by one of his faithful dependents, entitled, Voix d'un Grenadier pour le retablissement d'un Empereur des Gaules. Identical tactics are practised now. The putative nephew disowns indeed by words that be looks for the purple. But his household, confidants, ministers, and instruments, all plead for empire, talk for empire, write for empire, and struggle for empire. M. Bonaparte is as patient and persevering in his designs, as artful in the development of his thoughts, as his namesake and predecessor. The uncle disclosed his ultimate views by hints and inuendoes, by half confidence, by Jesuitical words with a double meaning. So does the putative or supposed nephew. In a pamphlet, written by one of the entourage of Napoleon, under the title of La Garantie, in 1804,, it was suggested whether emperor and republic were not compatible. The very same thing is suggested now, in the discourses, writings, and official acts of the Prince President and his followers. Francis de Neufchateau, a senator of the uncle, said, after the affairs of Pichegru and Moreau, Grand homme, achevez votre ouvrage en le rendant immortel comme votre gloire.' There are servile spirits ready enough now to use words of similar import to a man without merit and without glory. When, in 1804, some in the council of state, deeply imbued with the doctrines of the revolution, and, among others, Berlier, objected to the hereditary title of emperor, Regnaud de St. Jean d'Angely, the father of the partisan of the present man, said, Rassurez vous, citoyen; l'homme qui gouverne est enfant de la revolution.' In 1804, Joseph Bonaparte, in the council of state, expressed himself in public against the hereditary principle whenever it was mooted, yet worked for it privately. In 1852, Jerome Bonaparte affects in public to discourage all hereditary aspirations, yet cooperates with the coming emperor in all his deep-laid schemes. In 1804, books of heraldry were consulted with a view to fabricate a noble descent for the son of the Corsican avoué. Hincmar de ordine Palatii was cited by the genealogists and masters of cercmony to the approving aspirant, who created an arch-treasurer an arch-chancellor and a grand veneur. In 1852 all these projects are revived. M. de Wagram is spoken of to succeed his father, one of Napoleon's princes, who was grand veneur to the great captain. M. de Pierre is to be capitaine des chasses à courre, and the whole imperial hunting establishment, to be revived before the end of the year, is intended to be placed under Edgar Ney, who has been commissioned to select a pack of stag-hounds in England, and dogs for hunting the wild boar in Poitou. On the 18th May, 1804, sire et majesté were repeated by Cambaceres, a regicide who had proscribed kings, a man who was one of the most zealous members of the Committee of Public Safety. In

LUXURY AND SELF-INDULGENCE OF PUBLIC MEN IN FRANCE. 571

1851, M. Billaut, the president of the corps legislatif, a man who in 1848 and 1849 was an advanced republican and an advocate for the droit au travail, is ready, whenever he may be required, to address the coming man' as majesté imperiale et royale. Cambaceres, the friend of Robespierre, of Couthon, and of St. Just, proclaimed monarchical ideas as the only just and true things in 1804; and Cambaceres, his nephew, and a senator of 1852, and Billaut, the friend of Louis Blanc's theories, are jointly and severally prepared to follow in the wake of the arch-chancellor Cambaceres of eight-and-forty years ago. This is one of the many indications that society and the social system in France is rotteu, corrupted and putrefied to the very core. There is no such thing as public principle left among the mass of men aspiring to official employment. There is little regard for oaths or promises. Public men have become so lost to the moral sense, so brutified by selfish and sensuous animal enjoyments, that political virtue and consistency are laughed at as antediluvian and ostrogothic.

gour

There is no doubt great profusion and waste in England; but here, at least, men do not wholly disburse all income in mandise and the gratification of the senses. In England your man of pleasure, with a couple of thousands per annum to spend, would disburse a considerable portion of it on horses, or dogs, or peradventure on a small yacht; but in Paris your man about town with the same income, would spend a fourth of it, or possibly more, in cafés and restaurants, on luxurious breakfasts and dinners of plats fins and vins des meilleurs crus. This universal crapulousness debases and degrades a nation. Rarely can you depend on the political virtue or private honour of a man who is supremely luxurious and thoroughly self-indulgent. There is a happy medium between the black broth of the Spartan and the purée à la Reine which those too exquisite gourmets, the modern Gauls, have not hit.

Where the political and official classes are sensualists, they will try to make the people slaves, and be apt instruments to create a momentary empire. But such a creation will be only momentary, for it is not in harmony with the time. A dictator for a quarter of a year may compress hatred and contempt, but he cannot extinguish it. A dictator cannot compel the human mind to retrograde, or give a backward bent to thirty-two millions of people. A power founded on the degradation of mind, intelligence, and wealth, cannot be durable. It is not natural and not possible that any people can long exhibit the frightful singularity of a nation worshipping the name of a living tyrant out of love to a dead one. The Bonaparte who is gone at first imposed upon Europe by jugglery and tricks. His ambition he

called necessity-destiny. He presented himself to every faction and gave hopes to all. To every source of alarm he opposed his own individuality, to the end that he might cause his power to be accepted as the less evil of the two. Thus, to the timorous royalist he said, Would you have me deliver you over to the Jacobin? while to the revolutionist he exclaimed, Would you have me surrender you to the royalist? Am I not myself the child and champion of the revolution? By these tricks-by satisfying men's interests at the expense of their virtues-by depraving public opinion-by extraordinary commissions-by transportations and by banishments-he terrified and dismayed, and for a time imposed his sway. But at length he was obliged to offer, not merely permanent war, but continuous victories, as a compensation for despotism.

