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yet unfulfilled; but her agonies have not been all in vain. The imperial rule of Napoleon III. is like the silken bonds of love compared to the iron hand of her kings. We may sum up the spirit of this epoch in the conclusion of the kingly edicts of Louis XIV., "Car tel est notre plaisir." A perfect machine, an all-powerful director: if executive force only be wanted, this is the perfection of a State. If the real king were there, if the whole value of the body politic were indeed centred in one will, nothing could be more simple and efficient. Unity of territory and of nation, and even a certain equality, the equality of nothingness before the law, are the benefits we owe to absolutism; and these were necessary before freedom could be established. But, unfortunately, instead of unity, we have one individuality, and all the rest sacrificed to it. Insecure in reason and justice, absolutism took refuge in superstition. The divine right of kings became the great argument for their rule. "God judges over gods, and these gods are kings," says Bossuet. "He alone has the right to try their deeds and misdeeds." Even Louis XIV. did not claim there was no higher law than the State.

But if the sovereign were a god in theory, he was often a poor fool in fact; and the government of cabinets was created as a substitute for the missing wisdom of kings. But the cabinets were no better than the princes. The story of the French court and monarchy is familiar, and we must pass it by. It is always instructive to dwell upon it, because such a false halo of military glory and intellectual brilliancy is thrown about the reign of Louis XIV., -a man who left the country exhausted, with a State debt of four millions, and, what was worse, with the popular respect and affection for the royal government thoroughly undermined.

Under the Regent and Louis XV., royalty lost all remnant of dignity and respect. These shameful profligates so thoroughly disbelieved in virtue, that they did not pay it even the poor tribute of hypocrisy. We spare our readers any fresh description of that slough of licentiousness, of the parc aux cerfs, and the last days of Louis XV. But, even in his lifetime,

public opinion had begun to assert itself in the saloons of France; and, before the revolution broke out, the people of Paris already determined the policy of Versailles:

"In the American war of freedom, France took the part of the republic on the other side of the ocean; the most absolute of monarchs was the ally of a free State, and the Quaker Franklin entered the parquettes of Versailles, in plain dress, admired and idolized by the courtiers themselves, and fêted by the ministers of an absolute monarch for his struggles against tyranny. Absolutism had already lost its bal

ance."

Turn for a moment to the other extreme of society. While the king expended a hundred millions- some say even more -on the infamous parc aux cerfs, whose very existence, says Dr. Springer, "was enough to make the most patient subject a rebel," more than a million of beggars wandered about the country; hunger ruled everywhere, and the national welfare of the people was almost extinguished. At this very time the king speculated in corn for the benefit of his private purse, and was connected with those who made the market artificially dear. It is well to brush away the mist of false glory about kings, and show them mean as well as cruel. Almost all literature, even our children's books, hold up to our sympathy the sufferings of the emigrant nobles during the French Revolution; but who has painted the miseries of the French peasant? Fact is too mighty for the dull pen of the novelist, who must gild his pages with the false glitter of aristocratic splendor. Margaret Fuller said, "Louis XIV. was the most vulgar of gentlemen." Surely, if to seek base ends by base means be vulgar, vulgarity belonged to the court; and nobility took refuge in the street in the days of Louis XV. This selfish old king had not even a common love for his offspring, and cared little for the ruin fast coming upon them. "Now I may get through this, being an old man," he said; "but my son must look to himself: après moi le déluge." The retribution came soon enough.

The condition of Germany was no better, in one respect

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"While in France only one shoe pressed on all, the Germans found, every two miles, a new shoe pressing them; and these political divisions made any improvement of their condition almost impossible. Until towards the end of the empire, there were two thousand independent states in Germany, three hundred and twenty-four imperial governments, and one thousand four hundred and seventy-five dependent on the nobility. This condition broke the point of every popular movement, and lamed the power of the nation. Every step towards reform in Germany must pass over two thousand boundaries, in order to become universal. How much good could still adhere to it?"

In this condition of things, we see the importance of the work which absolutism accomplished for France. Germany yet struggles for that unity which can give it strength to maintain its rights when once gained.

