popularise effectually the matter of the book, and cause it to become the talk of every club, readingroom, and even pothouse parlour, in the kingdom. And we cannot think that Louis Napoleon's ministers for we cannot suppose that so injudicious an order originated with himself-displayed their knowledge of the world in the condemnation of the printers and publishers of the Duc d'Aumale's letter, and by the infliction of an imprisonment which the good sense of the Emperor has thought fit to revoke, though the mischief has already been done as far as the advertisement of the offending pamphlet is concerned. Here it is in our hands in a Berlin reprint, and it exists also in a German translation. And yet it does not seem to us that there is much in it to force it on public attention, independently of the rank of its author and the attempt of the French Government to suppress it. We do not apprehend that the facts it states are new, or put before its readers in a new light. In one respect it is worthy of its author-namely, in its clear straightforwardness and its moderate and gentlemanly- tone, considering the great provocations to bitterness which the Orleans family have received from the reigning dynasty of France. It is, however, suggestive of many thoughts in European politics, and reminds us. that the younger branch of the Bourbons are not willing to retire as yet from the world's arena as practically obsolete, in imitation perhaps of the example of the elder. To talk and lecture and write, is considered one of the functions of a leading man of the nineteenth century, and it seems to be tacitly acknowledged by great men in general, that in whatever other way they may be before the public, they are not therefore excusable in wrapping their thoughts and actions in the cloak of taciturnity. Even Napoleon III. himself, by some accounted the William the Silent of this generation, has said The on a hundred occasions-and, some "Wherein the royal Charles abode If the House of Orleans accept the omen, it would appear to throw a cheerful light on their future destinies. Like the elder branch of the Bourbons, they were expelled by a revolution; but the Revolution of 1848 differed from that of 1830 in this, that it was the expression of a sudden, unreasoning, and unreasonable gust of popular passion, and not the mere outburst of the long-gathering elements of dissolution and destruction. Or was the Revolution of 1848 the mere completion of that of 1830? Democracy had endeavoured to listen to reason for eighteen years, and, knowing from experience what its own excesses had produced before, had stopped for that interval in mid career, until the removal of some slight check precipitated the consummation. It would be doing but scant justice to the House of Orleans not to recognise the fact that, whatever their personal merits or demerits, they were driven from power by a most impertinent and purposeless revolution. Whether they observed the standard of political innocence that the Duc d'Aumale claims for them, must depend on the truth or falsehood of the allegation that Louis Philippe was, in some degree, implicated in a conspiracy which was the lever of the popular rising that drove Charles X. from his throne. Certainly, as far as subsequent events are concerned, they were, as the Duc d'Aumale observes, far more sinned against than sinning. "While the chief of your dynasty (I borrow his own words) was expiating at Ham, by an imprisonment of six years, his reckless defiance of (sa temerité contre) the laws of his country, he made use without restriction of his civic rights, and freely criticised in the public prints the Government which he had begun attacking by open force. My situation is very different, and I do not lay claim to any such privileges. Banished from my country without having done violence to any law, without having deserved my lot by any fault, I am only known to France as having been educated under her standard, and having faithfully served her up to the day when I was violently separated from her. But has this exile caused me to forfeit the most natural and sacred right of all, that of defending my family when pub licly insulted, and with it the past of France? This injurious attack, which a power so strong, and which inspires in you so much confidence, has endorsed, propagated, placarded on all the walls, can my answer follow it, and produce itself in conformity to the laws, on the very soil of my country? I wish to make the experiment. If this does not succeed as I wish, and if, in contempt of the simplest notions of justice and honour, you stifle my voice in France, with so fair a cause to plead, it will at least have some echo in Europe, and reach the heart of honest people in every country." Every reader will acknowledge in the tone of this exordium to the Orleans Manifesto either a studied moderation, as if it were written to conciliate Europe more than to excite France, or else an incapacity to put the case more strongly, which is a peculiarity of some minds and tempers, even when they have received the strongest provocation. Some men are capable of pleading any cause better than their own. If there is anything that stamps the house of Buonaparte with a character the reverse of chivalry and magnanimity, it is this very conduct of the reigning dynasty towards the Orleans family. The fault alleged by the Revolution against that family, as the cause of their fall, was, that Louis Philippe was ill-advised in not suffering the Reform Banquet to take place in 1848-a cause perfectly puerile for so great a consequence. The remote cause of Louis Philippe's fall may have been the premature death of the Duc d'Orleans, who may have possessed more firmness of character than the rest of the family evinced; but it was more specially a general family incapacity to cope with the exigencies of their position, and to hold the reins of government