with the loss experienced by the American nation.

The political serfage under which his country groaned meanwhile bore heavily upon his national and civic pride. When some signs of a revival of the opposition spirit at last exhibited themselves, he wrote to a French friend, M. Ferragus, who had visited him in his home, in Melina Place, St. John's Wood:

"If only you knew what humiliations we have had to swallow as Frenchmen during that long banishment which, if it should continue five years longer, will have lasted exactly a quarter of a century! How sad to hear on foreign soil wherever you present yourself: 'We pity you; but as to France, how could we pity her? She has at last found the man that was wanted for her repose and for our own. The French people are a people of children, and, what is worse, of dangerous children. It is well that the means of setting fire to the house has been taken from them. France is not made for freedom; and she feels this so well herself that she has perished by accommodating herself to servitude. Freedom is only fit for us Englishmen, who are men.' What torture is comparable to that which such insolent, cruel language inflicts upon a Frenchman living among those who hold it! Now, for twenty years, we have had to drink the cup of such insults to the very dregs."

In the course of the same letter, Louis Blanc says that he always had declared that" France, in spite of appearances, was always the great and mature nation, the manly nation which, at another epoch, had been the admiration of the world; that to believe her to be dead was to calumniate her slumber; and that she would awake prouder, nobler, more powerful than ever." In the meanwhile, "exile was for the proscribed a moral agony, the sufferings of which baffle description."

Events unfortunately did not justify his forecast. Instead of working out her internal revival by the strength of the popular forces, France allowed herself to be led on the wartrack, when she only gained her Republican freedom at the expense of necessary defeat.

He opposed with all his power, so far as in him lay, Napoleon's war venture of 1870. His acquaintance with Germans in London had enabled him to perceive the tremendous risks which France ran. Not many weeks before the declaration of war, he, with his brother Charles, and a Progressist member of the Prussian House of Deputies, and Mr. and Mrs. Hepworth Dixon, and a number of other friends, were at dinner in our house. We spoke of the question of a people's education and its bearing upon political affairs.

"I shall never forget," said Charles Blanc,

"how Durny [Napoleon's Minister of Public Instruction] one day led me into a sideroom of his office, showing me the 'Map of Ignorance' of our country. The departments in which most people can read and write were in white color; those less advanced, in gray stripes; those most backward, in black. What a shock it gave me! So many departments were black or nearly so. You in Prussia are in that respect far ahead of us."

"In Germany!" I answered.

"Indeed, I thought it was a specially Prussian institution, this compulsory law of education."

"No; it is the same all over our Fatherland!" I replied.

He seemed to take mentally a note of it. The dinner passed off most pleasantly, until we spoke of ancient and modern Greecea theme I thought peculiarly pleasant to him as an enthusiastic admirer of and writer on Hellenic art and antiquities. Unfortunately, the question of the mixed race — descent of the present Greeks- was broached. Thereupon Charles Blanc all at once flew into a perfect passion, though everybody present was a warm well-wisher of the "greater future" of the Greece of our days. Neither for the past nor for the present would Charles Blanc, in spite of the fullest classic and later historical testimony, admit any alloy in the blood of the Greeks: not a Pelasgian, not a Thracian, not a Phenician, not a Slavonian admixturenothing but pure "Hellenic" descent.

The conversation grew warm, on his part at least, beyond English custom. One of the ladies was so startled by his energy that she became ill, and had to leave the room. It was as if Charles Blanc-whom his brother in vain endeavored to restrain — were fighting some imaginary foe of his own country. The contrast to his usual amiability was incomprehensible. A nervous electrical storm seemed to have got possession of him.

A few days before the declaration of war by Napoleon III. against "Prussia," we were at dinner in Louis Blanc's house. A number of Frenchmen, Englishmen, Americans, were present, as well as the late Belgian Consul, M. Delepierre, who in spite of his French name had a very good "Nether-German" or Flemish heart. He was an able and well-known writer on Flemish literature. The question of war or peace was now uppermost in all men's minds and conversation. Suddenly Charles Blanc, while deprecating war, said he did not mean thereby to give up the right of France to the Rhenish Provinces which we have possessed before ("que nous avons eues”). "How long?" I asked.