Carlyle's powerful pen has described the court of Prussia so vividly, that we need only glance at it here to show how differently things look to a man governed by aristocratic prejudices and worshipping personal power, and to a thorough believer in Christian democracy. Dr. Springer says,

"The Prussian court, under Frederic William I., . . . offers a refreshing contrast to the shameful management in the other states. Household economy and morals were cared for in an exemplary manner, and especially the whole court housekeeping arranged in an honestcitizen style. But, with the love of show, the fine setting of culture. also disappeared, and the Prussian court wore a quarrelsome, coarse, barbaric air."

Absolute and harsh as he was, he used his power for what he deemed the good of his subjects and of Prussia. He was not hated by his subjects, and his activity was of great profit to his country. But the price was dear which was paid for economic welfare. There was no freedom, but a guardianship extending down to the minutest particulars of private life. "Even the permission to breathe must be got from the king."

This period of decay and corruption in Western Europe saw the birth of the great Northern Colossus, - the Russian

VOL. LXXXIII. -NEW SERIES, VOL. IV. NO. II.

15

power. Here we find, indeed, rapid progress, material improvement, active life, but with the same terrible sacrifice of freedom, the constant interference of individual will with the natural laws of growth and development. Peter the Great imagined that intellectual culture might also be created at will, and strove to import into Russia the literature of Western Europe. He repressed all signs of old nationality, even putting his son Alexis to death for preferring his native institutions. Yet he had no respect for the dignity of his own court, and his manners lacked the decencies of common life. The brutal licentiousness of the succeeding reigns, especially of Catharine II., almost surpasses that of Versailles.

The island realm of England, where the people, through years of struggle, had gained the shelter of a constitution and the protection of law, offers the only exception to this picture. Our German does justice to the theme so familiar to our ears. Without exaggerating the perfections of the English state, he sees that it contains within itself the prin ciple of freedom and the power of reform, the only sure basis of permanence.

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It was in the matter of finance that the governments of Europe first began to feel the shoe pinch. Their constant interference with the material conditions of the people was fatal to that freedom of self-development which can alone create national prosperity. The unequal distribution of taxes, the existence of oppressive monopolies, the restrictions upon labor, were seen to be destructive to the welfare of the nation; while certain individuals, high in office, drew their revenue from these very sources, and would not give them up. The immense possessions of the clergy and nobility were untaxed, while the poor man found a tax on every article he used. The very institutions of crafts and guilds, originally formed by the people for their own protection against lawless tyrants, became oppressive instruments of despotism. After the genuine forces of labor had broken the power of the guild, and reduced it to a lifeless ghost, it was upheld by absolutism, because it afforded a considerable source of income to the government. "In order to be received as an

apprentice, a sum of five thousand livres was often necessary, which was paid out as taxes alone; and the right to sell bouquets cost in Paris two hundred livres." We find this decaying institution running into the most absurd anomalies:

"The singular and often wholly arbitrary limits of the crafts, and the petty rules for industrial management, paralyzed activity and produced continual struggle and collision. The baker could sell sea fish, cooked meat, pepper, and roots; and the cutler could not sell a knifehandle, the locksmith must not make a nail. The saddler might work on shoes; but the cobbler must not make them two-thirds new. give an example of the quarrels of the guilds, three hundred judgments were necessary to decide the point between old and new clothes,

To

where the one ended and the other began; for these tailors and oldclothes dealers were continually at war."

The amount of pauperism in France was frightful. In the year 1767, fifty thousand beggars were imprisoned in France; and, in the year 1777, the number was estimated at one million two hundred thousand in France alone, although the heaviest punishments were laid on beggary and poverty in general. All persons without work, if between the ages of sixteen and seventy, were condemned to three years of the galleys, and old people and children to three years of the hospital, or, rather, "hunger tower." Hunger was the hell of France at that epoch.

The commercial policy of absolutism was never directed towards developing and securing the resources of the country, but towards keeping the treasury full of ready money for the purposes of the government, to minister to the pleasures of the court, and to keep a large standing army in readiness for service. The device for this purpose was to forbid the exportation of gold and the use of foreign fabrics. The object of the latter restriction was not to protect home industry, but to keep gold in the country. Heavy taxes were laid on both imports and exports. The large array of custom-house guards, spies, and officials demanded by this system, suited well the temper of absolutism, which loved to spy into and regu late the minutest affairs of its subjects. Frederic II. carried

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