centralisation, but every party when in power 
 clings to it. A strongly centralised Government is too 
 
i849-] France 2tnfit for ConstitiUional Monarchy . 203 
 
 powerful an instrument to be voluntarily surrendered by 
 those who grasp it. 
 
 V. agrees with Faucher as to the dangers an- 
 nounced by Berryer's speech. ' II porte,' he says, 
 ' la guerre civile dans ses flancs.' The present Consti- 
 tution, he thinks, cannot last. A triennial election of 
 a President would be a triennial revolution. He be- 
 lieves, indeed, that the existence of a President is in- 
 compatible with the freedom of the press. Any man, 
 any angel, would be libelled down in two or three years. 
 The next phase of the revolution may be the prolonga- 
 tion of the President's term ; but no constitutional 
 monarchy, whether the monarch be called Emperor, 
 King, or President, can last in France. If democracy 
 prevail in the next convulsion, the result will probably 
 be a Chamber appointing Ministers and governing by 
 them. If monarchy prevail, the monarch will be 
 absolute. 
 
 The government of an Assembly in which there are 
 parties and debates does not suit France. As it sees 
 much more clearly the faults than the merits of men, of 
 measures, and of institutions, it is inclined to believe all 
 the statements and to trust all the arguments of the 
 minority, and thus to lose its confidence in the Ministry 
 which is supported by the majority. The debates which 
 took place in the last Assembly destroyed its influence 
 before it ceased to sit, and the present Assembly has 
 already lost much ground with the public. 
 
 He thinks it fortunate, on the whole, that in 1848 
 monarchy made no resistance. The country fell at 
 
204 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 once to the bottom of the pit without a prolonged 
 agony. In the then state of men's minds no resist- 
 ance would have been permanently successful, but the 
 contest might have lasted for a year or two. A Mole 
 Ministr}^ a Thiers and Odillon Barrot Ministry, an abdi- 
 cation, the Regency of the Due de Nemours, the Regency 
 of the Duchess of Orleans, and a Provisional Govern- 
 ment, would probably all have succeeded one another, 
 and in nearly the same order ; but instead of lasting 
 each for three or four hours, they would have lasted each 
 for three or four months, and the countr}' would have 
 been worn out. Lamartine, he says, is the most un- 
 popular man in France. The Orleanists detest him as 
 the subverter of their dynasty, the Legitimists as a 
 Republican, and the Republicans as a traitor. 
 
 Dumon' came to us at dinner. He has taken a house 
 at Versailles. In the course of the autumn he spent three 
 weeks at Dieppe, found Thiers there, and lived in great 
 intimacy Avith him. Thiers denied to him most posi- 
 tively and circumstantially that on February 24 he 
 ordered the withdrawal of the troops, and asserted that, 
 in fact, he never could have done so, for that he never 
 was actual Minister on that day. I have been promised 
 a memoir of the events drawn up by Marshal Bugeaud ^ 
 
 ' M. Dumon was ' Ministre des Finances ' under M. Guizot in the last 
 days of Louis-Philippe's reign. He escaped from France in 1848, and 
 lived in London (where he was the delight of all who had the pleasure of 
 knowing him) during the period of his exile. After his return to France 
 he gave up politics, and became director of the Lyons Railway. He died 
 in 1870. — Ed. 
 
 - Marshal Bugeaud died in June 1849. — Ed. 
 
1849.] Politics of the French Army. 205 
 
 himself. Dumon sees the imminence of bankruptcy, but 
 not the means of averting it. To increase the revenue 
 by increased taxation seems impossible ; and though 
 the Customs, now producing only six millions sterling, 
 might be considerably raised by lowering the prohibitory 
 duties on iron, and on woollen, cotton, and silk manu- 
 factures, this would endanger for a time the prosperity 
 of the four greatest French industries, and raise a rebel- 
 lion among both workmen and masters. The Socialists 
 are opposed to free trade, or, as they call it, competition, 
 even at home, much more from foreigners. A Dictator 
 might do it, not an Assembly. The ruin of France is 
 Algiers. Under the monarchy it cost 120 millions a 
 year ; it costs now a little, but a very little, less. 
 
 Mrs. Marcet and her son, the Fauchers, Wollowski, 
 Prevost, and V. drank tea with us. We talked of the 
 politics of the French army. V. said that its politics 
 were professional — it cared for nothing but advancement 
 and, as a means of advancement, war. I said that I 
 could quite understand that with respect to the portion 
 of the army which consists of rcmplacaiits, who adopt 
 arms as a profession ; but that the conscript, who intends 
 to quit as soon as his six years are over, would natu- 
 rally prefer peace and quiet quarters. V. answered that 
 my supposition, though plausible, was wrong. That the 
 conscript, though hating the service, though counting 
 every month that he has to remain in it, yet while he is 
 a soldier feels the esprit de corps, and longs to cross the 
 frontier and to fight. He sighs for the time when he 
 can return to his field or to his vineyard, but till that 
 
2o6 yournals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 time comes he wishes for glory, and contest, and 
 excitement. 
 
 Faucher says that Lord Normanby is at present 
 rather unpopular. He is thought to have pushed the 
 French Government into a quarrel with Russia about 
 the Hungarian refugees, and to stimulate the President's 
 wish for war. 
 
 Friday, Oct. 26. — I went with Knight Bruce to the 
 Haute Cour at Versailles. My landlord was in the 
 carriage with us. We talked of the National Guards ; 
 he said that he had been out with them on all the 
 recent occasions, and not one-third of them would fight. 
 A pcre de famille has great reverence for a barricade. 
 We took our places at half-past 10; at 11, the judges, 
 eight or nine, and the Avocat-General — all dressed in 
 scarlet and ermine— took their seats ; and the jury came 
 in, but not the prisoners. Ever since the beginning of 
 the trial, a war had been kept up by the Rouge party 
 against the witnesses. They are insulted by the pri- 
 soners and by their advocates (and sometimes insult 
 them in return) ; they are overwhelmed with threatening 
 letters, their testimony is misrepresented in the reports 
 of the low newspapers, and their addresses are printed 
 there in large capitals. In short, it is a system of in- 
 timidation. The ' Tribune des Peuples,' an evening 
 paper, in its report of the sitting of October 18, had 
 blamed severely the conduct of the Court and of the 
 witnesses, and had omitted some material facts. 
 
 Under Article 7 of a law of March 25, 1822, a report 
 (conipte rendu) of any judicial proceedings, if wilfully 
 
iS49'] Haute Coiir at Versailles. 207 
 
 false or libellous, is summarily punishable by the Court 
 as a contempt. But the 83rd clause of the new Consti- 
 tution declares that all dcHits dc la prcssc shall be cog- 
 nisable exclusively by a jury. 
 
 There were, therefore, three questions to be considered : 
 
 1. Was the law of 1822 impliedly repealed by the 
 83rd clause of the Constitution } in which case the Court 
 was incompetent. 
 
 2. Was the article a report or a comment {im comptc 
 rendu, or line appreciation) ? 
 
 3. Was it maliciously false .'' 
 
 The Editor was first called up, and admitted his 
 responsibility. 
 
 MM. Laissac and Michel de Bourges, his counsel, then, 
 urged the incompetence of the Court. 
 
 M. Michel, on whom the chief burthen fell, maintained- 
 that it must have been the intention of the framers of 
 the Constitution to put the press, the safeguard of the 
 Republic, under the safeguard of the only incorruptible 
 and infallible tribunal — a jury. 
 
 The Court, after an hour's deliberation, declared itself 
 competent, and the counsel for the Editor declined 
 arguing the other questions, leaving them to the Court, 
 which inflicted a month's imprisonment and a fine of 
 1,000 francs. This occupied the whole day. 
 
 M. Lain, the Avocat-General, spoke temperately and 
 clearly ; M. Eaissac, a great vulgar-looking man, coarsely 
 and heavily. M. Michel had the usual French faults of 
 violence, exaggeration, and bad taste in an unusual 
 degree. I never heard a speech which made me more 
 
2o8 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 anxious to decide against the speaker. Its violence 
 gave notice to the Court that he despaired of his cause. 
 This finished the business. It seems strange that such 
 a discussion should interrupt for a whole day the pro- 
 ceedings of one of the most important trials that has 
 ever occurred in France ; but I do not know how some 
 interruption could have been avoided. It was necessary 
 to protect the witnesses by the immediate punishment 
 of one of those who were misrepresenting and intimi- 
 dating them, and impossible to punish without hearing 
 the culprit ; but perhaps they need not have given up a 
 whole day to it. 
 
 Mrs. Marcet and V. drank tea with us. I asked V. 
 what would be the consequence of the adoption of 
 Lamartine's plan — the abolition of the salary of the 
 clergy. He answered that it would be the abolition 
 of the clergy, for that the people were too poor to pay 
 them. I replied that they could not be poorer than the 
 Irish, yet the Irish pay their priests, and pay them weil. 
 The ordinary income of a French priest does not exceed 
 50/. a year — that of an Irish priest often amounts to 
 100/. or 200/. He answered that the Irish were far 
 more religious than the French, and that they had 
 gradually acquired a habit of paying their priests. The 
 priests themselves are of V.'s opinion, and their hos- 
 tility defeated Lamartine at the late general election. 
 This led us to talk about the condition of French 
 peasantry, and V. described it as generally bad. I 
 said that in the country from which I had just come 
 they appeared well off, their clothes good, their fields 
 
1849.] Condition of the French Peasantry. 209 
 
 well cultivated, and their persons handsome. He re- 
 plied that the Basses Pyrenees form an exceptional 
 district ; that they enjoy a fine soil, a peculiarly healthy 
 climate, are inhabited by a vigorous race, and en- 
 riched by the affluence of strangers. But that the 
 centre of France, which is the country that he knows 
 best, and of which he was thinking, has a poorer soil, bad 
 roads, often none, and is inhabited by an ignorant and 
 indolent, and therefore poor and degraded, population. 
 
 Late in the evening we went to the Embassy, it being 
 Lady Normanby's night. The rooms are fine, but the 
 French practice of putting the doors at the corners unfits 
 them for a large party. Each room makes a separate 
 crowd. We heard there the good news, just received by 
 the telegraph, that Russia no longer requires the extra- 
 dition of the Poles. Lord Normanby will, I suppose, 
 now be again in favour with the French ; but their 
 uneasiness and ill-humour, while the decision of the 
 Czar was doubtful, show how little they can be de- 
 pended on as allies. 
 
 Saturday, Oct. 27. — Auguste Chevalier ^ breakfasted 
 with us. He gave us an account of his journey, on 
 June 22, 1848, to Amiens, to bring up the National 
 Guard. He went to the station with a companion, both 
 of them disguised as Englishmen, with the order from 
 the Minister of the Interior in the sole of his boot. The 
 station was in the hands of the insurgents, who had 
 entrenched themselves with great military skill in the 
 
 ' Secretary to the President, and brother of M. Michel Chevalier. He 
 died some years ago. — Ed. 
 
 VOL. I. P 
 
2IO yournals kept in France and Italy. [1849, 
 
 neighbouring unfinished church of St. Paul. His friend 
 followed, at the distance of about 100 yards, in order, if 
 Chevaher should be detected and shot, to return with 
 the news. They were allowed, however, to pass on, 
 till they found an engine unemployed, on which they 
 mounted, and as soon as they had gone two miles they 
 were safe. In five hours they brought up 3,000 National 
 Guards from Amiens. Mrs. Senior asked him if he felt 
 alarmed. He said not in the least ; the excitement of 
 such scenes destroys all sense of danger. 
 
 In the course of the morning a friend, who desired me 
 not to name him, brought me Marshal Bugeaud's me- 
 moir. It is a very long letter, in the Marshal's own 
 hand, dated October 19, 1848. He allowed me to ex- 
 racfthe material parts, and they are these : — 
 
 At 2 in the morning of the 24th (says Marshal Bugeaud) 
 an aide-de-camp of the King summoned me to the Tuileries, 
 where the command of the troops and of the National Guard 
 was offered to me. I thought myself bound to accept, and 
 Duchatel and Guizot were sent for to countersign the order. 
 Some precious time was lost in this, and it was half-past 3 
 before I could get to the troops, drawn up in the Place du Car- 
 rousel and the Cour des Tuileries. 
 
 They were very demoralised, having been kept for sixty 
 hours, their feet in the cold mud, their knapsacks on their 
 backs, with only three rations of biscuit, and forced to see, 
 without interfering, the rioters attack the Municipal Guards, 
 cut down the trees, break the lamps, and burn the guard-houses. 
 Generally, they had only ten cartridges a man — the best pro- 
 vided had only twenty — there were only three caissons of car- 
 tridges at the Tuileries, about as many at the Ecole Militaire, 
 
1849] Marshal Bugeaud's Account of Feb. 24. 2 1 1 
 
 and no more in Paris. Even at Vincennes there were only 
 thirteen caissons, and to reach them the whole insurrection had 
 to be crossed. The cavalry horses were knocked up, there was 
 no corn for them, and the men had been kept nearly three 
 days on their backs. 
 
 All the detachments at the Pantheon, Bastille, Hotel de 
 Ville, and on the Boulevards had been ordered to fall back on 
 the Tuileries. I sent them orders to remain firm where they 
 were. 
 
 As respects the National Guards, things were still worse. I 
 found the chief of the staff in a garret. He wanted to resign. 
 I could get nothing out of him. 
 
 At half-past 5, as day broke, I put in motion four columns — 
 ordered one to march to the Bastille, one to the Hotel de 
 Ville, one to the Pantheon, and the last to follow the two first 
 and prevent the barricades which were abandoned from being 
 reoccupied. The only column which encountered any resist- 
 ance was that which marched by the Boulevards on the Bastille. 
 The General who commanded it sent me word that his way 
 was barred at the Boulevard Montmartre by an enormous crowd, 
 all armed, crying, 'Vive la Reforme !' &c., and asked for in- 
 structions. I ordered him to force his way, but I afterwards 
 heard that he disobeyed, and acted with great weakness. At 
 half-past 7 a crowd of bourgeois came to me, almost in tears, 
 to beseech me to recall the troops, who irritated the people, 
 and to let the National Guards who were collecting put down 
 the riot. I was explaining to them the absurdity of their pro- 
 posal, when Thiers and Barrot brought me express orders from 
 the King to withdraw the troops and employ only the National 
 Guards ; of whom I could not see more than three or four files. 
 I resisted the Ministers as I had the bourgeois, when the 
 order was repeated by the Due de Nemours, who came straight 
 from the King. I could not incur the responsibility of further 
 disobedience, and dictated orders in these terms, ' By the ex- 
 press command of the King and of the Ministers, you will re- 
 
212 yournals kept in France a7id Italy. [1S49. 
 
 tire on the Tuileries. If, however, you are attacked, you will 
 resume the offensive, and act on my fonner orders.' 
 
 The zeal with which these orders were carried to the different 
 posts by the bourgeois and National Guards near me was no good 
 omen. If the troops had met with any resistance they could 
 not have been obeyed, as the battle would have been already 
 raging, and the result would have been very different. 
 
 At about 9 o'clock Thiers and Barrot came back to me, 
 bringing Lamoriciere, on whom the command of the National 
 Guard had been conferred. ' Since we are not to fight,' I said 
 to him, ' go and employ your popularity in bringing these mad- 
 men to reason.' He executed this mission with great courage 
 and at great risk. 
 
 Thiers and Barrot were getting on horseback to do the same, 
 when Vernet the painter begged me to keep back Thiers, whom 
 the mob would tear to pieces. I did so with difficulty. Barrot 
 went out, was ill received, and came back to say, ' Thiers is not 
 jDOSsible. I am scarcely so. I shall go to the Chateau.' 
 
 It was now 10 o'clock. Two battalions of the loth Legion ' 
 entered the Place du Carrousel. They applauded me, but 
 cried ' A bas Guizot ! ' Soon after the King came out and re- 
 viewed them. He was well received. I had no doubt but that he 
 intended to show himself to the troops and to the people, when, 
 to my astonishment, he turned back, dismounted, and returned 
 to the Chateau. With these two battahons I took possession^ 
 without resistance, of the barricades which were erecting in the 
 streets opening on the Rue de Rivoli. 
 
 A column of rioters was advancing through the Carrousel, 
 and had got as far as the solitary house Avhere the diligences 
 stop. I addressed them with good effect ; one man said, ' Are 
 you Marshal Bugeaud? You had my brother killed in the Rue 
 Transnonain.' ' You lie,' I said ; ' I was not there.' He pointed 
 his gim at me, but was stopped by his companions. They 
 shouted 'Vive le Mare'chal Bugeaud! Vive la gloire militairel' 
 
 ' National Guards. 
 
i849-] Marshal Bugeaud's Account of Feb. 2 \. 213 
 
 and I began to hope that the riot would die out — a piece of 
 great simphcity. I ought to have known that an enemy is not 
 stopped by a retreat, nor a mob by concessions, 
 
 I now heard a shot or two in the direction of the Palais 
 Royal. I had not time to look at my watch, but it must have 
 been about half-past 11. I ran to a battalion of the 9th Leger. 
 I said, ' Since they begin, we accept ; I am at your head.' At 
 this instant two aides-de-camp of the King came to tell me that 
 the King had abdicated, and that Gerard had the command of 
 the troops. I ordered the battalion to advance, and ran to 
 the Chateau. I found the King writing his abdication, in the 
 midst of a crowd who were pressing him to finish it. I opposed 
 this with all my might. I said that it was too late, that it 
 would have no effect, except demoralising the soldiers, that 
 they were ready to act, and that to fight it out was the only 
 thing left to us. The Queen supported me with energy. The 
 King rose, leaving his abdication unfinished, but the Due de 
 Montpensier and many others cried out that he had promised to 
 abdicate, and that he must abdicate. My voice was stifled by 
 the crowd, and the King sat down again to write. I heard the 
 firing outside, and ran out to head the first volunteers who 
 would follow me against the rioters. Cre'mieux tried to stop 
 me ; I got rid of him, and ran into the Place du Carrousel. To 
 my astonishment, I saw the troops leaving it by every exit ; I 
 presume, under the orders of my successor, Marshal Ge'rard. It 
 was too late to stop them, even if they would have listened to 
 me. I went along the Quai to the Palais Bourbon. It seemed 
 deserted, and I supposed that the Chamber of Deputies had 
 not met. A mob met me coming along the Quai d'Orsay, 
 and began to cry 'A bas le Marechal Bugeaud ! ' I said to them, 
 'Do you cry, Down with the conqueror of Abd-el-Kader? 
 Down with the man who has subdued the Arabs and conquered 
 Africa ? Down with the man whom you will want to lead you 
 against the Germans and the Russians ? In a month perhaps 
 you will wish for my experience and my courage.' This 
 
2 14 yo2irnals kept in France aiid Italy. [1849. 
 
 succeeded, and they began to cry ' Vive le Marechal Bugeaud ! ' 
 and all would shake hands with me. I reached my own house, 
 changed my dress, and went back to the Palais Bourbon. 
 ^Vhen I got there I met some Deputies running out of the 
 Chamber, looking almost frightened to death ; those who could 
 speak cried out, 'AH is over ; they have proclaimed the Republic' 
 I ran to the detachment of the loth Legion, which was 
 stationed in the Place, and said, ' You don't wish for a Re- 
 public ? ' ' No, sacre-bleu ! ' they said. ' Then come Avith me 
 to the Chamber.' There were about 150 of them ; they ran for 
 their arms. Oudinot joined us, and we moved towards the 
 Chamber ; about twenty Deputies met us escaping from the 
 Chamber. ' All is lost,' they said ; ' the Duchess is going to 
 the Invalides, the Republic is proclaimed.' And it ivas too 
 late, or we were too few. And the monarchy fell. 
 
 If the Court had been at Versailles, if I had had the com- 
 mand a fortnight before, things might have passed differently. 
 But all had been neglected. No preparation was made for 
 resistance or for retreat, no plan laid down, no instructions 
 given. There were no supplies of ammunition, no deposits of 
 provisions, no collections of the tools for breaking through 
 doors and piercing walls ; nothing was thought of, except to 
 follow what was recollected of the management of 1834. I have 
 often talked to the Ministers and to M. Guizot about the 
 dangers to which their want of preparation exposed the 
 minority, but I never could excite their interest or even gain 
 their attention. There was a sort of sneer, as if they thought 
 I was talking in hopes of obtaining a command. 
 
 Tout a vous de coeur, 
 
 Mrl. B. de .' 
 
 ' Note by Mr. Senior : — I have just received (Dec. 13, 1S49) a letter 
 from De Tocqueville, containing the folloAving anecdote : — 
 
 After having sat out the revolutionaiy scene, heard the Proclamation 
 of the Republic, and seen Lamartine and Ledm Rollin set off for the 
 Hotel de Ville, I was quitting the Chamber, and had reached the landing- 
 
1 849-] Letter from M. de Tocqueville. 215 
 
 Mrs. Marcet and Faucher drank tea with us. Faucher's 
 anticipations are very gloomy. He fully expects another 
 outbreak at no distant time, and is not at all confident 
 as to the issue. Much, a great deal too much, depends 
 on Changarnier, who, however, is cool and determined. 
 ' June 13, 1849, was,' said Faucher, ' merely the execution 
 of the plan which he and I laid down for the management 
 of the anaite which was expected on the 29th of the 
 previous January. Faucher has little reliance on the 
 National Guards, and doubts whether on the first or 
 even the second day of the contest of June 1848 more 
 
 place of the staircase which leads from the waiting-room into the court, now 
 occupied by our Provisional House, when I met a company of the loth 
 Legion, with fixed bayonets, led by General Oudinot, not in uniform, but 
 brandishing his cane in a veiy military style, and crying ' En avant, Vive le 
 Roi ! ' and ' La duchesse d' Orleans regente ! ' B}'^ his side, gesticulating and 
 shouting in the same manner, was a man ' whom I will not name, who by 
 the evening had become a fierce Republican. The National Guards, though 
 not numerous, uttered the same cries, and rushed up the staircase with great 
 resolution. Oudinot, recognising me, caught me by the arm, and cried, 
 ' Where are you going ? Come with us, and we will sweep these ruffians 
 out of the Chamber.' 'My dear General,' I answered, 'it is too late ; the 
 Chamber is dissolved, the Duchess has fled, the Provisional Government is 
 on its way to the Hotel de Ville.' The impulse, however, which he had 
 given to the column of National Guards was such that it did not stop. I 
 turned back, and we all re-entered the Chamber. The crowd had just left 
 it. The National Guards stood still for an instant, looking at the empty 
 benches, and then dispersed in all directions. They belonged to the Quar- 
 tier St. Germain. Oudinot had collected them by going from house to 
 house. If he had been able to do so two hours, or even one hour, earlier, 
 the destinies of France, and perhaps of Europe, might have been altered. 
 
 Even on February 24 (continued Tocqueville) the monarchy might have 
 been saved, if the Proclamation of the Provisional Government and the re- 
 treat of the Duchess of Orleans could have been retarded an hour. 
 
 ' Lamartine. — Ed. 
 
2i6 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 than 10,000 of them were present. He attributes the 
 success of that struggle to the part taken in it, I believe 
 on the third day, by the members of the Assembly. As 
 soon as they appeared at the barricades, dressed in their 
 scarfs, the troops and the well-disposed part of the 
 National Guards felt they should not be abandoned by 
 the Government, as they were on February 24. 
 
 Faucher does not agree with V. in thinking govern- 
 ment by an Assembly and its ministers, but with no 
 President of the State, possible. It would be anarchy. 
 He thinks, too, that France is essentially monarchical ; 
 that is to say, that it does not easily obey any but a 
 smgle will. 
 
 He laughed at the idea of the Assembly or the 
 country being restrained by the article in the Con- 
 stitution which declares it unalterable for three years. 
 One supreme government cannot bind its successor. 
 If the Constituent Assembly could render their Con- 
 stitution unalterable for three years, they could render 
 it unalterable for thirty years. ' That Assembly,' he 
 said, ' perceived that, unless we were to become the 
 victims of a new revolutionary conspiracy, it was the 
 last Assembly in which the Republicans would have 
 the majority. They strove, therefore, to make the 
 most of their temporary ascendancy. They and the 
 Provisional Government filled the country with ad- 
 ministrators selected for the violence of their opinions, 
 some of them men stained by crime and even by convic- 
 tion. They doubled our expenses, destroyed our revenue, 
 imposed on us a Constitution under which good govern- 
 
1849.] Depression in Paris. 217 
 
 ment or indeed any permanent government is impos- 
 sible, and inserted this clause in it in the hope of making 
 it last at least until another presidency. But unless they 
 are assisted by another convulsion they will fail. Long 
 before the three years are out the Constitution will be 
 revised, and, among other changes, the President's term 
 will be prolonged, probably to ten years.' 
 
 Mrs. Marcet spoke of the apparent prosperity of the 
 country which she had travelled through on her road 
 from Geneva, and particularly of the goodness of the 
 cultivation. Faucher said the prosperity was only appa- 
 rent ; that cultivation had gone back during the last 
 two years. Though the peasant proprietor, who culti- 
 vates merely to eat, may go on working as he did 
 before, all those who cultivate to sell are suffering. 
 The price of produce is low, labourers are discharged, 
 rents are unpaid, and distress is spreading and growing. 
 
 I never recollect so general a depression and anxiety 
 as seems to overspread Paris. The workpeople in the 
 shops tell Mrs. Senior that they are afraid the worst is 
 not over. Mdme. de Tocqueville in a note this morning 
 says that she is ill in body and sad in mind — yet she 
 has just received the news of the accommodation with 
 Russia, which relieves the Ministry, and particularly De 
 Tocqueville, from a load of responsibility ; and last week 
 the Ministry obtained a victory so great as to seem de- 
 cisive. Different dangers, of course, oppress different 
 minds. Some see the steady approach of national 
 bankruptcy, others look with alarm to the events which 
 are to be apprehended when once the Presidential term 
 
2i8 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1849. 
 
 and the term of the Assembly expire together, and 
 others think the risk of a coup d\'tat on the part of the 
 President, or of the Assembly, imminent. The manner 
 in which the President's letter to Ney ' was ignored in 
 Thiers's report on the Roman question, and the little 
 attention paid to it in the debate, are said to have 
 irritated him. 
 
 A President is certainly a more powerful impersonation 
 of the monarchical element than a King, and perhaps he 
 may be able to do what a King cannot do ; turn out a 
 Ministry which possesses the confidence, or at least re- 
 ceives the support, of a large majority. But where can 
 he find successors for them } If he takes them from the 
 Liberal majority they must be obscure men, for none of 
 the eminent men in that majority would accept vacancies 
 made by the dismissal of the best administration that 
 France has enjoyed since February 24 ; and as to other 
 parties, the Legitimists would not take office, and the 
 Republicans would take it as enemies. 
 
 It is a marvellous instance of the folly with which 
 great affairs are generally conducted that a people 
 which assumes to be the first, and certainly is among 
 the first nations in the most civilised period of the 
 world's existence, should have turned out the family 
 under which it has been growing great for centuries, 
 and the King who has given to it prosperity such as it 
 never enjoyed in any previous period of its brilliant his- 
 
 ' This was a non-official note to Edgar Ney, in which the President ex- 
 pressed his admiration at the conduct of the French troops, and his \\ann 
 approval of the policy that led to the Roman expedition. — Ed. 
 
1S49.] Folly of the Revolution ^1848, 219 
 
 tory, and thrown its fate into the hands of an adven- 
 turer, unacquainted with the country, inexperienced in 
 politics, and even in ordinary business, whose only 
 achievements have been the two most unprincipled and 
 senseless enterprises of modern times. 
 
2 20 Jotirnals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 1850. 
 
 [Soon after Mr. Senior left Paris in October 1849, the 
 President dissolved the Odillon Barrot Ministry, and in 
 the following May none of Mr. Senior's friends, either 
 Orleanist or Republican, held office. The law, called 
 afterwards 'The Electoral Law of May 31,' which re- 
 stricted the suffrage, was at this time under discussion 
 in the Assembly. — Ed.] 
 
 Hotel Bristol, Paris, Saturday, May 11. — Dr. Jeune ' 
 and I reached this place on Thursday evening. The first 
 person that I saw yesterday morning was Leon Faucher. 
 He was glad to hear that Mrs. Senior had not accom- 
 panied me, as she might have had to witness painful 
 scenes. I said that I had twice before visited Paris in 
 May, and each time been told that there would be a 
 fight in June, and I supposed that until June we were 
 safe. Faucher answered that all the information which 
 he received led him to believe that the conflict would 
 take place sooner, that plans of insurrection were forming 
 quietly, but widely and rapidly, in the Faubourgs, and 
 that he saw the advance of the crisis without regret. Now 
 the army may be relied on, six months hence it cannot. 
 
