in hand, the legions of the Holy Alliance-the young Napoléon, first consul of a military republic, would, I say, have aroused and united all the energies demanded for this daring career. If, on the other hand, the revolution was a combat for what had been obtained by the charta, and not for a new system that was to succeed the Restoration; - if the internal policy of France was to be-conservation, the external policy-peace; if monarchy was to be preserved and royalty respected, it was better to keep a crown that nine centuries had hallowed, and to preserve to majesty its history and its decorations. Tranquillity and the past, with Henry the Fifth-agitation and the future, with young Napoléon-these, I repeat, were the two great and complete ideas between which the people, if they could then have reasoned with the cool philosophy with which we reason now, would have chosen after the combat of July. But in times of trouble and intrigue, it is not one great idea that strikes us with force; we bend beneath a thousand little circumstances and considerations. Besides, though I have conjecturally united the young Bonaparte with a republic as the best combination, we must not forget that, at the time of the Revolution, those who thought of Napoléon, thought of the

Empire; those who thought of a republic, thought of Lafayette. The people, moreover, still saw in Henry V. the shadow of the old 'régime.' A long array of peers and pensions, of guards and tabourets, stood between him and them. They had been fighting to the cry of "A bas les Bourbons," and the blood was yet dripping from their clothes, which had been shed by the soldiers of legitimacy.

But might not a liberal regency have been named ? Was not Louis-Philippe himself a Bourbon? And is it not just possible, that the same people who bound up the wounds of the Swiss, would have felt pity for the innocence of a child? Charles the Tenth at the head of his guards, the Duchesse de Berri with the Duc de Bordeaux in her arms, might at two different moments have changed the destinies of France. But the blood of the grand constable was frozen in the veins of his descendant; the heroine of La Vendée was guarded in her chamber; the religion of legitimacy passed away when he who wore the crown of Henry IV. had neither his heart nor his sword; and an army of omnibuses dispersed the heroes who had gathered round the oriflamme of St. Louis.

But whatever might have been best under possible circumstances, I am by no means sur

prised at what took place under existing ones. Nay, more; whatever government it might have been advisable to form for France in 1830, as a liberal and rational Frenchman, I should be anxious, in 1834, to maintain if possible the government that exists; - liberty cannot exist without stability-it cannot exist under perpetual and violent changes; and there are some cases where it is wise for a people to preserve even many evils in order to acquire the habit so necessary for all social purposes, of preserving something. They, I say, who when everything was to form four years ago might wisely have been republicans or legitimists, cannot wisely be so now-when a government is constituted, and can only be upset by a new and more terrible revolution, of which they could neither direct the course nor predict the consequences. Moreover, the government of Louis-Philippe was, if not the strongest, perhaps the easiest and safest, that could have been adopted; and I own that what most surprises me is, not that the French should have chosen this government, but that, now they have chosen it, they should be so hostile to their choice. They seem to have thought that, because the present king would owe his situation to the popular voice, he would always concede to popular opinion. If

this was their theory, was it a wise one? Do not we know that every man is under the influence-not of the circumstances which placed him in a particular station-but of the circumstances resulting from the situation in which he is placed. Give a man rank and power, he will endeavour to preserve that rank and power; it matters not how he obtained it. If there be in his origin difficulties to overcome, it is to his origin that he will be perpetually opposed. The veriest schoolboy in politics and in history might see at once-that the life of a prince sprung from a popular convulsion, would be passed in struggling against popular concessions. Here he may do well to yield, there to resist-but to resist he will somewhere be obliged, to yield he will always be required. The nation will be unruly under him, and you must govern an unruly nation as, if you are a skilful rider, you will govern an unruly horse — you will not dare to lay the reins upon his neck, but as you pat his crest you will play with his bridle; if you give him his head, or if you pull at his mouth, it is neither force nor fear that will restrain him- he will run away with you.

The system of the present King of the French must be a system of repression, for the expectations which he excited are extravagant: but it

114 REVIEW OF THE REVOLUTION.

may be a system of granting much in order to obtain the power of refusing more: if he refuse everything, if he pull too hard--But-I am about to recur to my simile of the unruly horse.

It now only remains to me to say that in the two questions which arose respecting the throne, first, whether it should be declared vacant on account of the absence of the family of Charles the Tenth; secondly, whether LouisPhilippe should begin the new monarchy, or take a title which would connect him with his predecessors - a negative was given to the more moderate party, and so far the commencement of another era was undoubtedly proclaimed. A reference to the charta as it was and as it is,* forms the best conclusion to this part of my work.

* See Appendix.