TOPICS OF THE DAY.
PARIS FASHIONS FOR FEBRUARY.
WITETHIR denouncing the French Government for " reaction" or praising it for " firmness," whether admiring its " precautions " or disliking its " provocatives," political critics uniformly refer to the analogy between the defensively aggressive position of the Odilon Barrot Ministry in February 1849 and that of the Guizot Ministry in February 1848, with a further glance at the fall of the Polignac Ministry in 1830. The elder Bourbon dynasty fell with Polignac, the Orleans dynasty with Guizot : is the Bona- parte dynasty to fall with Odilon Barrot ? Such a conclusion might almost be anticipated, especially from the apparently close analogy between the crisis of February 1848 and that of February 1849. Those readers, however, who have honoured us with their attention in reviewing the history of France as it is acted before our eyes, will not be perplexed either with the ana- logy or with the nature of the dangers that threaten the exist- ing authority.
M. Odilon Barrot presented articles of impeachment against the Guizot Ministry for attempting to put down political meet- ings; and that same M. Odilou Barrot heads the Cabinet which introduces a bill to suppress all political clubs and "all public meetings held at stated or irregular intervals for the discussion of political affairs." Louis Philippe's Minister used to be loudly condemned for enforcing against the press "the laws of Septem- ber," exactly as Charles the Tenth's Minister provoked revolt by the attempt to put down discussion in the press: Louis Napoleon's Minister is now proceeding against M. Proudhon, because M. Proudhon's manner of reasoning on given data leads to certain critical conclusions adverse to the President and his Government.
The peculiarity of M. Odilon's position is, not only that, like Louis Philippe, he is a renegade to a " Constitution," but that he is the Minister of a Republic,—that there has not only been a change of dynasty for the more " liberal " govern- ment of France, the new Minister being foresworn, but that a Republican constitution has actually been established ; that he is not only rendering the law more stringent, but that he is actually restoring to the Republic the worst and most Antirepublican laws of the Monarchy ; and he is doing so in the name of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." The Min- ister of a President elected by universal suffrage invites an As- sembly elected by universal suffrage to emulate the absolute con- duct which was the opprobrium of Guizot, censor of "Demo- cracy in France," and of Polignac, Minister of Charles the Tenth King of France " by the grace of God." " Reaction," cry the Mountain, and many politicians more moderate than the members of that party. "Self-defence," replies M. Odilon Barrot. "You are violating the new and solemn Constitution," exclaims M. Ledru-Rollin. "Public safety' obliges us," retorts M. Barrot. Precisely what M. Guizot said—what the Prince de Polignac said; and precisely as M. Odilon Barrot proposed to impeach M. Guizot, M. Ledru-Rollin proposes to impeach M. Odilon Barrot. As an historical puzzle, these coincidences are " pretty to observe": as affairs that demand practical handling, they are troublesome and perilous. Troublesome and perilous while the men engaged in the prac- tical work of statesmanship so totally neglect the preliminary task of defining principles, probabilities, and practicabilities. The philosophic historian thought that the time had come when orators and agitators who had obtained possession of the popular ear might be slighted, put down, or bought off; or, if he was not quite settled in that conclusion, it has been well remarked that he regarded the Democratic element as the "original sin" of po- litical society, and coldly deplored the Revolution, which visits that sin as a sort of terrestrial damnation. M. Guizot thought that agitated France was to be put down by philosophy and ar- tillery: he had omitted from his calculation the irresistible hu- man sympathy which possessed the kind old heart of that invete- rate calculating intriguer Louis Philippe : the elderly purist was altogether surprised by that exhibition of inextinguishable human passion ; and, having contemned that branch of statesmanship which consists in the art of employing the passionate sympathies of men for their own guidance and government,—passions which he neither shares, respects, nor comprehends artistically,—the great intellect of the respectable Huguenot was wholly overthrown and set at nought by the immortal influence which he had despised and which acted through the old King. Guizot relied on " reason " and cannon : aged bonhomie snatches the cannon from his grasp, a shouting mob defies his reason ' so, like a Pilate not inclined to " jesting," he washes his hands of the affair, asks " what is truth ?" and "will not stay for an answer." M. Odilon Barrot belongs to the party who wanted the people to be " free "—to be governed by nothing but " Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity "- self-governed through universal suffrage—ruled by public opinion. The absolute government is upset—the people is armed—the Garde Mobile created by M. de Lamartine on grey paper is put on full pay—an Assembly is elected by universal suffrage—" Li- berty, Equality, and Fraternity " is proclaimed—a constitution is enacted—a President is elected by universal suffrage—his Ministry is organized—in short, the Republic exists, like Pallas Athena, complete in all its parts : but then it is discovered that there is no government ; that power resides nowhere, and is still an object of contention ; that the principles of public conduct, ab- solute or free, are unsettled as ever ; and men are once more