 ' The late Bishop of Peterborough. — Ed, 
 
i8so.] Probability of an Emeute. 221 
 
 After breakfast I called on Lord Normanby. I found 
 him out of spirits. He was expecting a visit from 
 Lahitte on the subject of the Greek question, which has 
 taken a painful turn. It seems that Mr. Wyse has re- 
 jected the terms proposed by M. Gros, has refused to 
 continue the truce until the Berlin Government can be 
 consulted, and by the resumption of hostilities has forced 
 the Greek Governrhent to submit to his terms. If the 
 French were not too much occupied with home affairs 
 to attend to foreign ones, Lord Normanby thinks that 
 this peremptory refusal to abide by the terms proposed 
 by the French mediator, or even to give time for their 
 being reconsidered, would bring on a serious quarrel. 
 ' It is disheartening,' he says, ' that a good understanding, 
 which it has cost so much time, so much trouble, and, 
 in fact, so many sacrifices to bring about, should be 
 endangered by an affair in which France and England 
 have no conflicting interests.' 
 
 We then talked of the subjects which occupy every- 
 body's thoughts — the new electoral law, and the proba- 
 bility of an enieiLte. He disapproves of the law, thinks 
 it ill-timed, as it looks like an attempt to punish the 
 Parisians for having elected Eugene Sue, and insufficient 
 for its ostensible purposes, since the irritation which it 
 Avill produce will deprive the Reactionary party of at 
 least as many votes as the law will take from the Re- 
 publicans. But if it be proposed as a means to force on 
 a conflict, he thinks that it will succeed. The Mon- 
 tagnards in the Assembly and, generally, the Rouge 
 leaders are indeed anxious to prevent a conflict. They 
 
22 2 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1S50. 
 
 believe, and Lord Normanby thinks correctly, that their 
 chances of ultimate success are improving every day ; 
 that administration after administration is becoming 
 unpopular, since, among the difficulties of the times, 
 everyone must commit errors and undergo misfortune, 
 and that two years hence all the monarchical parties 
 will be discredited and a Republican Assembly re- 
 turned. But they are forced to utter language which 
 provokes the contest which they fear. Next Monday, 
 the 13th, the discussion on the law in the bureaux 
 begins. It will last about a week ; therefore, on Mon- 
 day week, the 20th, it may come on in the Assembly. 
 If it continue there a week it will pass about Saturday 
 the 25th, in which case the insurrection may be expected 
 about the 26th or 27th. He has little doubt of the suc- 
 cess of the Government. Changarnier, whom he met at 
 dinner the day before, answered for the troops. How 
 the victory will be used is a large question on which I 
 did not try to get his opinion, as I had already paid an 
 unconscionable visit. 
 
 Perhaps I may as well state here the outline of the 
 new electoral law. 
 
 Under the present law every man has a vote, and every 
 man ought to pay the taxe perso?itietle ; that is to say, the 
 value of three days' labour, a day's labour being esti- 
 mated at different sums between 30 sous and 10 sous. 
 
 In fact, however, of the 9 millions of voters, not above 
 7 pay the tax. Some live in the houses of their parents 
 or masters, others are excused as indigent, and others 
 elude it by a wandering life. 
 
i8so.] Outline of the New Electoral Law. 223 
 
 Again, everyone ought to be registered and to vote in 
 the canton in which he is domiciled, but as the domicile 
 required is only a residence of six months, and the 
 register is carelessly made out, often on mere hearsay 
 evidence, many frauds occur, and in towns a large pro- 
 portion of the voters are temporary residents little con- 
 nected with the department. 
 
 Again, conviction for crime does not occasion a for- 
 feiture of the franchise, unless a sentence of three months' 
 imprisonment has been pronounced. 
 
 Again, the present system gives a dangerous promi- 
 nence to the military votes. France can never enjoy the 
 moderate security which its trade and manufactures, and 
 even its agriculture, require, unless the army not only is, 
 but is believed to be, on the side of authority. Its 
 Socialist votes, often the result of mere caprice, or of a 
 wish to annoy an unpopular officer, are used as signs of 
 its general disaffection. 
 
 Again, the necessity imposed by the present law of 
 filling every vacancy within six weeks may bring on a 
 contested election inopportunely with respect to the 
 Government. Five months hence Leclerc might have 
 beaten Eugene Sue. Lastly, in consequence of the 
 unanimity and activity of the Republican party, and of 
 indolence and divisions among the Monarchists, an 
 election is often carried by a small minority of the 
 electoral body. 
 
 To remedy these evils a law has been proposed, and 
 was read for the first time on Wednesday, which pro- 
 vides ; — 
 
2 24 yoiirnals kept ill France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 First, that as a general rule those only shall be in- 
 scribed in the list of voters in a commune who have for 
 the three previous years been domiciled there. 
 
 This domicile is to be proved by having paid there, 
 for the three previous years, the taxe pcrsonnelle, or by a 
 declaration on the part of a parent or a master that the 
 child or servant has resided three years under his roof. 
 
 A person who, having been domiciled for three years 
 in one commune, quits it, is to be retained for the three 
 following years on the list of that commune, and must 
 return thither to vote. 
 
 Public functionaries are held domiciled and vote wher- 
 ever they are stationed. Men in the army and navy 
 retain their original domicile, their votes are to be sent 
 thither under seal, and confounded with the others. 
 
 Forfeiture of the franchise is inflicted for crimes of dis- 
 honesty, whatever be the sentence, and on persons con- 
 victed of vagabondage, mendicity, or resistance against 
 the public authorities. 
 
 Unless one candidate has a majority of those who vote, 
 and a fourth of the whole body of electors, a second elec- 
 tion is to take place within a fortnight ; if this again fails, 
 a third is to take place a fortnight later, in which any 
 majority is sufficient. An occasional vacancy need not 
 be supplied, or, in our language, a new writ need not 
 issue, for six months. 
 
 The Assembly voted the bill urgent. Instead, there- 
 fore, of being referred, as it naturally would be, to the 
 Conseil d fitat, and read three times, with fixed intervals, 
 it has been referred at once to a Committee, composed 
 
1850.] Dinner of the Political Economists. 225 
 
 of members from the different bureaux, and may pass in 
 one more reading. 
 
 From Lord Normanby I went to De Tocqueville, and 
 found him convalescent, but still feeble. Mdme. de 
 Tocqueville now is ill. As soon as she recovers they go 
 to Tocqueville, where they remain quietly till they return 
 to Paris at the end of September. I tried to persuade 
 him to come with us in November to Italy. ' But for 
 the changes produced by the Revolution,' he said, ' he 
 would do so, but it would be difficult to persuade his 
 constituents that a paid deputy ought to desert his post.' 
 I was afraid of fatiguing him, and paid a short visit. 
 
 I then went to the Assembly. They were settling 
 the Budget of the Chamber, and dully discussing small 
 items. People's minds were obviously preoccupied with 
 other matters. 
 
 In the afternoon, H. Say took me to dine with the 
 Political Economists. 
 
 They have a dinner every month, like that of our 
 Political Economy Club, except that the subjects for 
 discussion are not previously announced. They were so 
 at first, but men prepared themselves and made long 
 speeches. I sat next to Baron de Billing, long Secre- 
 tary to the French Embassy in London. He talked of 
 nothing but the Greek affair, and the bad impression 
 which our disregard of the French mediation would pro- 
 duce. 
 
 This morning (Saturday) Count Arrivabene and Leon 
 Faucher breakfasted with us. 
 
 Faucher told us the story of the Electoral Bill. Soon 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
2 26 yournals kept m France and Italy. [1S50. 
 
 after the first Socialist elections, the different monarchi- 
 cal parties, who form the majority in the Assembly, and 
 constitute the Club called the Club of the Conseil d'Etat, 
 from its meeting in the building belonging to that body, 
 saw that the Republican party was steadily gaining 
 strength. They foresaw the election in 1852 of a Mon- 
 tagnard Assembly, and they believed that such an As- 
 sembly would reproduce the follies and atrocities of the 
 first Revolution — bankruptcy, assignats, confiscation, 
 judicial murders, civil war, and foreign war. They be- 
 lieve that the present Constitution, with its universal 
 suffrage and its triennial Assemblies and Presidents, 
 keeps the country oscillating between actual civil war 
 and preparation for civil war, and that at all risks it must 
 be amended and the constituencies improved before any 
 more such scandals as the election of Eugene Sue are 
 perpetrated. They appointed a committee of seventeen, 
 consisting of the existing and immediately previous vice 
 presidents of the bureaux into which the Club is 
 divided, and instructed them to prepare a measure for 
 that purpose. That committee delegated their office to 
 a sub-committee, consisting of Berryer, the Due de 
 Broglie, and Faucher (a Legitimist, an Orleanist, and a 
 Napoleonist), and the sub-committee appointed Faucher 
 to draw up the measure. Faucher, therefore, is the 
 author of the Bill. 
 
 When finished it was presented to the Government, 
 who, after some demur — for they felt that they were al- 
 most abdicating — consented to bring it in. The Presi- 
 dent was perhaps more reluctant than his Ministers ; but 
 
i8so.] Changes in the Constitution. 227 
 
 Faucher thinks that he felt that, in assisting the majority 
 of the Assembly to perpetuate their power, he obtained 
 a claim on them to assist in perpetuating his. Faucher 
 does not think the highest estimate of the disfranchising 
 power of the Bill excessive. More than two millions, he 
 believes, will either actually lose their votes or find it too 
 expensive or too troublesome to give them. 
 
 I asked him what was the sort of improved Constitu- 
 tion which the Assembly elected by this sifted con- 
 stituency would create. He said a government of tran- 
 sition. France is Monarchical — that is to say, it is not 
 Republican — but it has no loyalty or personal predilec- 
 tion. A Henri cinq dynasty would be overthrown before 
 its chief could march from the Porte St. Denis to the 
 Porte St. Martin. A Regency would be still less possi- 
 ble, and all the other factions would combine against a 
 revival of the Empire. But as a means of transition, as 
 an escape from the Republic to a more stable form, a 
 prolongation of the Louis Napoleon presidency for ten 
 years might be accepted, and he trusts will be so, for he 
 sees no tolerable alternative. 
 
 And he thinks that events may bring it on even under 
 the present Assembly. If the passing of the Bill should be 
 followed by an entente, the Anti-Republican party will ob- 
 tain a victory which will give them absolute power. And 
 they will exercise it by immediately amending the Constitu- 
 tion, instead of waiting for the legal time, two years hence. 
 
 I alluded to the general suspicion that this was one of 
 the objects of the introducers of the present measure. 
 He said that such intentions were not to be avowed, 
 
 Q2 
 
2 28 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 perhaps ought not to be entertained, but we all thought 
 his disclaimer feeble. And yet he does not seem to think 
 highly of the man into whose hands he wishes to throw 
 the destiny of France for ten years. He thinks still 
 more meanly of Cavaignac. Once indeed in his own 
 defence he made a good speech, pectus discrtwn facit — 
 but as a statesman he is nothing. And as a soldier, he is 
 able to command a regiment, scarcely a brigade, and 
 would be quite incompetent at the head of a division. I 
 asked if he did not manage well the battle of June 1848. 
 ' No, indeed,' answered Faucher. ' I will not accuse him of 
 treachery ; I do not, indeed, believe that he wished to be- 
 tray us ; but it was owing to his slowness and irresolution 
 that it lasted four days. As soon as the Faubourg St. 
 Antoine was vigorously attacked, the business was done. 
 If he had been elected President, we should have had the 
 Red Republic in six months.' We asked as to the re- 
 sources of the Republicans. He said that a regular 
 cvieiUe was supposed to cost about 40,000/., which they 
 obtained by rating {cotisani) one another. As for guns, 
 they probably have still about 50,000. Under his ad- 
 ministration the police, which was then in the highest 
 efficiency, was constantly searching for arms, and did not 
 discover more than about 600 stand, most of which ap- 
 peared to have been buried ; they were soiled and rusty. 
 In the afternoon I had a visit from M. Z. Lahitte » 
 had just left him in the utmost excitement. He did not 
 know, he said, what prevented him from instantly recall- 
 ing the French Embassy from London. I begged Z. to 
 ' General de Lahitte was Minister for Foreim Affairs. — Ed. 
 
1850.] Electoral Law. 229 
 
 explain to me the complaint against Lord Palmerston. 
 He said that Lahitte always told him that although 
 all that he heard from Ad. C. Parker and Mr. Wyse 
 was unpleasant, Drouyn de I'Huys' reports of his con- 
 versations with Lord Palmerston were satisfactory. That 
 Palmerston always said that he should consent to any 
 reasonable arrangement which M. Gros might propose. 
 And that at last an arrangement had been made in Lon- 
 don settling the matter in a way which, on the whole, 
 was favourable to Greece. That Palmerston assured 
 Drouyn de I'Huys that Wyse was instructed under no 
 circumstances to resume hostilities without communi- 
 cating with London and receiving fresh instructions. 
 That Lahitte, therefore, flattered himself and told all 
 his friends that he had settled the matter well. But 
 that now it appears that Wyse has absolutely refused to 
 abide by M. Gros' decision, has refused to communicate 
 with London, has refused even a week's delay, has reim- 
 posed the blockade, and has forced Greece to submit t6 
 terms which Gros had declared to be inadmissible and 
 which Palmerston himself had abandoned in London. 
 Lahitte proclaims that France has been betrayed and 
 insulted, and Z. does not see how the Assembly can 
 think otherwise. 
 
 We proceeded to talk of the Electoral Bill. The 
 objects of the Government, he said, are two. If the Bill 
 excite no insurrection, they hope that it will so far im- 
 prove the constituencies as to give them another Con- 
 servative Assembly. If it is followed by an insurrection, 
 they expect to subdue that insurrection, and to follow 
 
230 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 up their victory by an immediate remodelling of the 
 Constitution. But he looks forvvard with little hope to 
 either alternative. The alteration produced by the Bill 
 will not be sufficient materially to influence the next 
 election. And though a subdued eme^lte\NO^A^ give them 
 a revolutionary plenitude of power, he does not think 
 that there is sense enough or forbearance enough in the 
 three parties which form the majority to enable them to 
 join in forming a Government much better than the 
 present. But though he thinks the attempt which the 
 majority is now making desperate, he does not wonder at 
 its being made. Under the present system, a Montagnard 
 Assembly is steadily approaching, and, with it, public 
 and private ruin. I asked why universal suffrage must 
 return a Montagnard Assembly in 1852, when it did not 
 in 1848 or in 1849. Neither the Constituent Assembly, 
 he answered, nor the Legislative were Montagnard, but 
 the Convention was. The parallel did not convince me, 
 but I did not push the discussion further. 
 
 Tn the evening, George Sumner called on us, and now 
 we heard the Republican side of the question. He 
 agrees with everybody to whom I have talked that the 
 next Assembly will be Montagnard, but looks to that 
 result with unmixed pleasure. The Montagnards, he 
 says, desire nothing but an honest, peaceful republic. 
 As soon as they are in power they will reduce the army 
 to 250,000 men, and substitute an income-tax for the 
 present oppressive and exclusive land-tax, and a little 
 liberty for the arbitrary tyranny which is now compress- 
 ing us. What calls itself the party of order is, in fact, 
 
1850.] Greek Affairs. 231 
 
 the party of disorder. It is carrying the nation straight 
 to bankruptcy, and is trying to carry it to civil war. If 
 the definition of treason be an attempt to subvert by 
 force the institutions of a country, all its plans and lan- 
 guage are treasonable. It openly proclaims that France 
 shall not remain Republican ; that it will provoke the 
 people to resistance, and use that resistance as a pretence 
 for recreating monarchy. But the people are too wise 
 to be thus provoked. They have resolved to remain 
 quiet until the elections of 1852 ensure them a legal 
 triumph. Then, indeed, those whom the proposed bill 
 excludes may, perhaps, tender their votes, justly think- 
 ing their exclusion unconstitutional and therefore void ; 
 but they will do it without violence, for the Republican 
 party will then be unresisted, since it will be obviously 
 irresistible. 
 
 Sitnday, May 12. — Beaumont breakfasted with us. 
 He, too, saw Lahitte yesterday, and said that nothing 
 can exceed his irritation. He says that he would rather 
 be torn into a thousand pieces than continue Foreign 
 Minister unless he is allowed to require satisfaction for 
 the insolence and treachery with which he has been 
 treated. Beaumnot is sure that we only know a part of 
 the story : as it is told it is incomprehensible. He 
 admits that Lord Palmerston is quarrelsome and liti- 
 gious — qiiil a I' esprit proccdiirier — that he is constantly 
 urging his extreme rights, and is a negotiator against 
 whom one must be always on one's guard ; but he also 
 says that he is perfectly honest ; that he states nothing 
 but what he thinks true, and promises nothing that he 
 
232 Journals kept in Frmice and Italy. [1S50. 
 
 does not fully perform. He cannot believe, therefore, 
 that he has deceived Lahitte, though he may have 
 overreached him. 
 
 I said that the whole Greek affair seemed to nie inex- 
 plicable ; that, in the first place, our demands seemed 
 to me illegal. All that one country can require as to its 
 subjects when travelling or residing in another is, that 
 they shall be subject to the same laws as the natives. 
 If the tribunals are as open to them as to others, it is to 
 them that they must have recourse ; and if they fail, 
 under circumstances in which a native might fail, there 
 is no further redress. They must be supposed to have 
 known the character of the laws and of the people when 
 they went there. If a Frenchman is robbed on Houn- 
 slow Heath he may sue the hundred. If his house is 
 pulled down by a mob he may sue the country. If his 
 land is taken by a railroad, he may bring his action. If 
 he fails in these proceedings, he does not ask his Minis- 
 ter to interfere for him. He does not say, ' Your laws 
 are barbarous ; they do not afford the protection to 
 person and property to which a Frenchman is accus- 
 tomed. They may do for you, but they won't do for 
 me. Your Government shall pay me what I think my 
 losses entitle me to, or a French fleet shall blockade the 
 Thames.' And, in the second place, supposing the 
 demands justified by law and by fact, this seemed a 
 strange time to enforce them, when the general interests 
 of the West of Europe and our special interests in hold- 
 ing the Ionian Isles lead us to wish to weaken Russian 
 influence over Greece. 
 
1850.] Electoral Law. 233 
 
 Beaumont answered that our claims on Greece ap- 
 peared to him about as good, or rather about as bad, as 
 those of France on Mexico, or on Tahiti, or on Algiers ; 
 that a practice seemed to be arising among powerful 
 nations, in their intercourse with weak ones, to exact 
 compensation for private injuries which they would not 
 think of requiring from nations capable of resisting. 
 And he very much regretted that France and England 
 were setting so bad an example. 
 
 Beaumont looks with great alarm and disapprobation 
 on the new electoral law. He thinks it a new attempt 
 of the reactionary party to excite a revolt. It is their 
 fourth. ' First,' he said, ' they tried to provoke the 
 people by attacking the liberty of the press. It re- 
 mained quiet, and they then attempted to rouse it by 
 cutting down the trees of liberty. That failed, and they 
 brought in a law of transportation not only severe but 
 absolutely unjust, for it was to be applied to those who 
 have already been convicted. We of the " tiers " party 
 rejected these clauses, or, perhaps, the revolt would have 
 already taken place. Now they are attacking the 
 Parisians with a new electoral law avowedly to punish 
 them for the last elections. One proof of the animus 
 with which this is done is, that instead of softening down 
 they exaggerate its probable effects. It might, perhaps, 
 disfranchise 2 millions. They put forth that it Avill dis- 
 franchise three or even four. Their newspapers taunt 
 the people sometimes by telling them that they have 
 been beaten into submission, and will not venture to 
 rise ; and sometimes by hinting that this is only a 
 
2 34 yournals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 beginning, and that disfranchisement will be followed by- 
 coercion. Carlier, the Prefet de Police, is just the instru- 
 ment for such a faction. His body and soul are iron, 
 and he has as little scruple as he has fear. He offered 
 to the President, some months ago, to get him up an 
 (fmcutc. The President refused ; but no one doubts 
 that his services for that purpose have now been ac- 
 cepted. 
 
 ' Such is the strange state of feeling that the party 
 of order is intent on nothing but civil war, and the 
 anarchists are trying to keep the peace. Which will 
 succeed is very doubtful. The Montagnards made a 
 grievous, perhaps a fatal, blunder yesterday — 200 of 
 them abstained from voting on the selection of the 
 committee to which the Bill is referred. So that a 
 reactionist committee is appointed. Had the Montagne 
 voted, a committee, not consisting, as the present one 
 does, of inodcrcs enrages, but really moderate, would 
 have been appointed, and they would probably have 
 mitigated or removed the most irritating parts of the 
 Bill. 
 
 ' If a conflict takes place,' he continued, ' it will be 
 very sanguinary. If the Government succeed, as they 
 probably will do, endeavours will be made to take as 
 few prisoners as possible. Prisoners are worse than 
 enemies in arms ; it is impossible to dispose of them 
 without mischief To try and put to death 10,000 men, 
 or to keep them in prison, or to transport them, seem 
 all equally impracticable. And if they are pardoned 
 they return to swell the hostile part of the population of 
 
1850.] Probable result of an Ins7trrection. 235 
 
 Paris, without character and without employment, living 
 on theft or on public assistance. It is the \q,qoo grades 
 of 1848 that keep Paris now in alarm. On the other 
 hand, there is no doubt that if the insurgents succeed, 
 their victory this time will be one of plunder and murder. 
 Two hours of pillage have been promised to them, and 
 will be taken. What a Rouge Government would dare 
 to do or fear to do can be conjectured only in a few 
 points. It is not probable that they would raise the 
 guillotine. France is disgusted with judicial murder. 
 But they would assassinate widely. They would impose 
 progressive taxes on property which would confiscate or 
 drive away capital ; they would effect a national bank- 
 ruptcy, probably by means of an enormous paper cur- 
 rency. Beyond this all is obscurity. They are not 
 warlike. The Provisional Government talked absurdly 
 about Italy and about the treaties of 18 15, but never 
 seriously contemplated war. The ruling power of that 
 period, the army of the Ateliers nationanx, was resolved 
 to keep the peace. It had no warlike propensities. 
 It had no enthusiasm or ambition or self-devotion. 
 All that it wished was sensual enjoyment and idle- 
 ness. Thirty sous a day and nothing to do for them 
 satisfied their wishes. The only motive that could ex- 
 cite them to fight was the threat of drafting them into 
 the army.' 
 
 Beaumont puts Cavaignac high. He is silent, apa- 
 thetic, and reserved, and has excited great hostility by 
 his apparent superciliousness. Mole, for instance, cannot 
 bear his haughtiness ; but he is wise as a statesman and 
 
236 JoiL^nials kept in France and Italy. [1S50. 
 
 great as a general. I mentioned Faucher's opinion, that 
 the contest of July 1848 had been prolonged by Ca- 
 vaignac's want of skill or of decision. De Beaumont 
 strongly denied this. When the contest began there 
 were only 16,000 troops in Paris. All that they could 
 do was to hold their ground till others could be brought 
 up. Lamoriciere was for two days in the Montmartre 
 quarter, surrounded by a host of enemies, who would 
 have destroyed him if he had advanced a step beyond 
 the narrow circle which he occupied. The rejection of 
 Cavaignac on December 10 was a fatal mistake. It was 
 the work of those who, either from interest or from 
 passion, had resolved that the Republic should fail, and 
 who thought that the best mode of ruining it was to put 
 Louis Napoleon at its head — a calculation which has 
 turned out to be correct. 
 
 Monday, May 13. — Count Horace Viel Castel, the 
 Secretary of the Museum, breakfasted with us, and took 
 us over the Louvre. 
 
 ^ -Jf -Jf -^ -x- ^ 
 
 Viel Castel lives much with Carlier, and with the 
 people about the President. Carlier expects and desires 
 a conflict. Changarnier, however, intends to manage it 
 this time in a new manner. The eastern quarters, which 
 are always its seats, are to be surrounded by troops, and 
 then the artillery from Vincennes is to be brought up 
 and to bombard them. He is quite ready to burn down 
 St. Antoine and St. Margeau. Viel Castel disbelieves 
 the honesty which has been attributed to the Parisian 
 ^mcutiers. In 1848 they plundered the Tuileries and 
 
1850.] Dishonesty of the I nstirgents. 237 
 
 the Louvre to the amount of two milHons ; most of those 
 who executed summary justice on thieves were thieves 
 themselves, who murdered their associates in order to 
 plunder them. On a Sunday hundreds flock to the 
 Louvre, not to admire but to mark down the presses 
 which contain articles of value. They hope to revisit 
 them the next time they storm the Tuileries. Chan- 
 garnier lives under the feeling of the constant possibility 
 of assassination. He never goes out without leaving at 
 home a sort of military or political will, in which he 
 appoints his provisional successor, and gives instructions 
 for his guidance. 
 
 We dined with Horace Say. Among the guests 
 were the Fauchers. Faucher had been engaged in 
 the committee on the Bill from 8 in the morning till 
 6 in the evening, and returned to it directly after dinner. 
 He has refused to be rapporteur, but fears that it will 
 be thrust on him. His objections are founded partly on 
 the labour and the responsibility and partly on his dis- 
 like to coming into intimate contact with Mole and 
 Thiers. They have never forgiven his rapid rise, and 
 
 View him with scornful yet with jealous eyes. 
 
 For several months he would not speak to either of 
 them. Mole, Thiers, Montalembert, Broglie, and Berryer 
 are considered the heads of the coalition which calls 
 itself the party of order, or the moderate party, and is 
 called by the public the reactionary party. They have 
 been nicknamed the five Burgraves. They consist, it 
 will be observed, of Legitimists and Orleanists. The 
 
■0 
 
 8 y Quintals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 present Ministers, who have no party, are merely clerks, 
 holding office by sufferance. 
 
 We talked of the danger to be apprehended from the 
 formats libcres. Faucher laughed at it. Dupin, he said, 
 had entertained the same fears ; but he had convinced 
 him that there were not 3,000 of them in Paris. The 
 really dangerous persons are the grades of 1848; of 
 whom there are 7,000 or 8,000. Say confirmed Faucher. 
 He can tell, he says, a for(^at libcre the instant he sees 
 him. There is a sharp, inquisitive glance, lance commc 
 jin trait, immediately after which the countenance falls 
 back into listless apathy. 
 
 Greece, however, was the great subject of conversa- 
 tion. Faucher said that at the opera yesterday every 
 member of the Corps Diplomatique, except Lord Nor- 
 manby, came up to him to pour out indignation against 
 Lord Palmerston. It puts him in mind of 1840, and, 
 if the hands of France were not full, would lead 
 to very serious results. I ended the evening at Lady 
 Elgin's — small and somewhat stiff, like most French 
 parties. 
 
 Tuesday, May 14. — After breakfast I sat for half an 
 hour with Tocqueville. He utterly disapproves of what 
 is going on, and, if he is to be ill, is glad to be ill now, 
 and to have nothing to do with it. 
 
 * -Jt ^ -Jf -x- -Jf 
 
 As I left the Rue Castellane I met Lord Normanby. 
 I told him that I had forgotten to ask him if there was 
 any difficulty in my being presented to the President. 
 
1850.] opposition to Free Trade. 239 
 
 None, he said, if you can stay till Thursday week. But 
 I do not intend to go there the day after to-morrow, as 
 something may be said that morning in the Assembly 
 which would render my presence objectionable. I am, 
 therefore, at Versailles, supposed to be ill. I shall not 
 return to Paris till next week. He does not, it seems, 
 expect Lahitte to execute his threat of recalling Drouyn 
 de I'Huys, or he would not talk of presenting me next 
 week. I then went to Michel Chevalier's. 
 
 The Conseil general de 1' Agriculture, des Manufac- 
 tures et du Commerce, have petitioned the Government 
 to order the Professors of Political Economy to abstain 
 from recommending free trade. Michel Chevalier, as 
 one of those Professors, is both angry and amused. The 
 cause of free trade, he said, was gained in all the world 
 as soon as it was adopted in England. He thinks, how- 
 ever, that this Greek affair will retard the victory — not 
 only by exciting a strong anti-English feeling, and in- 
 disposing the* French people against any changes which 
 may be supposed favourable to English interests, but by 
 spreading and confirming the general opinion of English 
 bad faith, and leading the Continent in general, and 
 France in particular, to suspect that at the bottom of 
 our free trade is a wish to do mischief to our neighbours. 
 Ten years ago, in 1 840, there would have been a com- 
 mercial treaty between England and France, if the 
 quarrel of July had not occurred. This, he says, is the 
 pendant to it. 
 
 In the evening I went to M. Guizot's, and afterwards 
 
240 yournals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 to Mdme. de Circourt's.* Guizot's party was arranged 
 in the continental styl# — all the women on one side of 
 the larger room and the men on the other ; there was a 
 little room behind, into which those who were tired of 
 the formality of the larger room retired. The only 
 anecdote that we heard was a speech of La Grange's, 
 ' Mon armee ne donnera pas — pour celle de Carlier je ne 
 reponds pas.' 
 
 Mdme. de Circourt's was after the English fashion — 
 hot, crowded, the men and women dispersed and easy. 
 She sat constantly at the tea-table. The rooms were 
 full of celebrities — half the men wore stars. G. Sumner 
 was talking radicalism to Wohrman and me, when 
 Wohrman checked him. ' I agree with you,' he said ; 
 ' but perhaps I am the only person present who does. 
 So pray speak lower.' 
 
