name

over the ignoble object which it had in view, the base means by which it was carried out, the ruthless disregard for the inclinations, the affections, the happiness, and the morality of its principal victims; and will then think of it as carried on in private life in order to come at the reversion of some young and helpless girl's inheritance, will perhaps find it hard to understand how the shame can be any the less because the principal plotter was a king, and the victims were a queen and a nation.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHARTISM AND YOUNG IRELAND.

THE year 1848 was an era in the modern history of Europe. It was the year of unfulfilled revolutions. The fall of the dynasty of Louis Philippe may be said to have set the revolutionary tide flowing. The event in France had long been anticipated by keen-eyed observers. There are many predictions, delivered and recorded before the revolution was yet near, which show that it ought not to have taken the world by surprise. The reign of the Bourgeois King was unsuited in its good and in its bad qualities alike to the genius and the temper of the French people. The people of France have defects enough which friends and enemies are ready to point out to them; but it can hardly be denied that they like at least the appearance of a certain splendor and magnanimity in their systems of government. This is, indeed, one of their weaknesses. It lays them open to the allurements of any brilliant adventurer, like the First Napoleon or the Third, who can promise them national greatness and glory at the expense perhaps of domestic liberty. But it makes them peculiarly intolerant of anything mean and sordid in a system or a ruler. There are peoples, no doubt, who could be persuaded, and wisely persuaded, to put up with a good deal of the ignoble and the shabby in their foreign policy for the sake of domestic comfort and tranquillity. But the French people are always impatient of anything like meanness in their rulers, and the govern ment of Louis Philippe was especially mean. Its foreign

policy was treacherous; its diplomatists were commissioned to act as tricksters; the word of a French minister at a foreign court began to be regarded as on a level of credibility with a dicer's oath. The home policy of the King was narrow-minded and repressive enough; but a man who played upon the national weakness more wisely might have persuaded his people to be content with defects at home for the sake of prestige abroad. From the hour when it became apparent in France that the nation was not respected abroad, the fall of the dynasty was only a matter of time and change. The terrible story of the De Praslin family helped to bring about the catastrophe; the alternate weakness and obstinacy of the Government forced it on; and the King's own lack of decision made it impossible that when the trial had come it could end in any way but one.

Louis Philippe fled to England, and his flight was the signal for long pent-up fires to break out all over Europe. Revolution soon was aflame over nearly all the courts and capitals of the Continent. Revolution is like an epidemic; it finds out the weak places in systems. The two European countries which, being tried by it, stood it best, were England and Belgium. In the latter country the King made frank appeal to his people, and told them that if they wished to be rid of him he was quite willing to go. Language of this kind is new in the mouths of sovereigns; and the Belgians are a people well able to appreciate it. They de clared for their King, and the shock of the revolution passed harmlessly away. In England and Ireland the effect of the events in France was instantly made manifest. The Chartist agitation at once came to a head. Some of the Chartist leaders called out for the dismissal of the ministry, the dissolution of the Parliament, the Charter and "no surrender." A national convention of Chartists began its sittings in London to arrange for a monster demonstration on April 10th. Some of the speakers openly declared that the people were now quite ready to fight for their Charter. Others, more cautious, advised that no step should be taken against the law until at least it was quite certain that the people were stronger than the upholders of the existing laws. Nearly all the leading Chartists spoke of the revolu tion in France as an example offered in good time to the

English people; and it is somewhat curious to observe how it was assumed in the most evident good faith that what we may call the wage-receiving portion of the population of these islands constitutes exclusively the English people. What the educated, the wealthy, the owners of land, the proprietors of factories, the ministers of the different denom inations, the authors of books, the painters of pictures, the bench, the bar, the army, the navy, the medical professionwhat all these or any of them might think with regard to any proposed constitutional changes was accounted a matter in nowise affecting the resolve of the English "people." The moderate men among the Chartists themselves were soon unable to secure a hearing; and the word of order went round among the body, that "the English people" must have the Charter or a Republic. What had been done in France enthusiasts fancied might well be done in England.