preparing to investigate those difficult questions—by an armed revolution I
Public opinion, which was to be the paramount dictator, acts through " discussion "; but it is curious to observe the manner in which discussion proceeds in the National Assembly. . Depu- ties appeal to the Constitution or the public safety, to principles of freedom or of order ; they keep up the form of argument, but all along with the most transparent hints that the dispute is to be settled, one way or other, by fire and sword. The club-created Government can find no argument against the cogent anarchism of the Clubs, except cannon and sabre ; and commentators on the passing affairs of France are lost in amazement at the incon- sistency of human nature. There is no occasion for this wonderment. It ceases the mo- ment we reflect that all government whatsoever, the freest as well as most arbitrary, must rest upon the basis of physical force. It is true, that a very enlightened and sagacious government, which should command the suffrages of the people at large—en- joying their concurrent opinion, and enlisting. their sympathies and passions—would exercise its authority without any neces- sity for the ostensible resort to physical force : but that is only describing a state of things in which the physical force that supports the power of the Government is so overwhelm- ing that resistance to it is hopeless. The mass of the people is always inert, and never actively shares in the business of govern- ment; but when it is certainly known beforehand on what side the whole physical force of " the masses" will be arrayed, the contest is waived. It is therefore the " greenest" of all political mistakes, to imagine that a government can exist without the support of physical force ; to suppose that a government once established will not vindicate its authority, still more defend its very existence, by the physical force at its command. The " re- action " of M. Odilon Barrot's Ministry is the inevitable resort of airy government menaced in its existence. But a further question may fairly be asked—how it is that a government created by universal suffrage does not possess at command such an overwhelming amount of physical force as to render its ostensible use unnecessary ? For a twofold reason. The proximate reason is, that the framers of the Constitution, forgetting a very obvious necessity, deliberately refused to the Executive sufficient command of political and military power. The more deeply-seated reason is a flaw that taints all the states- manship of our day in Western Europe. The limited Rationalism which has found its culminating perfection in. the father of the Doctrinaires, Guizot, has restricted its view too exclusively to those parts of political study which may be reduced to rules of geometrical rigour—bureaucracy, statistics, and commerce; it has ignored, or contemned in a degree which is tantamount to ignorance, those parts of the study which may be termed the sesthetical, and which are necessary to a complete philosophical view even in the most elevated abstraction. As the painter knows that in his art the mechanical sciences, especially of geometry and anatomy, are essential, but that the highest kind of beauty or ex- pression eludes mechanical admeasurement, so there is a large por- tion of the subject-matter of government which will not be expressed in arithmetic or statistics, which will not pass by barter and sale, nor succumb to official routine. That portion is the most diffi- cult to govern, but supplies from within itself the influences most effective for the governor. That portion is neglected by the statesmen of our day, by all Doctrinaires. They teach a half- science of government, and the consequence is that they half govern. In tranquil times, when public affairs half govern them- selves, by the via inertise and the momentum of a dead weight, such half government may serve ; but when we come to times of trouble and disorder, its defects tell in disaster. The Re- publicans who have learned their hatred from instinct and their science from the Doctrinaires, upset a Doctrinaire Go- vernment, to establish an imitation in its place ; and now they are shocked at their own creation. They have enun- ciated doctrines, and rushed into revolt against constituted authority, without having taken the pains to win for their doc- trines popular sanction or affection. They set up a Government under which the people are to be free by favour of checks on the power of the Government—that is, almost without govern- ment. In France, every man has his own doctrine ; all conspire to upset any authority; but none labour to bring about a general accord, and having done so, to enthrone their doctrine with the material power for its own maintenance and vindication. Hence " the Republic" is anarchy, and "the Government" an organized Cain.
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