 Wednesday, May 15. — I called this morning on 
 Decaisne, the painter, and Triqueti, the sculptor. They 
 both told me that works of art had been selling during 
 the winter at extravagant prices. Triqueti said that 
 the cost at which one collection had been made was 
 fabulous. Everybody, indeed, agrees that the expense 
 and luxury of Paris during this year have been unpre- 
 cedented. I heard the same story from Lady Elgin, from 
 Mrs. Holmes, from Chevalier, from Mdme. de Circourt, 
 from Mdme. de Tocqueville, from Mdme. Czarkowska, 
 and from Mdme. Faucher. They had heard it accounted 
 
 ' Mdme. de Circourt was a jMuscovite. She was full of talent and 
 vivacity, and a brilliant talker. She had a very agi-eeable salon. She 
 died in consequence of an accident in 1863. Her husband sunives her. 
 He is French, and a very distinguished man. — Ed. 
 
1850.] Increase of Expense, 2 4 1 
 
 for in different ways. Some from the prevalence of an 
 opinion that the ship was sinking, and that it was well 
 to have a last hour's amusement before she went down. 
 ' C'est un vol,' they said, ' que nous faisons aux Rouges.' 
 Others thought that it was principally the result of the 
 economy of the previous year and a half People bought 
 nothing in 1848 or 1849, and therefore were rich and 
 unprovided in 1850. Mdme. Faucher said that it began 
 in public spirit. Ladies were told that trade ought to 
 be encouraged, and they were delighted to be patrioti- 
 cally fine. The result was, she said, that never were 
 such toilettes seen. 
 
 Afterwards I went to the Assembly. The Government 
 is waging a violent war against the opposition press. 
 Every day there are reports of trials in which Editors 
 are convicted, fined, and imprisoned. The opposition 
 journals are not allowed to be sold in the streets. They 
 can be bought only at the Editors', or in a few reading- 
 rooms in the democratic quarters. Yesterday, a further 
 step was taken. A M. Boule, the printer of three oppo- 
 sition papers — the ' Estafette,' the ' Republique,' and 
 the ' Voix du Peuple ' — was suddenly deprived of his 
 license and his presses sealed up, so that for two or 
 three days, until they have made new arrangements, 
 those papers cannot appear. This was complained of 
 to-day in the Chamber. Baroche, the Minister of the 
 Interior, defended it, on the ground that a year ago 
 M. Boule had been convicted of an offence as printer, 
 and that a law of 18 14, one of the early laws of the 
 Restoration, authorised the withdrawing of the license. 
 
 VOL. I. R 
 
242 yoiirnals kept in France and Italy. [1S50. 
 
 He was answered in the first place that this law was 
 never put in force, and in the second place that M. 
 Boule's offences were merely technical slips, and that it 
 was not the printer, but the liberal journal, that was the 
 real object of attack. When I entered, M. Piscatory 
 was defending him, in the usual hubbub of a French 
 Assembly. ' We all of the majority,' he said (he is an 
 Orleanist), ' thank the Minister for what he has said and 
 for what he has done. We all promise to support him 
 indoors and out of doors (ici et hors d'ici)! The words 
 ' hors dHci' created an immense tumult. ' Nous verrons,' 
 said one. ' C'est une provocation,' said another. ' Le 
 pouvoir,' said Piscatory, ' nous trouvera fideles a sa 
 cause. II nous trouvera ici et hors d'ici les eanemis de 
 I'anarchie.' ' The people,' answered Dupont de Bussac, 
 ' will not take up your challenge. You cannot tempt it 
 into the streets.' 
 
 The turn which the debate was taking became so 
 disagreeable to the majority that it used its formidable 
 power of voting the cloture, and then passed to the 
 order of the day, and I left them engaged on the 
 Budget. 
 
 We dined with the Beaumonts. The guests were 
 Lanjuinais,' Minister of Commerce in the last Cabinet, 
 and M., who was at Athens when the Greek ques- 
 tion first arose. It arose out of a quarrel between 
 
 > Vicomte Victor Lanjuinais was son of the celebrated member of the 
 Convention. He was a consistent and independent Liberal. After the 
 coup d'etat he took no part in politics ; would never take the oath of al- 
 legiance to the Emperor ; refused every advance on the part of the Go- 
 vernment, and declined to be elected Member of the Coi^ps Legislatif. He 
 died not many years ago. — Ed. 
 
1850.] Character of the Pj^esident. 243 
 
 Lyons and the King. They hated one another bitterly. 
 Lyons got up these claims to annoy him, and Otho 
 would not let them be satisfied because it would 
 please Lyons. M. belongs to the Moderate party, and, 
 as Mdme. de Beaumont told me, is one of the most 
 moderate among them. But it seems to me difficult to 
 exceed the violence of his language or of his wishes. 
 One of two dictatorships, he said, must be submitted 
 to — the dictatorship of the many, or the dictatorship of 
 the few. If the many prevail, adieu to civilisation ; if 
 the few, adieu for a time to what is called freedom. 
 The first thing to be done is to put down the mob of 
 Paris. Just in this part of the town, as far as the Rue 
 Richelieu, a gentleman is safe ; but let him go beyond 
 it and he is insulted. They must be trampled down 
 {ecrasc) by force, if they can be brought into the streets, 
 or by law if they refuse to fight us. When we have 
 done with them we shall fight out the other questions 
 among ourselves. How they will be resolved no human 
 being can conjecture, but any solution will be an im.- 
 provement on what we are now enduring. 
 
 Lanjuinais talked to me about the President, w4iom 
 for six months he used to see almost every day. He 
 does not think him vain or even ambitious, in the ordi- 
 nary sense of the word, but impressed with a perfect 
 conviction that he is destined to end the revolution, and 
 to restore France to prosperity under a Buonaparte 
 dynasty. He is silent, reserved, keeps faithfully the 
 secrets of his different Ministers and his own, has per- 
 fect courage, physical and moral, and a determination 
 
244 yoiLrnals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 amounting to obstinacy. He has considerable know- 
 ledge, and an understanding, not brilliant certainly, but 
 yet not contemptible. Lanjuinais says that he under- 
 stands the details of business far better than the average 
 of persons. On the other hand, he is absolutely without 
 tact or knowledge of mankind ; he is impervious to 
 reasoning, and his personal friends, Persigny, Ney, 
 Morny, and others, are very bad advisers. 
 
 Of course, we discussed the Greek question, which 
 occupies the Parisian mind at present even more than 
 the emeutc. I said that I could not understand how 
 Wyse refused M. Gros' terms, and then conceded others 
 more favourable to Greece ; that, if he was authorised 
 to make concessions, the natural thing seemed to be to 
 let the mediator have the credit of having obtained them. 
 The rest of the party, however, had their solution ready; 
 that his object was to show the utter contempt in which 
 England held France as well as Russia ; to prove that 
 she was not to be influenced by enemy or friend. The 
 English ought to be aware, however, said M., of 
 the effect which Lord Palmerston's conduct is pro- 
 ducing on the Continent. As long as your present 
 strength and our weakness continue, you are safe ; but 
 let your resources, or your power of using them, be 
 weakened ; let you be involved in an American war or 
 in an Irish rebellion, and you will reap the results of the 
 hatred which Lord Palmerston is sowing. 
 
 Beaumont talked of Italy. He thinks that the Cavai- 
 gnac Government made a fatal mistake in not marching 
 80,000 men across the frontier to support the Piedmon- 
 
1850.] Italian Affairs. 245 
 
 tese invasion of Lombardy. The objections to it were 
 three — the fear of war with Austria and Russia, the 
 expense, and the pretext which a state of war would 
 have given for returning to the warlike measures of 
 the first revolution, assignats, bankruptcy, and the 
 general system which is called revolutionary. The 
 first of these was not really to be feared. Austria 
 was ready to surrender Lombardy and even Venice. 
 She wanted only an honourable pretext. The second 
 was what prevailed. When the question was debated in 
 the Council, Goudchaux, then Finance Minister, actually 
 burst into tears as he described the effects of war on the 
 Budget Beaumont discussed the matter with Lord 
 Palmerston over and over. Lord Palmerston, as he was 
 bound to do, constantly dissuaded the measure. He 
 suggested every argument against it. But Beaumont did 
 not then doubt, and does not now doubt, that he earnestly 
 wished it to take place, Beaumont always told him so, 
 always said to him, ' You are arguing against your wishes 
 and )/our convictions ;' and Lord Palmerston did not 
 seem annoyed by the imputation, though, in fact, it was 
 one of insincerity. 
 
 I asked what France was to gain by the annexation 
 of Lombardy and Venice to Piedmont. Was it her in- 
 terest to have a strong kingdom in Northern Italy .-' 
 They all answered, certainly not. It is her interest to 
 keep Italy divided and weak. But it never was intended 
 that Piedmont should have Venice ; that would have 
 been kept separate. And, at all events, France would 
 have obtained the enormous advantage of having dis- 
 
246 Joitrnals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 played and increased her influence. Now, excepting at 
 Rome, it is nothing, and it will cease even there the 
 instant that her troops are withdrawn. Besides this, the 
 Cavaignac Government would have done something, and 
 to do something is the duty, the necessity of a new 
 Government. 
 
 Louis XVIII. saved his throne by marching into 
 Spain. Charles X., if he had had common sense, would 
 have saved his by seizing Algiers. Nobody knew what 
 we were doing when we went there; nobody knows now 
 what it will lead us to, but it was doing something. It 
 is for want of doing something that the Government is 
 falling. 
 
 We went on to talk of Austria. ' She is,' said Beau- 
 mont, 'the only Power that has gained by our revolution. 
 The shock which we gave to the rest of the world was 
 mischievous. But it did good to Austria. She could 
 not continue as she was ; the Metternich policy had 
 destroyed the cohesion of her different states and worn 
 out the means of improvement. She has had her revo- 
 lution. It has swept away not only the old men but the 
 old traditions. Hungary, for the first time, is Austrian ; 
 she has subdued all resistance in Lombardy. Her scat- 
 tered provinces are now actually tied together in one 
 sheaf, and I believe that they will really unite.' I asked 
 what he thought of Schwartzenberg. ' He is a man,' said 
 Beaumont, ' of fair talents and extraordinary firmness. 
 His ruling passion, I think, is hatred of Lord Palmerston 
 — a hatred, indeed, which extends, though not in so 
 virulent a degree, to the whole English nation.' 
 
1S50.] CJiasm between Gentilhomme and Rotnrier. 247 
 
 TJuirsday, LI ay 16. — I called on Baron de Billing; 
 his hopes of tranquillity rest much on the salary re- 
 ceived by the deputies. It binds over the Montagnards 
 to keep the peace ; and, though the Moderate majority 
 is 'panting for a conflict, it cannot make the attack. 
 ' Money,' he added, ' has far more influence in France than 
 in England. The Englishman wishes for it in order to 
 spend, the Frenchman in order to save, and the desire 
 of accumulation is a more constant and a more intense 
 stimulus than that of expenditure. Money, too, is more 
 necessary to the bulk of our people than to yours. An 
 Englishman cannot starve — the poor laws prevent that ; 
 they offer him, though not on agreeable terms, a better 
 maintenance, a better lodging, warmth, clothing, and 
 food than the French peasant can get, or even the 
 English hard-working labourer. This is one of the 
 reasons of our universal place-hunting. Ever},^one is 
 anxious for a permanent income, however small. This 
 is the reason, too, why our marriages are made so con- 
 stantly for money. An English commoner, if he does 
 not marry for love, marries for connection. He hopes 
 to rise into a higher circle. A French rotiirier has no 
 such hope. Nothing will place him on a level with a 
 geiitilhoinme. You in England fancy that we have got 
 rid of this distinction. There is not a shadow of its 
 diminution. You are deceived by the familiarity with 
 which the noblesse treat the rotiiriers. They treat them 
 so because they know that between them there is an 
 impassable gulf I will give you an instance. There 
 are two men of great political importance, friends of 
 
248 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1S50. 
 
 yours (and he mentioned their names) : one is of a 
 respectable but plebeian family, the other's birth is very 
 high. They are intimate friends ; their children have 
 been brought up together. It occurred to the rotiwier 
 that a match might be made between two of their 
 children. He was at that time, indeed is now, one of 
 the first men in France ; and he thought that his personal 
 rank might supply the place of inherited rank. The 
 noble was sounded, through certain oitrcmettciirs. He 
 was as much astonished, or rather shocked, as if it had 
 been proposed to connect his family with that of a shoe- 
 maker. 
 
 From De Billing's I went to the Assembly. On the 
 opening of the sitting, Lahitte entered the tribune, and 
 read the letter which he had addressed to Drouyn de 
 I'Huys. I extract it from the newspaper: — 
 
 A M. V Ambassadctir de France a Londrcs. 
 
 Paris, 14 mai 1S50. 
 
 Monsieur, comme j'avais I'honneur de vous rannoncer hier, 
 le conseil a delibe're sur la reponse du cabinet de Londres a la 
 demande que vous avez ete charge' de lui transmettre. ■Sles 
 precedentes de'peches vous auront fait pressentir la resolution 
 du gouvernement de la Re'publique. La France, dans un 
 esprit de bienveillance et de paix s'e'tait decidee a interposer 
 ses bons offices, dans le but de terminer, \ des conditions 
 honorables, le differend qui s'e'tait eleve entre la Grande-Bre- 
 tagne et la Grece. 
 
 II avait ete convenu que les mesures coercitives dejk mises 
 en usage par I'Angleterre seraient suspendues pendant la duree 
 de la me'diation, et que si un arrangement juge acceptable par 
 le me'diateur fran^ais etait repousse par le negociateur bri- 
 
1850.] Lahitte to Droiiyn de V Hitys. 249 
 
 tannique, ce dernier devrait en refe'rer a Londres avant de 
 recourir de nouveau a I'emploi de la force. Nous avions regu, 
 sur ce dernier point, les promesses les plus formelles. 
 
 Elles n'ont pas ete tenues. II en est resulte cette de'plorable 
 conse'quence, qu'au moment meme ou un projet de convention, 
 ne'gocie directement et definitivement arrete' entre les cabinets 
 de Paris et de Londres, etait sur le point d'arriver a Athenes, 
 ou deja les bases essentielles en etaient connues, la Grece, 
 attaque'e de nouveau par les forces navales britanniques, malgre 
 les vives representations de I'envoye frangais, a du, pour 
 echapper a une ruine complete, accepter sans discussion les 
 clauses d'un ultimatum bien autrement rigoureux. 
 
 En apprenant cet etrange re'sultat de notre mediation, nous 
 avons voulu n'y voir que I'effet de quelque malentendu ; nous 
 avions espere que le cabinet de Londres, considerant comme 
 non avenus des faits regrettables pour tout le monde, et qui 
 n'avaient eu lieu que par suite de la violation d'un engagement 
 pris envers nous, maintiendrait le projet de convention que 
 nous avons arrete' avec lui. Vous avez ete charge de lui en 
 faire la demande. Cette demande n'ayant pas ^te e'coute'e, il 
 nous a paru que la prolongation de votre sejour k Londres 
 n'e'tait plus compatible avec la dignite' de la Republique. 
 
 Le Pre'sident m'a ordonne de vous inviter a rentrer en France, 
 apres avoir accredite' j\L de Marescalchi en qualite de charge 
 d'affaires. II m'a charge e'galement de vous exprimer toute la 
 satisfaction du gouvernement de la Re'publique pour le zele, 
 I'habilite, I'esprit de conciliation et de fermete' tout \ la fois que 
 vous avez constamment porte dans une negociation dont il 
 n'a pas tenu a vous d'assurer le succes. 
 
 Vous voudrez bien donner lecture de la presente de'peche 
 a Lord Palmerston. 
 
 (Signe) G^N^RAL de Lahitte. 
 
 It was followed by three separate rounds of clapping 
 from all parts of the house excepting the Montagne, 
 
250 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1S50. 
 
 which remained quiet and silent. After they had ended 
 the Assembly was supposed to be too much excited for 
 discussion. So the President left the chair, and the 
 members talked and gesticulated in groups for three- 
 quarters of an hour. The seance was then resumed ; 
 they proceeded with the estimates, and I went away. 
 
 After leaving the Assembly I went to Mdme. de 
 Circourt's. As a specimen of the manner in which a 
 Frenchwoman ensures that she shall be found at home I 
 give her hours of reception for all the week, as they 
 were furnished to me by ]\I. de Circourt : — 
 
 Monday . . 
 
 . 4 to 6 
 
 Thursday 
 
 . 2 to 6 
 
 Tuesday . . 
 
 . 9 .. 12 
 
 Friday . . 
 
 . 4 „ 6 
 
 Wednesday . 
 
 . 4 „ 6 
 
 Saturday 
 
 . 4 „ 6 
 
 This being Thursday, at four I found there a little 
 circle. I told them what had occurred in the Assembly, 
 for which they were prepared. And they were prepared 
 also with their explanations, that the whole Greek busi- 
 ness was originally undertaken by Lord Palmerston for 
 the mere purpose of insulting France. He knew, they 
 said, that France would offer her good offices, and he 
 was resolved to accept them, and then to decide the 
 matter without regard to them. He cared nothing 
 about Finlay or Pacifico ; his only object was to wound 
 France through Greece, as he had before wounded her 
 through Egypt. I ventured to suggest that this was 
 ascribing to him conduct without a motive, but could 
 
1850.] French RepiLblicans. 251 
 
 not get a hearing. Palmerston's hatred of France 
 accounted for eveiything. 
 
 The general opinion seemed rather favourable to an 
 cnicntc. Carlier was reported to have said that the 
 women of the Faubourg St. Antoine were busy among 
 the groups, which was a formidable sign. I suggested 
 that his wish was father to the thought, to which every- 
 body assented. 
 
 I drank tea with the Tocquevilles. As he does not 
 admit the usual explanation that the whole matter was 
 a scheme to insult France, he is as much puzzled by the 
 Greek affair as I am. 
 
 Friday, May 17. — Sumner breakfasted with us. He 
 maintains that the real Socialists, the different schools 
 who follow Proudhon, Cabet, Fourrier, or Louis Blanc, 
 are insignificant in number as well as in power ; and 
 that the large party to whom that name is given merely 
 wish to give the Republic a fair trial, and to introduce a 
 poor-law, an income-tax, and a reduction of the army. 
 He believes their success probable under any circum- 
 stances, and certain if the moderate party pursue its 
 present reckless counter-revolutionary course. He be- 
 lieves also that the Republicans are the only real sup- 
 porters of the English alliance, that they see in us their 
 only friends, because we are the only really constitu- 
 tional country in Europe ; and that we are the objects 
 of deep-seated hatred on the part of the Legitimists, 
 Orleanists, and Imperialists, partly from old traditions, 
 and partly and principally because we are constitutional. 
 He begged me to read the Republican papers, and test 
 
252 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 the accuracy of his views by comparing them with the 
 organs of the other factions. 
 
 He was at the Elysee Bourbon yesterday evening. 
 All the diplomatists were rejoicing at the prospect of 
 getting rid of Lord Palmerston. 
 
 After breakfast I called on Mdme. Schaffer. She is 
 very pleasing ; whether French or English I cannot say — 
 perhaps that very agreeable variety, a Frenchified Eng- 
 lishwoman. Her husband looks German, and put me a 
 little in mind of Rauch of Berlin, which is high praise. 
 
 He took me over his atelier, which is at present very rich. 
 "k ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 He is, I think, the best of the modern French school ; 
 grand in design and in expression, and a sober though 
 rather cold colourist. 
 
 I then went to see the R.'s of Geneva. He describes 
 Lausanne and Geneva as in the state which may be 
 expected where the Government is in the hands of 
 ignorant but not ill-disposed peasants and artisans. In 
 both cantons the ancient foundations and institutions, 
 dating in general from the time of the Reformation, 
 have been suppressed or diverted. Nothing remains of 
 old Geneva but its houses and its lake. The fortifica- 
 tions are to be removed, which is right ; but instead of 
 converting them into boulevards, as any decent aristoc- 
 racy or monarchy would do, they are to be built upon, 
 for the express purpose of increasing the poor and 
 Roman Catholic population, which forms the basis of 
 the democracy. In other respects the Government in 
 Geneva is fair ; neither persons, nor opinions, nor pro- 
 
1850.] Radical Nczuspapers. 253 
 
 perty are molested. In Lausanne the mob is intolerant. 
 The chapels of the Dissenters are shut, many of the 
 Protestant clergy have been dismissed, and the Govern- 
 ment dictates to the others what doctrines they shall 
 teach. 
 
 After dinner I tried to follow Sumner's advice and 
 read some of the Radical papers. They are not allowed 
 to be sold in the streets, and they are not taken in in 
 the West-end shops or cafes. It was not till I got to 
 the Place de la Bastille, in the middle of the republican 
 quarter, that I found a shop which sold them, and ev^en 
 there only a few could be obtained. The ' Democratic 
 Pacifique ' and the ' Credit ' had been seized that morn- 
 ing ; three others being virtually suspended by the 
 seizure of the types of their publisher Boule. I bought, 
 however, five at a sou apiece. We had been told that 
 a gentleman would be insulted in the democratic quarter. 
 We met, however, with no molestation, and saw no signs 
 of excitement except 300 or 400 men in blouses talking 
 earnestly in little knots of seven or eight in the Place de 
 r Hotel de Ville. When I came home I compared the 
 Democratic and Conservative newspapers. The com- 
 parison justified Sumner. The democratic papers try 
 to soften the quarrel. They admit that Lord Palmer- 
 ston's conduct is strange and unexplained ; that at the 
 best it was very sharp practice, but they separate Eng- 
 land from its Minister. They hold us up as the only 
 constitutional allies of France, and protest against her 
 throwing herself into the arms of her enemies because 
 she has been snubbed by her friend. Spain, they say, 
 
2 54 yournals kept hi France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 got on perfectly well with England as soon as official 
 relations between the countries ceased, and so will 
 France. 
 
 As a specimen of the language of the Conservative 
 papers, I have cut out the leading article of the ' Ami 
 du Peuple ' of May 18. The others are not less frantic : 
 
 Chaque fois que la France a e'te dechire'e par les discordes 
 intestines, chaque fois qu'une calamite a pese sur notre pays, 
 toujours on a vu 1' Anglais, cette autre calamit(i de la France, 
 nous lancer du fond de son ile I'insulte ou la menace ! 
 
 Perfidie, me'pris, oppression, iniquite de tous genres, rien ne 
 lui coute, rien ne lui repugne. Bons ou mauvais pretextes, il 
 s'empare de tout avec I'audace, avec I'eftronterie la plus revol- 
 tante. 
 
 Oui, nous reconnaissons bien la tortueuse politique an- 
 glaise, &c.^ 
 
 Saturday, May 18. — Arrivabene and Gioberti^ break- 
 fasted with us. Gioberti is very agreeable, but has more 
 the manner of a ' Gelehrter ' than of a statesman. It is, 
 perhaps, presumptuous in me to differ from him on 
 matters of fact, which he has better opportunities of 
 ascertaining ; but I must say that much that he believes 
 
 ' As the article is rather long, I suppress the rest. — Ed. 
 
 - [This and nearly all the other notices of Italian statesmen are furnished 
 by an Italian friend.] 
 
 Gioberti, a priest, a man of great parts, a sincere patriot, an e.xile from 
 Piedmont in the first years of Charles Albert's reign, wrote books of 
 philosophy and politics, and pamphlets against the Jesuits, and attempted 
 the tour deforce of transforming the Church into an instnmient of liberation 
 for Italy. His popularity in Italy was immense at one time, as the tenden- 
 cies of Pio Nono seemed to fulfil his expectations. He was made a Minister 
 in 1849, but soon quarrelled with his colleagues about on armed intervention 
 which he had planned in the affairs of Tuscany. After Novara he was sent 
 as Minister to Paris, but was soon recalled. He died long ago. — S. 
 
1850.] Giobertts Anticipations. 255 
 
 seems to me improbable. He is convinced, for instance, 
 that the sort of joint occupation of Italy by France and 
 Austria is a matter of compact between the two Govern- 
 ments ; that France has said to Austria, Let me have 
 Rome, and you shall have Ancona.^ He thinks, indeed, 
 that the foreign policy of the present Cabinet is concerted 
 with Austria and Russia. On the other hand, he believes 
 that the Republicans are quite pacific ; that they cling 
 to the English alliance and abhor Russia. I objected 
 Lamartine's declaration of his foreign policy, which was, 
 as ' le cri de la nature,' to connect France with Russia in 
 order to stifle Austria between them, and deprive Eng- 
 land of the power of interference ; but he would not 
 admit that Lamartine spoke the opinions of his party. 
 He believes the success of the Republican party to be 
 certain. Whether it be produced by peaceful or by 
 violent means depends on the nature of the resistance. 
 If that is a resistance of violence, of course it will be 
 met by violence, and perhaps followed by vengeance. 
 A few heads may, in that case, be struck off in Paris, 
 and a few chateaux pillaged in the country, before the 
 new directors of power have had time to enable it to act 
 with regularity and under control. But he does not 
 believe that the Republican party will be tempted to 
 violence, or that the Reactionary party will venture to 
 begin it. In which case the next Assembly will be Re- 
 publican, it will relieve the wants of the people by giving 
 them a poor-law, and show them the folly of their 
 Socialist fancies by giving them a few loans in order to 
 ' This was substantially true. — N, W. S. 
 
2 5^ yournals kept in Fi ance and Italy. [1850. 
 
 establish and see fail, a few co-operative societies ; and 
 it will, by its success in France, prepare men's minds for 
 what must happen — the gradual extension of republican 
 government over all Europe. He mentioned his attempts 
 to obtain Lamoriciere as commander of the Piedmontese 
 army. I asked how it happened that they had no native 
 for that purpose. It was owing, he said, to a tradi- 
 tional belief in the House of Savoy that they were born 
 generals — a tradition supported by a remarkable succes- 
 sion of military dukes and kings — and to their jealousy 
 of native merit. Charles Albert kept away or kept 
 down those whom he thought formidable rivals. He 
 intended to monopolise the fame of having driven the 
 
 Austrians out of Italy. 
 
 ■x- -H- * ■)«• ■?«• ^ 
 
 May 18. — I dined v.-ith M. Anisson Duperron. The 
 Due de Broglie, M. de Viel Castel, and Baron de Billing 
 were of the party. The Duke seemed much out of 
 spirits. He looked ten years older than when I saw 
 him last in 1847 in London. We talked of the theory 
 of the Thiers party, that the proper course is to try to 
 make the best of the existing Constitution. No one 
 present assented to it. ' If we wait,' they said, ' for a 
 third Assembly elected by universal suft'rage, we are 
 lost.' Everybody expressed indignation at the impu- 
 tation thrown on the party in power of wishing to 
 quarrel with England. ' \\'e are anxious,' they said, 
 ' for peace with England, indeed with everybody, for 
 our own affairs require our undivided attention and our 
 whole strength.' 
 
1850.] Recall of Drouyn de r Hiiys. 257 
 
 Sunday, May 19. — Beaumont breakfasted with us. 
 His explanation of Lord Palmerston's statement in the 
 House of Commons that Drouyn de I'Huys had not 
 been recalled, but had returned merely to confer with 
 his own Government, is this : Drouyn de I'Huys admitted 
 to him (Beaumont) that, after he had read to Lord 
 Palmerston the letter of recall, they had a long conver- 
 sation. I have no doubt that he told Lord Palmerston 
 that he hoped to smooth over matters in France ; he 
 could not expect, no one could expect, Lahitte to 
 read the despatch of recall from the tribune. If the 
 matter were arranged, it seemed probable that that 
 despatch would never be published ; and Palmerston's 
 denial of the recall was intended to facilitate the arrange- 
 ment. Drouyn de I'Huys arrived about three hours 
 before the letter was read. He was thunderstruck at 
 hearing what Lahitte meant to do, and used his utmost 
 efforts to prevent it. At present the Reactionists are 
 making the most of the quarrel. But as soon as they 
 have trampled under foot the Republicans, and turn 
 against the Imperialists, they will make the rupture with 
 England one of their foremost grievances. Your rash- 
 ness and unskilfulness, they will say, and will say with 
 truth, in writing so undiplomatic a letter, in which you 
 twice accuse England of a gross breach of truth, and in 
 publishing it to the world before you had heard what 
 England had to answer, have deprived us of our most 
 useful ally, and thrown us into the arms of Russia. 
 
 The President, he added, is fond of alluding to his 
 responsibility. It authorises him to interfere in a degree 
 
 VOL. I. S 
 
25^ y our nals kept in Finance and Italy. [1850. 
 
 which would be unconstitutional in an irresponsible King. 
 But he may bitterly sufifer for it. His party is the 
 weakest of the three. The one which ultimately pre- 
 vails will not be satisfied with dethroning him. He 
 will be impeached, and may revisit Ham, or endure 
 something worse. 
 
 After breakfast I went to Versailles, where Lord 
 Normanby has a pretty country house, and lunched 
 with them. There was no appearance of departure. 
 Lord Normanby does not seem very grateful to the 
 Republican party for their support — at least his grati- 
 tude does not extend to a wish for their success. Nor 
 does he believe that they are really much more favour- 
 able, or rather much less hostile, to England than the 
 Monarchists. Lahitte, he says, is an honest man, but 
 hot and inexperienced. He has, however, no fears as to 
 the immediate result of the present dispute, though it 
 will leave unpleasant recollections. 
 
