The French Deputies have not been able, after all, to
let the Montpensier affair pass without a wordy debate. The motives to the debate were purely factious. A taunt by a Ministerial
rearljiceaving a fling at the Minister ; and M. Thiers could not re- x., on the silence of the Opposition, offered an opportunity foist the temptation of using the arms furnished for him by the conduct of M. Guizot and the lucubrations of English writers, diplomatic and literary. M. Thiers approved of the match—it would not have been French to do otherwise ; but "showed up" the mode of bringing it about as heartily as Lord Palmerston himself could have done had he for the nonce been a Deputy. M. Guizot's reply was the worst blow to himself that he has yet re- ceived. He tried to make out—for Parisian auditors—that France had outwitted England ; for English readers2 that England had nothing to fear, as she has all along been gaining upon France in "the French lake ,"—a name for the Mediterranean which M. Guizot emphatically disclaimed. As to his own personal charac- ter, he earnestly assured the Chamber that he had throughout told the truth—as far as it was consistent with cunning and con- venience.
Alas for French dignity 1 In England we should consider such confessions not merely below par as political morality, but as de- rogatory to the private character of a " gentleman11 . •.1-. wicn us they would not only render a Minister's seat very precarious, but would cause him to be avoided in society. Undoubtedly, we have no right to measure the conduct of French gentlemen by English rules : but the French are a nation very ambitious to excel in ci- vilization, about which M. Guizot has written so eloquently and so well ; and it would not be amiss if they were to remember, that the degree of advancement in civilization is forcibly marked by such traits of moral refinement.
Amid all the disputation, it is interesting to observe the strength with which the peace spirit has set in after the war mania : it is too strong for any Minister to defy, and all leading men defer to it.
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