The great French measure, which has been the occasion of
so much speculation throughout Europe, the bill for the fortification of Paris, has passed into law: it received the Royal assent on Tuesday. It seemed to run the last stages of its progress through the Chamber of Peers in a sort of dream of twaddle and stale en- thusiasm.
Now that it is carried, those who have adopted the responsibility of this measure must feel somewhat nervous at the prospect before them. The effect of the menace to Europe, the dislike of some Republicans to a chain of fortifications, and the civil use that may be made of the new warlike resource, are not more serious than the grave and immediately pressing consideration of expense. A new public work of the largest kind is begun with a bare exche- quer. But even hopeless debt is not the worst financial evil which may blanch the cheeks of French politicians. With a yearly re- venue of about forty-six millions, France will have to meet at the end of 1842 a deficiency of not less than twenty-five millions. The penurious nature of French commerce and economics forbids any sudden or vast increase in her taxation ; and the future must be an enigma as obscure as it is appalling to her financiers. All the fac- tions of the country, maddened by national pride, seem hurrying France into the bygone calamities which were bequeathed to her by the kingly pride of the self-seeking Louts the Fourteenth : the soldiers of the Empire, the philosophers of the Republic, the sans-culottes of the Reign of Terror, unite to do the work of the Grand Monarque, whose descendant they slaughtered for heredi- tary errors, which they imitate.
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