 Monday, May 20. — I breakfasted with the Czarkowskis. 
 The other guest was a very intelligent Russian Pole, 
 Count Louis Brystzonowski. The Czarkowski property 
 is not farmed ; it is cultivated and managed for them by 
 servants, who have been born in the family, and remit 
 to them the net produce, which must be considerable, 
 as they are living with great comfort in a charming 
 apartment on the Boulevard des Capucins. They com- 
 plain, however, that some recent measures of the 
 Austrian Government have materially injured the for- 
 tunes of the landed proprietors. Czarkowski's estates, 
 like those of the other great nobles, are partly in his 
 
1S30.] Polish Politics. 259 
 
 own hands, and partly in those of his peasants, who pay, 
 or at least used to pay, their rents by labour, or, to use 
 the French term, by corvde. In this way they have 
 been always cultivated, and, if additional labour was 
 wanted, it was cheap. But the Austrian Government, 
 under the influence of Bach, the Minister of the Interior, 
 whom Czarkowski calls a Communist, has abolished the 
 corvee, and authorised the peasants to retain as owners 
 the lands which they tenanted as occupiers. An in- 
 demnity was promised to the landlords, but none has 
 as yet Leen given. The peasants can, of course, afford 
 to live without working for anybody but themselves, 
 since the work which they formerly did for their land- 
 lords was paid for only by land, and they now have that 
 land for nothing. They combine, therefore, to refuse 
 work except at extravagant wages — generally 8</. a 
 day for ordinary work, and 161:/. for harvest work ; 
 prices which, in proportion to the work done, are higher 
 than those of England. 
 
 They seem resolved not to return to live under the 
 Austrian rule. I said that if I were a Pole I should try 
 to make the best of the Government to which I v/as 
 subjected — educate my children at Berlin if I belonged 
 to Posen, or at Vienna if I were a Gallician ; imitate in 
 that the conduct of the people of Alsace and Lorraine, 
 who, though they are Germans by race, by history, and 
 by language, are French in feeling. Mdme. Czarkowska 
 answered that that might be well if the Austrians treated 
 Gallicia as the French treated Alsace. But what v/as 
 to be done if you lived under a Government which was 
 
26o yournals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 your enemy ? If the very institution which was intended 
 to assist you, and to raise you, directed all its efforts to 
 weaken and depress you ? If it ground you by excessive 
 taxation, and denied you the protection for which taxes 
 are paid ? If it strove to break the peace instead of 
 keeping it ; if it excited the peasant against the noble, 
 the tenant against the landlord, the rural population 
 against the townspeople, the debtor against the creditor, 
 the ignorant against the instructed, the poor against the 
 rich ? If it prescribed to every child whose parents 
 wished him to rise beyond the parish school precisely 
 the same education, precisely the same doses of mathe- 
 matics and Latin, and rhetoric and law, without any 
 reference to his tastes or destination, and rendered 
 that education so expensive that no ordinary fortune 
 could support it ? If it surrounded you with an atmo- 
 sphere of espionage, and was always ready to plunge 
 you, and then forget you, in a dungeon, on the report of 
 a guest or of a servant ? 
 
 Count Brystzonowski remarked that my supposition 
 represented the state of the Russian Poles in 1830. We 
 had then, he said, in the kingdom of Poland — that is to 
 say, in Russian Poland — a Constitution, not perfect, but 
 yet far better than we ever had before : a Constitution 
 which, if we had been independent, I would have died 
 to maintain. We had our own laws, our own judges, 
 and our army. The Russian Government tried every 
 means to conciliate every class, and particularly the 
 army. It took the officers from the ranks, partly in the 
 hope that so large a field for selection would enable them 
 
i8so.] Polish Patriotis77Z. 261 
 
 to find the best men, but principally in the belief that, 
 owing their rise to the Russian Commander-in-Chief, 
 they would be faithful to the Russian Government. 
 We were well governed, but we were governed by a 
 foreigner ; and the instant that the French revolution 
 gave us hope of independence we rose as one man. 
 The army, on which the Grand Duke Constantine relied 
 as his blind instrument, was destroyed in resisting 
 him. 
 
 This is a remarkable testimony, and not the first that 
 I have heard, to the excellence of the Russian adminis- 
 tration of Poland. Mierjejewski, who was one of those 
 who signed the dethronement of Nicholas, described to 
 me the kingdom of Poland, even in 1839 and 1840, after 
 the rebellion and the consequent abolition of the Consti- 
 tution, as the best governed part of Poland — as far more 
 flourishing than either Prussian Poland or Gallicia. He 
 must have been about fifty years old at the time of the 
 rebellion; Brystzonowski about twenty-five. Mierje- 
 jewski joined in it against his better judgment, because, 
 as he told me, he would not abandon his younger 
 friends. Brystzonowski seems even now to think himself 
 justified. This stubborn determination of the Poles not 
 to submit to a state of things which they have no 
 reasonable prospect of changing, though it does not 
 excuse the manner in which Austria treats them, yet 
 accounts for it. It has been the misfortune, perhaps still 
 more than it has been the fault, of that Government that 
 its Polish and Italian subjects have been for the last 
 thirty-five years in a state of chronic conspiracy against 
 
262 yoiu'uals kept in France a7id Italy. [1850. 
 
 it. This may not have rendered inevitable misgovern- 
 nient to the degree in which it has existed, particularly 
 in Gallicia, but it has rendered good government impos- 
 sible. No people can be well governed against their 
 will. The Italians complain that the Italian regiments 
 are sent to serve in Hungary, and that Lombardy and 
 the Terra Firma are governed by Hungarians ; but how 
 is it possible to entrust the defence of a government to 
 troops that are avowedly disaffected .'' They complain 
 that the public offices are filled with Germans, but can 
 Austria fill them with its enemies .'' This barbarous 
 feeling of nationality, of which the Polish insurrection of 
 1830 was perhaps the most irrational outbreak, has be- 
 come the curse of Europe. The tendency of events in 
 Europe during the last 1,000 years has been towards 
 the coalition of numerous small states with a few large 
 ones. This coalition has been partly the effect and 
 partly the cause of improved civilisation. If England 
 w^ere divided into a heptarchy, or even if England, 
 Wales, Scotland, and Ireland were four independent 
 nations, they would always be fighing one another, com- 
 mercially or physically. To this coalition the feeling 
 of nationality is opposed. Its ultimate tendency is to 
 split the composite frame of every European sovereignty 
 into hostile fragments. Its immediate tendency is to 
 make the central sovereign fear his subjects, and his 
 subjects hate their sovereign. 
 
 I dined with Lady Elgin. Among the guests was 
 M. de C. He belongs to the Reactionary party, but 
 as an intimate friend of Lamartine's, and an old ser- 
 
1850.] Restoratio7i of Alsace and Lorraine. 26 
 
 o 
 
 vant of the Provisional Government, is likely to be, 
 and indeed is thought to be, one of its most moderate 
 members. He seems, however, fully imbued with its 
 spirit. * We do not,' he said, ' propose this change in 
 the electoral law for its own sake, any more than you 
 passed the Reform Bill for its own sake ; we intend 
 it to be a means, nor is it the only weapon we are 
 forging.' 
 
 I asked him what repressive measures, short of ab- 
 solute counter-revolution, the majority could take against 
 the Republicans which they were not now taking .' 
 ' Why,' he said, ' they may impose a stamp upon news- 
 papers, they may increase the caiitionncment required 
 from the Editors, and they may disband and disarm the 
 National Guard in all the disaffected quarters. To a 
 counter-revolution, however, we must come, though the 
 road to it cannot yet be distinctly pointed out.' 
 
 He rather surprised me by expressing a wish that in 
 18 1 5 Alsace and Lorraine had been restored to Germany. 
 Till that is done, he said, we shall never be upon good 
 terms with Germany. And these provinces, though not 
 disaffected to France, are disaffected to good government 
 in France. They send the worst disposed members to 
 the Assembly and the worst disposed soldiers to the 
 army. He fears that Lamartine is connecting himself 
 with dangerous associates. Since the late Parisian 
 elections he has delayed his journey to take posses- 
 sion of his estates in Asia Minor. He intends to 
 oppose the electoral law, and admits the chiefs of the 
 Montagne to his counsels. 'The other day,' continued 
 
264 yournals kept in Fra^ice and Italy. [1850. 
 
 C, * I was told at his door that he was engaged. I 
 waited more than an hour till his friends went — they 
 were let out by a back door. He was afraid of their 
 being seen.' 
 
 From Lady Elgin's I went to Mdme. Say's. I found 
 there Dunoyer. As an Orleanist he is very angry with 
 the English Government for the part that they took in 
 depopularising Louis-Philippe on account of the Spanish 
 marriages. I tried to show him that we were justified 
 both by our interest in preventing a new family com- 
 pact, and by the gross fraud with which we were treated, 
 but could produce no effect. He persisted in consider- 
 ing our resentment as mere spite, because we had been 
 baffled in our intrigue to put a Cobourg on the Spanish 
 throne. He, too, is reactionary, but desponding. 
 ' Nothing,' he said, * can give us good government 
 until we have a real desire for liberty. Until we wish 
 for liberty of trade, liberty of locomotion, general 
 liberty, in short, of action, we shall be the slaves of 
 our prefects and of our police, whatever be the nature 
 of our supreme power. While I cannot buy a piece of 
 Turkey carpeting or of English flannel, while I cannot 
 publish a newspaper without giving security, or open a 
 mine without authorisation, or sell tobacco without the 
 leave of the Minister, or meat or bread without the 
 leave of the police, or quit my department without a 
 passport, I am not free, though I may enjoy one thirty- 
 four millionth part of the sovereignty of the people.* 
 
 Tuesday, May 21. — The Abbe Gioberti, M. de Cir- 
 court, Anisson Duperron, and F. Marcet breakfasted with 
 
1850.] Prophecies of Gioberti. 265 
 
 us. Circourt talked despondingly as to the prospects of 
 France. ' We are Gaels/ he said ; * the Teutonic blood 
 of the Franks is worn out. We have the levity and ir- 
 resolution which led our ancestors to disband when they 
 had imprisoned Caesar between their own army and the 
 walls of Alesia.' He then gave us a dissertation on the 
 Celts, whom he divided into the Cwmri and the Gaels, 
 agreeing in the love of war, but in nothing else, ' The 
 Cwmri,' he said, ' are sluggish and obstinate ; the Gael 
 quick and inconstant. The Gael do great things and 
 then throw away their success. The Cwmri do nothing. 
 Who ever heard of a great Welshman or of a great | 
 Breton .-• In Ireland you have both. The Cwmri fur- / 
 nish the torpid savages of Connaught and Donegal, the 
 Gael the turbulent savages of Munster. If we fall into 
 chronic anarchy France will be a vast Tipperary.' 
 
 Gioberti has no fears of such an anarchy. The Re- 
 publican party, he thinks, must in a very few years be 
 absolute masters, and he does not believe that they will 
 abuse their power. I asked what effect their success 
 would have on Italy. ' Italy,' he answered, ' will be in- 
 stantly revolutionised. No interference on the part of 
 France will be necessary. Her example will be suffi- 
 cient. If Piedmont has wisdom and courage enough to 
 put herself at the head of the movement, the King of 
 Sardinia will be King of Upper Italy, and may hold 
 that crown during the interval, not a very long one, in 
 which royalty will be possible in Italy. But I know my 
 countrymen. Their feeling is not Italian but Pied- 
 montese. They will try to avoid taking part in the 
 
2 66 yo2Lrnals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 struggle, and the result will be that, instead of directing 
 it, they will be carried away by it, and in the place of 
 the Kingdom of Sardinia you will see one, or perhaps 
 more than one, Republic' The temporal power of the 
 Pope as an independent sovereign is, he thinks, over. 
 Pio Nono attempted to unite freedom and ecclesiastical 
 government. Having found them irreconcilable, he 
 has clung to the latter, submits every matter to the 
 cardinals, and allows the majority to decide ; and the 
 majority is always oppressive and ignorant, and the 
 friend of ignorance. 
 
 Wishing to hear some treason, I called on A.,^ and 
 was not disappointed. * To go on,' he said, ' with so 
 absurd a Constitution as this is utterly impossible. La 
 France est tres-malade. A remedy, a strong remedy, a 
 heroic remedy is necessary, and if I were master I 
 would apply it immediately.' I did not think it discreet 
 to enquire what that remedy might be. 
 
 He asked me w^hat I thought of the Palmerston affair. 
 I said that I would not venture to say what was the true 
 explanation of Lord Palmerston's conduct, but that I 
 would venture to affirm that the explanation currently 
 received in Paris w-as untrue, namely, that he intended 
 or even washed to offer an insult to France. A. is a 
 sensible man, but on this subject I found his prejudices 
 invincible. The explanation, he said, which you reject 
 is the only plausible one. Lord Palmerston has always 
 been the bitter enemy of France. He was bred up in 
 
 ' A personal friend of the President's. — Ed. 
 
1850.] Schemes of the President'' s friends. 267 
 
 the Castlereagh school, and his whole official intercourse 
 with us has been a series of injuries inflicted and re- 
 ceived. The separation of Belgium from Holland, the 
 breach of the Quadruple Alliance, the non-ratification of 
 the Right of Search Treaty, and the Montpensier marriages 
 were all felt by him as personal affronts. He revenged 
 himself by the treaty of 1 840, and by the revolution of 
 1848. The first destroyed our power abroad, the second 
 has destroyed our power at home, and now that he 
 thinks we are fallen, he amuses himself with kicking us. 
 
 I drank tea with the De Tocquevilles, but saw little of 
 him. It was the first day of the Electoral Bill, and one 
 member after another came in and held a council with 
 him in the next room. His longest conference was with 
 Lamoriciere. He came out of it rather exhausted. 
 Lamoriciere had thrown away his cigar only at the top 
 of the stairs, and De Tocqueville, never very tolerant of 
 tobacco, is peculiarly sensitive after his long illness. 
 He said that he was cmpcstc. 
 
 Mdme. de Tocqueville spoke highly of the wit and 
 conversational powers of Lamoriciere. She amused me 
 with an account of the schemes of some of the Presi- 
 dent's friends ; I suspect of the lady members of the 
 party. When the cnicute takes place (for they have 
 decided that there shall be one) the President is to show 
 himself in the moment of triumph, and march as Em- 
 peror to the Tuileries. Changarnier, of course, will be 
 his competitor, but they rely on his beating him, as he 
 is a better rider, and has the best horse in Paris. 
 
 Lahitte's letter, recalling Drouyn de I'Huys, was 
 
268 yo7irnals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 not inserted in the body of the ' Moniteur.* It appeared 
 in a supplement. Dupin, who as President transmits to 
 the ' Moniteur ' the official documents that are com- 
 municated to the Assembly, explained from his chair at 
 some length the circumstances through which this hap- 
 pened. I forget what they were, but they proved that 
 it was a mere accident. The President (Louis Napoleon 
 I mean), of his own authority, forbade the insertion of the 
 letter. Hereupon Lahitte tendered his resignation, 
 and as a compromise it was inserted in the supplement. 
 I do not think that in England a Speaker of the House 
 of Commons could be prevailed on to tell a series of 
 deliberate falsehoods in order to conceal a Cabinet 
 dispute. 
 
 I went afterwards to Mdme. de Circourt's, and found 
 her circle much pleased with the course of the debate. 
 Cavaignac had been commonplace, La Flotte timid, 
 and Victor Hugo's speech was a collection of laboured 
 antitheses. 
 
 Wednesday, May 22. — I breakfasted with De Billing. 
 One of the principle causes, he says, of the turbulence of 
 Paris is the absurd education which the middle classes 
 give to their children. They have been told for the 
 last sixty years that all employments are open to all 
 Frenchmen. They see journalists, schoolmasters, trades- 
 men, and tradesmen's clerks made Ministers and more 
 than Ministers ; they will not send their children to 
 commercial schools, or teach them habits of business by 
 keeping them in their own shops. They resolve to fit 
 them for the high offices to which the Constitution, 
 
1850.] Unpopularity of Lord Normanby. 269 
 
 according to their interpretation of it, declares them 
 entitled. The children, therefore, of the grocer and of 
 the tailor receive the same education as those of the 
 duke or of the millionaire. All go to the Lycees, or to 
 Pensions, which are to fit them for the Lycees, where 
 they obtain what is supposed to be a gentleman's edu- 
 cation. A little Latin, rather less Greek, and a good 
 deal of mathematics, and then they come into the world 
 unfit for business, and indeed despising it, join the 
 crowds of candidates that besiege every public office, 
 and in despair turn demagogues, journalists, and enieii- 
 tiers. De Billing, as an Orleanist, is angry with us for 
 the haste with which we recognised the Provisional 
 Government of 1848. After the Assembly had met 
 on May 4 France had a sort of lawful authority, but 
 Ledru Rollin and his associates, the nominees of a 
 rabble, ought not to have been treated as a legitimate 
 power. 
 
 He attributes it, of course, to Palmerston, who, 
 having overturned Louis-Philippe, was anxious to show 
 his gratitude to his tools. 
 
 The same dislike extends to Lord Normanby as Lord 
 Palmerston's agent, and is aggravated by a jealousy of 
 his influence with the President. He persuaded the 
 President to order the French Fleet to join ours in our 
 demonstration at the Dardanelles in the matter of the 
 Polish refugees. His ministers prevailed on him to 
 recall the order, and Lord Normanby persuaded him to 
 renew it ; the business being one in which, according 
 to De Billing, France ought not to have interfered. 
 
2/0 yoiirnals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 Though they warmly deny it, there is a strong ten- 
 dency in all the three monarchical parties in France to 
 rely for support on Russia, It shows itself in the con- 
 trast which they delight in drawing between what they 
 call the digne conduct of Russia and the agitation 
 which they attribute to England ; it shows itself in their 
 regret that we led them to join our protest against the 
 extradition of the Poles ; and it might also be inferred 
 from the vehemence with which the Republicans take 
 up the cause of Poland, as an obstacle to a Russian 
 alliance. All parties seem to identify Russia with re- 
 sistance and England with movement. 
 
 De Billing sees no means by which France can re- 
 cover, or even avoid progressive deterioration, except by 
 passing through a military despotism. ' Before you 
 return,' he said, ' next May, dcs evenanciits trh-graves 
 auront eii lieu! 
 
 On my return, I found Michel Chevalier waiting for 
 me. He, De Tocqueville, and De Beaumont are the only 
 Frenchmen I have found believers in the possibility of 
 working the present Constitution. What the Republican 
 party promise, he says, he would give at once. He 
 would introduce a poor-law and an income-tax, and 
 would reduce the army by increasing the Corps d'elite. 
 The gendarmerie, though far more expensive per man 
 than the line, is really cheaper. There are now about 
 20,000 gendarmes. He thinks that raising 20,000 more 
 would enable 100,000 of the line to be reduced. For 
 internal purposes, one gendarme is worth more than five 
 ordinary recruits. The present French army of 400,000 
 
1850.] Probable Cojidiut of Republican Assembly. 271 
 
 men is the result of a conscription of 80,000 men per 
 year, who serve for only five years. A portion of these, 
 but not above 16 per cent., re-enter the service; so that 
 the army, as a whole, is young and inexperienced, 
 250,000 good troops would form a much more efficient 
 force ; and even if their pay were increased 20 per cent, 
 they would not cost more than three-fourths of the 
 present expense. By such an increase, assisted by pen- 
 sions for long service, he believes that the conscription 
 might be abandoned and a permanent, well-disciplined 
 army of volunteers be created. Such an army would be 
 more efficient abroad, and, in a still greater degree, more 
 efficient at home. It would acquire a real military 
 spirit, and, what is more important, would retain that 
 spirit. The feelings of the present army are, of course, 
 constantly changing. Before every anaitc their conduct 
 is a matter of conjecture. Add to which, the present 
 system gives military skill and training to the mob. 
 Paris contains more veterans in its streets than in its 
 garrison. Chevalier would make a still greater reduc- 
 tion in the navy. It has been raised, in a mere spirit of 
 rivalry with England, to a size quite inconsistent with 
 the wants or even with the honour of France. The want 
 of a mercantile marine makes it impossible to keep up, 
 in time of war, a military marine. France can man one 
 fleet, but, if that be destroyed, she cannot man a second. 
 I asked him if he shared the general fear of the conduct 
 of a Republican Assembly. Not, he said, if the leaders 
 in the Assembly itself were masters. But he fears that 
 such an Assembly would be governed by the Parisian 
 
272 yournals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 mob, by the people in the tribunes, and by the news- 
 papers, and there is no saying to what foUies and ex- 
 cesses such influences might drive them. 
 Thursday, May 23, we quitted Paris. 
 
 [Mr. Senior paid a visit to M. de Tocqueville in Nor- 
 mandy in the following August. His journal is reserved 
 for a future publication. He was again in Paris in 
 October, on his way to pass the winter in Italy and 
 Sicily. The events which had taken place in the mean- 
 time are described by M. Faucher in p. 274.] 
 
 Hotel Bristol, Paris, Thursday, Oct. 26. — Mrs. Senior, 
 M., and I reached Paris last night. This morning 
 Beaumont breakfasted with us. We talked of the 
 chances of Savoy's becoming a department of France. 
 ' I can understand,' he said, ' the grounds on which the 
 Piedmontese dread the loss of Savoy. Though it gives 
 them little revenue, it supplies their best troops — the 
 kernel on which the excellence of the rest of their army 
 mainly depends ; but I cannot see why we are supposed 
 to desire its acquisition. In what respect should we 
 become happier, or even more powerful, by adding to 
 our 36 millions of people, and to our 230,000 square 
 miles of territory, a poor, mountainous country and a 
 half-civilised population, whom it would be difficult to 
 govern and expensive to defend.' 
 
 'This,' I replied, ' may be true, and may be the view 
 taken by a philosophical statesman ; but it is not the 
 
1850.] Suppressing Anonymous Writing. 273 
 
 opinion of the people. Ever since Louis XIV. corrupted 
 the French mind by his early conquests, its ruling pas- 
 sion has been territorial aggrandisement' ' That pas- 
 sion,' he answered, * is rapidly subsiding. At this instant 
 nobody, except those to whom, like myself, politics are 
 a profession, think much about public affairs. They are 
 almost all busy in taking advantage of the return of 
 prosperity and re-establishing their fortunes. The few 
 who care about politics are watching internal events. 
 They are speculating how a Constitution is to work 
 whose instruments are a Prime Minister who cannot be 
 dismissed, and a Parliament which cannot be dissolved. 
 As for foreign politics, we desire nothing but peace. I 
 do not believe that there is even any anxiety for the 
 Rhine. We find that Belgium, independent and allied, 
 is just as useful to us as if she were converted into a set 
 of French departments.' 
 
 I asked him how the new law prohibiting anonymous 
 writing in the newspapers was received. 
 
 * Better,' he answered, ' than was expected. In the 
 first place, it is much eluded. Every journal has some 
 confidential subaltern whose name is affixed to articles 
 which the reader sees to be the work of a different hand. 
 So far, indeed, as it is obeyed, the object of those who 
 framed it, the diminution of the influence of the news- 
 paper press, has been effected. The oracle loses half its 
 force by losing all its mystery ; but this is not an un- 
 popular result. The world is glad to see weakened a 
 power which has been so much abused. Many writers, 
 too, are pleased to read their names in print. Many 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
2 74 yournals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 new reputations will be made. Obscure men of letters 
 will become political characters.' 
 
 I asked how an obscure man of letters could write 
 well on politics. For that purpose a man must live in 
 the political world. 
 
 ' Every evening,' he answered, * there is a meeting at 
 the bureau of an important journal of its principal con- 
 tributors, often attended by the heads of the party whom 
 it supports. Every day Guizot saw Bertin, the pro- 
 prietor and editor of the " Debats." At these meetings 
 the topics of the day are discussed, and the editor dis- 
 tributes the parts and prescribes the tone each contri- 
 butor is to adopt. Such meetings are not perfect 
 substitutes for the knowledge which is acquired by living 
 and acting in the political world, but they are tolerable 
 ones.' 
 
 In the evening Faucher drank tea with us. I asked 
 him what had been the principal events since we parted 
 in May. 
 
 'When you left us,' he answered, 'the majority was 
 completing its last work — the electoral law. 
 
 ' Immediately after that law had passed it began to 
 split. Each section of it advanced pretensions which 
 the others could not tolerate. The Comte de Cham- 
 bord and the Legitimists raised the banner of divine 
 right. The Orleanists, when the death of Louis Philippe 
 removed the principal source of their unpopularity, 
 began to urge the claims of the Comte de Paris, and the 
 President no longer pretends to be bound by the Consti- 
 tution. Now that the Rouge party seems to be beaten 
 
1850.] Position of the President. 275 
 
 down, he has become the great object of suspicion. I 
 was anxious that the Permanent Committee of the 
 Assembly should contain at least one or two of his 
 adherents, but I failed. A Committee has been named 
 in which he has not a friend. If he would submit to be 
 a parliamentary sovereign, if he would condescend to be 
 no greater a person than Queen Victoria, I believe that 
 his reign might be postponed far beyond its legal term. 
 But he seems to take Louis-Philippe for his model, and 
 the Assembly will scarcely bear that the only conse- 
 quence of the Revolution should be the substitution of 
 a Buonaparte for a Bourbon.' I asked whether his Pro- 
 gress had done him good or harm — it could scarcely be 
 neutral. 
 
 ' Good,' said Faucher. ' The French love to have an 
 idol, and in many departments they made one of him. 
 The reviews, on the other hand, have done him harm. 
 It appears that the treasonable cry of" Vive f Enipcrciir! " 
 was dictated to the troops' by their officers. The Colonel 
 generally gave the signal as the first rank was passing 
 the President, and more than one regiment, which obeyed 
 the signal enthusiastically, was rewarded by being de- 
 tained in Paris. The Committee has left a record of the 
 whole transaction, which may lead to grave consequences. 
 The next session must be a stormy one ; now that the 
 majority has broken up, the four factions will be instantly 
 worrying one another. Commerce, however, has revived, 
 the working-classes are well employed, prices are high, 
 and the indirect taxes are becoming as productive as 
 they were in 1847. The deficit this year will not be 
 
276 yournals kept in France and Italy. [1S50. 
 
 more than fifty millions, and probably may disappear 
 next year.' 
 
 Sunday, Oct. 29. — Beaumont and Sir James Stephen 
 breakfasted with us. 
 
 Beaumont is turning his attention to a poor-law. He 
 asked me if I did not believe that England owed her 
 stability mainly to her poor-law. I answered that a 
 poor-law is an engine of enormous power both for good 
 and for evil ; that the security it gives to the poor man 
 that neither he nor his wife nor his children shall starve 
 is a great tranquilliser ; but that the indefinite claim on 
 property which it gives to those who have none is a 
 great irritant. ' You may be right,' I continued, ' in 
 thinking that at present the sedative efi'ects preponderate. 
 Twenty years ago the anarchical ones prevailed. We 
 seemed then to be, and in fact we were, drifting rapidly 
 towards Socialism in its most frightful forms.' 
 
 ' But,' said Beaumont, ' as soon as you saw your dan- 
 ger you corrected the errors of your law, or rather of its 
 administration.' 
 
 * Not,' I answered, ' as soon as we saw our danger — 
 not until we had watched its steady advance for half a 
 century. Writer after writer and committee after com- 
 mittee warned us that ruin was approaching ; but we 
 applied nothing but what were meant for palliatives, and 
 really acted as stimulants. Until the Poor Law Amend- 
 ment Act, every attempt at a remedy turned into a 
 poison. Until the Reform Act our case was hopeless. 
 The dislocation of parties, the discredit of traditions, the 
 uprooting of prejudices, and the general ferment which 
 
i8so.] Objections to a Poor Law, I'j'j 
 
 that measure produced, enabled the Poor Law Amend- 
 ment Bill to be carried. But never before or since has 
 the public mind been in a state in which so violent a 
 change in our most important social relations, in the 
 whole intercourse between the poor and the rich, could 
 have been effected, or even have been proposed.' 
 
 ' But,' said Beaumont, ' is not a poor-law required by 
 justice .'' I say nothing in defence of the idler, and I 
 know how difficult it is to prove that a man is out of 
 employment except by his own fault : but suppose this 
 proved — suppose there to be no doubt that the applicant 
 for relief has done his best to get employment or to keep 
 it, and has failed. Has he not a right to existence .-' Is 
 not the community bound to give him the means ^ ' 
 
 ' I will answer,' I said, * your question by another. 
 Suppose it to be proved that in the previous three 
 months he earned wages which would have supported 
 him during the year. Is the community bound to 
 supply his want of providence .'' Again, you claim 
 nothing for the idler. How do you treat his wife and 
 children .-* Are the innocent to suffer for the guilty .-' 
 Or, to prevent this, is the man who chooses to drink up 
 all his earnings to be allowed to throw on the public 
 the support of his family .'' ' 
 
 'You talk of justice,' said Stephen ; 'but one rule of 
 justice is, not to promise what you may be unable to 
 perform. How can a community promise support to 
 all its members, whatever be their numbers, whatever be 
 their conduct, or whatever be its own fortunes ? During 
 the last sixty years the population of England has risen 
 
278 youi'iials kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 from 9 millions to 18. If in the next sixty years it 
 rises to 36 millions, are they all to be entitled to sup- 
 port ? and if they are to be so entitled, if no man is to be 
 deterred from marrying by the fear of not being able to 
 maintain a family, what is to prevent its increasing in 
 the next sixty years to 72 millions ? Again, what is to 
 be done if the manufactures, on which millions depend 
 for support, should be interrupted?' 
 