He would not enter on the question. I had

often found that the best educated Frenchmen were really ignorant of history in that respect, and that they sometimes did not even know how purely German the population of those provinces was in speech. All the politeness and amiability of Charles Blanc had returned. He acknowledged that he had been wrong. On his saying that France had possessed the Rhinelands before, the Belgian consul had significantly put in the remark:

"And how about the connection of Alsace and Lorraine with Germany in former times?" In this way, there was sheet lightning, indicating coming things, even on occasions of pleasant social intercourse.

Louis Blanc, in the meanwhile, strove ceaselessly, in his letters to the French press, to warn his country against the declaration of war. At last they would not even hear him any longer in the Liberal opposition press. "These are the manuscripts of letters returned to me, unpublished!" he said one day, pointing out his rejected labor, in great grief.

It may not be amiss to bring to recollection that when Napoleon III. asked for the warcredits, Gambetta, Jules Ferry, Jules Simon, Magnin, Dorian, Steenackers, as well as Thiers - all men who came to power after Sedan-all voted for the war-credits, in spite of previous opposition speeches. Jules Favre, after 1866,— that is to say, after a disruption in the national body of Germany,- had considered France entitled to an "indemnification," in the way of a cession of Germany territory! So did Victor Hugo! At first, Thiers merely objected to the war of 1870 because he thought "France was not sufficiently prepared." Thiers cast his vote against declaration of war, first, last, and

ever.

After the war was in full course, Louis Blanc, it is true, finally voted against the Treaty of Peace, which involved the cession of territory. This, however, could only signify a personal protest. He knew too well that the sword of France was broken.

When the war was over, we again met repeatedly in London and Brighton, where we were together for several weeks in most friendly and intimate intercourse.

He had a great deal to tell then as to the Commune insurrection. That rising, in Prince Bismarck's view, had a "legitimate kernel," overlaid by madness and horror.

A further element in the insurrection of the Commune was the desire to save France from a new Royalist reaction, as planned by the Assembly at Bordeaux. Louis Blanc endeavored to bring about a compromise and an amnesty; feeling repelled, as he did, on the one

For a dispassionate and interesting account of the early history of Alsace and Lorraine, see "The French

hand, by the wild vagaries of the Commune, and out of sympathy, on the other, with the reactionists of the Assembly, in which he yet had to continue as a member. "If men like you leave us," Grévy very justly said to him, "the reactionists will get free scope!" But the wildest attacks were made upon Louis Blanc from both sides. Ultras of the Commune bespattered his character in the most hideous manner. He bore it all quietly.

In the conflagration of Paris, which marked the last stage of the reign of the Commune, Louis Blanc lost a great many movables and valuable things, provisionally stored up, during the siege, at a railway station. His most painful loss was that of the manuscript of a new work he intended to bring out: "The Salons of the Eighteenth Century." I believe it was founded on the lectures he had formerly given in England on the same subject. The manuscript perished in the flames. Seeing France defeated after a war against which he had in vain protested, and democracy deeply rent by internal divisions, he scarcely alluded to his own personal losses. The calumnies heaped upon him he repaid by working, at the expense of his health, in common with Victor Hugo, Clémenceau, and Camille Pelletan, for an unconditional amnesty of the exiles and prisoners of the Commune.

