other respects-not political-to the Englishman. But he now bethought him, it would seem, of following in this business-being political-the fashion of the (so called) perfidious islander; with whom, notwithstanding the contemptuous epithet, it has continually pleased him to run the race of freedom. Always, indeed, had he most emulated where he most affected to despise his thriving neighbour and corrival in the trade- more euphuistically termed the career-of glory. But, badinage apart, there was, in fact, little choice left in the matter. The fune ral procession of General Lamarque in 1832, by the insurrections it produced, had shown the danger of political assemblages; and such were, in 1834, declared illegal by an express law. Dinner meetings and patriotic banquets became therefore almost the politician's only possible refuge. Out-of-door demonstrations of force and number were, even in this shape, as much as could be, discouraged. Witness the monster-banquet at Lyons, intended for M. Garnier-Pagès. The consequences of its suppression might have taught the Government a lesson. To MM. Lagrange, Baune, and others was then intrusted the command of the Insurrection, not so much prepared as foreseen. The watch-word adopted was Association, Resistance, and Courage. When the insurgents of 1834 were tried, their counsel claimed to advocate from their briefs, not only the innocence of the defendants, but the superiority of their doctrines. "What we have to do," it was said, " is not to maintain our cause in the judicial trial, but to achieve a political victory. Let us teach Europe, let us teach the world what kind of faith is ours, and for what principles we have chosen to play the formidable game. What matters it, that our enemies have vanquished by the sword, and may complete their success by the scaffold; we shall be the victors, if it remains

demonstrated that upon our side were truth, love of the people, and justice." The captives of St. Pélagie employed themselves on this work. "Within their dungeonwalls," records their historian, "they busied themselves anxiously about the future destiny of nations; they conversed with God, and with their feet treading the path to the scaffold, they were flushed and intoxicated with hope, as though they were marching to the conquest of the world. Touching and singular spectacle, the memory of which deserves to be preserved for ever!" A dynasty adopting such a course, and with such a result, should have been the last to appeal to popular demonstrations. Yet, nevertheless, in M. Guizot, it committed this error. To the demand made for Reform in the session of 1847, the Minister incautiously and arrogantly replied, that there had been no popular meetings, no public petitions in its favour. He thus called for the demonstration of Public Opinion. The leaders of the Constitutional Opposition forthwith undertook to provide the Premier with the proof that he had so imprudently and insolently demanded.

X.-I speak advisedly when I state, that the Dynasty, in M. Guizot, committed this error. For, strange as it may appear that a man of M. Guizot's ability and literary reputation should condescend to such a degradation, it has all along been understood that the Prime Minister of France was not a responsible agent, governing for the good both of king and people, but, as it were, an unreasoning tool in the hand of a despotic master. LouisPhilippe, in the language of M. Thiers, not only reigned, but governed. He had thus voluntarily divested himself of all those securities with which English politicians have been so careful to surround their constitutional throne. Reflect on this awhile. In 1688, as we are rightly told

by the celebrated Edmund Burke, in his Reflections,' "the grand policy was to render it almost impracticable for any future sovereign to compel the States of the Kingdom to have again recourse to violent remedies. The Crown was left what, in the eye and estimation of law it had ever been, perfectly irresponsible; while, in order to lighten the Crown still further, responsibilities were aggravated on Ministers of State." Louis-Philippe acted on the reverse of all the principles implied in such a course of conduct. He seems, unfortunately, to have learned all things from the past, but its wisdom. Nothing short of a servile ministry and a servile parliamentary majority would satisfy his ambition. Thus it happened that he had himself become personally involved in the march of political events, to a degree incompatible with the safety of a Constitutional Monarch. Subverting at once the limits and basis of his throne, he had become absolute. M. Guizot was merely his mouthpiece, his hired orator, his paid advocate in the Senate. Opposition to the king's ministry, therefore, was no less than opposition to the king himself, The king himself was thus identified with the system of government, however corrupt, and with the state of society it produced, however immoral. Louis-Philippe accordingly shared in the ignominy due to the depraved conduct lately exhibited by many of the middle and upper classes in France, as well as for the more direct proceedings of his own court and privy council. He was held to be responsible, not only for the Spanish marriages and the appointment of his son the Duc d'Aumale as governor of Algiers, but for the corruption proved on the trial of Teste and his associates, the crimes of the Duc de Praslin, and the suicide or assassination of the Prince de Condé. This liability to personal censure on all occasions rendered the king obnoxious to the satire of the public journalist, and it accordingly

became necessary to prohibit the latter expressly from connecting the royal name with any political measure, except in terms of laudation. But inasmuch as the King was also the Government, it became further needful to restrict the press from speaking ill of that too; and so, by a regular series of consequences, from censure of any kind on any class, on either or both of the Chambers, on the institutions of the country, or on any law, however objectionable. Fines, imprisonment, transportation (even for life), awaited the luckless editor or critic who might offend. Moreover, the caution-money deposited by newspaper proprietors was immoderately increased; add to which, the Court of Peers might judge in such cases, and printers and booksellers be deprived of their licences without trial. But, in these times, such attempted suppression of Public Opinion necessarily defeats itself. The anxiety for concealment implies guilt or error. Fifty-seven journals extinguished during sixteen years, constitute "a great fact" against the ruling power. Besides, there were many secret arrests of suspected individuals; and, on the whole, the system of patronage and oppression in France differed little if any from that in Russia, save perhaps in degree. For all this, notwithstanding, a plausible defence has been readily advanced :-Louis-Philippe (say his advocates) would ere seventeen months, or seventeen weeks, after his accession, have been dethroned, had he not adopted the line of practice with which he is now reproached. Such certainly might have been the result. But better, at that early period, to have resigned the crown with honour, than, after seventeen years and a half, to have suffered ignominious expulsion amid the contempt of Europe. Better at once to have submitted to the will of the French people, than, by coercing it, to have gained the name of a tyrant by his rule, and the character of a felon by his flight and abdication.

C

Such, however, are the false positions to which the political partisan most illogically reduces his argument. LouisPhilippe may pray to be defended from such friends!

XI.-I am disposed to counsel that a more moderate and, as it appears to me, a much juster estimate should be made of the character of the exiled monarch. I would fain not consider him either as a Tyrant or a Felon; though, certes, he was not the man, nor the kind of man, who, in these times at least, should have aspired to the office and responsibility of Kingship. He was unfitted for both by birth, disposition, and acquired habit; and yet in all three there were points which attracted, and for a while attached to him the faith of those who look exclusively on the material side of royalty. His father, the notorious Egalité, a prodigal and libertine, had in him such a son as not seldom falls to the lot of the rake and spendthrift; namely, one who, mistaught by his parent's imprudence, resolves for his own part to repair, by the maintenance of the most rigid prudence in his own individual conduct and affairs, the mischief which by the contrary course had been caused to himself and his family. But let us not forget that there are two kinds of prudence and its converse: there is a worldly prudence, and an unworldly prudence; and the latter, in the estimation of the former, is often condemned as the highest possible imprudence. The wise, however, call it generosity and virtue; and find it not the loss that to the selfish it appears, but an immense gain. Apart from extrinsic considerations, besides, it is verily its own exceeding great reward. Louis-Philippe (then the Duc de Chartres), though educated by Madame de Genlis on the scheme propounded by Rousseau in his 'Emilius,' gave evident signs of the mysterious law of birth above suggested, by an early manifestation of prudence in the worldly, not the