 ' Well,' said Beaumont, ' whether for good or evil, or 
 rather for both, the experiment must be tried. When 
 once such a system has been suggested it will sooner or 
 later be adopted. Try it we shall. Our business is to 
 try it in the least dangerous form.' 
 
 In the afternoon we called on Mdme. de Collegno. 
 ' Collegno,' • she said, ' at first rather wished to decline 
 being a member of the Piedmontese Senate. But now 
 that he sees who are to be his associates, he is quite 
 reconciled to his honours.' They are to meet us in 
 Turin about November 3. On the lOth we hope to find 
 the Tocquevilles in Genoa. 
 
 [We left Paris on the 28th, and went over the Cenis 
 into Italy. I omit the description of so well known a 
 route. — Ed.] 
 
 ' Collegno, a Piedmontese exile of the year 1821, a thorough liberal 
 and a man of science ; a very fine character. He was made a Senator in 
 1848, and became a Minister, indeed the leading Minister, in the shortlived 
 Cabinet that included the Lombards towards the middle of 1848. He 
 belonged to the best Turinese aristocracy, and was a trait d'' union between 
 that class and the Lombard aristocracy, having married a ' Trotti,' sister to 
 Madame Arconati. He died several years ago. — S. 
 
JOURNAL 
 
 ITALY 
 
JOURNAL; 
 
 Turin, Monday, Nov, 4. — We slept at Susa, and 
 reached Turin at about 2 this afternoon, after a seven 
 hours' drive through the beautiful valley of Susa. The 
 mountains, as you recede from them, seem to rise higher 
 and higher. Their summits, unveiled by a single cloud, 
 were cut out sharply on the blue of the sky. As the sun 
 was behind them, only the snowy portion was distinctly 
 visible ; all below looked like a wall of black cloud. 
 This tremendous barrier enclosed us on three sides, 
 leaving open only the road to Turin, at the end of 
 which we saw, from fifteen miles off, the Superga. As 
 the road is perfectly straight, we kept approaching it for 
 three hours, until at length a turn to the right brought 
 us into the stately streets of Turin. After dinner, we 
 walked on the further side of the Po, and saw Monte 
 Viso and his companions, which had looked white in 
 the morning sun, now of a uniform dark blue, but as 
 unclouded as before and more distinct, for they were 
 visible down to their roots. Prandi drank tea with us. 
 As he is intimate with most of the members of the 
 Government, I begged him to give me an account of 
 them. In a Continental Government we ought to 
 begin with the permanent Prime Minister, the King. 
 
282 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 He is, Prandi says, a man of courage and resolution, 
 a soldier by education, and rather preferring that pro- 
 fession to royalty. This gives him independence. If he 
 is required, he says, to do anything wrong, he shall leave 
 Piedmont and easily find employment elsewhere. He is 
 very frank, Prandi believes him to be honestly Constitu- 
 tional, and he has fair talents and knowledge ; so that 
 the Piedmontese, on the whole, have not to complain of 
 their sovereign. 
 
 Azeglio,' the Minister of Foreign Affairs, says of 
 himself, with truth, that he is more an artist than a 
 politician. Office was forced on him under the follow- 
 ing circumstances : — In the absence of popular institu- 
 tions, authorship was the only avenue to wide notoriety. 
 The three most eminent political writers were Balbo,'^ 
 
 ' Massimo d'Azeglio was born in 1801. His father placed him in the 
 army, but in consequence of a serious illness he quitted the service and 
 devoted himself to the arts. He married a daughter of the celebrated 
 Manzoni, and has written several romances, ' Ettore Fioramosca,' ' Niccolo 
 de' Lapi,' &c., which, though not to be compared with the 'Promessi 
 Sposi,' are among the best in the Italian language. In 1841 he began 
 to take an active part in politics. Some of the liberal measures which 
 inaugurated the reign of Pius IX. were due to his influence. He fought 
 valiantly and was wounded in Charles Albert's disastrous campaign 
 in 1848. He was elected a Deputy in 1849, afterwards President ot the 
 Council and Prime Minister. He was replaced, as Prandi anticipated, 
 by Cavour in 1852. He was sent by the Sardinian Government to tran- 
 quillise the Romagna in 1859, and succeeded in preventing serious reprisals. 
 Afterwards he was appointed a Senator and Director of the Royal Galleries. 
 In 1853 he came over to England and employed himself once more as a 
 landscape painter. His pictures sold very well, though they were not first- 
 rate. He was a frequent visitor at the house of Mr. Senior. He was tall 
 and handsome — quite the ideal ois.pretix chevalier. — Ed. 
 
 * Balbo, a liberal Piedmontese patrician of the highest respectability. 
 He published in 1842 ' Le Speranze d' Italia ' and several books on the 
 History of Italy. Had Guelphic tendencies, which, coinciding with those of 
 
iSso.] Ministers of Victor Einmaimel. 28 
 
 o 
 
 Gioberti, and Azeglio. When the Revolution of 1848 
 required a liberal Minister, Balbo was selected. He 
 was soon passed by popular opinion, and made room 
 in a few days for Gioberti, then for Alfieri,' and in a 
 few months for Gioberti again. Gioberti was for a time 
 omnipotent. His nominees ruled the Chamber, but his 
 long absence from Piedmont and his revolutionary pre- 
 judices made him a bad selector both of deputies and of 
 officials. He filled the Chamber and the public offices 
 with Mazzinists and Republicans, and soon found himself 
 at the tail of his party. What turned him out, how- 
 ever, was his attempt to interfere in Tuscany against 
 the Republican Revolution. If he had succeeded in 
 effecting this, the subsequent misfortunes might have 
 been avoided. Piedmont and Austria might have pulled 
 together, and the second disastrous war would not have 
 occurred. But his democratic colleagues would not hear 
 of an anti-republican intervention, and he was forced to 
 resign. 
 
 The Government which followed had no decided 
 head. Perhaps the most important member of it was 
 Ratazzi,^ an advocate of Casale. After the defeat of 
 
 \!nzX.liisus natiiriE, Pius IX., paved the way to his entrance into the Ministry 
 after the proclamation of the Statuto. Was a Senator, and died several 
 years ago. Had five sons in the Piedmontese army during the struggle. — S. 
 
 ' Alfieri Sostegno was a leading member of the Piedmontese aristocracy, 
 a descendant of the poet, a personal friend of Charles Albert, and a liberal. 
 Had been in diplomacy, and helped to baffle the Austrian intrigues, which 
 wanted to exclude Charles Albert from the succession to the throne of 
 Sardinia. He was the head of the Ministry formed after the disaster of 
 Novara. He was a Senator ; a most respectable and agreeable man. He 
 died some years ago. — S. 
 
 ^ Afterwards Prime Minister. — Ed. 
 
284 Jo7irnals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 Novara, peace with Austria, immediate peace, became 
 absolutely necessary. The Administration which had 
 recommended that absurd war felt that they could not 
 terminate it, and did their only wise act in resigning. 
 The Ministry which followed, of which Count Delauney, 
 a Savoyard, was President, was overthrown by the 
 Genoese insurrection. He was personally unpopular in 
 Genoa, and was sacrificed. The only untried liberal 
 was Azeglio, and to him, in this extremity, the King 
 turned. It was with difficulty that he consented to take 
 office, and now, either from indolence or from inapti- 
 tude, he does it carelessly. During the last session he 
 never spoke, and was even absent from the Chamber 
 when the peace which he had himself made with Austria 
 was discussed. Prandi does not think that, having ad- 
 mitted Camille de Cavour into the Cabinet, he can long 
 retain its leadership. Cavour has all the ambition and 
 activity which Azeglio wants. He is not satisfied with 
 the three offices, Agriculture, Commerce, and Marine, 
 which he now holds. The Ministry which he desires is 
 that of Finance, and Prandi believes that he will add to 
 it the Premiership. Whether Azeglio will serve under 
 him is to be seen, but lie will not long serve under 
 Azeglio, Negri, the present Minister of Finance, is a 
 mere banker, and is not likely to retain his post long. 
 
 Prandi spoke highly of Paleocapa, the Minister of 
 Public Works, a Venetian, one of the large body of per- 
 sons who took the popular side in the Venetian insur- 
 rection, and have been admitted to citizenship in Pied- 
 mont. Siccardi, the Minister of Justice, could not avoid 
 
1850.] Siccardi Law. 285 
 
 proposing the law subjecting the priests to the ordinary- 
 tribunals. It was required by public opinion, and the 
 Ministry would have been turned out if they had not 
 proposed it. The only member of the Cabinet of 
 whom Prandi thinks ill is the Minister of Public In- 
 struction, one of the least instructed persons in the 
 kingdom. 
 
 Tuesday, Nov. 5. — Marquis Sauli ' breakfasted with 
 us. He belongs, he says, to His Majesty's Opposition : 
 an Opposition, according to Sauli, so mild that Azeglio 
 enumerated among the grounds for anticipating public 
 prosperity that they had an Opposition which was more 
 anxious for the welfare of the country than for any party 
 triumph. I asked him if he could tell me of any modern 
 Italian work which I could employ my leisure at Rome 
 in reviewing. He proposed ' Farini's History of the 
 Roman States,' ^ a work of great merit, which brings the 
 story down to the entry of the French in 1849. I said 
 that such an article could not be written without ' blue 
 books ' and contemporary works, and asked him for 
 
 ' Sauli, a Genoese noble, a liberal, fonnerly a Deputy, now a Senator. 
 Was sent Minister to London in 1849, which place he resigned after the 
 battle of Novara. Was sent by Cavour as Minister to Tuscany, and after- 
 wards to St. Petersburg. Was named also by Cavour Governor of Tus- 
 cany on the retirement of Ricasoli. — S. 
 
 * Farini, the nephew of Monsignor Farini, a Romagnole exile. Was 
 made a Minister by Cavour, and took a leading part in the Italian move- 
 ment. Was Dictator in Emilia after the Peace of Villafranca, and did 
 signal senice in that capacity, keeping the provinces united, and baffling 
 the attempts of the Ultras of either side. Was sent to Naples by Cavour to 
 direct the Government there after the fall of the Bourbons. Was a Cabinet 
 Minister for a short time. Over-exertion destroyed his health, and he died 
 with impaired mental faculties several years ago. — S. 
 
286 yotirnals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 some other kernel over which I could spin dissertations 
 out of my own brain. But he could propose nothing ; 
 nobody for some years has written about anything but 
 politics. Were there no novels, I asked, no plays .'' 
 Nothing, he answered, tolerable. Any narrative of the 
 recent events in Piedmont } None. Any trials } Only 
 one, that of a priest called Ganoschi, who attempted to 
 found a new religion. This he is to bring me ; it seems 
 my only chance of finding an Italian peg. 
 
 After breakfast I called on Count Camille de Cavour ^ 
 at his office. The porter doubted if I could be admitted, 
 as it was the ' hour of signing.' Accordingly I found 
 him with Count Castelborgo, whom he introduced to 
 me as the Chef of the Department of Trade, signing 
 letters. As yet, he says, he does not find the work 
 heavy ; Castelborgo relieves him from the greater part 
 of it ; but this is only his honeymoon. He has not been 
 in office four weeks, and the Chambers met only to-day. 
 I asked what was the ordinary duration of ministerial 
 life t At present, he said, three or four months. Before 
 the Constitution, said Castelborgo, it w'as three years, 
 according to a computation which has been carefully 
 made. Cavour talked sanguinely of the prospects of the 
 country ; the debt, even after the two wars and the 
 Austrian indemnity, is only sixteen millions sterling. I 
 asked what the Customs produced. About 18 millions 
 of francs, he said ; but if you add, to compare them to 
 the English Customs, the profits of the manufacture of 
 
 ' The famous Minister. He had been intimately acquainted with Mr. 
 Senior years before, when he came over with M. de la Rive to Eng- 
 land. — Ed. 
 
i8so.] Chamber of Deputies. 287 
 
 tobacco, 30 millions. The difficulty of substituting for 
 that monopoly an import duty is not, as in France, the 
 interest of the tobacco growers, for none is grown in 
 Piedmont, but the loss of patronage — a couple of thou- 
 sand debits dc tabac — and the places in the different 
 manufactories are sources of influence which a Constitu- 
 tional Government does not readily part with. 
 
 We went to the Chamber of Deputies. The legal 
 quorum, 102 (the whole number being 200), was barely 
 present. The house is an oval, with a tribune for the 
 President ; the members spoke from their places. The 
 space for strangers is not large ; the building requires 
 little exertion of voice, and the whole had a' tranquil, 
 business-like air. The discussion, in which the question 
 was ' Whether this was a new session or an adjourned 
 meeting,' was soon over, and as we were going out I was 
 introduced to Balbo, and to Azeglio, Paleocapa, and one 
 or two other Ministers, Azeglio is a fine-looking man, 
 with simple, easy manners. ' He has done well,' said 
 Cavour, ' everything that he has attempted ; and yet has 
 done it all with great ease. He is one of our best 
 novelists, one of our best artists, one of our best political 
 writers, and one of our best speakers ; yet he never 
 seems to give himself much trouble. I suspect the truth 
 to be that he is a man of great talents, to whom, on the 
 usual condition of great labour, great eminence in one, 
 or perhaps in more than one, career was open, but who 
 has rested satisfied with the comparatively easy acqui- 
 sition of moderate success in many.' Cavour came 
 home with me, and stayed with us for a long time. 
 The cares of office hang lightly on him. 
 
288 Joitrnals kept in Finance and Italy. [1850. 
 
 The Marquis Cavour,' Prandi, and Marquis Arconati ^ 
 passed the evening with us. They tried to persuade me 
 to write on Charles Albert. He was not, Arconati said, 
 a man of great talent, though it M^as his misfortune to 
 fancy himself one; nor was he in early life a man of firm 
 character; but his moral qualities improved as he grew 
 older. Nothing could exceed his courage. He looked 
 in the face not only death but ruin : for even at the 
 beginning of the Austrian war he contemplated the 
 possibility that it might cost him his crown. He said 
 to his favourite servant, Carlo, ' Will you always follow 
 me } ' ' Yes.' ' Even if I were to be no longer a king } ' 
 Bassi, Arconati's brother-in-law, was the Podesta of 
 Milan, and by the King's side when he passed through 
 it after his first defeat. Some shots were fired at him, 
 and Bassi urged him to hurry on. ' What does it signify,' 
 said the King, ' whether I am killed here or elsewhere .'' ' 
 The same day, as he was leaving the town, he drew up 
 his horse just after he had passed the gate, in a place 
 which was exposed to the fire of an Austrian battery, 
 and remained stationary for nearly a quarter of an hour. 
 Luckily for him there Avas a fog, so that he was not 
 discerned by the enemy, and no fire was directed 
 specially against him, but several of those about him 
 were struck. Marquis Alfieri, from whom I heard the 
 story, thinks that he did not intend on this occasion, as 
 he afterwards did at Novara, to get killed ; but that he 
 stayed there merely because he was indifferent to danger. 
 
 ' Elder brother of Camille. — Ed. 
 
 ^ Arconati, a Lombard exile, a most beneficent as well as a very rich 
 proprietor, a Senator ; brother-in-law of Collegno. Madame Arconati is a 
 very distinguished woman. — S. 
 
1850] Conduct of the Austrian Government. 289 
 
 His courage, therefore, being a mere negation, was not 
 contagious. We sympathise in self-devotion, but not in 
 insensibility or in fatalism. The evening of his final 
 defeat, after his abdication, he took the road towards 
 France, with a passport as Colonel le Comte de Barges. 
 At the first stage, Vercelli, he found unexpectedly an 
 Austrian post. The officer in command took him to his 
 Colonel, and they talked together during the long time 
 which it takes Germans to scrutinise a passport. The 
 Colonel was struck by the knowledge and intelligence of 
 his visitor, and at last said to him : ' How comes it that, 
 at your age and with your talents, you are only a 
 Colonel .-*' 'Helas,*said Charles Albert,'! have been 
 unfortunate all my life.' Like most kings, he was shy, 
 especially in the presence of numbers ; he never could 
 even address his troops. He had also the royal power 
 of attaching those about him. He was always wor- 
 shipped by his immediate circle, and his death has made 
 him the idol of the multitude. 
 
 Wednesday, Nov. 6. — I called on the Marchioness 
 Arconati. The Austrians have not sequestered the 
 Arconati property, though they have charged it with a 
 heavy contribution. They paid the Marchioness the 
 compliment of imposing one especially on her, as a 
 notice of her exertions in the Liberal cause. Their 
 beautiful villa on the Lake of Como was used as a 
 military post, and underwent the honour of a bombard- 
 ment. I asked after her friend the Countess Polcastro 
 Quirini, whom I have not been able to hear of since she 
 was very kind to us in Venice in 1847. ' She threw her- 
 VOL. I. U 
 
290 Jotirnals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 self into the Liberal party,' answered Madame Arconati, 
 ' was active in the cause, and resolutely endured the pri- 
 vations and dangers of the long siege — a conduct the 
 more meritorious as she had passed a life of ease, caring 
 for little except the pleasures of society and the bril- 
 liancy of her soirees. She lives now a little to the 
 north of Padua, where she has an agreeable country- 
 house.' I said that in 1847 her politics were anti- 
 Austrian, but that I could not find what she wished to 
 substitute. Did she wish Venice to be annexed to 
 Romagna .-^ No. Or to Piedmont } No. Or to be an 
 independent town like Hamburg .-" No. Then what, of 
 practicable things, did she wish } For its reconstruction 
 as a Metropolitan State, with Padua, Vicenza, Brescia, 
 and Bergamo as her suffragans, was not practicable. 
 'She only wished,' she replied, ' to get rid of the Austrians.' 
 'This,' answered Madame Arconati, 'is our general feeling; 
 and when you consider that we are one people, separated 
 from the rest of the world by the sea and the Alps, with 
 one origin, one religion, and for many purposes one lan- 
 guage, you cannot wonder that we wish to exclude the 
 foreigner. Nationality may be a barbarous feeling, but 
 its being barbarous shows that it is instinctive, or it 
 would not belong to all races in their early state. Like 
 all instinctive feelings, it may be carried too far ; but, not- 
 withstanding the misfortunes into which it has led us, I 
 doubt whether it is carried too far by us.' ' If I had been 
 a Venetian,' I said, ' I think that I should have preferred 
 being a member of the great Austrian Empire, which is 
 now constitutional by law, and will soon be so in fact, to 
 
1850.] Tyranny 0/ Austria. 291 
 
 a precarious independence.' ' Supposing you to be right,' 
 she answered, ' as to Lombardy and Venice, your reason- 
 ing does not apply to the rest of Italy. The Austrian 
 Government, as respects its own subjects, was a tolerable 
 one, far better than the Roman, the Neapolitan, and, 
 indeed, than most of the others ; but the badness of the 
 others was mainly owing to her. She would not permit 
 them to improve. Their interest, therefore, in expelling 
 her from Italy was obvious, and there was nothing to 
 counterbalance it, for they did not enjoy her protection, 
 that is to say, the people did not. She protected, indeed, 
 the sovereigns, but only while they were dependent on 
 her, and independent of their subjects. In the .second 
 place, if the Austrians had been driven out, Venice 
 would have been a great gainer. Of course Manin's pro- 
 posal, to erect the standard of St. Mark and restore the 
 Imperial power of Venice, was absurd, but it was only 
 by making it that he could rouse the people. They had 
 forgotten the oppressions of their doge and senate, and 
 only remembered their glories. If the war had suc- 
 ceeded, Venice must have been united to the kingdom 
 of Upper Italy. She would have been its great mart 
 and port, instead of being sacrificed, as she now is, to 
 Trieste. And lastly, I cannot believe that Austria will 
 become really constitutional, at least according to the 
 present scheme. What sort of a diet will it be in which 
 nine languages are spoken .-' Even in Piedmont, diffe- 
 rence of language is our great difficulty : our three 
 native languages are French, Piedmontese, and Genoese. 
 Of these, French alone is generally intelligible. A 
 
292 yournals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 speech in Genoese or Piedmontese would be unintel- 
 ligible to two-thirds of the Assembly. Except the 
 Savoyards, who sometimes use French, the deputies all 
 speak in Italian ; but this is to them a dead language, 
 in which they have never been accustomed even to 
 converse. They scarcely ever, therefore, can use it with 
 spirit or even with fluency. Cavour is naturally a good 
 speaker, but in Italian he is embarrassed. You see 
 that he is translating ; so is Azeglio ; so are they all, 
 except a few lawyers who have been accustomed to 
 address the tribunals in Italian.' ' Why, then,' I said, 'do 
 not they speak in French } That is a language in 
 which they must be able to think.' ' Without doubt,' she 
 answered, ' they would speak better in French : but we 
 should not like to hear French, except from a Savoyard. 
 It would be doubly unpopular — first as not being Italian, 
 next as being French ; for, next to the Germans, we 
 dread and dislike the French.' 
 
 I asked if she approved of the Siccardi Laws. •' Cer- 
 tainly/ she said ; 'they were not only just, but politic. 
 The mass of the people approve of them, and the 
 Ministry would have been turned out if it had not pro- 
 posed them ; they are a step towards independence, 
 and, religious as the Piedmontese are, in their present 
 state of mind they prefer independence even to re 
 ligion.' 
 
 The 'Augsburg Gazette' was on the table, contain- 
 ing a statement that on the ist 10,000 Bavarians and 
 two Austrian battalions had entered Hanau. We specu- 
 lated as to the consequences, but could get no further 
 
1850.] Difficulties of Italian Composition. 293 
 
 than that they must be serious. I afterwards met 
 Camille de Cavour, and told him the news, which he 
 had not heard, and now discredited. I said that, from 
 all that I knew of the boldness and unscrupulousness 
 of Schwartzenberg, I was inclined to expect it, and 
 therefore could not disbelieve it when circumstantially- 
 asserted in such a paper as the ' Augsburg Gazette.' 
 
 Prandi dined with us, and we went together in the 
 evening and drank tea at Count Balbo's. He is a 
 Member of the Chamber, but does not take much part 
 in the debates, partly because his chest is weak, and 
 partly because he came too late into public life. * My 
 life,' he said, ' has been that of a writer ; my ideas do not 
 flow well unless I have a sheet of paper before me, and 
 even then they flow very slowly, and I endeavour to 
 express them with the utmost brevity. If a whole day 
 produces one or two pages I have done well. Instead 
 of slow and concise, a public speaker ought to be rapid 
 and difi"use. Then I am very fastidious. I correct over 
 and over, and never am tolerably satisfied with the 
 result. To write well Italian prose is very difficult. 
 Scarcely any one, except Manzoni, has done it. Though 
 the language is often unfixed (and that is one of the 
 difficulties), there are thousands of niceties to be ob- 
 served, thousands of causes of offence to be avoided.' 
 
 We talked of the state of the country. ' It is not,' said 
 Balbo, ' hopeless, but it is alarming. Our debt is 400 
 millions, our expenses are 120 millions. We call our- 
 selves at peace, yet we maintain an army of 50,000 
 men, or i| per cent, of our population, which is as if 
 
294 journals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 you kept one of 400,000. We have increased everything 
 except our revenue ; that remains as it was before the 
 war, only eighty miUions. Until I see some attempt to 
 supply, or at least to diminish, our deficit, I cannot feel 
 at ease.' 'And yet,' said one of the guests, Meligrado, 
 the Professor of Constitutional Law, ' the country is pros- 
 perous, the new Constitution, the " Statuto " as they call 
 it, has produced great activity, prices are high, and the 
 labouring classes are well employed.' ' I cannot believe,' 
 said Balbo, ' that the " Statuto " has yet had time to im- 
 prove much our powers of production. The war made 
 the fortunes of the military contractors, and gave good 
 wages to those who made uniforms, muskets, and sad- 
 dles ; the peace has filled the hotels, and the refugees 
 from Lombardy and Venice pass their lives in the 
 cafes, and bid against one another for lodgings ; but 
 this is not prosperity. I repeat, that, until provision is 
 made to meet the expenses of our unhappy war, no 
 Piedmontese statesman ought to feel tranquil.' 
 
 ' Could that war,' I said, ' have been avoided .-' ' 'It 
 could not,' he answered ; ' nobody knows that better than 
 I do, for it was I who declared it, and I knew at the time 
 what were the dangers which it brought with it. 
 
 * On that day I had been Prime Minister for four days. 
 The " Statuto " bears date March 8, 1 848. I was appointed 
 Minister on the i6th. On the 20th Ave heard of the in- 
 surrection of Milan, and d'Adda came to implore our 
 aid, telling us that, if we refused, they had orders to go 
 on to Paris. I saw clearly that the w^orst consequence 
 of our refusal would not have been French inter\^ention. 
 
1850.] Declaration of War. 295 
 
 bad as that would have been ; but that in a week we 
 should have had a Republic in Milan, a Republic in 
 Venice, a Republic most certainly in Genoa, and most 
 probably in Turin. I went instantly to the King, told 
 him the news, and said that we must have immediately 
 a Cabinet Council. The King, anxious to be Constitu- 
 tional, asked if he ought to be present. I said that his 
 presence would not only be proper but necessary. It 
 assembled about 2 o'clock, in a room overlooking the 
 Piazza del Castello, at that time filling rapidly with an 
 excited mob. They were crying "Vive le Roi ! " but 
 with a manner which clearly showed that they meant 
 " Vive la Republique ! " The Milanese had asked 3,000 
 men. This would have been absurd. Count Revel 
 proposed that 10,000 men should be allowed to go as 
 volunteers. " I think," said the King, " that, if we are 
 to act, we should act more decidedly." This showed 
 me what were his views ; and as they agreed with my 
 own, I looked round the table, and then, without allud- 
 ing to Revel's proposition, I said, " Sire, I believe we are 
 all agreed that we should act, as your Majesty ex- 
 presses it, decidedly, and that the Minister of War 
 should instantly take measures to move forward the 
 disposable part of the army ; and I think that it may 
 be advisable that your Majesty's resolution should im- 
 mediately be communicated to the people." " By all 
 means," said the King, " and I hope that you will all 
 dine with me." And thus, and in not much longer time 
 than it has taken me to relate it, ended a Council on 
 which the fate of the kingdom seemed to depend. We 
 
296 y our nals kept in Fra7ice a7id Italy. [1850- 
 
 immediately threw open the windows, and from the 
 balcony proclaimed to the people that the army had 
 been ordered to march on the Milanese frontier. Of 
 course the news was received with applause ; not, indeed, 
 with the furious joy that would have been exhibited by 
 our southern neighbours, for we are a calm and grave 
 people, but with congratulations on the glorious career 
 on which the country seemed to be entering, a little 
 tempered by a consciousness of the perils which it was 
 to encounter. 
 
 ' Our dinner at the Palace was serious. The royal 
 dinner never lasted more than about half an hour or 
 forty minutes, after which we took our coffee in a half 
 circle in the drawing-room, each with his hat under his 
 arm, and the King went his round, saying something to 
 everybody. This time he suddenly left us, after having 
 gone only half round. Despatches from Milan had 
 arrived, and he came back to tell us that the Austrians 
 had been driven out. We rejoiced at having proclaimed 
 our decision so soon. If made after this was known, it 
 w^ould have lost half its merit, and more than half its 
 effect. I went home at night tired to death, and found 
 a messenger waiting to tell me that Abercromby wanted 
 to see me. I sent word that I was undressing, but 
 would receive him in my bed-room. By the time that 
 he came I was in bed. " Do you know," he said, as he 
 came in, " what you have been doing .' " " Yes," I said, 
 " we know what we have done, and we will stand by it." 
 " Do you know," he continued, " that you have virtually 
 declared war against a friend and ally, that friend and 
 
1850.] Why War was Unavoidable. 297 
 
 ally being one of the greatest military powers in 
 Europe ?" "Yes," I said, "I know that we have done 
 all this, and we have done right ; on no other conditions 
 could the Monarchy have been saved, as I could prove 
 to you if I were not dying for want of sleep." " Well," 
 he said, " after having done all this, sleep if you can." 
 And I did sleep, for my conscience then was, as it is 
 now, perfectly calm. By resisting the popular will we 
 might have lost our Constitution, but we should not 
 have preserved peace.' ' Do you recollect,' he said, turn- 
 ing to the Countess, ' the visit of Camille de Cavour .'' ' 
 ' Yes,' she answered ; ' when the King seemed to waver 
 he came to urge you to proclaim yourself dictator, and 
 to march even against his will ; he said that he was 
 ready to go barefoot to Milan. When the madness 
 reached such men as Cavour, you may judge what were 
 the passions of the people.' 
 