Under Marshal MacMahon's government I once was in a position to make an early communication to him, from an excellent source, by way of warning the Republican party against a lawless surprise. Of this communication, I believe, he made good use among the advanced Left of the Chamber of Deputies, of which he was the head. On his part, when referring to Gambetta, he expressed himself before me in words of great mistrust towards that highly ambitious leader. He looked upon him as a danger to the Commonwealth. So far back as 1872, Louis Blanc showed me the proof, in writing, of a move he had made among the advanced Left against Gambetta's policy. The paper in question bore the signatures of a number of Louis Blanc's intimate political associates. My own views in regard to Gambetta's aspirations towards "personal government" fully coincided with, if they did not even go much beyond, his own. It was after I had broached this subject, that Louis Blanc, at Brighton, suddenly took from the breast-pocket of his coat the paper in question, giving it to me for confidential perusal. Both Louis Blanc and Gambetta having gone now, I can openly bear testimony to a fact which is calculated to shed light on contemporary history. Conquest of Lorraine and Alsace," by Henry M. Baird, in this magazine for February, 1871.

Louis Blanc felt keenly the manner in which he was neglected when his old friend Grévy became President of the Republic. He was placed under the ban of the Opportunists who now are prepared to crowd flowers upon his tomb. Being fond of England he wished to be sent to London as ambassador. When Challemel Lacour was gazetted to that post, Louis Blanc turned his face to the wall to die. He ceased to struggle against terrible infirmities. The painful illness and death of his brother Charles was a blow from which he never recovered. Death, as Victor Hugo said, was, in the case of Louis Blanc, a deliverance.

Charles Blanc had died early in 1882. The two brothers were known to be bound up by a fraternal love of extraordinary warmth. It is said that when Louis Blanc, before the Revolution of 1848, was the object of a murderous attack, Charles, living far away in another part of France, exclaimed almost at the same hour that some dreadful accident must have happened to his brother-which indeed turned out to be true. Whatever the explanation of this occurrence may be, Dumas made use of the oft-repeated story in his "Corsican Brothers"; the Blancs being, as before stated, of Corsican descent from the mother's side.

Karl Blind.

VOL. XXXIV.-12.

them, making their total constituency (if by discarding the idea of a State line we use the word in a somewhat strained sense) 5427. This was at the March election, 1855. Of the remaining 2286 actual Kansas voters disclosed by Reeder's census, only 791 cast their ballots. That summer's emigration, however, being mainly from the free States, greatly changed the relative strength of the two parties. At the election of October 1st, 1855, in which the free-State men took no part, Whitfield, for delegate, received 2721 votes, Border Ruffians included. At the election for members of the Topeka Constitutional Convention, a week later, from which the pro-slavery men abstained, the freeState men cast 2710 votes, while Reeder, their nominee for delegate, received 2849. For general service, therefore, requiring no special effort, the numerical strength of the factions was about equal; while on extraordinary occasions the two thousand Border-Ruffian reserve lying a little farther back from the State line could at any time easily turn the scale. The free-State men had only their convictions, their intelligence, their courage, and the moral support of the North; the conspiracy had its secret combination, the territorial officials, the legislature, the bogus laws, the courts, the militia officers, the President, and the army. This was a formidable array of advantages; slavery was playing with loaded dice.

UT of the antagonistic and contending factions mentioned in the last two chapters, the bogus legislature and its Border-Ruffian adherents on the one hand, and the framers and supporters of the Topeka Constitution on the other, grew the civil war in Kansas. The bogus legislature numbered thirty-six members. These had only received, all told, 619 legal bona fide Kansas votes; but, what answered their purposes just as well, 4408 Missourians had cast their ballots for

on the failure of peaceable remedies to resist them to a "bloody issue," the conspiracy was not slow to cover itself and its projects with the sacred mantle of authority. Opportunely for them, about this time Governor Shannon, appointed to succeed Reeder, arrived in the territory. Coming by way of the Missouri River towns, he fell first among Border-Ruffian companionship and influences; and perhaps having his inclinations already molded by his Washington instructions, his early impressions were decidedly adverse to the free-State cause. His reception speech at Westport, in which he maintained the legality of the legislature, and his determination to enforce their laws, delighted his pro-slavery auditors. To enlist further his zeal in their behalf, a few weeks later they formally organized a "law-and-order party" by a large public meeting held at Leavenworth. All the territorial dignitaries were present; Governor Shannon presided; John Calhoun, the Surveyor-General, made the principal speech, a denunciation of the "abolitionists" supporting the Topeka movement; Chief-Justice Lecompte dignified the occasion with approving remarks. With public opinion propitiated in advance, and the governor of the territory thus publicly committed to their party, the conspirators felt themselves ready to enter upon the active campaign to crush out opposition, for which they had made such elaborate preparations.

