XXIV. 1830. prepared, and unanimously agreed to, on the very spot, CHAP. and at the table on which these gallant and unfortunate young men had suffered. This event, however, gave Government an opportunity of stating their views on these societies, in the course of a discussion on a petition presented by some commissaries on the subject. They were denounced in the loudest terms by the Ministers, as being the real cause of the alarm which existed, and the con- 317; Moniteur, Sept. sequent stagnation of commerce and distress of the work- 26, 1830. ing classes. 1 1 Ann. Hist. xiii. 316, 65. the Minis the subject. "What," said the Minister of the Interior," are the characteristics of the revolutionary régime? If I do not Speech of deceive myself, the most remarkable are a disposition to ter of the call everything in question, an immense mass of indefinite Interior on pretensions and continual appeals to force. All these features are united in the popular societies. There is no longer discussion on vague theories or philosophical questions. It is the very foundation of Government which is continually brought under discussion; the necessity of revolution, the distribution of property, the law of succession. Thus numbers are kept in a state of continual and increasing fermentation, which is the worst enemy of real political reform. There is a constant appeal to force, as the ultimate umpire of all disputes; a continual war against all the powers of society, and all ideas which do not completely accord with their own. We, too, wish for progress; but it is such a progress as may be durable, not such as can end only in destroying itself. They speak of the wishes of France; but the desires they express are not those of France, but of a knot of revolutionists at Paris, who desire to elevate themselves by keeping France in a state of permanent revolution." Wise counsel, undoubtedly! but not very palatable to those who had just achieved a revolution, and beheld others in the quiet enjoyment of its fruits.2 The Chamber supported Mini-Ann. Hist. sters almost unanimously; but the societies were not dis- 320. couraged, and a few days after, that of les Amis du Peuple VOL. IV. 2 H xiii. 319, CHAP. violated the laws so flagrantly in their hall in the Rue XXIV. Pellier that they were dissolved by force, and the president brought before the police tribunals. 1830. 66. revolution The news of the French Revolution, which excited so Attempt to powerfully the revolutionary party all over the world, ise Spain early attracted to Paris a crowd of refugees from all from Paris. countries, and especially Spain, who immediately formed a committee there, the object of which was to revolutionise the kingdoms of the Peninsula as they had done that of France. M. Mendizabal, Isturiz, Calatrava, San Miguel, the Duke de Rivas, Martinez de la Rosa, Count Toreno, and other Spanish Liberals, who had been banished from their country since the re-establishment of the absolute government of Ferdinand VII. by the invasion of the Duke d'Angoulême in 1823, formed its principal members. With them were united the leading French Liberals-in particular, M. Dupont de l'Eure, Viardot, Etienne Arago, Garnier Pagès, and others, who entered cordially into the plan, subscribed considerable sums, and prepared arms and troops for carrying their designs into execution. The Spanish government, aware of what 78, 79 Cap. was going forward, refused to recognise the government of Louis Philippe, and both parties openly prepared for hostilities. 1 1 Louis Blanc, ii. iii. 315, 332. 67. Which is secretly favoured by Louis and his It was of the utmost moment to the Spanish revolutionists to obtain the countenance, however indirect, of the French government, and they were not long of obPhilippe taining it. General Sébastiani alone of the Ministers opposed the intervention; all the others supported it. "Tell those who sent you," said M. Guizot to M. Louis Viardot, who appeared on the part of the revolutionary committee, "that France committed a great political crime in 1823; she owes to Spain a striking reparation, and that reparation shall be made." When introduced by M. Odillon Barrot to the King, his majesty received the deputation in the most gracious manner. He admitted that France was menaced with a war on the Rhine; that XXIV. 1830. a storm might any day break on her from the north, and CHAP. that it was of the last importance that it should be secured from any other attack. He admitted that the protection given by Ferdinand VII. to the Carlist refugees in the south was alarming, and that it behoved them to see that there were no longer any Pyrenees. "As to Ferdinand VII.," he added, "you may hang him if you please; he is the greatest scoundrel that ever existed." Finding the dispositions of the King and his ministers thus favourable, the deputies of the committee ventured to propose to him their views, which were to dethrone Ferdinand VII., offer the crown to the Duke de Nemours, second son of Louis Philippe, who was to espouse Donna Maria, the heiress of Spain, and secure the lasting influence of France to the south of the Pyrenees, by effecting a similar revolution in Portugal, and annexing it to the crown of Castile. How agreeable soever these projects might be to the real wishes of Louis