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England and France before the advancing power of the towns and of royalty, exactly the opposite of this process had been taking place in Denmark. A nation of serfs began to take the place of a nation of free proprietors; the power of the lay and clerical nobility grew greater day by day, while the influence of the towns went on diminishing. In the islands which were more thinly peopled than Jutland, personal servitude became the condition of the mass of the labouring classes in the fifteenth century. It was in them that the great proprietors established their residences, where they were less exposed to the revolts of the peasantry. The close proximity of Denmark to Germany, where the power of the feudal nobility never received the same severe blows as it had in England and France, explains this state of things; a testimony of the cause remaining in the comparatively modern German words, which had to be imported to designate these ideas which had hitherto been strangers to the Scandinavian mind. While the labouring classes were thus losing their social status, the competition of the Hanse Towns, supported by the enormous privileges accorded to them by the Danish kings, were ruining the burgess class, which, like the peasant class, began to cease to make use of its right of sending representatives to the assemblies at Nyborg. The loss of the right did not fail to follow the loss of its use. The nobility and the church were the only real powers in Denmark in the middle of the fourteenth century, the royal policy consisting in attempts to balance the one against the other. The condition of Sweden was totally different from this. Its constitution rested on certain quasi-federal institutions the inheritance of a remote past. The whole country was divided into nations, and the king had to obtain the separate assent of each nation to his election. The Swedish land system remained allodial, nor could a property be alienated without the consent of the whole family. A certain number of heads of families formed the district, and a certain number of districts formed the nation, each of which had a chief. So courageously did these chiefs perform their duty in defending popular liberties that they have been called the tribunes of Sweden' by the native historians. Between countries the political institutions of which were so different it was impossible that a union should subsist. While the firm hand and vigorous mind of Margaret still directed the fortunes of the three kingdoms, it was possible for her work to last, but not afterwards. Her character, indeed, was one of the most remarkable which the North has yet produced. From her earliest infancy she had given evidence of a most extraordinary

activity, both of mind and body. Her father said of her while she was yet young, that God had made a mistake in not making her of the male sex. Called by her subjects Margaret Sprenghaest, or horse-breaker, she has been named by modern writers the Semiramis of the North. A more correct appellation would have been Charlemagne of the North. Like him she succeeded in staying for a while the confusion that reigned around her, and on her death the darkness closed in over her work with almost as much celerity as it did over his. Charlemagne, says M. Guizot, gave civilisation time to breathe. The same-though in a more limited sense-might be said of Margaret, but her dream of a Scandinavian Union was destined to be as short-lived as the greater dream of the Universal Empire. Hard facts were too strong for both. The difference between the political constitutions of Sweden and Denmark has been already pointed out. The distrust with which the Danish ecclesiastics were viewed, owing to their being credited with anti-national ideas and a too great affection for Germany, was an additional cause of alienation. Now the clergy, owing to their wish to extend their influence in Sweden, were the great supporters of the Union, and this support was one of the chief causes of its falling into disrepute, while the manner in which fiefs were conferred upon foreigners, both Danes and others, soon made the lay as unpopular as the clerical nobility in Sweden. It became clear that the fall of the Union was a mere question of time. The edifice which Margaret had built began to crack even during her life, and after her death soon fell to pieces altogether.

Such, then, were the causes of the failure of the Scandinavian Union in the middle ages. It can hardly be said that these causes exist now. The literary and political progress of Sweden and Denmark is fairly equal. Something under the head of religious liberty remains to be desired in the former, but hardly a year passes by without the hand of the reformer making itself felt, while the present constitution of Denmark is one of the best which Europe can boast of, and indeed well calculated to excite some jealousy in the minds of its southern neighbour. The difficulties in the way of the Union lie rather in the difference of sentiment and of historical tradition, and in those conflicting family claims which have been previously alluded to.

Were then Denmark to feel assured of the future retrocession of Slesvig, with its ports and fortresses, along with the guarantee of future security which the retrocession would imply, it is possible that these latter considerations would

prevail, and that the Scandinavian Union would remain a dream; but the firmer the belief grows that Slesvig will never return to its mother-country, the stronger does the feeling grow of the necessity of the Scandinavian Union as a weapon of defence against further aggressions.

on.

