FRENCH PARTIES, BY AN ENGLISH LIBERAL.* Tins book, we are
told, was intended by the author as a com- plete history of the rival parties which have in turn ruled France for the last hundred years. But Mr. Macdonell did not live to carry out his design, and the volume before us is only the rough draft of the finished work he had in view. That we heartily agree with Mr. Macdonell in his sympathy for the French Republicans, in his contempt for the reactionaries, and in his firm trust in the future of France, we need hardly say. In these points, we take it, all true Liberals are at one, and when we read in croaking telegrams and paternal leaders,
of the they bear the new Ministry at Berlin, and of the impending crisis in Paris (whereof something very dreadful indeed is to be the outcome), we console ourselves by the reflection that, after all, this is only the Conservative way of saying that Liberalism is at the root of all evil, abroad as well as at home. Political old women must have their " shock- ing example," as well as Mrs. Grundy, and if France will not furnish one opportunely for the coining dissolution, we must do our best with what rumours we have, and talk of the approach- ing Reign of the Reds. Why, asks Mr. Macdonell in his opening chapter, do we all feel such a keen interest in France ? "Partly," he replies, "from the charm which has been cast over civilised mankind by her grand and tragic history, by the brilliancy of her literature, the fascination of her manners, and the rich store of graces which lift her above the prose of life." And then he gives some other reasons for English attention to French affairs, but he omits what we believe to be the chief cause of our eagerness to know what goes on in Paris, rather than at St. Petersburg or Berlin. French politics are catching as those of no other country are, and we all feel that our own parties are directly affected by the political atmosphere of Paris. We • France rime the Ara .Empire. By James Macdonell. London : Macmillan and Co. 1879.
know'that the days of July passed the great Reform Bill, and that a new Commune would, in all probability, give the English Tories a fresh lease of power. France is the great propagandist, and the three fighting forces which divide the world to•day, Ultramontanism, and "the principles of '89," all unmistakably bear the seal of her nationality. But, besides this selfish interest in France, we have the larger and nobler one, that she is the great school and laboratory of modern politics. " She has more open questions than any other land, and she often handles them with a logical fearlessness which, if sometimes fatal to her govern- ments, is profoundly instructive to all political students. For eighty years she has been the great field of experiments in the art of shaping and ruling society."
And just for the very reason that we can so entirely concur in Mr. Macdonell's conclusions, we feel certain uncomfortable mis- givings as to certain elements of the process by which he arrives a at them. Mr. Macdonell would never have been the journalist he was had he not been a strong politician; but useful and admirable as- political zeal is in journalism, it is sometimes injurious to a true historical sense. The advocate cannot often be a judge in the same cause. The man who is daily pressing on the public every- thing favourable to one party, and "minimising " all that can be said against it, cannot often, at a moment's notice, sit down and write an impartial story of the struggle he is engaged in ; and the more sincere he is as a politician, the less able will he frequently be to deal justly with his opponents. A Whig reading Lord Macaulay may feel perfectly satisfied of the justice of the writer's views, and the general soundness of his argument, but he can scarce escape a certain wonder at the triumphant ease with which the Whig infallibility is demon- strated. If it can be shown with the clearness of a proposition in geometry that the Whigs are invariably right, and the Tories. invariably wrong, how comes it that any Tories survive to be re-. futed and denounced ? And so it is with Mr. Macdonell. We are convinced that his leading doctrines are unimpeachable, but he proves them too easily. History would not be the anxious and difficult study it is, could we thus unerringly discern the motives of men, and label them with confidence " good " or " bad."
