meetings. The meeting at Tara and the first Reform banquet should have been equally suppressed, and thus the evil nipped in the bud. Such an attempt, however, could scarcely have been made by an absolute despotism; that of Austria or Russia would have failed in it. You must first abolish the popular right of meeting at all—or in other words, deprive the people of the power to meet by extreme measures of coercion, espionage, and police—nay, you must forbid them the indulgence of a "harmless tavern dinner;"-not only such as may be held for a patriotic purpose, but for any object whatever-(since what so easy as to conceal a political motive under the disguise of a social recreation ?)—you must go, I say, even to these extreme lengths, if such forbearance as is condemned should be itself forborne. Nay, the whole doctrine and discipline of Fletcher's Neapolitan tyrant must be adopted as the ordinary rule of government :

"Mercy is a vice, when there needs rigour,
Which I with all severity will practise;

And since, as subjects they pay not obedience,
They shall be forced as slaves; I will remove
Their means to hurt, and with the means, my fears.
Go you, the fatal executioners

Of my commands, and in our name proclaim,
That from this hour I do forbid all meetings,
All private conferences in the city:

To feast a neighbour, shall be death; to talk,
As they meet in the streets, to hold discourse
By writing, nay by signs. See this performed,
And I will call your cruelty, to those

That dare repine at this, to me true service.

The people have abused the liberty

I late allowed; I will proclaim it straiter:
No men shall walk together, or salute;

For they that do shall die."

But I trow that had despot Ferrand's system been adopted in either case, the result would have been similar to what the poet has depicted as the catastrophe of his drama. A social revolution would only all the sooner have cut off the Government that had so abused its power, viewing its own safety as a thing apart from the comforts and interests of the people. Modern governments must, at any rate, preserve to the last moment the shows of liberty; however disposed to deny the substance. Well for them that by a benevolent necessity they are so compelled-their permanency, for however brief a season, is due to such compulsion.

XIII. Such schemes, indeed, fail because of their inpossibility—and are not entertained for a moment by the wise, because felt in their very conception to be impracticable. Harmless tavern dinners, and patriotic banquets, whether or not subterfuges, must therefore be permitted for a while; and not interfered with until manifest justifying occasion arise. A monster-banquet in Paris itself, with an open-air demonstration of force and numbers: -this must needs be suppressed; and it was suppressed. But the sequel?—Neither party had been prepared for the explosion of the boiler, on the safety-valve being so tied down. There was on the interdicted Tuesday no dining, but there was some rioting-suppressed on that day, and recommenced on the next, early in the morning. The succeeding Thursday the Riot was already become a Revolution, which in three hours from its commencement had secured its triumph. The timidity of the Government, forsooth! Grant it. But why? Wherefore was the Government timid? It had been surprised, it is true;more than surprised; even like the rest of Europe when the report reached them, astonished. Nor without reason.

The quarrel lay between the Conservative and Dynastic parties-between M. Guizot and M. Odillon Barrot. The Banquet and the Reform were the flag and the warcry of the latter. But on the third morning, a third party stepped in between the combatants, and carried it all their own way: so that soon to the two former was actually left neither place nor name. Ministry and Opposition, with the Elections, Electors, and Law about which they had squabbled,-all equally, dissolving like the unsubstantial pageant of a dream, faded and left no wrack. The surprise and confusion marking the advent of an issue so wholly unexpected, were at least natural incitements to timidity. But there were other and obvious reasons. The Government knew the character of the people it had offended, and that it could not rely upon the National Guard. The latter, sixty thousand strong, was composed, like Nebuchadnezzar's image, of many discordant materials. It was partly Republican, partly Communist, though the majority was neutral. But where there is even a little leaven, will it not leaven the whole lump? Political minorities, like the smaller phrenological organs, are generally more active than majorities. Yes, the Government, reflecting on the composition of the National Guard, naturally trembled. Next, they considered the temperament of the Republican and Communist party. The Constitutional Opposition, by taking itself to the streets, had put itself in the wrong, and might and did yield to the ministerial dictation. But the Republican and Communist parties were in their proper element-found themselves opportunely congregated therein, though without notice having been given or expected. These men, having cherished a long-settled determination for a Republic, only awaited opportunity-an opportunity which they resolved not to miss, as they had once missed it, in

the Revolution of 1830. What during three days they had then let slip by them, they now seized in three hours. Long ago had they persuaded themselves that a republican form of government was the one most suitable for France -often and often had they in clubs and assemblies discussed, debated, and voted on whatever affected labour, finance, and representation. M. Louis Blanc, in his ' L'Organization du Travail,' had treated the whole question; and M. de Lamartine, in his 'Histoire des Girondins,' had testified to a perfect understanding of the political position of the public cause. The latter had also joined the Republican party expressly upon Socialist principles, and in his 'Vision of the Future,' published in 1843, had, whether consciously or unconsciously, anticipated the approaching crisis. The Government, notwithstanding any apparent proof to the contrary, doubtless reflected also on these facts; and, appreciating the enemy at the full sum of his deserts, felt his strength and their own false position. These were the reasons, however disguised by ministerial nonchalance, for the timidity of the Guizot government, and the latter half of them are equally valid to account for the defection of the National Guard itself.

XIV. The proximate cause for the unpopularity of the Citizen-King was his speech, at the opening of the Chambers, on the 28th of December, 1847. In that speech his Majesty, following up the former imprudence of his Minister, ascribed the Reform Agitation to "hostility and blind passions." It was thus that the Citizen-King recklessly characterized the conduct of his Parliamentary Opposition, composed of the most respectable and least assuming of the Deputies, not actually siding with the existing Ministry. This angry phrase confounded, in

one demented assertion, the mean with the extremes→ the ultras with the moderates; those who might at the next turn of the political wheel constitute the new administration, with those whose only chance of power depended on a revolution.

"Foh! one may smell, in such, a will most rank;
Foul disproportion, thoughts unnatural."

-Only a will that, by self-indulgence, had disconnected itself from the admonitions both of reason and conscience, could have so diverged from the paths which the most ordinary state-policy would have prescribed. And did no rebuke follow, on the part of Senate or People? Enough, on that of both. Nineteen sittings ere the Address on the Royal Speech could travel through the Chambers! Yet, obstinate in error, the King and the Government proceed to follow up the blow, by putting to issue the legal right of the constitutionally legitimate Parliamentary Opposition to a Reform Banquet, assembled not by the members of an extra parliamentary and law-prohibited association, but by those of a great party in the Senate, for the exercise of an undoubted constitutional right. It was not until the 12th of February that the debate on the Address ended. On the previous day, the Ministerial majority had carried the obnoxious paragraph that echoed the royal aspersion on the respectable Dynastic party. Confounded thereby with Republicans and Communists, henceforth they felt less reluctance to unite with both. Meantime, they abstained (on the 12th) from voting as a body on the Address altogether. Of the 244 votes then rendered, only three were given against Ministers. Next day, the Banquet was resolved on, to take place on Sunday the the 20th. Subsequently it was deferred until the following Tuesday.