Still, there are other solutions of this question possible. Both in Sweden and Denmark, but especially in the latter, a strong particularist party exists, the head quarters of which, strangely enough, are in Jutland, among the Peasants' Friends, who form the extreme radical and peace at any price party. It has been previously shown how the position of the Danish cultivator rapidly deteriorated about the period of the Union of Calmar from that bright state of things which popular tradition associated with the Valdemars, when each rood had its man, till serfs had almost universally taken the place once occupied by free cultivators. But since 1760, when Count Stolberg advised the emancipation of the cultivators on some of the royal estates, down to the present day, the counter process has been going In its origin largely influenced by the theories of the Danish economists, who, towards the close of the last century, took up the ideas of Quesnay and Turgot, it was pushed on by the reforms of such statesmen as Reverdil, Bernstorf, and the unfortunate Struensee. The movement was indeed seriously checked between 1818 and 1826, but soon after that date, the formation of the Bondevenner party, to which many of the middle class belonged, deprived it of its purely social character, and gave it a real power in the Rigsdaag, while its cause was ably supported in the press by M. Hausen. result has been the passing of a succession of Land Bills, leading to the rapid conversion of the Danish latifundia' into small properties. Peace and economy are the watchwords of the small proprietors. Both now and before the last war they opposed a spirited foreign policy, and they recently made their influence felt by the fall of Count Frijs' cabinet, which retired on a question of military expenditure. The Scandinavian Union they imagine would entail heavy taxation; and they are therefore strongly opposed to it, while the working classes in the large towns are its strongest supporters. Which of the rival parties will ultimately carry the day it is difficult to foresee; but it is probable that if the peasants prevail their victory will be but Pyrrhic, and that though they may succeed in averting for a while their absorption into a united Scandinavia, it will only be to be absorbed, at some future period, into a united Germany.

The

That the day is not distant when the German flag will float

on the Cape of Skagen, and the Baltic be a German lake, is now the frequent boast of German military men, and of no small portion of its literary class. The Jutland peasants would do well to remember this. There are some persons in the North who still hope for much from the influence or the intervention of the Russian Emperor with the Court of Berlin on behalf of Denmark. Their hopes are based on the marriage which lately took place between the heir to the throne of all the Russias and the Princess Dagmar. It is indeed true that personal alliances have more weight in Russia than they now have in the more advanced nations of Europe, but signs are not wanting that, be that as it may, they will not go for much in the present instance. In the first place, the present Czar is known to have strong German sympathies; and even supposing his successor to be otherwise minded, it is highly improbable that he would risk the security of his dominions for an object which is not by any means Russian, more especially when it is recollected that Prince Bismarck has a grievance ready to hand when he wants to use it, viz. the position of the Germans in the Baltic provinces. Again, even assuming that the recent increase of power on the part of Prussia threatens to turn the Baltic into a German instead of a Russian lake, and that the latter power may consequently be induced to do all it can to sustain Denmark, it cannot be forgot that there is another far easier method of balancing German power-that of further annexations from Sweden; and this would be strictly consonant with the hereditary policy of the Russian royal family. But, lastly, there are indications that Russia is looking for compensation not in the Baltic but in the Black Sea, that she is at present willing to accept Prussian aggrandisement as un fait accompli, and even to use it as a means in the furtherance of her Eastern policy at the expense of Austria and England; so that the Scandinavian question in its remoter consequences touches even our own country. Having followed it thus far, we leave it for the present.

ART. IX.-1. Histoire du Droit municipal en France sous la Domination romaine et sous les trois Dynasties. Par M. RAYNOUARD. Deux tomes. 8vo. Paris: 1829.

2. Essai sur l'Histoire de la Formation et des Progrès du Tiers État, suivi d'un Tableau de l'ancienne France municipale. Par AUGUSTIN THIERRY. 8vo. Paris: 1853.

3. La Commune, l'Église, et l'État dans leurs Rapports avec Par FERDINAND BECHARD.

les Classes laborieuses.

Paris: 1849.

4. De la Décadence de la France. Par M. RAUDOT. Paris: 1849.

5. Histoire de la Terreur (1792-1794) d'après des documents authentiques et inédits. Par M. MORTIMER-TERNAUX. Sept. tomes. 8vo. Paris: 1866.

THESE

HESE books are not of very recent date; but they are the better suited to our purpose. Imperfectly informed of the true history of the extraordinary events which have recently occurred in the capital of France, and still more ignorant of the future which awaits that country, it is to the past alone that we can look for light upon its condition and its destiny. The scenes of the French Revolution are not so varied or so diverse that we cannot trace in them the operation of uniform causes, and very often a repetition of the same results. Indeed, we think it can be shown that there is a marvellous resemblance between incidents which have occurred under very different circumstances and at a distance of three quarters of a century. These contemporary events give to the history of the Revolution in its earlier years an intense reality which brings the whole tragic spectacle again before us; the lurid light of another conflagration lights up the ruins of the ravaged city. For ourselves, we are free to confess that as one hour of ocular observation frequently teaches more than a century of books and written records, so the events of this spring have given fresh strength and truth to our knowledge of the whole Revolution. The figures of the Commune and the Reign of Terror start once more from the canvas and live-degenerate, indeed, contemptible, obscure by the side of their nefarious prototypes, but animated by the same passions, and performing with unabated fury the same parts. We turn then to these records of the past, to seek in them the explanation of the present. M. Raynouard and M. Béchard are two of the writers who

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