Mr. Macdonell begins, as every one who really desires to un- derstand French politics must begin, by studying the attitude of the Church towards the leading parties, and attempting to sketch the history of the movements which have led to their- relative positions. The chapters devoted to this subject are able and interesting, but there are several points on which we cannot entirely agree with the writer. Mr. Macdonell lays- much stress on the political loss inflicted on France by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Rationalising Englishmen of the eighteenth century sought and found a refuge in the- "loose theology " of the National Church. Rationalising Frenchmen of the same period had to choose between "Catholicism in its worst form" and Atheism. "What their- choice would be could admit of no doubt." Voltaire and Diderot (having no Protestantism to fall back upon !) "had to cast themselves loose from religion altogether," and all the evil passions, which should have found vent "in the speculative controversies and the schisms of the Churches," were " cast into the practical strifes of politics,"—much to their embitterment. Now, we cannot fully accept either of these theories. The• French are the keenest reasoners in Europe, and shrink instinc- tively from half-measures. With such thinkers, a change of opinions or beliefs, to be acceptable, must be fundamental. The English love of compromise is too often founded on muddled brains rather than moderation, and the so-called. French fickleness springs quite as much from clearness of head as from infirmity of temper. No amount of "loose theology," or loose thinking of any sort, could satisfy the countrymen of de Maistre and Voltaire. Nor do we believe that if Pro- testantism had existed in France, religions controversy would- have absorbed the bitter passions which envenom continental politics. The effete Greek Empire affords the only instance with which we are acquainted, where abstract theological dis- cussion seems to have acted as a safety-valve, by diverting- public attention from the affairs of this world to those of the• next. In England and Scotland sectarian animosity has never burnt so fiercely as in times of political excitement. In France itself, a virulent theological wrangle raged up to the very eve of the Revolution. No quarrel between Catholic and Protestant could have exceeded in bitterness that which kindled the hatred. of Jansenist and Ultramontane, yet we do not find that the peasants and artisans ever wavered in their devotion to the new social dogmas of Liberty and Equality, that they might take part in the contest on the Five Propositions and the bull " Unigenitus." Nay, this very dispute, according to the universal testimony of French historians, largely contributed to precipi- tate the crisis, by the contempt it threw on the theological combatants. If discussion is often a safety-valve, it some- times more nearly resembles the rift in a sea-wall. Had the Edict of Nantes remained in force, and a large body of French citizens lived under its provisions to the close of the eighteenth century, they would doubtless have exercised a great and wholesome influence on the course of the Revolution. The temper and forms of government in the French Protestant Church were eminently Republican, and the working knowledge of public business gained by the gentlemen and traders of Languedoc and La Rochelle, in administering the affairs of a vast corporation, would have been in some degree a check upon the extravagant fancies of the impracticable dreamers who met in the States- General and the Constituent Assembly. The Huguenots were an irreparable political loss, not because they were Protestants, but because they chiefly belonged to the middle classes, and because they were used to govern themselves.
But it is time for us to follow Mr. Macdonell's example, and turn from " what might have been " to what is. The bulk of these chapters is devoted to a review of the present state and political leanings of the Catholic Church. The gradual decay of the national Churches and the growth of the Papacy have, as Mr. Macdonell points out, increased the political importance of Catholicism in two ways ; the Church has gained immensely in power, and that power is no longer vested in the prelates and clergy of each country, but in the hands of their foreign chief. Yet curiously enough, our author does not appear to have ob- served that it was the French Revolution itself which finally enabled Rome to carry out the design she had meditated for centuries. The Gregories and Innocents strove hard to curb the rising spirit of nationality in Europe, and make all Christians one people, under the rule of Rome- The Crusades are the expression of this great idea. But the tendency to disintegration was too strong, and for generations before the Reformation the Churches of Europe were distinctively national, forming, as Mr. Macdonell says, a " federation," which greatly limited the power of the central government. Conspicuous amongst the teachings of '89 ranks the doctrine of Fraternity. The ragged legions of the Republic carried it through Europe, sweeping away the old kingdoms and grouping them anew. To-day, the Socialist of Berlin and the Communard of Paris are more closely united than the Legi- timist and the Republican. The principle of Sansculottism and the principle of Ultmmontanism have this at least in common, that both teach men that there is a tie higher and holier than the material bonds of race and country, and that it is to be found in some common form of spiritual beliefs. The revolutionary dogma of Fraternity enabled Rome to over- turn the Gallican theory of national Churches. The Vatican decrees followed the Revolution as naturally as those of Trent did the Reformation.
The rest of the volume before us consists of short studies of the four great parties. They are very good and very true ; their value consisting in the convenient form in which they give a mass of useful information. They put the standing arguments in favour of the present Government sensibly and well. The chapters on the Bonapartists are the least satisfactory, because they bring out most fully the truth of our assertion that so strong a politician as Mr. Macdonell cannot always, with the best intentions, write history with perfect jus- tice. Much as the Empire was admired in England, there can be no doubt now of its utter badness and corruption ; but we cannot quite believe that the war with Austria was due to the threats of an assassin, or that the Empress said of the struggle with Prussia, " Cette guerre c'est ma guerre h moi ; it me la faut." It is yet too soon for the story of the Napoleons to be told by any one of us, least of all by so staunch a supporter of the Republic as Mr. Macdonell. But the best epitome of his views on the future of France will be found in the weighty sentences in which he de- scribes the true spirit of her people. They are, he tells us, the most conservative people in Europe. "Eight Frenchmen in every
ten hold property, and they will not give it up Society in France is founded on a rock. It is the one country in Europe in which social revolution, that is, successful revolution, not a mere gmeute, is impossible. The Church is the one Republican danger, or rather the Republican inability to let the Church alone." Words like these will serve the cause he had at heart better than any denunciation of opponents, no matter how bitter or how well deserved.
We need hardly say that Mr. Macdonell's style is brilliant, and in some of the sketches in this volume, notably in the portraits of Venillot and Thiers, he touches a very high point.
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