 Thursday, Nov. 7. — Marquis Alfieri paid us a long 
 and interesting visit. I mentioned to him Count Balbo's 
 opinion that the war was unavoidable. ' Considering,' 
 he said, ' our previous conduct, I agree with Balbo. 
 We could not wash our hands of the Milanese insur- 
 rection. We had been instigating it for years. The 
 Executive, too, was paralysed. The Piazza del Castello 
 was the seat of Government. The Sovereign and his 
 Ministers were not those who sat in Council in the 
 Palace, but the mob below and its demagogues.' ' Could 
 the second war,' I asked, ' have been avoided ^ ' ' There 
 was an interval,' he answered, ' in which perhaps it 
 could. It was immediately after Gioberti's first Ministry, 
 
298 Journals kept in Prance and Italy. [1850. 
 
 after he had succeeded Balbo, had held office for a few 
 days, and then had resigned, and had been followed by 
 me. At that time Austria would have given to us not 
 only an honourable peace, but the Duchies of Parma 
 and Placentia. This is the sort of gradual aggrandise- 
 ment which suits the House of Savoy. But Gioberti, 
 the day that he quitted office, became president of the 
 most Democratic Club, and attacked us and Austria 
 and the armistice with a pamphlet which set the people 
 on fire. The King, too, was anxious for war : he could 
 not endure his defeat, and was resolved to play double 
 
 or quits with fortune.* 
 
 ***** 
 
 ' Do you tolerate,' I said, 'applause from the galleries }' 
 ' We are too young,' he answered, ' in political life to be 
 able quite to suppress it. When I have been President 
 I have addressed the spectators, and explained to them 
 the necessity of absolute silence ; they seemed to agree 
 with me, and testified their assent vociferously, so that I 
 could only shrug my shoulders and sit down. Our de- 
 bates, however, are now too dull to excite much inter- 
 ruption ; it is difficult indeed to get up a debate. We 
 are all unused to public speaking. Till within the last 
 few years public speaking was an offence. I often try 
 to speak merely to prevent Bills from being passed in 
 silence, but when I am on my legs I sometimes feel a 
 nervous contraction about the throat which makes me 
 almost inaudible and quite deprives me of all ease. 
 Our orators will belong to the rising generation.' 
 
 We talked about Naples. * You would have found 
 
1850.] Society in Naples. 299 
 
 there,' he said, ' three years ago, an interesting society. 
 But now the most distinguished members of it are 
 among the 30,000 who fill its prisons. The King is not 
 like ordinary tyrants, oppressive merely to maintain his 
 authority ; he dislikes superiority of every kind ; he 
 hates a man who writes well, or plays well, or sings well, 
 or dances well. Many of his prisoners are the victims 
 of this jealousy. Among them is a man whom I should 
 have been anxious to introduce to you, Scialoja.' He 
 was Professor of Political Economy in Naples, and when 
 we founded such ia chair here I persuaded him to fill it. 
 A milder or a more inoffensive man does not exist. 
 When the Constitution was established in Naples, he 
 thought it his duty, though not without some misgivings, 
 to return, and he became a member of the Liberal 
 Ministry. As such, he was in attendance on the King 
 on the day of the insurrection in May 1848. A few 
 months afterwards a person, who was under obligations 
 to him, came to tell him that he and two others were 
 denounced as having been on the barricades. He 
 warned the other two, but knowing that he had been at 
 that instant in the King's presence he despised the 
 accusation for himself He was arrested, and has been 
 now for two years in prison, untried. He will perhaps 
 pass the remainder of his life there, and it may not be a 
 long one. A Neapolitan prison is any place with walls 
 
 ' Scialoja, a writer on Political Economy, a Neapolitan exile, a man 
 of talent ; has been Minister of Finance in the Italian Kingdom ; is a 
 Senator and Councillor of State ; a very terse and eloquent speaker. — S. 
 
300 journals kept in Frafice and Italy. [1850. 
 
 and a roof; light and air are thought unnecessary, and 
 the food is not more wholesome than the lodging. 
 
 We dined with the Marquis Cavour, and found there 
 his daughter, who is very pleasing, his brother, General 
 La Marmora, Count Castelborgo, Arconati, and a man 
 whose name I did not catch. The palace is large, the 
 rooms well proportioned, and about 20 feet high. La 
 Marmora is young, tall, and thin, dark and very hand- 
 some. They tried to make me explain to them the 
 difference between our Courts of Law and Equity : a 
 thing almost incomprehensible to foreigners, and not 
 easily understood by natives, I doubt whether I suc- 
 ceeded. The report that Prussia is to occupy the north 
 of Hesse, acquiescing in the occupation of the south by 
 Austria, was mentioned. ' I fear,' said Camille de 
 Cavour, ' that it is true, though it seems almost incon- 
 ceivable. I do not wonder at Prussia's refusing to make 
 war in support of the liberties of Hesse, but I cannot 
 understand her countenancing their destruction. It is 
 of a piece, however, with the King's false, irresolute, 
 rash, and yet timid policy. The old Germanic Con- 
 federation is now nearly reconstructed^ and if the people 
 do not interfere, or interfere and are beaten, the next 
 step will be the reconstruction of the Holy Alliance, 
 and European freedom will scarcely extend beyond 
 England, France, Switzerland, and Piedmont.' 
 
 Friday, Nov. 8. — Count Gallina has written to say 
 that he is not well enough to come to Turin, and begs 
 us to spend a few days in his country house at Marenna, 
 
1850.] Political Duels. 30 J 
 
 near Savigliano, if we can tolerate the want of English 
 comfort. We intend to go there on Tuesday. 
 
 Marquis Sauli passed the early part of the evening with 
 us. He talked of the political duels which were frequent 
 in Turin during the past year. They are generally 
 fought with pistols. In one in which Sauli was second 
 the parties were placed at twenty-five paces, without 
 liberty to advance. The first time both pistols missed 
 fire, neither was hit : the seconds and the principals then 
 shook hands. In another the parties were Camille de 
 Cavour and a Protectionist deput}'. The latter violently 
 attacked Cavour in the Chamber. Cavour retaliated in the 
 Resorgimento. The deputy was the challenger. They 
 were placed at twenty-five paces, but as the offence had 
 been serious each was allowed to advance five. Here, 
 too, neither was hit. Cavour showed great coolness: he 
 made a long and excellent speech immediately before 
 the duel. 
 
 We drank tea with the Arconatis. We met there a 
 Marchioness Lajatico (whom we shall find a valuable 
 friend in Florence), the Collegnos, and Massari, a Nea- 
 politan. Collegno and Massari ' agreed that Italy was 
 not ripe for a representative government. ' Twenty or 
 thirty years,' said Collegno, ' of liberty of the press, 
 liberty of public speaking, and open procedure, might 
 have prepared Piedmont for it — forty or fifty years of 
 
 ' Massari, a Neapolitan student and an exile. Went to Belgium, became 
 there intimate with Gioberti, whom he accompanied in his political tour in 
 Italy; has been a deputy since 1848; Liberal, with a shade of cleri- 
 calism. — S. 
 
302 yournals kept in France and Italy. [1S50. 
 
 such training the rest of Italy; for Piedmont is far the 
 most advanced. The people are sober and reflecting, 
 and she has a real aristocracy, consisting of men not 
 only of birth and fortune, but of knowledge and indus- 
 try. The most eminent men whom the Revolution has 
 produced belong to it. But popular government came 
 to us too soon. It has cost us our two disastrous Avars 
 and our deficit, which Ministry after Ministry allows 
 to increase. Of course it was still more premature in 
 less civilised districts. The person principally respon- 
 sible is the King of Naples. He was alarmed by the 
 general ferment which followed Pio Nono's early de- 
 monstrations. General Filangieri ^ urged him to make 
 concessions, and he thought to outbid the agitators by 
 granting a Constitution. This produced the promise of 
 the Piedmontese Constitution. Charles Albert did not 
 choose to be less liberal than his brother. But Charles 
 Albert was honest : he really wished to be a Constitu- 
 tional King — and so does his successor. It is not the 
 Executive but the people who, from time to time, ask 
 for 2.cotip d'etat, when they find that liberty has its duties 
 as well as its rights, its restrictions as well as its privi- 
 leges. The King of Naples was utterly dishonest. He 
 never intended to abide by his Constitution, he took the 
 first opportunity to suspend it, and it will not be revived 
 
 ' Filangieri, a very distinguished general in the Neapolitan service. Con- 
 quered the Silician Rebellion, was Governor of the island, and subsequently 
 a leading member of the Neapolitan Cabinet in the last years of Ferdinand's 
 reign. His principles had formerly been Liberal. He remained in Italy 
 after Ferdinand's fall. He is the son of the celebrated political writer, 
 Gaetano Filangieri. — S. 
 
1850.] Insuj^rection ^1848. 
 
 6^6 
 
 while he has Swiss or Austrians to rely on. Merely- 
 having acted as a deputy under it now is a crime, though 
 some other pretext for punishment is used.' ' This was 
 my crime,' said Massari ; ' but, as they could not openly 
 assign it, they got up a story about some conversations 
 in which I had taken part in Florence and Turin six 
 years before, and if I had not fled I should now be in 
 some Neapolitan dungeon. The Insurrection of 1848,' 
 he continued, ' was the turning point of Italian regene- 
 ration. Until that time, though perhaps all was not 
 going on well, yet all was going on. Radetzky was 
 driven from Lombardy and imprisoned within his for- 
 tresses, Austria was willing to give up all to the Mincio, 
 and deliberated whether she could retain the Piave. If 
 the Neapolitan contingent had taken up its position in 
 the Italian army, Vicenza would not have fallen, the 
 Tyrolese reinforcements would not have reached Ra- 
 detzky, and the campaign of 1848 would probably have 
 been successful. The moral effects were as fatal as the 
 military ones. Till that time the progress of liberty had 
 never been checked. The troops had either sided with 
 the people or looked on. 
 
 'The 15th of May broke the spell of insurrection. 
 Till then neither party knew its own strength, but on 
 the whole the sovereigns felt most alarm. But as soon 
 as it was found that the soldiers would fight for those 
 who paid them, and that discipline would beat enthu- 
 siasm, it was the turn of the people to tremble. The 
 King of Naples instantly recalled the concessions which 
 fear had extorted from him, and revenged himself 
 
304 yotirnals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 bitterly on the Liberals for the fright which we had 
 given him ; his example was imitated in Tuscany, 
 and France and Austria together have extinguished 
 liberty almost everywhere else. And yet this fatal 
 insurrection was without a motive. The Chambers had 
 not formally been opened, though they had met irregu- 
 larly in the Town Hall of Monte Oliveto. A question 
 arose as to the oath which they should take. It was 
 proposed that they should swear to the Constitution. 
 They objected that it required modifications. As soon 
 as it was known that there was a difference of opinion 
 between the King and the Deputies, the National 
 Guards ran to arms. Barricades were erected in the 
 street leading from the Palace to the House, the troops 
 attacked them, and this riot ruined the liberties of Italy. 
 Among the crimes,' continued Massari, ' of the present 
 hateful tyranny, perhaps the worst is its systematic 
 corruption of justice. The Neapolitan judges were 
 amongst the best in Europe. The law which they had 
 to apply to political offences was indeed severe, and 
 they enforced it strictly, but they were impartial. The 
 punishments were what you would think excessive, but 
 they were inflicted on those only who were legally 
 guilty. After the counter-revolution the Government 
 resolved to effect the ruin of the Constitutional party 
 through the courts of law. By this means it hoped to 
 deprive its victims of European sympathy. So general 
 is the detestation of the Republican party, and so little 
 is known of Neapolitan affairs or of Neapolitan public 
 men out of Naples, that it expected to destroy as 
 
1850.] Neapolitan Courts of Justice. 305 
 
 Mazzinists men whose political life had been passed in 
 opposition to Mazzini, and to his anarchical theories. To 
 effect this, every judge who was suspected, not merely 
 of Liberal principles, but of common honesty and com- 
 mon integrity, has been removed. This system began 
 soon after May 1848, but was not fully carried out until 
 the dissolution of the Chamber in March 1849. Then 
 it was that Pica, Sannio, Chiga, and Cesare were dis- 
 missed — most of them men whom you would call 
 Tories — men opposed to the Constitution, but incapable 
 of condemning an opponent unless on sufficient evidence. 
 In their places were appointed men like Navarro, the 
 President of the Court which is now trying those who 
 are accused of belonging to the Society of the Unita 
 Italiana. Navarro was one of the exceptions to the 
 general good character of the old Neapolitan magistracy. 
 Ever since he has been raised to the Bench he has been 
 infamous for his ferocity. One of his colleagues in the 
 Criminal Court of Lucera told me that at every trial 
 Navarro voted first for conviction, and secondly, for the 
 infliction of the highest penalty which by law could be 
 awarded. He has seen him, when the sentence was 
 under deliberation, implore his colleagues one after 
 another, as a personal favour to himself, to add on a iQ.\f 
 years, or a single year, or even a month, to the proposed 
 period of imprisonment. In 1847 he was removed from 
 the Court of Lucera to that of Campo Basso just as 
 sentence was to be pronounced on a political prisoner. 
 He entreated to be allowed to retain his seat at Lucera 
 for one day longer, in order to enjoy the pleasure of 
 VOL. I. X 
 
3o6 yoiirnals kept in France aiid Italy. [1850. 
 
 punishing. These are his qualifications for the Presi- 
 dency of the first Criminal Court in Naples. It may be 
 supposed that when such judges are selected few victims 
 are snatched from the Government by acquittal. When 
 this does occur, woe to the judge who has pronounced it. 
 Soon after May 15, 1848, a Neapolitan printer copied 
 some articles from the " Contemporaneo," a Roman 
 journal circulating freely in the Neapolitan States. The 
 Government disapproved of these articles and prosecuted 
 the printer. The judge was a respectable man named 
 Tibet. As the Government allowed the journal con- 
 taining the original articles to be sold, Tibet did not 
 think that he could declare the reprinting them a crime, 
 and he discharged the prisoner. He was immediately 
 cashiered, without being heard in his defence, indeed 
 without trial, and this in defiance, not merely of the 
 Constitution, which declares the judges irremovable, but 
 of the old laws of the kingdom, which prohibit their 
 removal except after solemn enquiry. Soon after, the 
 " Independente," a Neapolitan journal, was prosecuted. 
 The charge was so absurd that the Court rejected it 
 unanimously. Every judge who sat on that trial was 
 instantly dismissed, without pension or provision. You 
 may conceive what are the prospects of Poerio, Dra- 
 gonetti, Leopardi, and the other ex-members of the 
 Constitutional Administration, who are now suffering the 
 horrors of a Neapolitan prison, or undergoing the farce 
 of a Neapolitan trial.' 
 
 Lord Palmerstonis universally popular here, and I am 
 told that it is the same throughout Italy. His treat- 
 
1850] Austrian Demands. 307 
 
 ment of Greece is explained and forgiven as having been 
 really a defiance of Russia and Austria, and is accepted 
 as an evidence that we shall not allow them to trample 
 out what remains of Italian independence. 'We 
 watched,' said Madame Arconati, ' with intense interest 
 the debate on the Greek question. Immediately after 
 Lord Stanley's success in the Lords, the Austrian troops 
 advanced towards the Ticino. They were withdrawn 
 when the division in the Commons was known. I 
 doubt whether, if Lord Palmerston had been overthrown, 
 we should have ventured to resist the exigencies of 
 Austria.' 'What would they have been.?' I asked. 
 ' One,' said Collegno, ' would have been the abandon- 
 ment of our tricolor flag and the resumption of our old 
 national standard ; another would have been a re- 
 striction of the liberty of the press ; and a third the 
 expulsion of our emigrants, or, at least, of many of 
 them.' ' The first,' I said, ' would have been insolent, 
 but its insolence would have been its principal evil. As 
 for the second, I suppose that your press, like every 
 revolutionary press, runs very wild.''' 'Certainly,' he 
 answered. ' It is chiefly managed by foreigners, and 
 dangerous ones, many of them in the pay of Austria, as 
 was found the other day on the death of a soi-disaiit 
 rouge in Genoa ; and if we could restrict its license, 
 without doing so at the bidding of a foreign Power, it 
 would be a great blessing. The same may be said as 
 to the emigrants. Piedmont is become the sink into 
 which all the rascality of Italy is confluent. They do 
 more harm and create more danger to us than to any- 
 
 X 2 
 
3o8 yournals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 body else. If we had any sense, we should not wait for 
 the summons of Austria to make a great sifting of them.' 
 * What support,' I asked, ' do you expect from Lord 
 Palmerston in your resistance.'"' 'We are told,' said 
 Massari, 'that he said that England would not suffer 
 any interference with our domestic institutions. At all 
 events, we hope more from him than from Lord Aber- 
 deen.' ' I suspect,' I answered, ' that you would have 
 the same sort of support from the one as from the other — 
 strong expressions of sympathy for you, and strong 
 expressions of disapprobation of them — but I do not 
 believe that any English statesman would send an army 
 to defend Genoa or a fleet to bombard Trieste. If, 
 indeed, France and England were agreed in the matter, 
 something might be done.' ' Oh,' said Collegno, ' we 
 know perfectly well what France would do ; she would 
 occupy Savoy and leave Piedmont to its fate.' 
 
 Saturday, Nov. 9. — The Chevalier and Madame de 
 Collegno, Prandi, Marquis Alfieri, and Marquis Cavour 
 drank tea with us Mrs. Senior had gone with the 
 Marchioness Arconati over her new apartment, which, 
 to her English eyes, appeared magnificent, but our 
 guests would not allow it to be more than 'pretty.' 
 ' There are,' said Alfieri, ' in Turin some of the finest 
 houses in Europe. In the middle of the last century it 
 was the fashion to build. Fortunes were large and per- 
 manent, for they were strictly entailed, and, in fact, the 
 younger branches of a family seldom married. The 
 head of the house maintained them ; they filled the 
 army and the high offices of the Church, and formed a 
 
1850.] Italian Unity, 309 
 
 large society, who, having nothing else to do, studied 
 the arts of pleasing. Country houses were then, as 
 indeed, to a considerable degree, they are now, open to 
 all the owners' friends, and they went in large parties 
 from one to another. Now, since we have adopted, with 
 some modification, the French system of equal partition, 
 our homes are become too large for us, and we must 
 copy what we have not yet done, another French habit, 
 that of letting off the greater part and confining our- 
 selves to a floor.' I asked Madame Collegno if what I 
 heard was true, that the Arconatis thought of building 
 on one of their estates. ' Certainly not,' she said. ' No 
 one would build in Italy in such times as these. I am 
 not sure that they are prudent in taking an apartment 
 for three years.' ' We talk,' said Collegno, ' of Italian 
 unity. This little kingdom consists of four provinces 
 without any feelings in common. There is Sardinia, half 
 civilised, and under the domination of the priests. There 
 is Genoa, feeling towards Piedmont much as Lombardy 
 feels towards Austria. As Genoa is the seat of our 
 commerce, and as one of the subjects requiring imme- 
 diate attention is an alteration in our protectionist tariff, 
 the Genoese merchants were expected to send us useful 
 commercial members. They have sent us nothing but 
 firebrands, wild Democrats, and a renegade priest. 
 Savoy is in the other extreme ; more than half her 
 members are ultra Tories; if France were Legitimist 
 they would try to coalesce with her. Under present cir- 
 cumstances, they are endeavouring to restore absolutism, 
 tempered only by priestcraft. Piedmont is the only 
 
3IO yournals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 sound part of the monarchy ; but Piedmont has little 
 political knowledge. The only real statesman in the 
 Cabinet is the man who has just entered it, Cavour. 
 The Ministry of Public Instruction has been refused by 
 four persons during this week, and is not yet filled up. 
 We have, however, over the rest of Italy an enormous 
 advantage, in the antiquity of the House of Savoy. The 
 Bourbons in Naples, the House of Lorraine in Tuscany, 
 the House of Hapsburg in Lombardy and Venice, are 
 looked on as strangers. If they governed well, they 
 might be approved,' just as Leopold is approved in 
 Belgium ; but they could excite no loyalty. Now, with 
 the exception, of course, of Genoa, we are loyal. We 
 identify our King with our history. Charles Albert, 
 with all his defects, was popular, and since his death he 
 is almost sanctified. In the rest of Italy, the idea that 
 always suggests itself to those who suff'er under mis- 
 government is a Republic ; with us it was a Consti- 
 tution.' 
 
 Sunday, Nov. 10. — Camille de Cavour, Balbo, Count 
 Sclopis,* and theArconatis called on us. Cavour thinks 
 that the Pope's creation of Romish sees in England is 
 unwise, as it will throw discredit on Puseyism, the 
 bridge over which the English converts pass. He be- 
 lieves that a sincere belief in the peculiarities of Catho- 
 licism is general in Piedmont, even among the educated 
 
 ' Sclopis, a Piedmontese noble and magistrate, an eminent writer on 
 legal and historical subjects. His liberalism has been chequered with 
 Turinese municipalism. Was Minister in 1848, and since President of the 
 Senate, which office he resigned on the transfer of the capital to Florence. 
 A man of great respectability. — S. 
 
I §50.] Manzonis Politics. 311 
 
 classes. They sympathise, however, with the Govern- 
 ment in its quarrel with the Pope. What the effect of 
 an interdict would be it is difficult to say. Balbo came 
 to ask us to dine with him on Tuesday, to meet Azeglio 
 — a pleasure which we must refuse, as we are going to 
 Gallina's. He is reprinting his ' History of Italy,' and 
 adds a chapter on the period between 1847 and 1850, 
 which he hoped to have shown me in manuscript. As 
 it will not be ready before I go, I must be satisfied with 
 the proofs ; but it will be long before they are out. Balbo 
 is slow and the printers are still slower. Madame Arco- 
 nati brought me Manzoni's essay on the historical 
 novel. This led us to speak of my meeting him at her 
 house in 1847, ^^e day of his daughter's marriage. ' What 
 did he talk to you about } ' said Balbo. ' Politics,' I said. 
 ' I have no doubt,' said Balbo, ' detestable ones. I have 
 talked politics to him, and nothing could bewilder. And 
 yet he once uttered a political mot which was perfect. 
 We asked him in 1847 ^^ join the Government. He re- 
 fused. We had the weakness to insist, and he then 
 wrote to us to say, with the utmost sincerity, that he felt 
 unfit to take a part in public affairs, knowing himself to 
 be incapable of distinguishing between the desirable and 
 the possible. In that incapacity lies the secret of all 
 our misfortunes.' 
 
 Sclopis belongs to the magistracy ; his family is of 
 the lesser nobility, the dcciirioni of a provincial town. 
 At the time of the Revolution he was Attorney-General, 
 and Balbo made him Minister of Justice. He was the 
 chief draughtsman of the ' Statuto.' We talked of the 
 
312 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 law, the church, and medicine, and I asked whether a 
 gentleman would put his son into one of them. ' The 
 class of gentlemen,' said Sclopis, ' in your sense of the 
 word — that is, of men placed by education and manners 
 in the highest position, without reference to birth — does 
 not exist in Italy. Though the nobles live familiarly 
 with the haute bourgeoisie, they are not of the same 
 class. But to return to your question. A man of the 
 higher orders would scarcely make his son a priest. 
 Besides the restriction of celibacy, the life of a priest is 
 one of great labour. In addition to the daily, or almost 
 daily, celebration of Mass, and the daily repeating the 
 Breviary, and the long hours occupied by hearing con- 
 fessions, he spends with the sick more time than even 
 the physician. Whatever be the hour or the weather, he 
 must proceed with the sacraments to those who are sup- 
 posed to be in immediate danger, and he almost lives by 
 the bedside of the dying ; for he ought to be present 
 when the last breath is expired, to accompany it with 
 the beautiful prayer which begins " Proficiscere anima 
 Christiana." In many of the parishes in Turin a priest 
 does not get more than six nights' undisturbed sleep in a 
 month. The dignities of the church which once attracted 
 the higher classes are no longer made pieces of patron- 
 age : they are now given to the most distinguished 
 ecclesiastics, and when those who were appointed under 
 the old system have passed away they will be filled 
 almost exclusively by men of humble birth. 
 
 ' Nor would a member of the aristocracy readily make 
 his son a physician. It is looked on as a sort of trade, 
 
1850.] Position of the Learned Professions. 313 
 
 and though there are some physicians in the Senate, 
 they are there as members of the Academy, not as phy- 
 sicians. The Revohition has given great importance to 
 advocates : they are almost the only members of our 
 Chamber who can speak ; but their social position is not 
 high. The Bar is not the road to the magistracy. We 
 can scarcely, therefore, be said to have any professions 
 for the higher orders, except the army and the higher 
 department of the public service. The middle classes 
 fill the medical and legal professions, and swarm in the 
 employment of Goyernment : we have copied from France 
 her centralisation, and with it her hosts of public ser- 
 vants. The church is recruited chiefly from the lower 
 classes. They alone can endure its fatigues and priva- 
 tions. A peasant's family feels itself almost ennobled by 
 having a son in the church, and the cheapness of a 
 learned education renders it easy.' 
 
 The morning was fine, but about noon came on a 
 thick, cold fog ; there was probably, they said, a totir- 
 mente in the Alps, Arconati admitted the variableness 
 and, in winter, the severity of the climate, but praised 
 its healthiness. 
 
 Marquis Cavour spent the evening with us. He is 
 curious, as I find most of the Piedmontese, respecting 
 our institutions, and tried to get from me an outline of 
 the English law of real property. When I told him that 
 we had no notaries to authenticate the transmission of 
 property, and no register to record it, and that the only 
 evidence of title was the possession, in the proprietor's 
 or mortgagee's hands, of a bundle of parchments, he 
 
314 yournals kept in Prance and Italy. [1850- 
 
 remarked, what is true, that we are the only civilised 
 nation which endures so barbarous a system of con- 
 veyancing. 
 
 Mojiday, Nov. 11. — Madame Arconati called on us, 
 and brought with her M. Cordova, Minister of Finance 
 in the Provisional Government of Palermo. We talked, 
 of course, of the Sicilian insurrection. He admitted 
 that the hope of the insurgents lay in foreign assistance, 
 since the Neapolitan Government has carefully kept the 
 Sicilians unmilitary. The only portion of the Neapo- 
 litan law which is not extended to Sicily is the conscrip- 
 tion ; and that, though the people have often petitioned 
 for it, has always been refused. There were only two 
 Sicilian regiments, and they were of course kept in 
 Naples, ' We have been blamed,' he said, ' for not 
 accepting the terms which the King would have con- 
 ceded. We should have been satisfied with the terms, 
 if we had seen any grounds for believing that they would 
 be kept. But the King offered no pledges ; he was to 
 retain the fortresses and the army. We utterly dis- 
 trusted him, and the manner in which he has treated 
 his neighbours in Naples shows that we were right' I 
 asked about the safety of the country. ' The roads,' 
 he said, ' in the interior, are safe ; you may go from 
 Palermo to Messina, and from Messina to Syracuse. 
 Twelve hundred persons have been executed during 
 the last two years, most of them, of course, for political 
 offences; but crime of every kind has been vigorously 
 suppressed. The only country in which there is the 
 least danger is among the mountains to the east of 
 
iSso.] EdtLcation in Picdviont. 315 
 
 Palermo, which has ahvays been the least secure dis- 
 trict. If you post to Messina you will probably take 
 an escort for the first stage or two.' 
 
 The Cavours, Sauli, Alfieri, Prandi, Sclopis, Meligrado, 
 and Massari drank tea with us. Alfieri, five and twenty 
 years ago, lived in great intimacy with Schwartzenberg. 
 He thinks highly of his talents and judgment. I men- 
 tioned Beaumont's opinion that his ruling passion was 
 hatred of Lord Palmerston. Alfieri disbelieved it. He 
 is too cool and calculating to be actuated by personal 
 feelings. His ruling passion is the preservation of the 
 Austrian Empire ; to this he will sacrifice everything at 
 home and abroad. He has no despotic or aristocratic 
 prejudices ; he is not likely, indeed, to be favourable to a 
 system which gives him only an annuity of 2,000/. a year, 
 while his brother inherits a sixth of Bohemia. Alfieri 
 does not wonder at the difficulty of filling the depart- 
 ment of Public Instruction. He held it for four years 
 before the ' Statuto,' and has no pleasant recollection of 
 it, though then it was less disagreeable than it is now ; 
 for the Government and clergy were then acting to- 
 gether, now they are at war. The clergy require that 
 religion be taught in all the schools. The Government 
 consents. They affirm that they must be the only 
 teachers of it. The Government assents. ' But,' they 
 add, ' to teach religion effectually we must teach or 
 superintend every other instruction, or the lessons 
 taught by the priest may be nullified by the teacher 
 of history or philosophy.' Here the Government resists. 
 The consequence is, that the priests have retired from 
 
3i6 yournals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 the schools, and endeavour to withdraw their parish- 
 ioners ; the Government finds it difficult to get tolerable 
 teachers, and education is falling off. ' The great fault,' 
 he added, ' in our education is, that no one is satisfied 
 with giving to his son a mere commercial or industrial 
 training. As no one is disqualified for any office by 
 want of birth, parents do not choose that their children 
 should be disqualified by want of education. Instead of 
 fitting them to be shoemakers or shopkeepers, they pre- 
 pare them to be bishops or statesmen. This gives us 
 every year a crop of unquiet, dissatisfied youths, who 
 despise trades, and yet, for want of fortune or of connec- 
 tion, cannot succeed in professions. What I envy in 
 England is the cheerfulness with which men submit to 
 their vocation. A linendraper breeds his sons to be a 
 linendraper ; the young man knows that his proper 
 place is behind a counter, and does not try to pull down 
 the House of Lords because he has no chance of sitting 
 there. With us no one thinks that his proper place is 
 any except the hignest. The middle and higher classes 
 receive, as far as mere teaching is concerned, nearly the 
 same education ; and the lad who sees his schoolfellow 
 enjoying social eminence, or taking the path that leads 
 to it, wishes either to imitate him or to pull him back. 
 He becomes ambitious or discontented.' 
 