with a sufficiently firm hand, considering the peculiar constitution of the French nation. Eliot Warburton, in his Crescent and the Cross, remarks, that in the East, mildness in taking an affront is sure to be taken for weakness, and justifies himself for striking an Arab over the face with his whip who spilled his bowl of milk with his spear. It is so with the impulsive and superficial French nature. The nepotism of Louis Phillippe in his later days-the Spanish marriages, in particular and the general official corruption which he had allowed to steal over public life in France, caused him to become unpopular in England, and our people to forget the general fairness and moderation of his government-qualities which generally find ready sympathy in Great Britain. It may be presumed, as the Duc d'Aumale complains, that the real faults of that government vis-à-vis of the French people, were those of a magnanimous or a pusillanimous weakness. The Orleans dynasty might have occupied the French throne now, if, in the first place, Louis Napoleon, instead of being confined in a place from which he could escape, had been summarily sent, when he was taken at Boulogne, to a bourne from which there is no return; and, in the second place, if the Orleans princes, instead of losing their spirits in the hour of trial, and running away from the helm, had ordered a few discharges of artillery on the sovereign people and the National Guard in 1848. The lesson had to be taught the French in 1851, by another and less scrupulous hand, that assaults on a government are not to be met as mildly as those on a private individual. It is only to be regretted that the fusillade of the Boulevards did not take place in defence of established order, instead of the aggression of the President on the so-called constitution of the Republic. The Duke hits the mark when he says: "As to his sons (those of Louis Philippe), you doubtless blame them for not having cannonaded the National Guard of Paris in 1848, or for not having endeavoured to bring back the army of Africa; for having, in a word, preferred exile to civil war, when they thought that France might soon have need of the blood of all her children; and considered, besides, how far removed were minds used to the gentle movement of free government from the hard maxims and unmerciful proceedings which the corrupting spectacle of so many fortunate acts of violence has caused since that time to find their way into every heart!" To Frenchmen of high Legitimist sentiments, it may seem almost like a divine retribution that the king who was set up by the Barricades should find himself awestruck and unable to act in the face of the same power when it chose to rear its head again; but if, as a believer in the principles of constitutional monarchy would assume, kings govern, not for their own good, but for the sake of the people, and embody in their persons, at all events, the divine right of the law, then it is inexcusable weakness for a monarch to abdicate at once, at the first summons from any rebellious power, however irregular, when one or two sharp blows struck at the right time would set all right again. And posterity, in judging those events, will be less severe on the old king than on the princes of the Orleans family, who, if they had it in their power, as we believe they had, to cannonade the National Guard, if not to bring back the Algerian army, were bound, not only by the duties of their position, but even by the voice of humanity to do so. Of course it is not a question of the physical courage of these princes; but there was certainly a failure, if not of moral courage, at least of that firmness of character which is indispensable to all command of others. Although it may be adopted as an extreme constitutional principle, that a ruler chosen by the people is to rule only during the pleasure of the people, yet, even putting the case so strongly, it would seem to be requisite that the people should find its expression in some organised constitutional body, such as a parliament of some sort or other, and not in the first posse of howling ruffians which is able to collect itself into an explosive mass. It would almost seem as if the princes of the House of Orleans imagined, if they were not indeed panic-stricken by the suddenness of the event, that, as they owed their elevation to the mob, the same or a similar mob had a perfect right to pull them down at any time; or, it may be, that the manes of Charles X. rose before their consciences in that hour of trial, and commanded them to accept with resignation a similar fate. Certain it is, that their conduct on that occasion was the least conducive to the welfare of France that they could have adopted. The troops would probably have remained faithful when they had confidence in those who commanded them, and a few volleys of musketry and artillery would have settled the whole question for some time to come. In any case blood was sure to flow, and in still greater abundance. Witness the four days' war in Paris in the summer of 1848, which is said to have cost the Republic five general officers and five thousand men hors de combat, when the principle at issue was not a political one, but simply the rescue of the city from universal pillage and destruction. Whatever the private and personal grievances of the Orleans family against Louis Napoleon may be, they have no right to throw in his teeth his treatment of France, since imperialism was the only seeming possible solution of the difficulties in which France was left by their abandonment of the helm. In all probability, by the coup d'état, Louis Napoleon did save France from anarchy; whether he was justified in using the means he did to do so is another question. As far as his own personal character is concerned, it would have been far better had he kept the oath that he made to the constitution, such as it was; as far as the welfare of France is concerned, it seems now almost equally clear that he acted for the best. It was high time that VOL. XC.