It was determined to present a monster petition to the House of Commons demanding the Charter, and, in fact, offering a last chance to Parliament to yield quietly to the demand. The petition was to be presented by a deputation who were to be conducted by a vast procession up to the doors of the House. The procession was to be formed on Kennington Common, the space then unenclosed which is now Kennington Park, on the south side of London. There the Chartists were to be addressed by their still trusted leader, Feargus O'Connor, and they were to march in military order to present their petition. The object undoubtedly was to make such a parade of physical force as should overawe the Legislature and the Government, and demonstrate the impossibllity of refusing a demand backed by such a reserve of power. The idea was taken from O'Connell's policy in the monster meetings; but there were many of the Chartists who hoped for something more than a mere demonstration of physical force, and who would have been heartily glad if some untimely or unreasonable interference on the part of the authorities had led to a collision. A strong faith still survived at that day in what was grandiosely called the might of earnest numbers. Ardent young Chartists who belonged to the time of life when anything seems possible to the brave and faithful, and when facts and exam

ples count for nothing unless they favor one's own views, fully believed that it needed but the firing of the first shot, "the sparkle of the first sword drawn," to give success to the arms, though but the bare arms, of the people, and to inaugurate the reign of liberty. Therefore, however differently and harmlessly events may have turned out, we may be certain that there went to the rendezvous at Kennington Common, on that April 10th, many hundreds of ignorant and excitable young men who desired nothing so much as a collision with the police and the military, and the reign of liberty to follow. The proposed procession was declared illegal, and all peaceful and loyal subjects were warned not to take any part in it. But this was exactly what the more ardent among the Chartists expected and desired to see. They were rejoiced that the Government had proclaimed the procession unlawful. Was not that the proper occasion for resolute patriots to show that they represented a cause above despotic law? Was not that the very opportunity offered to them to prove that the people were more mighty than their rulers, and that the rulers must obey or abdicate? Was not the whole sequence of proceedings thus far exactly after the pattern of the French Revolution? The people resolve that they will have a certain demonstration in a certain way; the oligarchical Government declare that they shall not do so; the people persevere, and of course the next thing must be that the Government falls, exactly as in Paris. When poor Dick Swiveller, in Dickens's story, is recovering from his fever, he looks forth of his miserable bed and makes up his mind that he is under the influence of some such magic spell as he has become familiar with in the "Arabian Nights." His poverty-stricken little nurse claps her thin hands with joy to see him alive; and Dick makes up his mind that the clapping of the hands is the sign understood of all who read Eastern romance, and that next must appear at the princess's summons the row of slaves with jars of jewels on their heads. Poor Dick, reasoning from his experiences in the "Arabian Nights," was not one whit more astray than enthusiastic Chartists reasoning for the sequence of English politics from the evidence of what had happened in France. The slaves with the jars of jewels on their heads were just as likely to follow the clap of the

poor girl's hands, as the events that had followed a popular demonstration in Paris to follow a popular demonstration in London. To begin with, the Chartists did not represent any such power in London as the Liberal deputies of the French Chamber did in Paris. In the next place, London does not govern England, and in our time, at least, never did. In the third place, the English Government knew perfectly well that they were strong in the general support of the nation, and were not likely to yield for a single moment to the hesitation which sealed the fate of the French monarchy.

The Chartists fell to disputing among themselves very much as O'Connell's Repealers had done. Some were for disobeying the orders of the authorities and having the procession, and provoking rather than avoiding a collision. At a meeting of the Chartist Convention held the night before the demonstration, "the eve of Liberty," as some of the orators eloquently termed it, a considerable number were for going armed to Kennington Common. Feargus O'Connor had, however, sense enough still left to throw the weight of his influence against such an insane proceeding, and to insist that the demonstration must show itself to be, as it was from the first proclaimed to be, a strictly pacific proceeding. This was the parting of the ways in the Chartist as it had been in the Repeal agitation. The more ardent spirits at once withdrew from the organization. Those who might even at the very last have done mischief if they had remained part of the movement, withdrew from it; and Chartism was left to be represented by an open-air meeting and a petition to Parliament, like all the other demonstrations that the metropolis had seen to pass, hardly heeded, across the field of politics. But the public at large was not aware that the fangs of Chartism had been drawn before it was let loose to play on Kennington Common that memorable 10th of April. London awoke in great alarm that day. The Chartists in their most sanguine moments never ascribed to themselves half the strength that honest alarmists of the bourgeois class were ready that morning to ascribe to them. The wildest rumors were spread abroad in many parts of the metropolis. Long before the Chartists had got together on Kennington Common at all, various remote quarters of London were filled