 The potato disease was mentioned. It has shown 
 itself in Piedmont this year, though not severely, and 
 it is difficult to wish for its total disappearance. Pota- 
 toes were gradually superseding polenta, and it is found 
 that, when once an Italian population takes to them, it 
 
1850.] Im7nigration into Sardinia. 317 
 
 becomes too numerous, or too idle, to live on anything 
 else. The Neapolitan lazzaroni have sunk to them from 
 macaroni. 
 
 They examined me about our Irish emigration. For 
 many years there has been a desire to obtain an immi- 
 gration into Sardinia. It must be Roman Catholic, and 
 it must be sufficiently numerous to protect itself against 
 attacks from the natives : scattered strangers would not 
 be safe among that barbarous population. But an objec- 
 tion has been raised, founded on our law of nationality. 
 The Government would object to having one or two 
 hundred thousand subjects who were also subjects of 
 England, and entitled to demand English protection 
 against the Sardinian authorities. I said that the same 
 objection had been made to me by Bancroft with re- 
 spect to our immigration into the United States, where 
 there must now be some millions of English subjects, 
 but that no practical difficulty had as yet arisen, or 
 seemed to me likely to arise ; that the right to Eng- 
 lish protection is an imperfect right, to be granted or 
 refused according to circumstances ; and that I did not 
 believe that our Government would readily interfere in 
 favour of those who had given a foreign allegiance, unless 
 some case of oppression should arise which roused our 
 religious feelings — a persecution, for instance, of Protes- 
 tant immigrants. A more serious objection appeared to 
 be the expense. I asked what it would cost to plant an 
 Irish emigrant in Sardinia. They said, perhaps 15/. 
 I said that he could be removed to the United States 
 for 4/. \Qs. This difference would prevent its being 
 
3i8 yournals kept hi France and Italy. [1S50. 
 
 done by us, and I doubted, and so did they, whether 
 the Sardinian Government could afford to do it. 
 
 The ' Galignani * was brought in, containing Lord 
 John Russell's letter to the Bishop of Durham. It was 
 read aloud, and at first many were inclined to doubt its 
 genuineness. All the foreigners disapproved of the 
 vehemence of its language. Admitting, as they all did, 
 that the Pope's conduct was unwise and offensive, they 
 thought that an English Prime Minister ought to have 
 spoken of the acts of a friendly sovereign, the head of 
 the Roman Catholic Church, with more reserve. The 
 expressions ' insolent and insidious ' they thought un- 
 diplomatic, and regret was expressed at the plainness, 
 not to say the rudeness, which has lately been intro- 
 duced into international correspondence. They asked 
 me to what means of defence against Papal aggression 
 Lord John could allude .'' Prohibiting the new Roman 
 Catholic Bishops from assuming their new titles is 
 merely repeating an experiment which has been tried 
 in Ireland, and has failed. Are people to be punished 
 for giving them those titles .'' That would scarcely agree 
 with English freedom. I was forced to admit that I could 
 not help them. Spiritual power is an enemy that defies 
 Acts of Parliament and even an Attorney-General. ' In 
 that case,' they said, ' why show your teeth if you cannot 
 bite .'' Why give additional importance to the Pope's 
 assumption of authority if, after all, you must submit to 
 it .-•' A discussion arose between Prandi and Sauli as to 
 the generalship of Chrzanowski ' at the battle of Novara. 
 Prandi maintained that, but for the treachery of Ramorino 
 
 ' See note on p. 321. 
 
1 850. ] State of the Piedmontese A rmy. 3 1 9 
 
 and the incapacity of Durando, the battle would have 
 been won. Sauli admitted that these were misfortunes 
 which Chrzanowski could not anticipate, but he blamed 
 him for having weakened himself by detaching La 
 Marmora with 10,000 men to cut off Radetzky's retreat. 
 His whole force concentrated would not have been more 
 than was necessary, even if every division had done its 
 duty. Prandi answered that Chrzanowski was justified 
 by the superiority of the Piedmontese to the Austrians. 
 He still retained the advantage in point of number, and 
 with nearly equal numbers he had a right to expect 
 success. 
 
 Tuesday, Nov. 12. — The weather continues disagree- 
 able. The town is covered with a thick, wet fog. 
 Though our room is small, we find it difficult to keep it 
 warm by burning old wood in basketsful. We are forced 
 to give up our visit to Gallina. I have agreed to dine 
 with Balbo, and we have resolved to quit this hospitable 
 people, but inhospitable climate, to-morrow. 
 
 Collegno called on us. As he is an old general 
 officer, and has been Minister of War, I asked his opi- 
 nion as to the theory maintained by Prandi, that the 
 the Piedmontese soldier is superior to the Austrian. 
 
 ' The Piedmontese.' answered Collegno, ' and the 
 Savoyards are military races. The feeling of honour is 
 high am.ong all classes. Many of the officers who fell 
 victims to the rashness with which they exposed them- 
 selves in the last campaign utterly disapproved of the war. 
 When well disciplined, and fighting for a cause which 
 interests them, a Sardinian army is a formidable one, 
 probably superior to an average Austrian army. But 
 
320 journals kept in France and Italy. [1S50. 
 
 the army which fought at Novara, indeed the army which 
 fought the year before at Custoza, was not disciplined. 
 Our cavalry, artillery, and engineers are regular troops, 
 but our infantry are scarcely better than militia. Every 
 year we raise by conscription 8,000 men, who are bound 
 to serve for sixteen years. During the first eight years 
 they are supposed to be in actual service, and are for- 
 bidden to marry ; during the last eight years they form 
 an army of reserve, and may marry. But instead of 
 being kept under arms during their eight years of 
 active service, they are dismissed at the end of the first 
 fourteen months, and are not recalled unless specially 
 wanted. The consequence, of course, is, that they take 
 to ordinary employments, break the rules of the service 
 by marrying, and in fact lose their military character. 
 Four-fifths of the men with whom Charles Albert 
 marched on Milan in 1848, and a larger proportion, 
 perhaps, of his troops in 1849, were married men with 
 families, who had not carried a musket for years, and 
 had not seen fire in their lives. They did well enough 
 while they were advancing, but at the first check they 
 lost heart. And when they had to retreat through their 
 own country they disbanded and took refuge with their 
 families or friends.' ' It follows,' I said, ' that, long as 
 the attack on Austria had been meditated, you were not 
 prepared for it.' ' Of course we were not,' he answered. 
 ' And it follows, also,' I said, ' that you would require five 
 or six years before you could go to war again, since it 
 would take that time to create an army.' ' It certainly,' 
 he answered, ' would take some years ; whether so long 
 
1 850. ] Piedmon tese and A zcstrian A rmies. 321 
 
 a time as you mention I am not sure. Napoleon said 
 that he could turn a Frenchman into a tolerable soldier 
 in two years, though it takes seven to make a good one. 
 I believe that our people would make good soldiers as 
 quickly as the French ; but it was a fatal mistake to 
 fancy, as we did in 1848, that fourteen months would 
 do. Other circumstances were unfavourable to the dis- 
 cipline of that army. Our Radicals told the privates 
 that their superiors owed their rank to the accident of 
 birth, which was not quite true, since a man cannot rise 
 in our army without professional knowledge ; but it was 
 plausible, and there did not exist between the officers 
 and men the confidence which is produced by having 
 long served together. Radetzky's army contained also 
 many new raised levies, but he drilled them most dili- 
 gently behind the walls of his fortresses. We professed 
 to do the same, but executed it negligently. We gene- 
 rally found in the pockets of the Austrian officers, who 
 were stripped, plans of the country in which they were 
 fighting. Many even of our superior officers had no 
 local knowledge. Radetzky's information, too, was far 
 better than ours. He not only made us believe what he 
 chose as to his own movements, but was perfectly master 
 of ours. Our schemes were debated among so many 
 that there was no chance of concealing them.' ' How,' I 
 asked, ' did Chrzanowski's^ appointment turn out ? ' ' He 
 
 • A Polish officer. His first campaigns were in the service of France. 
 He was engaged in the battles of Leipsic, Paris, and Waterloo. After- 
 wards he was attached to the Russian Staff and distinguished himself in 
 the siege of Varna. In 1 830 he took part in the Polish insurrection, and 
 was rewarded for his skill and courage by the rank of General of Division. 
 
 VOL. I. Y 
 
322 yournals kept m France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 was strictly honourable,' answered Collegno, ' which 
 cannot be said of all his countrymen. He would accept 
 nothing for his services, and I found him the other day 
 in Paris on a fourth floor, forced apparently to live with 
 the greatest economy. But he knew nothing of the 
 country or of the army, he could not speak our language, 
 nor did his military skill make up for these deficiencies. 
 He would have done well at the head of a division, but 
 was not fit to command an army.' 
 
 I was at Balbo's at the dinner hour, half-past 5, but 
 found nobody. At about 6 he came in from the 
 Chamber of Deputies, in some excitement. ' We have 
 had,' he said, ' a sudden storm. The Government has been 
 in danger from its own friends, and has been saved only 
 by the spirit of Cavour. The Houses adjourned in the 
 summer without having passed the Budget. Only a 
 portion of the estimates were considered. Among them 
 were the pensions ; and the Chamber of Deputies 
 recommended a reduction of them. The question did 
 not reach the Senate. The Government now asks a 
 provisional credit ; and Farini, one of their own party, 
 proposed as an amendment to add a direction that the 
 
 He soon began to despair of its ultimate success, and his countiymen 
 looked upon him with an evil eye in consequence. He was, however, 
 named Governor of Warsaw, and they attributed the surrender of that 
 town to his mismanagement and treachery. He was, in consequence, ill- 
 received by the Poles in Paris and Bmssels, where he lived in great re- 
 tirement till 1849, when he reluctantly accepted the command of the 
 Piedmontese anny. After the disastrous battle of Novara, for the loss of 
 which his lieutenant, Ramorino, paid with his life, Chrzanowski was able 
 entirely to justify his conduct, and he stayed in Piedmont till 1850, when 
 he returned to Paris, where he spent the remainder of his life. — Ed, 
 
1850.] Dissensions in the Chamber. 323 
 
 reduction voted by the deputies be made. The Go- 
 vernment answered that a still larger reduction has been 
 made and will be continued, but that as the vote of the 
 Chamber has not yet been confirmed by the Senate, it 
 is not binding, and they object to a direction which 
 assumes that the vote of the Chamber of Deputies has 
 the force of an Act of Parliament. This aroused the 
 jealousy against the Senate which, latent or expressed, 
 always prevails in the Chamber. Farini's amendment 
 was supported by many of the Right. Pinelli, the 
 President, left his chair three or four times to speak 
 against his own friends, and if Cavour had not, with 
 great animation, announced that his colleagues con- 
 sidered the amendment a declaration of want of confi- 
 dence, the Government would probably have been in a 
 minority. As it was, the amendment was rejected by a 
 majority of only five, and the original motion is not yet 
 disposed of I agree with the Government on every 
 point, except their Siccardi Law, to which I am opposed 
 on religious motives, and should look on their overthrow- 
 as a great misfortune. But we have not yet acquired 
 parliamentary discipline. Most of the members are 
 more anxious about their own crotchets or their own 
 consistency than about the country. The Ministry has 
 a large nominal majority, but every member of it is 
 ready to put them into a minority for any whim of his 
 own.' A few minutes after, came in Azeglio and Cavour. 
 Azeglio seemed annoyed at the events of the morning, 
 and told Prandi that being a Minister was metier de 
 gale'rien. This is not quite so strong an expression of 
 
324 yottrnals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 disgust at power as the King's, who says that being 
 King is mesticre di boj'a, as bad as being a hangman. 
 
 He said to me that he should call a meeting of his 
 party in the evening, and tell them plainly that they 
 were making government impossible. Cavour was, as 
 usual, in high spirits. He asked me where he could 
 find the best information as to the habits of the English 
 House of Commons. As he had got May's book, I 
 could refer him only to the Report in 1848 of the 
 Committee on the mode of transacting public business. 
 He asked me if I did not think their quorum, a majority 
 of the whole Chamber, excessive. I said, * Certainly, if 
 with a smaller number they could be safe from surprises,' 
 He seemed to doubt whether they were yet sufficiently- 
 practised in parliamentary life to estimate the utility of 
 good faith. ' At all events,' I said, ' you might copy 
 our practice of not taking notice that you are not a 
 quorum ; you might in that way dispose, as we do, of 
 many uncontested matters in Houses of twenty or thirty 
 members. The deputies went away to their meeting 
 almost immediately after dinner. Among the guests 
 who remained was a Count Persan or Persano,^ Captain 
 of the frigate * Eurydice.' The Sardinian Navy consists 
 at present of four frigates and two steamers. It is to be 
 increased ' Why } ' I asked. * Because,' he answered, 
 
 ' Count Persano was considered, till the fatal battle of Lissa, as the best 
 and the most dashing officer in the Sardinian Na\7. He distinguished him- 
 self at the siege of Ancona in 1 860 by sailing into the port and silencing the 
 batteries which defended it. He v/ould have done the same at the siege of 
 Gaeta, in the same year, but for the interposition of the French Admiral. 
 He was impeached before the Senate after the battle of Lissa, and while 
 acquitted of cowardice was convicted of incapacity and dismissed the ser- 
 vice. — Ed. 
 
1850.] Praise of Lords Minto and Palmer ston. 325 
 
 'we wish to fight the Austrians by sea as well as on 
 land.' War with Austria is the idea which possesses 
 every Piedmontese mind. 
 
 I returned home before 9, and found there Sauli, 
 Marquis Cavour, Alfieri, and Sclopis. Sauli thinks that 
 Cavour took up Farini's amendment too seriously. It 
 was not a question on which the Ministry ought to have 
 staked their existence. The Chamber requires more 
 freedom of action than he seems to allow it, and objects 
 to be reprimanded by a Minister of only four weeks' 
 standing. Sauli, however, is in opposition, and rather 
 inclined to be a frondeiir. Alfieri spoke in high praise 
 both of Lord Minto and Lord Palmerston. If the 
 advice of either of them had been followed Piedmont 
 would have escaped her misfortunes. They recom- 
 mended internal reforms, and intimated that in those 
 they might rely on the protection of England ; but they 
 both opposed strenuously the attack on Austria. 
 
 To-day's news from Germany, as it comes through 
 Brussels and Paris, is warlike. It is said that Austria 
 has rejected the ultimatum of Prussia, and that the 
 Prussian Landwehr is called out. The general opinion 
 was that this news could not be true; that the terms 
 proposed by Prussia were such as Austria must accept ; 
 and that, if true, it was bad news. Anxious as Piedmont 
 is to see Austria attacked, she wishes the attack to be 
 delayed till she can take part in it, which it would be 
 madness to attempt at present. 
 
 Wednesday, Nov. 13. — As we were at breakfast Mar- 
 quis Arconati came to us. He attended the meeting of 
 deputies of the ministerial side yesterday evening 
 
o 
 
 26 yo2ir7ials kept ill Fi'ance a7id Italy. [1S50. 
 
 Farini supported vehemently his own view; said that in 
 asking a vote of credit for the purpose of paying pen- 
 sions which the Chamber had directed to be reduced, the 
 Ministry proposed to violate the ' Statuto,' which declares 
 that no money shall be paid without the consent of the 
 deputies. Azeglio answered, in the first place, that the 
 pensions were intended to be reduced according to the 
 vote, and lower still ; secondly, that though the Govern- 
 ment meant to do this, yet as the pensions were payable 
 in full under grants which under the old regime were 
 valid, the reduction, in order to be regular, ought to be 
 sanctioned by the Senate ; and thirdly, that if, in matters 
 of this kind, in which the public interest was not really 
 concerned, the Government was opposed by its own 
 friends, he despaired of carrying it on. Farini was 
 obstinate, but the others acquiesced, and Arconati sup- 
 poses that to-day the vote will pass without difficulty. 
 He is very uneasy, however. In the present state of the 
 country, just after two foreign wars and one civil war 
 with despotic enemies all around them and republican 
 enemies among their own citizens, with a stationary 
 revenue and a doubled expenditure and 45,000 refugees, 
 another change of Government might be fatal. The 
 balance which sustains the existing constitutional mo- 
 narchy is a very nice one ; a slight shake might throw 
 them into despotism or democracy ; either the one or 
 the other might bring on an Austrian intervention, per- 
 haps followed by a French one, and Piedmont might be 
 the field of battle. Great skill is necessary, and un- 
 happily the experience which gives skill is wanting. 
 
1850.] Road to Genoa. 327 
 
 We left Turin this afternoon/ and slept at Novi. 
 
 Thursday, Nov. 14. — We left Novi at 7 in a thick 
 fog which lasted till ro, concealing, as I well recollect, 
 from having travelled through it four years ago, very- 
 fine scenery. It cleared up as we approached Ronca, 
 and we saw the difhculties which oppose the railway. 
 For several miles the road winds along the side of a 
 deep ravine, traversed by a rapid river ; the hills on each 
 side are precipitous, composed of argillaceous crumbling 
 stone, worn into deep gullies by the torrents. There is 
 scarcely room for the road and the river, and the railway 
 must be cut out of the sides of these unstable banks, or 
 built up on terraces across the chasms, and from time to 
 time driven through the mountains in tunnels. The tunnel 
 which is to pierce the Apennines immediately below the 
 pass must be of enormous length. The posts, which at 
 intervals of twenty or thirty yards point out the level 
 and the direction of the railway, seemed placed in de- 
 fiance of nature. I cannot believe that it will reach 
 Genoa, or even Ronca, in two years. It is pushed on, 
 however, with activity. The w^hole line is covered with 
 workpeople, many of them women. We reached Genoa 
 at about 2. As we entered we saw vestiges of the 
 events of 1849. Towards the sea several new batteries 
 have been erected, rudely formed of gabions, and the 
 
 ' The society at Turin at this time was most agreeable. It was small 
 but not provincial, and there was a youth, and hope, and freshness about 
 it, produced by the feeling that the deliverance of Italy was drawing near, 
 and would be mainly effected by the rulers of Piedmont. Of all the 
 brilliant group mentioned in these pages, only two or three members 
 survive. — Ed. 
 
328 yournals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 forts in the interior, which commanded the town, are in 
 course of demolition ; in consequence, I suppose, of the 
 jealousy of the townspeople. 
 
 Saturday, Nov. 16. — The Princess San Cataldo and 
 the Prince Butera, both Sicilians, called on us. She is 
 the daughter of the Duke Serra di Falco, who went to 
 offer the Sicilian crown to the Duke of Genoa. Her 
 husband sided with his countrymen, and partly for his 
 offences, and partly for her father's, she is forbidden to 
 return. 
 
 She complains of the dullness of Genoese society, and 
 lives here only because it is the best climate in constitu- 
 tional Europe. She is very pleasing, with soft, delicate 
 features, and an expression of resigned sadness not un- 
 becoming an exile. Prince Butera took an active part in 
 the insurrection, and was one of those whom, probably 
 in order to discredit them with the people, the King 
 named as his Ministers when he offered terms of accom- 
 modation. He does not assent to Cordova's opinion 
 * that these terms ought to have been accepted if they had 
 been supported by guarantees. In many important 
 points they were studiously ambiguous, and the basis of 
 them was unconstitutional. The Ministers were to re- 
 ceive their orders from the King, resident in Naples. 
 Who, then, were to be the King's responsible advisers } 
 ' We discussed,' he said, ' the King's propositions with 
 Lord Minto at great length ; we convinced him that 
 they were inadmissible, and when he left us he expressed 
 a strong hope that in forty-eight hours he would be able 
 to bring us the King's acceptance of ours. We waited 
 
i8so.] Piedmontese Ministry. 329 
 
 ten days and heard nothing, and then it was that we de- 
 clared the throne vacant, and, as you wished us to have 
 a king, we sent for one to Turin.' 'What,' I asked, ' were 
 the additional terms which you proposed ? ' * They were,' 
 he answered, * a Sicilian army in possession of the for- 
 tresses, and a viceroy with full powers.' I did not reply 
 what occurred to me — that according to this plan the 
 King was virtually required to surrender nearly all his 
 authority. He would have retained only the power of 
 appointing the viceroy. It would have resembled the 
 connection between the Sultan and the Pasha of Egypt. 
 Butera has no hope for his country during the King's 
 life : he can neither be conciliated nor resisted. 
 
 Sunday Nov. 17. — I sent for a horse to ride to Nervi. 
 The Abercrombys have a pleasant house there, with a 
 delicious garden, several acres in extent, running down 
 to the sea ; its orange-trees now loaded with fruit. He 
 spoke of the present Piedmontese Ministry as the last 
 hope of the country, the only mean between reaction 
 and republican wildness. Alfieri, however, is the person 
 whose knowledge and talents he rates highest ; but he 
 has a morbid fear of responsibility which makes him un- 
 willing to take office. Still Abercromby hopes that his 
 services may be obtained. Alfieri himself feels that he 
 ought to offer them, and that with his powers of useful- 
 ness he is responsible for being useless, 
 
 Monday, Nov. 18. — The Abercrombys called on us. 
 He spoke with great pleasure of a convent on the side of 
 the Alps above Biella, about 4,000 feet high, in which 
 he spent ten days in the summer. As long as there is 
 
OJ^ 
 
 Journals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 room all visitors are received there, and supplied gratis 
 with beds and sheets, bringing their own food. On 
 Sunday about 3,000 persons made a pilgrimage to the 
 Shrine, almost all of whom slept in the convent. Their 
 possessions are not large, but considerable offerings are 
 made by the pilgrims. The Abercrombys had a large 
 and comfortable apartment, which is occupied by the 
 Royal Family in their visits. In the evening Minnie 
 and I went to Madame San Cataldo's box at the 
 opera. It is large, and serves as a sort of salon ; the 
 opera being the usual place of meeting. We found 
 there, besides the Princess, Chevalier Rossi, the Belgian 
 Consul ; the Marquis Torrearsa, formerly President of 
 the Sicilian Chamber of Deputies ; another Sicilian, 
 whose name we could not catch, and the Prince and 
 Princess Butera. Little attention was paid to the stage. 
 Louis Napoleon's Message was discussed, and great in- 
 dignation expressed at his self-gratulation on the Roman 
 expedition. If, they said, the French had secured 
 liberal institutions, or even improved institutions, to 
 Romagna, the crime of their invasion might have been 
 forgiven ; but they have done no more for the Romans 
 than the Austrians have done for the Tuscans." They 
 say that if they had not gone to Rome the Austrians 
 would have done so. It is very probable ; but in what 
 respect would the Romans have been worse off.-' In 
 one respect, and an important one, all Italy would have 
 been much better off under an Austrian occupation, for 
 then France would not have been an accomplice in the 
 restoration of misgovernment. She would have been 
 
1S50.3 Austrian rule preferable to Neapolitan. 331 
 
 able to remonstrate, perhaps to act. Now she is com- 
 mitted by her Roman interference, and deserts us, even 
 when Austria interposes in our favour. We know that 
 Schwartzenberg has checked the tyranny of the King 
 of Naples, and in our despair of doing anything for our- 
 selves we are beginning to look for help to Vienna. 'It 
 must be admitted, too,' said Madame San Cataldo, 'that 
 in the general welfare of the masses Lombardy and 
 Venice received some compensation for the oppression 
 of the higher classes. Austria denies to her people 
 moral and intellectual progress, but she gives to them 
 railroads, and commerce, and material prosperity. The 
 southern parts of Italy have no compensation. The 
 peasantry of Romagna and of the Neapolitan dominions 
 are as miserable as their superiors. Even in their op- 
 pressions, the Austrian officials are far less cruel than 
 the Neapolitans. Many of my friends were imprisoned 
 in the dungeons of St. Elmo. They were half-starved, 
 half-clothed, beaten, and deprived of air and warmth. 
 Some lost the use of their limbs, others their eyesight. 
 Some have become mad. Those who died were the 
 most fortunate. 
 
 Tuesday, Nov. 19. — We called on the Somervilles, 
 Buteras, Madame San Cataldo and Chevalier Rossi. 
 The Somervilles have a magnificent apartment on the 
 Carignano Promontory, overlooking the sea on three 
 sides, but very difficult of access. They are going to 
 Turin for January and February — a preference for cold 
 which it is difficult to understand. I remember, how- 
 ever, their doing what is almost worse — spending a 
 
332 yoiirnals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 winter in Munich. Dr. Somerville spoke with delight 
 of Sicily ; the best climate, the finest scenery, and the 
 gayest people that he had ever known. The Princess 
 Butera told us that we should find at Palermo her eldest 
 son, who is seventeen. He is educated at home. There 
 is a University, but the Government has made it useless, 
 * They are resolved,' said the Princess, ' to keep us 
 ignorant.' 
 
 I asked the Prince whether he thought that Sicily and 
 Naples would coalesce into one well-affected kingdom, 
 supposing that to be a well-administered constitutional 
 one. He said : ' No ; besides their long-cherished mutual 
 hatred, they differ too much in national character. The 
 Moorish and Spanish blood in our population has made 
 us a different race from the pure Italian of the Continent. 
 What we wish is to be a constitutional kingdom, dynas- 
 tically separated from Naples, but forming part of the 
 great Italian confederacy.' 'Do you prefer,' I asked, 'a 
 monarchical form } ' ' Certainly,' he answered ; * we have 
 not the elements of an aristocratic government, and still 
 less those of a republican one. Perhaps we have not 
 even those of a constitutional monarchy. If so, God 
 help us, for I see no other hope. A despotism, even 
 under a sovereign of our own, we shall not patiently 
 endure, and no people can be well governed against 
 their will.' 
 
 In the evening we embarked for Leghorn. 
 
 Pisa, TJuirsday, Nov. 21. — We are well lodged at the 
 Vittoria, one of the best hotels in Italy, in rooms over- 
 looking the Arno, now swelled by three days' rain, a 
 yellow rapid stream. 
 
1850.] Government of the Grand Diike. 333 
 
 We passed the morning in the Piazza del Duomo, 
 where the Pisans have grouped together three buildings 
 in which all religious rites are to be performed — the 
 Baptistry, the Cathedral, and the Cemetery. 
 
 * ^ -K- 45- * 4?- 
 
 Madame Arconati and Madame Collegno, who left 
 Genoa a couple of days before us, came from Florence 
 in the evening and took us to drink tea with their sister, 
 Madame Prini. She inhabits a palace on the Arno 
 which two generations have been building, and have not 
 yet completed. The two drawing-rooms on the first- 
 floor, in which we were received, are to form a part of 
 the great reception rooms, but no other portion of that 
 floor is furnished. The family live as yet on the second- 
 floor. They hope that the whole may be ready by the 
 time that their son, now eighteen, is married. We 
 found there, besides Madame Prini, two Professors of 
 the University of Pisa, now the best in Italy, The 
 Grand Duke seems to be less hated than is usually the 
 case with Italian sovereigns, but more despised. His 
 government, they said, until the Revolution was one of 
 mere negligence. He did little harm and no good. 
 When the King of Naples gave a Constitution he did 
 the same, but on the first symptom of disturbance he 
 fled. His people drove out the Republicans, and ex- 
 pected to enjoy under him a domestic Constitutional 
 Government. He came back wearing the Austrian 
 uniform and accompanied by 10,000 Austrian soldiers, 
 and then rewarded his subjects for having restored him 
 by suspending the Constitution which he had framed 
 
334 Jotirnals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 and granted himself. The Austrian occupation costs 
 Tuscany 30 millions Tuscan, or 200,000/. sterling, a year, 
 about a fifth of the whole expenditure, and the conse- 
 quence is an annual deficit, which the Government takes 
 no means to fill up. 
 
 Friday, Nov. 22. — Before breakfast I mounted the 
 Campanile. From the top one sees that the whole Pisan 
 territory is formed by the receding of the sea, which 
 once washed the Apennines about five miles to the north 
 of Pisa. The sea is now five miles to the south. It 
 recedes about thirteen yards a year, or about half a mile 
 a century. At that rate it has taken two thousand years 
 to form the present plain, and Pisa, 800 years ago, when 
 the first stone of the Cathedral was laid, was not more 
 than a mile from the sea. The channel of the Arno, 
 now impassable except to mere boats, was then probably 
 deep, as the Pisans were a maritime people. Such a 
 plain might be expected to be unhealthy, but it is said 
 not to be the case. 
 
