IMPOSSIBILITY OF " THE FRENCH ALLIANCE." THE political moment of
the position taken by France is quite irrespective of the merits of the question, or of the technicalities of law. The statement made by the Lisbon official journal in reply to the Monitettr is an appeal which the other states of Europe can only disregard at their peril ; their silence will give assent to a regime as dangerous for the independence of every country as it is for the peace which Napoleon professes to identify with his empire. The Charles-et-Georges has been condemned in what appears tobe the due course of law in a Portuguese Court ; an appeal lay to the supreme court at Lisbon and France has inter- posed in the midst of that appeal. This is in itself a gross ir- regularity which we have already characterized. The plea that an agent of the French Government imparted an official character to the Charles-et-Georges is very questionable ; but neither that nor any other supposed imperfection in the Portuguese case di- minishes the dangerously lawless conduct of France at a later stage. There was a dispute between French and Portuguese subjects, between the French and Portuguese Governments, on questions of fact and law. Portugal had in no respect attempted to evade her responsibilities, or to prejudge the question. She said, with perfect justice, that under all the circumstances neither one of the parties to the litigation was suited to be judge, and Proposed an appeal to a third and disinterested party. The French Emperor had already impaired the comity of nations by the !!Parate course which he took in patronizing a scheme, obviously 11 not professedly in violation of the slave-trade treaties. In violation of the understanding proposed by Lord Clarendon, and Partially accepted by Count Walewski at the Paris Conferences, /ranee has now refused mediation ; she has proclaimed that she will not yield an inch,—will pay no deference in courtesy to another power weaker than her own, allow no concession to carry with her the public opinion of Europe ; will waive nothing even to preserve the peace. Claiming to be judge in her own ease, she has dictated the law ; and, while declaring that " the empire is peace," has shown that she would sacrifice peace at the shrine of her own self-sufficiency. And whatever course our own Govern- ment may have adopted, it is the fact that it has stood by while imperial France has taken this position uneontradicted and un- challenged ; a policy which we have maintained having been torn I to tatters, an ally with whom our national pride as well as honour is at stake having been insulted and oppressed. These facts come out with peculiar distinctness after the calm and clear statements of the Diario do Gorerno.
Not only, as we said last week, is the alliance between France and England at an end, de facto, but we have indubitable proof, that we cannot count on the cooperation of our neighbour ; that on the contrary, we must expect him to thwart our dearest in- terests, our most matured convictions ; and we must even count, in the natural turn of events, upon possibly having to confront his sudden, but not less active and determined hostility. From some peculiar characteristic, better understood than explained, the French race has shown remarkable incapacity to understand the character of any other country. Most travellers have been familiar with German, Spaniards, Italians, Danes, Greeks, Por- tuguese, Russians, and our own countrymen, with the sons even of oriental races, who have spoken each other's languages " like natives "; but whoever yet met with a Frenchman that had lost his Parisian accent, even when he wished to do so ? The same incompetency follows him in the attempt to comprehend the character of a foreign race, though he should reside in the midst of it for a life time. No domestication can get over this congenital peculiarity, no education can do it. A very eminent French lawyer, pleading recently in the marriage case which at- tracted so much attention, stated that the drawing of a chew upon a bank where the drawer has no effects, is, in commercial England, an offence which subjects a man to the galleys. If by "the galleys" M. M— meant a mere equivalent for penal servi- tude, still his conception of English law marks something more than ignorance.
If the lawyers are so far to seek, the public of course is still more astray ; and where there are such wrong starting points, every fresh activity causes a further divergence. In this country we have had our old caricatures, from Hogarth downwards, and have misrepresented our neighbours ; but no one seriously be- lieved that the Frenchman lived exclusively on frogs ; and with the spread of intelligence the Frenchman of the stage has given way to the Frenchman of real life. Some time since, Mr. Charles Mathews exposed the absurdities of a drama by M. Adolphe Den- nery, but the piece is still sold in this year 1858 in the Palais Royal, and it is now having a run in the provinces. It is a sort of melodramatic "play," with comedy, and tragedy combined, but upon the whole " deep." It is not intended to caricature Eng- land, but rather to display the grand qualities of the national character. The hero, a virtuous young man who rises from the humbler classes, unjustly suspecting his wife, punishes her, with- out proof, by taking her to Smithfield market, and selling her. " It is here," says one of the comic characters in the piece, the affectionate " Tom Bob,"—" It is here where I bought my beloved Kitty ! " One of the sublime Richard Davis's objects is to dis- cover, in the purchaser, his wife's accomplice ; but although the ruse is to a certain extent successful, it is defeated ; for although " Sir Edgard" bids 10001., he is outbidden by a stranger, who offers 50,000/. ; and when the half-repentant husband moves for- ward' to snatch back his wife,—the market being now crowded with pecple,—a figure dressed in black interposes : it is a Con- stable, who tells him that he has no longer any control. Having discovered the total error of his suspicions, with the consoling
fact that the purchaser is his wife's brother, the virtuous Richard Davis accepts the office of Lord Mayor, charged by the brother with the duty of proclaiming from the seat of authority the in- nocence of his wife, and her mother And with this responsible duty, Richard, at the conclusion of the piece, marches to take his place in the procession, leading his wife by the hand, followed by his family, the Aldermen, and the Members of the House of Com- mons, to cries of, " Long live the Queen,—long live the Lord Ma or!"
Of course the above is only offered as an illustration ; but nu- merous other such illustrations might be culled from French drama and fiction. A race which thus misconstrues the best known facts, and misconceives the spirit as well as actions of its neighbours, must not only be uncertain in its fulfilment of contracts, but it can scarcely possess the power of thinking with us, or the qualities which would enable us to reckon upon its cooperation. Its inter- pretation of contracts must be different from ours, its interpretation of our actions must be unlike the fact. The very discussions in our journals, their criticisms on our military preparedness, must be often unintended provocatives to offence, undesigned incentives to attack. The attempt to wed two nations so diverse can only end in multiplying the sources of misunderstanding. And the more elaborate the effort to establish a continuous treaty alliance for general purposes, the more certain and the more complicated must be the contest at last. It would indeed be very different if the French nation were i
left free in its own action and thought. Although it might still retain, as undoubtedly it would, its feeble ability to arrive at a thorough comprehension of alien character, and still be liable to
misconstrue our proceedings, it would undoubtedly regain its own apprehension of higher things in the universe, and would abide by its own elevated standard of honour as well as of philosophy. Let the world be trusted to a truly French idea of treatment, and probably the nations would have small cause to complain; but such is not the case. The very purpose of the Government which at present guides and controls France, is to divorce the nation from everything in it of commanding intellect or elevated senti- ment. The whole people is bidden to one particular idolatry. Any departure from the faith is treated as a species of po- litical atheism : and so jealous has this live idol become, that even praise of another country subjects a Montalembert to a state prosecution. Recent events have proved that the idol Emperor, whose ambition grows with the feeding, has now extended his exactions beyond the frontier of his own subject dominions, claims to give laws to earth and occean, and re- quires submission from the potentates of the world. It is the story of the Eastern monarch who nourished two great serpents in his bosom, and whose destiny compelled him to continue feed- ing them at the peril of becoming their food himself. And so long as this potentate continues enthroned, it seems, we of Europe are to have the honour of staying the appetite of his serpents.
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