TOPICS OF THE DAY.
FRENCH IMPERIALISM AND REVOLUTION. Jr would be an interesting piece of secret history, which we should be glad to have discounted at an alarming sacrifice of post-obit revelations, to know Louis Napoleon's real belief as to the permanence of the Imperial despotism he has founded, and as to the chances of the "Son of France." It would be interesting to be quite sure even how far he is consciously directing his policy at home and abroad with any view to guarantee his sys- tem and his child's succession ; or whether, absorbed by the diffi- culties of his own position, and the overwhelming magnitude of the task he has taken in hand, he cannot afford to throw his energies and his talents into the future, but leaves all that to the destiny which has hitherto justified his ambitious aspirations with a splendour of success unsullied by reverse. If he does so allow himself to be absorbed by the immediate necessities of his daily business, it is no wonder and no wonder either if he trusts somewhat blindly to a fatality which has made him the first man in Europe and therefore in the world. Outside observers of his career, however, not dizzy with excitement nor distracted by pre- occupation, can scarcely help wondering that his efforts have not been more strenuously directed towards providing France with institutions that would be their own guarantee of perma- nence, by tending to eradicate the main causes that have rendered previous revolutions easy of accomplishment, and have changed the ruling family of France three times within little more than twenty years. Our thoughts have been more especially turned to this subject by the republication, in the last volume of Lord Brougham's collected Works, of a pamphlet on "Revolu- tions, and particularly that of 1848," which was first written and published in the autumn of that year, and which points out with the versatile writer's well-known felicity of statement and power of expression the peculiar characteristics of the French revolutions of 1830 and 1848, and the dangers thereby indicated of revolutions yet to come. And what strikes us most in reading Lord Brougham's essay is, that, notwithstanding Louis Napoleon's splendid success so far as his personal ambition is concerned, he has removed none of the causes which produced the last two revolutions, and dis- armed none of the perils to which France is exposed through the existence and operation of those causes, however for a time sup- pressed.
For, as Lord Brougham most truly remarks, the last two French revolutions—those of 1830 and 1848—and especially the last, differ from the great revolution of 1789, and from the two English re- volutions, in this, that they were unprepared, mere insurrections that became revolutions through the peculiar constitution of French society and the incapacity of French statesmen. However this statement may appear to some persons to need qualification as regards the revolution of 1830, no one acquainted with the fact will refuse to didmit it in its literal force as true of that of 1848. The Republic was improvised by a couple of sub-editors of Paris journals, acting through a mob of ruffians, and accepted by a Government and a city population panic-stricken into paraly- sis and blindness. It was not the wish of even a respectable minority of Parisians, nor of an appreciable fraction of French- men. All through Louis Philippe's reign the danger had been showing itself; not the danger of a deliberate change of opinion and feeling throughout France, manifesting itself by increasing minorities in the Chamber and public expressions of discontent, but of secret sudden insurrection mastering by surprise the citadel of France, and thence dictating a change in the form of govern- ment and of society itself. No doubt, wiser and nobler conduct on the part of the elder and younger branches of the Bourbons and of their advisers would have succeeded in staving off the danger ; but their folly and misconduct were only. the occasion, not the cause, of the two revolutions. That lay in the possibility of a dontemptible minority seizing power by violence, and holding it
through the tame acquiescence of the rest of the community; an acquiescence directly attributable to two causes above all others, hciwever many minor causes may have aided the influence of these two. And these two causes were the centralization of the govern- ment, and what perhaps is only another side of the same phe- nomenon, the centralization of society. All political power emanated from one centre, and all social power was concentrated in one spot. There was no authority worth speaking of that was not appointed by and responsible to the central administration; there was no municipal or rural organization independent of the King's Ministers that had accustomed Frenchmen to act for them- selves ; and there was no hereditary territorial influence, no hierarchy of social ranks distributed over the country to coun- teract the tendencies of the capital, and to feel that power of self- reliance and mutual confidence that was necessary to base an organized resistance to the decrees of the revolutionary power which had seized the machinery of the central government, and held the capital by force of terror and threat of massacre. Truism as this has become from being often repeated, it is one of those truisms which are profound truths, but which in spite of truth, and in spite of repetition, those most deeply interested in it either do not see or are incapable of putting to use. For this being preeminently the disease of French political and social organization—hypertrophy of the centre and atrophy of the limbs --Louis Napoleon, like his predecessor, has done everything in his power to increase the disease, and to check the agencies that might have counteracted it. He is praised for having given
