TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE RESTLESSNESS IN FRANCE.
Ili. QUIVER in a corpse startles us more than the wildest motion made by a living man ; and we must beware of exaggerating the agitation now apparent in France. She has seemed so dead for the past twelve years, so utterly lost to all true political life, so wrapped in a stupor which is more quiescent than sleep, that her first shudder is apt to create an unwarranted agitation. It may well be that the " stroke" she suffered in - 1848 has not yet spent its force, that the quiver is only muscular, that the brain has not recovered its control over the nerves. The restlessness visible may be only the play of new lights across her limbs, and even the sigh one hears may have come from some of the gasping spectators. Yet, with that needful caution, it is impossible to deny that there are signs in France almost incompatible with a continued trance.
Society—by which we mean the educated class, and not this or that clique—is deeply and painfully disturbed. The fiat has gone forth from Rome that the Empire is to be menaced, and menaced through the liberal school. Ultra- montanes have no objection, for they love Napoleon and the Italian cause in about equal degrees. But then they dread also the Reds, and do not feel sure that when the cures have marched at the head of their flocks to reverse the vote of 1848, and sent up Republican Deputies to Paris, the new Franken- stein they will create may not be more dangerous than the last. They may lose, with the Emperor, the control of the new generation. Then the Liberals, detesting Napoleon, doubtful of Italy because it is partly his work, and savage at the prospect of political rivalry within twelve hours' steam of Marseilles, still cannot bring themselves to shake hands with Ultramontanes. They cannot conceal their disgust when the Archbishop of Toulouse solemnly calls on the faithful to keep the tricentenary of a massacre, committed by Catholics on Pro- testants, to whose safety they had but just sworn. Nor are they content to see the religious societies increased in number by nine hundred within ten years, as M. Billault reports, or to feel that the priests are once more regaining control of the feniale population of France. They have ideas about eccle- siastical morals which are, we honestly believe, unjust, but which, while they endure, render any toleration for priests absolutely impossible. Napoleon may yet yield to their views, but the priests are long past all hope. The Reds, again, are annoyed at the arrogance the Ultramontanes once more display, excited by Jerome Napoleon's oratory—which, what- ever we may think of its motives, strikes chords that always vibrate through France—and waiting eagerly for the next move, which is to show whether the Prince spoke his cousin's thought or whether the purple has produced its wonted effect. All these classes alike have tacitly agreed to await the Em- peror's decision on Rome, as the final key to his character. If he departs from the city he breaks with the parti pretre, irritates the political jealousy of almost all French politicians, and must look for all that this class, backed by the priests, the religious societies, the superstitious part of the peasantry, and the women—can do for his overthrow. If he does not depart he breaks with the Revolution, extinguishes his own raison d'être, offends the feeling so rooted in France, that social existence is based an the principles of 1789, and becomes an ordinary monarch with a title no stronger than that of the House of Orleans, and a policy which does not redeem his title's defect. Already his long hesitation is injuring his authority. One of the many sources of his personal sway in France has been the belief that he had a policy, a fixed im- mutable will, which could neither be turned nor intimidated. A " Crowned Enigma" who hesitates, is apt also to disen- chant. If Ultramontane agitation can change the Imperial will, why not also agitation for liberty ? If he shrinks from encountering the priests,—and Frenchmen sneer as they say it, for they are all jealous for the supremacy of the State,— why should he not also shrink from a collision with liberal thought ? Every day that passes increases the excitement, until, when hesitation is exhausted, the decision will have at last the effect of a coup d'..Etat. Then, to add to the agitation, there is the state of the finances.. Frenchmen, whether it be from their personal habits of thrift, or their unqualified hate of taxation, or their reminiscences of the old regime, dread a financial crisis far more than the English tax-payers. They hate to hear of a deficit. To thoughtful Englishmen who know what civilized states can bear, and who are aware how greatly the railway profits will in twelve years more relieve France, this dread seems a little unreasonable. It is felt, however, and while the salons abuse M. Fould for palliatives which, as they say, clean the civil list but besmirch France, the bourgeoisie hate the increasing expense, the forcing process applied to the cities, the huge liabilities every public body is forced to incur, and the menace of novel taxes. Members but recently spoke to the Emperor on his new taxes in tones he was unaccustomed to hear, the dotation Montauban has never been voted, the 32,000 unauthorized men have been dismissed from the army roll, the taxes are still unvoted, and the word which alarms despots almost as much as ministries, "retrench- ment," begins to be heard in circles which abstain from political talk. All classes are interested in the price of the funds, for speculation has reached every province of France, and the fact of a deficit renders it easy to spread among peasants the fear of some new taxation.
Above all, the classes who govern Paris are beginning to tire of the terror in which they live. The liberty of speech, says the Times, has been restored in France. That is true for the few days allowed to Parliamentary discussion, and the few men who can reach the tribune. But M. Billault, while extolling this liberty, virtually admitted that Jules Favre was followed by spies. Every association is watched, and, if possible, dissolved by the Government. Even in private assemblies the police must know what goes on. When a Parisian now has an epigram, he looks round before he de- livers it. The monstrous " law of public safety" is still in full operation. The other day, wishing for letters to express French thought, instead of the thoughts of Irishmen resident in France, we applied to a well-known Naporeonist, and were told that the risk was too great. " I dare not," avowed an Or- leanist of the standing of Mr. Gladstone ; " Cayenne is too much to encounter ;" and the sentiment met with the full approbation of their friends. The risk is as real as that of a convict who escapes, and considerably worse in kind, for E gland does not send convicts to a pestiferous marsh. Ima- gine a member of the House of Commons carried off to the hulks in Bermuda for an article in a German newspaper, and we have the analogy of what the Times calls freedom in France. The truth is, the draught of fresh air conceded by the decrees of November only increases the hunger for more, and it is the absence, not the existence, of liberty, which agi- tates French society.
What matters it all, say the incredulous, while the army remains faithful ? Very little perhaps,—only, who knows anything about the army ? Officers are not peasants, and vibrate with every thrill of society. The sub-officers are just the class of all others faithful to the Revolution. A month with an Algerine regiment would probably convince the sceptical that the epaulets do not extinguish political feeling, or soothe away all the emotions which shake men without epaulets. Besides, Napoleon does not profess to reign by the army, but to express all the will of France, to be its elect representative, the depositary of its most secret wish. Hitherto he has performed that function well. That sympathy with his people which is so rare in men so re- served and strong, has saved him over and over again from the passive resistance which he must at all hazards prevent. It is because be seems to be out of rapport with his people, because he wavers and doubts, because he may shrink from the relaxations which are the new crave of France, because above all they see a chance that he may, by remaining at Rome, break with the Revolu- tion, that his enemies strain in the leash as if they expected prey. The plan is, we are told, to act through the elections. The priesthood believe that although they could not gain a majority, they could give one to the Republicans. A hostile Chamber so framed might be defied, or might in the last extreme be coerced ; but with a majority recorded against him, the Emperor could no longer believe that he ex- pressed the will of France, or avoid an open collision with the powers he himself had created. It is the knowledge that resistance, no matter its extent, is at hand, which agitates all the salons, and makes every party in France sick with deferred expectation. They may be baffled yet ; for that dreamy and indolent nature may wake up once more to wise unexpected action ; but if not, if the agitation proceeds, and France once recoils from the leader she has elected, it is not in the bayonets of troops who are before all things Frenchmen, that the remedy can be found.
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