-NO. DXLIX. the barricade nuisance should, once for all, be put down, and the fallacy exploded, that an armed mob in any city was able to make effectual head against regular forces, even if they were allowed to make use of all the military means at their disposal. No one can doubt now that France was, in many respects, much better off under the Orleans régime: the press, the salons, the tribune, were free; literature flourished without fear of the censorship; there was a confidence in social relations that has never been known since. But, on the other hand, as that régime was destined to be abolished, the present reign of bayonets is far bet ter for France than the prospective reign of terror under the Republic of 1848. As France did not know when she was well off, it was the duty of the Orleans family, as patriots, to have taught her; but they preferred leaving her to her own devices. As to our own relations with France, we cannot help thinking that the state of things during the Empire will bear a favourable comparison with that which prevailed during the Monarchy of July. That which makes France really dangerous to surrounding nationsan enormous standing army, raised by the tyrannical conscription, and officered by men, the majority of whom depend on their swords for their livelihood-existed then as now; at all events, as the Duc d'Aumale observes, the "cadres" of the regiments existed, and might be filled in at any time. And the same vain, restless, Celtic spirit in the nation, which accounts personal liberty as nothing compared with the satisfaction of its vanity, and alone could account for the toleration of the conscription in a nation politically free, as it was in Louis Philippe's time, existed then in the same force as now. The peaceable and unaggressive nature of Louis Philippe's policy, calculated to lull the apprehensions of the neighbours of France, was perhaps more fraught with real danger than the warlike name of Napoleon, which had the F instant effect of rousing national watchfulness. During the reign of Louis Philippe causes of disagreement between England and France arose on more than one occasion, which produced a popular excitement that the French Government had the greatest difficulty in controlling; and we were, as every one knows, at that time in a state of utter unpreparedness to resist invasion. And supposing, for the sake of argument, that France simply used the English alliance for her own purposes in the Crimean war, what better can be said of the joint interference of France and England in the Belgian revolution, by which we helped to rob the King of Holland, an old ally, of the fairest part of his dominions? Suppose that Louis Napoleon, instead of allowing the steam of France's repressed warlike ardour to escape by the safetyvalve of a Russian war, in conjunction with England, had yielded to the temptation which the unpreparedness of this country afforded, and made the first essay of arms against England? It was better that our military system should be taught its inherent defects and weaknesses on the shores of the Euxine than on the shores of the British Channel. Before the Crimean war we had no militia, no volunteers, no army in an organised shape, only a few dispersed regiments-even no navy, for the ships were without hands (and we know how hastily manned was the Baltic fleet); and the consequence of the Crimean war is the creation of a compact army, which, in proportion to its numbers, is second to none in the world, backed by volunteer and militia forces capable of indefinite extension; while the regimental combination, scarcely to be called an army, which went to the Crimea, covered itself with a glory in proportion to its sufferings, and forced our Government, for very shame, to give our magnificent soldiers the same military advantages which Continental armies have constantly possessed. We do not hesitate to say, that Louis Napoleon has shown himself a true, though perhaps unconscious, friend of the British soldier. Subsequent to the Crimean war, the British army has proved itself to possess an efficiency equal to that of the wonderful mass of veterans whom the great Duke led across the Pyrenees into France. To the Crimean lesson is undoubtedly due, in a great measure, the miraculous suppression of the Indian mutiny, and that brilliant and perfectly successful campaign in China, the difficulties of which are apt to be lost sight of by the public from the very perfection of the arrangements by which they were surmounted. In that campaign French soldiers again fought by the side of our own; and what they witnessed at that time must have taught them, that whatever England may have been once, she would be now a much more desirable friend than enemy. Nothing can be more likely to disabuse the French of the notion that England is only a naval and not a military power, than the present reformed state of the British army. Indeed, a crisis in our history seems to have come, when it is absolutely necessary, for the safety of our country, that we should reassert our military supremacy as emphatically as in the days of the Plantagenet kings, when the archers of England used to make excursions when and where they pleased, unprovided with passports, on the continent of Europe. The value of seamanship, which no doubt will never cease to exist, becomes far less than it was in days when the barometer can always insure a few hours of fine weather to an ironplated steam fleet, and when a decisive naval battle-at least a naval battle in our own narrow seas— would be almost certainly an affair of artillery alone. The Romans, it must be remembered, under Duilius, in the first Punic war, beat the sailor Carthaginians in the middle of the Mediterranean, by grappling their ships, |