Philippe, he dreaded too much embroiling himself with the northern powers to espouse them openly, and he contented himself, therefore, with Louis promising them his secret support, and sending 60,000 79, 81; Cap. iii. francs to Bayonne by M. Chevallon, and 40,000 to Mar- 324, 326. seilles by Colonel Moreno.1 Blanc, ii. undertaken, Secure then of the secret support of the French gov- 68. ernment, the Spanish revolutionists commenced active The entermeasures for effecting the dethronement of the house of prise is Bourbon at Madrid. The persons engaged in the enter- and fails, prise were secretly furnished with arms by M. Montalavet, the Minister of the Interior, and M. Guizot, and despatched by twos and threes, so as not to excite suspicion, to Bayonne. General Mina, who was in Paris, had a private interview with Marshal Gerard, who assured him of the warm sympathy, and promised him the secret support of the French government. "Take care, however," he added, "to hazard nothing: set out without delay for Bayonne; but swear to engage in no enterprise till France is relieved of all anxiety on the side of Europe." XXIV. 1830. Oct. 15. CHAP. But this advice was too wise and judicious to suit the disposition of the Spanish revolutionists, who, like all refugees, were credulous and sanguine in the extreme, and impatient for the moment of terminating their painful suspense. Despite all counsels to the contrary, accordingly, they made preparations for crossing the Bidassoa, and in the middle of October the attempt was made by five hundred refugees. But experience had taught the Spanish troops the real tendency of revolutionary government, and it ended in a signal defeat. A small band of the boldest, under Chapalangarra, was first struck down by a volley from a Spanish outpost, which killed the leader, and dispersed his band. This disaster, like most first defeats in civil conflicts, proved fatal to the whole enterprise. Valdez, with another body, was speedily surrounded at Vera, and if not rescued was sure to perish. To effect his deliverance Mina set out from Bayonne, and, having collected a considerable force, made himself master of the important town of Irun. But there terminated his success. The Spanish Royalists accumulated round them on all sides; Valdez, defeated in an attack on a fortified convent near Vera, was obliged to fly across the French frontier, with the loss of three-fourths of his forces; Vigo, who commanded a third band of two hundred men, was shut up at Maulian; and Mina himself, surrounded by ten thousand Royalists, was driven from the heights of San Marcial, where he had taken post: his followers dispersed; and he himself only escaped, severely wounded and covered with blood, after having walked thirty-eight leagues in forty-two hours, through the thick woods and rugged ridges of the Pyrenees. Similar 1 Ann. Hist. attempts on the side of Catalonia proved equally unfortu696; Louis nate; and in the beginning of November the revolutionary bands were defeated on all sides, and tranquillity restored along the whole French frontier.1 Oct. 18. Oct. 27. Blanc, ii. 83, 86, This check to the propagandists excited little discourage XXIV. 1830. 69. Belgium, ment in France, in consequence of the signal success which CHAP. attended at the same time their efforts in another quarter. BELGIUM was the country upon which the chief hopes of the revolutionists were fixed. This beautiful country, the State of richest and most favoured by nature of any in Europe to and its disthe north of the Alps, long dissevered by religious dissen- positions. sion and the atrocious cruelty of Philip II. and the Duke of Alva, had at length been reunited, and the most signal prosperity had attended the reunion. The old seventeen provinces, the garden of northern Europe, united under one paternal government, had been eminently prosperous since the Kingdom of the Netherlands had been established in 1814. Even the desperate inroad of Napoleon, closed by the disaster of Waterloo in the succeeding year, had only given a temporary check to their prosperity. The taxes were moderate, and sufficient for the expenses of government; a respectable army, and the guarantee of the allied powers, secured the national independence; the frontier fortresses towards France had been put in the best possible state of defence, chiefly at the expense of Great Britain, which had assigned to that important object the whole of the share which its Government received of the indemnity levied on France by the second treaty of Paris; and although, as is always the case on a union, there were several points in dispute between Holland and Belgium, and the inhabitants of the former country lamented the loss of the seat of government, and those of the latter complained that, in the allocation of burdens, too large a portion of the public debt had been laid upon them, yet, upon the whole, there was great external prosperity, and, to appearance, great internal contentment, among the inhabitants of the united kingdom. A system of representation, neither aristocratic nor oligarchical, secured a due attention to the interests of the various branches of industry in the country, and the deliberations of the Chambers had, of late years, been distinguished by a remarkable concordance on objects |