 Madame Arconati and Professor Giorgini, Manzoni's 
 son-in-law, spent the evening with us. Manzoni, he told 
 me, has been obliged to leave his villa on the Lago 
 Maggiore, and return to Milan. His passport had 
 expired, and the Government would not renew it. The 
 Austrians are striving to bring back the higher classes of 
 Milanese to the capital, but find it difficult. Those who 
 took part against them fly from a place full of painful 
 associations, and those who are supposed to have been 
 favourable to them are ill-treated by their own country- 
 men. 'A relation of mine/ said Giorgini, 'the Duke of 
 
i8so.] Military Ardour of the Students. 
 
 OJ. 
 
 Melzi, could not avoid receiving in his house some of 
 the Austrian officers. This, however, has made him so 
 unpopular that even his friends have advised him to 
 leave Milan.' 
 
 Giorgini joined the Tuscan contingent in the Austrian 
 war. As professor he commanded a company of the 
 regiment of students. I asked whether such an em- 
 ployment of youths at that age was wise. 'Whether 
 wise or not,' he answered, ' it was unavoidable. When 
 the news of the Insurrection of Milan arrived, the 
 students became absolutely unmanageable. There were 
 meetings and speeches, and if we had not submitted to 
 the movement we should have been carried away by it. 
 They would have joined Charles Albert, whatever we 
 had done, and it was better that they should join him 
 with some degree of discipline and under some com- 
 mand than as a mere mob of volunteers.' 
 
 The excuse for every Italian folly is the same — ' We 
 could not help it ; the people would do it' A bad 
 prospect for a popular Government. 
 
 Saturday, Nov. 23. — We left Pisa soon after breakfast. 
 An Austrian hussar regiment was exercising in the 
 Piazza between the Cathedral and the Baptistry. I 
 never saw poorer horses ; they looked like half-bred colts. 
 
 The railway brought us to Florence by i. The road 
 is interesting ; hills white with villages and towns form 
 the foreground, and the Apennines, now covered with 
 snow, rise behind them. 
 
 M. Salvagnoli drank tea with us. He unites characters 
 which with us would not easily be combined : that of the 
 
33^ Journals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 First Advocate in Florence and the editor of the leading 
 liberal newspaper, ' II Costituzionale.' His estimate of 
 the Grand Duke is very low. 'When the rebels were in 
 possession of Leghorn,' said SalvagnoH, 'the Grand 
 Duke sent to ask my advice. I proposed to him to 
 retire to Sienna, where no danger was probable, and if 
 any occurred, it would be easy to cross the frontier, to 
 enter into a treaty of mutual guarantee with Piedmont, 
 and to exchange 5,000 of our troops for 5,000 Pied- 
 montese. We should thus have prevented any attempt 
 on the part of Charles Albert to annex Tuscany; we 
 should have sent away 5,000 of our worst affected sol- 
 diers, and with the 5,000 Piedmontese we should have 
 driven the rebels out of Leghorn. The Grand Duke's 
 scheme was to conciliate the rebels by taking Guerrazzi, 
 their leader, into the Ministry, and he urged me to take 
 office with him. I refused. " Guerrazzi," I said, " is a rascal ; 
 you can never be safe with such a man in your councils." 
 After much discussion the Grand Duke agreed with me. 
 Two days after, Mr. Hamilton came to tell me that 
 Guerrazzi was Minister, and that the Duke hoped that I 
 should join him. It was under the influence of Guerrazzi 
 that the Grand Duke sent Commissioners to the Italian 
 Constituent Assembly with unlimited powers ; powers 
 which would have enabled them to annex Tuscany to 
 Piedmont or to Naples. I told him that in signing such 
 powers he had signed his own deposition. " How could 
 I help it } " he answered ; " my Ministers would have it so." 
 "I suppose," I said to Salvagnoli, "that you consider 
 the Ministers responsible for the suspension of the 
 
i8so.] A Sicilian Exile. 2)731 
 
 Constitution." " Certainly," he answered ; " we consider 
 them guilty of high treason, and I have already drawn 
 up the Act of Accusation." ' 
 
 He talked of the difficulty of writing Italian. ' It 
 does not consist,' he said, ' merely in the prevalence of 
 dialects, at least as far as we are concerned ; for what 
 was formerly called the Tuscan dialect is now recognised 
 as the Italian language. But there are two Italian lan- 
 guages : the old, or written one, and the modern, or 
 spoken one. In French or in English a man writes as 
 he speaks. But , if I were to speak the language of 
 Machiavelli it would be ridiculous ; if I were to write 
 as I speak it would sound intolerably v^ulgar. Even to 
 a Tuscan, therefore, written Italian is a dead language.' 
 
 Sunday, Nov. 24. — A wet day and the galleries closed. 
 We visited the Duomo and Santa Croce. The finest 
 interiors that I have ever seen are the Cathedrals of 
 Winchester, Rheims, Milan, and Florence ; and I am not 
 sure that I do not put Florence at the head of them. It 
 is far more striking within than St. Paul's, This arises 
 partly from the small number and small size of its 
 windows, and the depth and richness of the colours with 
 which they are stained. They look like gold and crim- 
 son openings in the enormous vaults above you, and gi\-e 
 light enough to enable you to conjecture the outline of 
 the distant parts of the edifice, but not to estimate accu- 
 rately their size or form. Vast as it is, it looks still 
 vaster. 
 
 The Duke Serra di Falco and the Marchioness Lajatico 
 passed the evening with us. He is a cheerful, gay-look- 
 
 VOL. I. Z 
 
00 
 
 8 yoiinials kept in France and Italy. [1S50. 
 
 ing man, appears about sixty, but is said to be seventy, 
 with nothing of the rebel about him. He denied, indeed, 
 that he had been guilty of rebellion. By the express 
 words of the Sicilian Constitution, the King, if he 
 violated it, forfeited his crown. The present King has 
 violated it systematically, and the Chambers, therefore, 
 were strictly justified in declaring that he had ceased to 
 reign. They were not justified in declaring the throne 
 vacant, or in offering it to the Duke of Genoa, for, by 
 the Constitution, it devolved on the second son of the 
 King of Naples. The Duke was President of the 
 Chamber of Peers, and, therefore, could not vote, and 
 nothing would have persuaded him to join in that vote. 
 Nor is it true that he went to offer the crown ; the offer 
 had been previously sent, and he went merely to com- 
 pliment the Duke of Genoa on his acceptance of it. He 
 looks back with regret to the English occupation of 
 Sicily, the last time when it enjoyed self-government. 
 Though sister-in-law to the Duke of Cassigliano, the 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Marchioness Lajatico is 
 a Liberal. Party spirit, she says, runs high, and inter- 
 feres with society. Though the Austrians are here by 
 the Grand Duke's invitation, though he is an Austrian 
 Archduke, and though the conduct of both officers and 
 men is unexceptionable, there is scarcely any house in 
 which an Austrian is received, for to such house no 
 Florentine will go. She is to take us to-morrow to a 
 party at Count Pedrovitch's. It is really to be a ball ; 
 but, as he does not choose to have any Austrians, he 
 calls it a small party, and keeps it as quiet as he can. 
 
1850.] Streets of Florence. 
 
 Oj' 
 
 Monday, Nov. 25. — The Duke Serra di Falco took us to 
 the Pitti Palace. He is a man of great taste, and knows 
 the collection well, so that we saw it, or rather ran through 
 it, to advantage. We were there three hours ; to examine 
 it well would take three weeks. I dined with Scarlet, 
 now Charge d'Afifaires, at the Villa Galli, on a hill about 
 a mile out of town. There is no comparison between 
 Italian and English architecture. The house is not 
 large, yet the principal room is a cube of about 40 feet 
 square in every direction. Count Pedrovitch's house is 
 within the walls," but on a hill so steep that it is ap- 
 proached by zigzags. If the Arno were as large and as 
 quiet as the Thames the situation of Florence would be 
 perfect. There is flat ground enough for the commercial 
 city, and on both sides the hills rise up, presenting site 
 after site for houses, or ranges of houses, each enjoying 
 its own light and air. It has no trottoirs, however, and 
 a town without trottoirs should have wide streets like 
 Milan, or be untraversed by carriages like Genoa and 
 Venice. Florence has narrow streets, full of carriages. 
 Add to this the natural dirtiness of Italians, and it may 
 be supposed what it is to walk there after rain. The 
 whole of every street resembles an unswept London 
 crossing. 
 
 Tuesday, Nov. 26. — Count Joseph Arrivabene, my old 
 friend's nephew, is an artist. He went with us to the 
 Royal Gallery. He opened to us the gems and bronzes. 
 The rest is accessible to everybody. In the tribune we 
 saw some pcrsone of the very humblest class. The 
 
340 yoitmals kept in Finance and Italy. [1S50.. 
 
 number of visitors was small, probably not lOO in the 
 whole building. On the whole, I think the union of pic- 
 tures and statues objectionable. The means of imitation 
 used by the two arts are not only different but opposed. 
 The neighbourhood of a statue reminds you of the super- 
 ficiality of a picture ; that of a picture suggests the want 
 of colour in a statue and of perspective in a bas-relief 
 
 Wednesday, Nov. 27. — Arrivabene took us to the 
 Carmine, to see a chapel painted in fresco by Masaccio. 
 In the evening we went to a ball at the Palace. Eight 
 rooms, a part of the smaller apartments in the garden 
 wing, were open. In the largest, about 60 feet square, 
 the new visitors were ranged round the room for presen- 
 tation. The Duke and the Duchess went slowly round. 
 He is a heavy-looking man, with large, inexpressive 
 features and a thick nose and lips, and seemed not 
 much master of his business, often stopping for some 
 time before one of his guests, apparently trying to think 
 of something to say, and at last giving it up and passing 
 on. He said to Mrs. Senior, ' Votre mari, je crois, est 
 journaliste.' He asked me if I were an officer. The 
 whole ceremony lasted about an hour and a half Danc- 
 ing began about a quarter past 10, and we left them 
 busy at a quarter past 12. During the whole evening, the 
 Grand Duke, unattended, was walking about, engaged in 
 long tete-a-tete. It was the etiquette to turn one's back, 
 to sit down near him ; in short, in every way to appear 
 unconscious of his presence. I had a long conversation 
 with M. Buonarotti, the* representative of the great 
 artist, formerly a judge, and now Councillor of State. 
 
1S50.] Trial by yiiry tinsiiitcd to Italians. 341 
 
 He spoke with great but, perhaps, not undue bitterness 
 of the Republican faction, which, by the assassination of 
 Rossi, the NeapoHtan revolt, the unjust attack on Aus- 
 tria, and the insurrections of Genoa, Leghorn, and 
 Florence, has ruined the happiness of this generation, 
 and thrown back Italy for a century. * This little 
 Duchy,' he said, ' is a specimen of Italian unity. Flo- 
 rence, Lucca, Sienna, and Pisa all hate one another, 
 even more than they hate Austria.' Among the mis- 
 chiefs which he feared from Republicanism was trial by 
 jury. He could understand its use in ordinary criminal 
 cases, but not in civil cases, and still less in political 
 ones. No justice, he thought, could be expected from a 
 jury when the decision affected a question or a person 
 that interested the public. 
 
 TJiursday, Nov. 28. — A hopelessly wet day. It was 
 nearly all taken up by a succession of visitors. First 
 came the Duke Serra di Falco. * I regret Sicily,' he 
 said, ' but yet I amuse myself here. Though I am a rebel 
 and an exile, that was not my vocation. My favourite 
 life is to employ myself with administrative business for 
 an hour or two, then with literary and antiquarian re- 
 searches for an hour or two more, then to ride till dinner 
 time, to pass the evening in the theatre or in society, and 
 to read " The Arabian Nights " for a quarter of an hour 
 before I go to bed. Politics, on a great scale, were 
 forced on me, and I don't think that I shall ever take 
 them up again. Men, at least my countrymen, are not 
 worth the sacrifices which the attempt to serve them 
 costs, and the attempt scarcely ever succeeds. Those 
 
342 Joinnials kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 who know what is right are too timid or too indolent to 
 act on their convictions, and almost all the bold and 
 active are ignorant and perverse. When the whole 
 united force of all Italy was not more than was wanted 
 to drive out the Austrians, we wasted our strength in 
 civil war, and never were more thoroughly disunited, 
 never feared and hated one another more deeply, than 
 when we were proclaiming Italy united.' 
 
 He stayed almost a couple of hours, and was followed 
 by Salvagnoli. Salvagnoli described the judicial orga- 
 nisation as deplorable. * The Judges,' he said, * of the 
 highest Court, the Court of Cassation, receive 8, coo lire, 
 about 320/., a year, the others considerably less. The 
 Bench, therefore, is filled by the idle, the poor, or the 
 dull ; by young men who either dislike the labour of the 
 Bar or cannot wait till its gains come in, or by old men 
 who have failed. They are removable at will, and there- 
 fore the slaves of the Government. However absurd be 
 the accusation, no one is acquitted whom the Govern- 
 ment wishes to convict. A few days ago four young 
 men were accused of a crime of which they were clearly 
 innocent, but they were supposed to be " Rouges," and 
 were therefore found guilty, and sentenced to sixty-four 
 months' imprisonment. It is a mistake to suppose that 
 Tuscany is prosperous. A great deal of work is done in 
 the fields, but it is unskilfully done ; fine palaces are 
 built, but it is for ostentation, not for use. The builder 
 lives in a corner of them. We have some ancient families, 
 but not a real aristocracy uniting wealth and personal 
 consideration. There is not a family with 200,000 lire 
 
1S50.] Suspension of the ' Statnto! 343 
 
 (about 6,000/.) a year.' After him came the Duchess of 
 Cassigliano, the wife of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. 
 She is a pleasing woman, with soft, quiet manners, de- 
 voted to the education of her son, a young man of fifteen. 
 His different lessons, including fencing and riding, oc- 
 cupy him from 8 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon, 
 which appears rather too long. I asked if she intended 
 him to follow his father's career. ' No,' she said ; ' I hope 
 that he will marry and live quietly with us, among his 
 friends, and educate his children. Political life has be- 
 come very painful : those who ought to take part in it 
 selfishly shut themselves up, and leave it to adventurers, 
 who hope to get on by faction and dishonesty ; by flat- 
 tering sometimes the Court, and sometimes the mob.' 
 
 Ealdasserone, the Prime Minister, and Cassigliano are 
 considered the most liberal members of the Cabinet. 
 As they joined, however, in calling in the Austrians and 
 in suspending the Constitution, they share the odium of 
 their colleagues. 
 
 Our last visitor was Leopold Galeotto, nephew of the 
 Marquis Galeotto, and editor of the ' Statuto ' newspaper. 
 The Government has just suspended for five days the 
 publication of his journal. The other liberal paper, the 
 
 * Costituzionale,' censured Louis Napoleon's Message, 
 the French Minister, Montessuy, complained, the Gov- 
 ernment reprimanded the * Costituzionale,' and the 
 
 * Statuto ' remarked on French intolerance of criticism ; 
 whereupon Montessuy complained again, and this sus- 
 pension was the result. By an agreement between the 
 
 * Costituzionale ' and the ' Statuto,' whenever one is 
 
344 journals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 suspended the other is distributed in its place. Mon- 
 tessuy is very unpopular, both as a Jesuit and as a 
 Legitimist, though sent by Lahitte. 
 
 Galeotto was one of the five persons appointed to 
 draw up the * Statuto Fondamentale.' The present state 
 of things fills him with anxiety. It is rapidly under- 
 mining the loyalty once felt to the House of Lorraine. 
 When the Duke is seen surrounded by Austrians, 
 guarded by an Austrian garrison, and announcing him- 
 self in all his proclamations as Imperial Prince of Aus- 
 tria and Royal Prince of Hungary and Bohemia, he 
 begins to be looked on as a foreigner. In a short time 
 new taxes must be imposed. The Austrians come here 
 almost in rags, are clothed and partly paid by Tuscany, 
 and the fortresses have been put into repair at an enor- 
 mous expense, so that there is an annual deficit. The 
 present taxes, though illegally exacted, are yet submitted 
 to, because people are accustomed to them. And even 
 new ones may not be resisted in the presence of 10,000 
 foreign troops. But the moderate party will lose all its 
 influence. Two years ago it was omnipotent. It re- 
 turned the bulk of the deputies, and gave a constant 
 majority to the Government. Now many of its mem- 
 bers, disgusted with the anti-national conduct of the 
 Court, are on the point of joining the Republicans, and 
 those who remain faithful to the reigning house will 
 find it difficult to give reasons for their loyalty. They 
 cannot deny that the present Government is an usurpa- 
 tion supported by foreign bayonets. All that they can 
 say for it is, that it is not wantonly oppressive. But if 
 
1850.] State of Venice. 345 
 
 times of difficulty come, what reliance can be placed in 
 only such a negative merit ? 
 
 We drank tea with the Marchioness Lajatico. Her 
 palace, a fine one, is in the new part of the town, near 
 the Porta del Prato. When she married, her father-in- 
 law, the Prince Corsini, built it for her to ensure her a 
 separate residence. We found there four or five Italian 
 men, who, as is often the case on the Continent, talked 
 only to one another. 
 
 We ended the evening at a ball at Mrs. Trollope's, 
 who has built, or rather altered, for herself a pretty 
 house in the new quarter. The bedrooms are all on the 
 ground floor, built round a hall and skylight. 
 
 Friday, Nov. 29. — Phillips, the artist, called on us. 
 He has just left Venice, and gives a deplorable account 
 of it. The abolition of its privileges as a free port has 
 destroyed its commerce, 200 of the first firms have left 
 it or given up business, and the general exclamation is, 
 that Venice is dead. The wickedness and folly of the 
 Venetians in rebelling against the best Government 
 which they have ever enjoyed — a Government under 
 which the value of property, the surest test of prosperity, 
 had doubled between 1840 and 1847 — deserved some 
 punishment ; but it is impossible not to regret the 
 severity of that which they are undergoing. 
 
 Sir Frederick Adam and Count Serristori drank tea 
 with us. Serristori was one of the Ministers under 
 ivhose advice the Constitution was given, and when the 
 Grand Duke was recalled in 1849, he appointed Serristori 
 his Lieutenant-Governor of Tuscany, with full powers to 
 
34^ journals kept in France and Italy. [1850. 
 
 re-establish order and prepare the restoration of the 
 Constitution. As both our guests were mihtary men, the 
 conversation turned on the Tuscan army. ' It costs per 
 month,' said Serristori, * forty Tuscan lire, equal to about 
 thirty-four French francs, a man, including ordnance 
 and every other expense, except pensions and half-pay. 
 But it is impossible that the army of a small country 
 can be a good one. The real military feeling which 
 makes a soldier consider his flag as his country, and his 
 military duty as his religion, is to be acquired only when 
 he is separated from his relations and friends. The 
 Lombard acquires it in Hungary,- and the Hungarian in 
 Lombardy. Our men live among their old associates 
 and never lose their citizen habits,' 
 
 The German news this morning indicated war ; we 
 speculated on its results. 'With equal numbers,' said 
 Sir Frederick, * and equally well commanded, I would 
 bet on the Prussians, at least at first. But the Aus- 
 trian army is, in one respect, superior to every army 
 in the world — it is never broken down by a reverse, 
 or even by a succession of reverses. After years of 
 unsuccessful war it fights as well or even better than 
 it did at first.' * But,' said Serristori, ' it has no en- 
 terprise, no spirit; it never succeeds except by the 
 weight of superior numbers : the Austrian soldier is a 
 mere unintelligent machine.' ' The private is,' said Sir 
 Frederick, 'but not the officer, or even the non-commis- 
 sioned officer. Both are carefully trained, and it is to 
 the officers that the Austrian army, and indeed the 
 Austrian Empire, owes its cohesion. While ever^^thing 
 else is heterogeneous, they form a separate and uniform 
 
1850-] Lazv of Succession. 347 
 
 caste, governed by one law, subject to one authority ; 
 in short, welded together into one mass. In defying 
 such powers as Austria in the foreground and Rus- 
 sia in the background, the King of Prussia is playing for 
 enormous stakes.' ' It is remarkable,' I said, ' that the 
 existing alarm depresses the Austrian funds more than 
 it does the Prussian ones. They are now lower than 
 during the Hungarian war. Those of Prussia have fallen 
 much less, and yet the chances of success seem to be in 
 favour of Austria.' ' The fall of the Austrian funds,' said 
 Serristori, * does not depend on speculations as to the 
 events of the war. It arises from the conviction of the 
 Viennese capitalists that the ruin of the Austrian finances 
 is now irretrievable. Ever since the subjugation of Lom- 
 bardy and of Hungary, they have been expecting the 
 reduction of the enormous army which occasions every 
 year an increasing deficit. They now see the vanity of 
 this hope : they see that the relations between Austria 
 and Prussia are such that there is only a choice between 
 war and armed peace, and the latter is almost as ruinous 
 as the former, and more lasting.' 
 
 We talked of the Tuscan law of succession. All 
 entails were abolished during the last century, and a 
 law of equal partition, not much differing from the 
 French, was introduced. It is popular, as indeed it 
 appears to be wherever it prevails. I asked if much 
 importance was attached to distinctions of birth. ' Not 
 so much,' said Serristori, ' as in Germany, or indeed as 
 is generally the case in Italy. Our republican ances- 
 tors have bequeathed to us a general feeling of equality ; 
 but though the nobles and roturicrs live much together. 
 
34^ yoin'iials kept hi Fj'ance and Italy. [1850. 
 
 they seldom intermarry, unless, indeed, the noble be 
 very poor and the rotiiricr or rotiiricre very rich. A 
 noble has scarcely any other means of making a fortune. 
 He seldom adopts the church, the law, or medicine ; 
 trade is not open to a poor man, and the army is very 
 sniall.* 
 
 Sunday, Dlx. i. — Duke Serra di Falco drank tea with 
 us. He told us of an occurrence in Naples when he 
 was there, about twenty years ago. The Dey of Algiers 
 was living in the principal hotel. One day, Mustapha, 
 his head servant, came into the kitchen, and asked for a 
 large knife. One was given to him, but it was too small ; 
 and another, but it was still too small. They asked 
 what he could want with one. * I have to cut off,' he 
 said, 'All's head.' The cook went to the master, to whom 
 Mustapha repeated his business, and begged not to be 
 kept waiting. They kept him, however, till the master 
 had seen Caretto, the Minister of Police, \\\\o thought 
 the matter deserved his presence at the hotel. The 
 Dey received his visitor with Oriental politeness, and 
 told him that it was quite true that he had ordered 
 Mustapha to cut off All's head, and that he was sur- 
 prised to find that it was not yet done. He yielded, of 
 course, to the representations of Caretto, but left Naples 
 next day for some country of freedom where a man can 
 do what he will with his own. 
 
 Monday, Dec. 2. — Minnie and I rode over the hills to 
 the north of the town. In the evening. Marchioness 
 Lajatico sent us the key of her sister-in-law's box at 
 the Cocomero Theatre, to see Adelaide Ristori, the best 
 Italian actress. We were much pleased with her. She 
 
1S50.] Country-house Life. 349 
 
 is effective without exaggeration, and very handsome. 
 The whole play was well acted. 
 
 Tuesday, Dec. 3. — Minnie and I rode to Fiesole. It 
 was cool in the shade, for the wind continues north- 
 east ; but in the sun, as we mounted the southern expo- 
 sure of the hill, almost too hot. Our road ran between 
 villas, vineyards, and olive grounds, sometimes varied by 
 ranges of cypresses twice as high as the houses ; and 
 every turn gave a new view of Florence, the Vale of the 
 Arno, and the Tuscan mountains, over which peeped the 
 Apennines, now covered with snow. 
 
 The C.s drank tea with us. They complained of the 
 predominance in Italian society of bores. In the town 
 houses there are generally three or four habitues who 
 talk to one another, and do not seem to think that they 
 have any conversational duties to perform. In country 
 houses it is still worse; the notabilities of the village 
 have the entree of the great man's house, and often 
 abuse the privilege. The C.s spent a couple of months 
 with the Duchess Melzi in her beautiful villa on the 
 Lake of Como. The doctor, the attorney, and the priest 
 of Bellagio used constantly to bestow their tediousness 
 on the Duchess. 
 
 Wednesday, Dec. 4. — Mr. Spence, an English artist 
 settled in Florence ; Phillips, Salvagnoli, the Duke Serra 
 di Falco, Mdme. Lajatico, and M. Parlatore, Professor 
 of Botany, drank tea with us. Parlatore and the Duke 
 talked with enthusiasm of the vegetation of Sicily, 'At 
 Syracuse,' they said, ' we shall see the banana and sugar 
 cane in the open air. Etna will be inaccessible, but we 
 may reach the chesnuts, of which there are some even 
 
350 yoitrjials kept in Finance and Italy, [1S50. 
 
 finer than the celebrated one of the Cento Cavalh.' I 
 find Parlatore a behever in the high antiquity of trees. 
 He desired us to see one in the San Severino Convent in 
 Naples, which is traced for 1,300 years. Spence and 
 Phillips agreed with me in rating very highly the pic- 
 tures at the Accademia. ' Nothing is more curious,' said 
 Phillips, ' than to see on opposite sides of the same room 
 the productions of the fourteenth and of the nineneeth 
 century. In the first there is scarcely any art, in the 
 second there is scarcely any nature.' Spence attributed 
 much of the excellence of the great architects of the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to their having been 
 also great painters. Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci, and 
 Michael Angelo were accustomed to study picturesque 
 effect. They knew how to produce lights and shadows. 
 Our architects flatten everything. Salvagnoli desired 
 me in his name to call on Troja and Manna in Naples, 
 but was afraid that a letter from him might expose them 
 to the Neapolitan Government. 
 
 Thursday, Dec. 5- — This was our last morning in 
 Florence. After breakfast Sir F. Adam and the Duke 
 Serra di Falco paid us a long parting visit. I asked the 
 Duke if he agreed in Prince Butera's opinion that under 
 no circumstances whatever, however liberal the Consti- 
 tution, or however honest and intelligent the King, 
 could Sicily and Naples live together comfortably under 
 one sovereign. He answered, * Perfectly ; it is lamen- 
 table, but it is true ; and you will be convinced of it 
 after you have been a week in Sicily. It is a mistake 
 to suppose that it is only a party in Sicily that is 
 opposed to the Neapolitan dynasty. Platred of Naples 
 
1S50.] Conditct of the Neapolitan Government. 351 
 
 is almost the only feeling that belongs to every class 
 and to every degree of education and intelligence. It 
 governs the prince and the beggar, the professor and the 
 clown. Centuries of good government, supposing it to 
 be possible to govern well a hostile people, would not 
 eradicate it. The experiment indeed has never been 
 attempted. I am old enough to remember the early 
 conduct of the Neapolitan Government when it took 
 refuge in Sicily. We had our ancient Constitution, 
 which prohibited taxation without the consent of the 
 States. The King,- of his own authority, imposed a tax 
 of one per cent, on all property. Fifty of the peers 
 met, drew up an exceedingly temperate remonstrance, 
 and presented it to the King by a deputation of five. 
 They were all sent to the Islands, places where there 
 are some miserable dungeons for the worst criminals. 
 Soon after this Lord William Bentinck arrived ; he in- 
 terposed, found his remonstrances neglected, went home 
 for further powers and instructions, and returned autho- 
 rised to demand liberal government as the price of 
 English protection. The King gave up the management 
 of affairs to his son, the exiles were recalled, and the 
 Constitution of 18 12 followed.* 'I was present,' said 
 Sir Frederick, ' at Lord William's first audience on his 
 return, and never shall forget Queen Caroline's reception 
 of him. Her countenance and manner were a concen- 
 tration of spite, humiliation, and malignity. She re- 
 venged herself by intriguing to bring in the French. 
 I was a member of a court before which one of her 
 agents was tried. We found him guilty, and she suffered 
 him to be executed, when a slight interference on her 
 
352 Joiunials kept ill France and Italy. [1850, 
 
 part would have saved him.' * A few words/ continued 
 Serra di Falco, ' in one of the protocols of the Congress 
 of Vienna destroyed our independence. " The Kingdom 
 of the Two Sicilies," it is there said, " is continued to the 
 King of Naples." Till then the expression " The King- 
 dom of the Two Sicilies" had never been used, any- 
 more than of the Kingdom of England and Hanover. 
 They were separate, independent kingdoms, which had 
 accidentally fallen to one person. Ever since that time 
 the King of Naples, directing against us the power of a 
 people four times as numerous as we are, and backed 
 when necessary by Austria, has made us his slaves, and 
 tries to ^eep us so by keeping us poor, ignorant, and 
 defenceless.' 
 
 As we were leaving Florence I observed on a marble 
 tablet, built into the wall of the quay near the Ponte 
 Delia Grazia, this inscription : — 
 
 Hie jacent ossa equi legati Venetise. 
 
 Haud ingratus herus, sonipes memorande, sepulchrum. 
 
 Hoc tibi pro meritis, hsec monumenta dedit. 
 
 Urbe obsessa MDXXXIII. 
 
 It does credit to man and horse. The date is re- 
 markable. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
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