France a stain* government : bnt- the Iyoual.: governnient was alwaYs too strong ; what France wanted was independent munici- pal uistitations. He is praised for lavishing costly adornment on Paris at the expense of the community—for an expenditure Which at Once attracts workmen to Paris and makes it more difficult for theta to live there permanently in comfort; when the mischief was that Paris was already, tad preponderant, and already swarming with a classi Who are chronically/ subject t9 politfeal disaffection which becomes insurrection at the stimulus of want. For Freud; agriculture, notoriously beliindharid, vie are not aware that he has done anything ; while gambling speculation and stockjobbing have developed in alarming. proportions. But a prosperous agei. culture, besides the permanence of its benefits' means the inte- rest of capitalists in the soil and a contented rural population; and these two causes combined would go far to secure the .attach- ment - of both classes to existing institutions ; while, on the con-. trary, the devotion of capital to Such- Speculations as are now uppermost in France beggars the general population, starves agriculture and legitimate bonnterce, and makes both people and capitalist indifferent to-the permanence of institutions from which the one derive little benefit, and of which the other is tolerably independent. We are aware that it is easier to say that a
aristocracy ought to exist, than to point out how
it may be created or encouraged ; but Louis Napoleon's policy would seem hi some respects directly opposed to the growth of this safeguard of a country. The example of luxury and splendour set by the court would of itself weaken and corrupt a territorial aristocracy if if existed—would drain it of its wealth, enervate its habits, and seduce it from its duties. It effectually Prevent-a' its growth in a country where no he- reditary ties 'bind the upper classes to particular localities, and where the wealth of families is not inniany cases sufficient to sup- port the expenses of to''' and country establialunents. Then again, Louis -Napoleon his Weakened-the National militia, while he has raised the Imperial army to its highest efficiency ; again in this, whatever his plausible motives., still further completing the annihilation of all power in the country, but' that of the hand that works the central Machine. We need not dwell upon the insig- nificance to which he has reduced his so-called Legislative Cham- bers • they will not bear comparison even with the Parliaments of the old repine in their decadence, as ari organ of national senti- ment or of independent individual opinion. The press he permits to say only whet pleases' hinh. In a word, the' Whole tendency of his system however it may be justified by circumstances—and on this we offer no opinion just now—is te increase what was already a fatal symptom under the Orleanist Government. He can say, "L'Etat c est moi" with far greater truth than either Louis XIV or the late Emperor Nicholas ; for while he is by the form ef his government as absolutens either of those models of absolutism, he is really free from the natural cheeka- which a proud and powerful aristocracy and a traditional system imposed upon them. It may indeed be said, that in all these matters Louis Napoleon had no choice ; that, powerful as he is, sagacious as he is, and resolute as he is, he could only rule France by annihilating all power but his Own. UpOii that question we do not enter. It is not our purpose to blame- Louis Napoleon, but sitaply to state facts. If France was,, when he assumed imperial power' hi that lamentable condition internally which' the Roman historian indi- cates when he Says of his country, "Nee vitia nee remedia pan potest," so much the Worse for Louis Napoleon and. for France; so much the worse- for' Europa, which' must suffer from the con- vulsions of France. But the fact remains; that excessive cen- tralization, both social and political, was the disease of France and her weakness. ; and that both have gone on increasing under Louis Napoleon's management. So long as he continues in health and' force to work' the enormous machine Which is 'Wholly in his hands, it may go' On. But he has done- infinitelyless than his predecessor in training the people he governs to do without him ; and should any accident take him away, there seems no alternative between the wildcat anarchy or implicit submis- sion to the first audacious soldier who thrusts himself into the vacant place. Paris is more France than it ever was ; Louis Na- poleon governs Paris, because he governs the army; but who will govern the army when he is gone? or who Would guarantee for a year together the permanence of a system which after eight years has nothing to depend on but the fidelity of an army, and that an army of Frenchnien familiar with change of dynasties and ac- customed to folio* its chiefs with implicit obedience ? Disraissing all considerations but those of dynastic interest, can Louis Na- poleon think he is subserving his-family ambition in continuing to quench what remains of political vitality in the people committed to his care ? We are perfectly aware that we have only been glancing at one- face of a myriadsided question ; but the point we have touched is a Vital point : experience and theory coincide in fixing this as the danger preeniiiiently of French' society ; and this danger has grown enormously under the Imperial system.
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