France has now, however, not one compensation for her degradation and disgrace. Insecure at home, she is abhorred abroad. Her ruler has filched away her liberties. He has given her neither strength, nor commerce, nor municipalities, but he has made her a free gift of his own precious person at the profuse price of 480,000l. a-year. Wishing to command without law, he has sought his support in mere brute force. For a moment he has made himself obeyed, but obeyed in degrading those whom he has subjected. In perfidy he resembles the Italian tyrants of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; and the fate of the worst of these is possibly reserved for him.

his

As his civil authority does not repose upon justice, upon magnanimity, or upon any great quality-as there is not in his breast or among his counsellors or followers the slightest respect for oaths, for religion, for morality, or for any fact, however solemn, or any political doctrine-as the dominion of principle is altogether at an end-as he is for self-aggrandizement at the expense of France, of Europe, or of the civilized world-as he proclaims purpose of subjecting men by degrading them, and spoliating the middle classes of the town to endow the mere peasants of the fields, and the mere socialist and communistic canaille of the 'back slums,'-cauponibus atque malignis,-he may be looked upon as the most revolutionary despot the world has yet seen,-as a species of cross between Robespierre, Babonf, and Napoleon Bonaparte. With an ingenuous turpitude he proclaims his creed, to which he is bigoted, with a pertinacity, a perseverance, a fanatical hatred of all opposing obstacles,-a fanatical hatred savouring only of the Corsican vendetta. A Nation so compact, so supple and self-confident as the French, cannot die or wither under a hand like this. Napoleon the first had his corps of Mamelukes in the cabinet and in the army. Savary said, 'Si l'empereur m'ordon

PERSIGNY, ROMIEU, DE MAUPAS.

573

nait de tuer mon pere je le tuerais,' and there are Savarys now among the Persignys, the Romieus, and the De Maupas. But blind, bigoted, and conscienceless instruments are the worst of servants, and instead of abutting and propping up, they sap the foundation of all power and of all authority. After all his crimes, after all his turpitudes, the Soulouque of France remains isolated and alone. Not one statesman, not one orator, not one important class in the state has rallied to him.

The army for the present obey his orders, but feels not the slightest devotion to his person, or the slightest respect for his authority; and his personal friends, counsellors, and adherents, do not widely differ from the profligate, needy, and half-ruined men who attached themselves to his desperate fortunes when he tried treason at Boulogne and a coup de main at Strasburgh. The protestations of peace which such a man makes to foreign countries are mere paroles dans l'air, which he will keep or break just as suits his personal interests. The man who has violated every compact to the French people is not likely to be over-scrupulous in observing foreign engagements if they in any wise conflict with his ambition or his interests. If he cannot continue where he is, or advance to a higher dignity, but by a spirit of licentious glory, he will 'cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war,' appealing to the depravity of an army, preferring military success to freedom, and to the vanity of a people content to wear fetters at home provided they can impose their chains on any vanquished nation. The people of England put no trust in M. Bonaparte, and believe that his sway contains within it the germ of swift and cureless ruin and decay. But they separate the man and the army from the people of France-a people who, combining high intellect with undaunted bravery, have nevertheless failed in achieving a well-balanced freedom. Before this chief good is attained the slough of Bonapartism must be thoroughly cast off, and Frenchmen must be determined to look to institutions rather than to men, to sound principles rather than to showy and splendid names, resonant of drum-beating, of despotism, of strife, and of victory. There has been far too much magic for Frenchmen in that latter word. The politicians of Englandfor the race of statesmen appears extinct-should trust M. Bonaparte no farther than they can throw him. He who is perjured at home, and swears oaths as false as dicers swear' to his household gods, is not likely to respect the homes and hearths of foreign nations, or to be restrained by any qualms of conscience, by any spirit of honour, or by any sense of justice. England should therefore be watchful and prepared, for we know not the hour the enemy may come.

574

OUR EPILOGUE

ON

AFFAIRS AND BOOKS, BRITISH AND FOREIGN.

AFFAIRS.

ROMANISTS have long had their Relief Bill. But the bill did not come at once. It was necessary to show cause why its prayer should be heard. It was necessary to iterate what were deemed good reasons for it from session to session. These reasons were weighed, scrutinized with much distrust, and many questions were asked betraying grave suspicion and requiring great explicitness. But nothing could be more clear than the state of things which came out as the result.

It was very true, there had been times in which men calling themselves catholics had founded inquisitions, burnt heretics, chained the press, stifled liberty of utterance, and as far as possible all liberty of thought. But that past had become the past only, leaving no trace of itself behind. Popes, cardinals, synods, have no authority in matters of faith or morals; no right to infringe on the independence of national churches, even in matters of discipline. It is only in her General Councils that men may hear the voice of the true Catholic Church. Even among the councils so designated, a few only were so constituted as to be entitled to that designation, and to be possessed of the plenitude of ecclesiastical authority. Where that authority has had a real existence, moreover, its province has been narrow, not broad-it might publish opinions on many things, it could be infallible only on few things. Romanism in the Ultramontane form is defunct, except in the brains of a few antique priests, or of a few ancient ladies at the heads of religious houses on the southern side of the Alps or of the Pyrenees. The catholic laymen of England-the catholic priesthood of England -hold no such faith. We should as soon think of bowing down to the Grand Lama as a divinity, as of submitting to such a creed. It is the fault of catholics, therefore, if they are not free men, and good subjects. It is within their power to set at nought everything