Faithful to their legislative declaration they knew but one issue, slavery. All dissent, all non-compliance, all hesitation, all mere silence even, were in their stronghold towns, like Leavenworth, branded as "abolitionism," declared to be hostility to the public welfare, and punished with proscription, personal violence, expulsion, and frequently death. Of the lynchings, the mobs, and the murders, it would be impossible, except in a very extended work, to note the frequent and atrocious details. The present chapters can only touch upon the more salient movements of the civil war in Kansas, which happily were not sanguinary; if, however, the individual and more isolated cases of bloodshed could be described, they would show a startling aggregate of barbarity and loss of life for opinion's sake. Some of these revolting crimes, though comparatively few in number, were committed, generally in a spirit of lawless retaliation, by free-State

men.

Among other instrumentalities for executing the bogus laws, the bogus legislature had appointed one Samuel J. Jones sheriff of Douglas county, Kansas Territory, although that individual was at the time of his appoint

Phillips, "Conquest of Kansas," p. 152, et. seq.
Shannon, order to Richardson, Nov. 27th, 1855.

ment, and long afterwards, United States postmaster of the town of Westport, Missouri. Why this Missouri citizen and Federal official should in addition be clothed with a foreign territorial shrievalty of a county lying forty or fifty miles from his home is a mystery which was never explained outside a Missouri Blue Lodge. A partial solution is afforded in the fact that Jones was apparently a born persecutor, overflowing with zeal for slavery. Whether chosen by accident or design, his fitness to become the active agent of the conspiracy gives his name and acts a lamentable prominence in Kansas history.

A few days after the "law-and-order" meeting in Leavenworth, there occurred a murder in a small settlement thirteen miles west of the town of Lawrence. The murderer, a proslavery man, first fled to Missouri, but returned to Shawnee Mission and sought the official protection of Sheriff Jones; no warrant, no examination, no commitment followed, and the criminal remained at large. Out of this incident, the officious sheriff managed most ingeniously to create an embroilment with the town of Lawrence. Buckley, who was alleged to have been accessory to the crime, obtained a peace-warrant against Branson, a neighbor of the victim. With this peace-warrant in his pocket, but without showing or reading it to his prisoner, Sheriff Jones and a posse of twentyfive Border Ruffians proceeded to Branson's house at midnight and arrested him. Alarm being given, Branson's free-State neighbors, already exasperated at the murder, rose under the sudden instinct of self-protection and rescued Branson from the sheriff and his posse that same night, though without other violence than harsh words.*

Burning with the thirst of personal revenge, Sheriff Jones now charged upon the town of Lawrence, because that was the stronghold of the free-State men of the territory, the violation of law involved in this rescue, though Lawrence immediately and earnestly disavowed the act. But for Sheriff Jones and his superiors the pretext was all-sufficient. A Border-Ruffian foray against the town was hastily organized. The murder occurred November 21st, the rescue November 26th. November 27th, upon the brief report of Sheriff Jones, demanding a force of three thousand men "to carry out the laws," Governor Shannon issued his order to the two major-generals of the skeleton militia, "to collect together as large a force as you can in your division, and repair without delay to Lecompton, and report yourself to S. J. Jones, sheriff of Douglas county." The Kansas militia was a myth; but the BorSame order to Strickler, same date. Senate Docs., 3d Sess. 34th Cong. Vol. II., p. 53.