that the title of those who govern is unassailable, that he said fairly to his accomplices, Pour révolutionner la France il faut commencer par la DE CATHOLICISER. He did not talk of decalvinising certain of our provinces, nor of dejansenising certain corporations; their actual state of revolt against the spiritual power guaranteed beforehand their inclination to withdraw themselves from the yoke of the temporal. 'And let it not be supposed, that because I am a Catholic, I must therefore be more credulous or blind to my own interests, when I regard him who governs me as the immediate depository of the Divine Power, and by that title independent of all popular caprice. If in this I submit to a dogma of my religion, I profess, at the same time, that of a sane and enlightened reason. The Catholic dogma is also the key-stone of the vault of that great social edifice whereof I am a member; remove that key-stone-dare only to touch it, immediately the whole trembles and is shaken, and presently everything in the state is confounded, and falls to pieces. Chaos and anarchy succeed to ancient order; the governing authority has lost its rights, but I, the governed, have I preserved mine? and what is become of my happiness and my security?'-pp. 110, 156, 157. In this point of view, since the usurpations of the papacy have been suspended, has the Roman Catholic system been represented to Roman Catholic kings, in its political relations; and this view they cannot fail to understand, and heartily to approve, however little some of them may have believed what is false in the system of their church, or however incapable they may have been of feeling the everlasting truths that are retained in that great mystery of iniquity. There is no other royal family so pledged to this church by hereditary feelings as the Bourbons. It is said that the heavy afflictions which came upon Louis XIV., in his latter years, were received by him as a chastisement for his ambition; and it has been asserted that he was forewarned, in some mysterious manner, of the heavier visitations which were to fall upon his posterity. The truth of this may well be called in question; and any expressions of his successors which have been supposed to refer to such foreknowledge, are sufficiently explained by an ordinary degree of foresight. This, however, is certain, that if Louis le Grand repented of his ravages in the Palatinate, and of his other wars, he felt no compunctious visitings for the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and the dragonades which followed it; he accounted that atrocious policy among his good works, and is lauded for it, at this day, by those who respect his memory. However the Gallican church might resist certain pretensions of the Vatican, it was of the same spirit as the Roman church. The Italian poet, who died in the arms of Francis I., complimented the French by saying,. hat, from their beginning as a nation, they had neither changed, nor nor desired to change their laws. In this observation there was none of that prophetic spirit which sometimes belongs to poetry; but it is true of the spirit of the French church, from the time of its first corruption. That church displayed the same temper under the Restoration, as when it was in its strength; like John Bunyan's old giant, who, when no longer able to sally out upon pilgrims, and destroy them as his lawful game, sat grinning at them in his den as they passed by. The books which were circulated, and may better be described as counter-poisons to infidelity than an antidote for it, are proof of this. Proof was given also in the law of sacrilege, where the punishment (humanly speaking) went far beyond the measure of the offence. It was manifested in those acts of scandalous intolerance which sometimes occurred at the funeral of an actor in Paris, and with circumstances of more odious brutality on the death of an heretical * foreigner in the provinces. It was manifested also in those tumults which, on the first days of the Restoration, broke out against the Protestants in Normandy, and in the south of France. They commenced, no doubt, in a political feeling, the Protestants having, in the course of the Revolution, become the wealthy proprietors of confiscated estates; but they speedily assumed a religious character, in the dreadful meaning which that expression conveys, when applied to insurrection and war, and the cry of Let us have another St. Bartholomew!' was heard. The religious bistory of the French people is indeed, in every point of view, deplorable. From the commencement of the Re-, formation, the excesses in that country on both sides were equal -though the bonfires of persecution and St. Bartholemew's redlettered day make an awful difference in the balance of crimes. Unhappily it must be deemed of little consequence on which side there was most Christian truth, when there was such an utter abandonment of Christian charity on both. The wars which grew out of the Reformation, bad as they were in their origin, became worse in their progress, for, beginning on misdirected principles of religion, they became, in their course, almost wholly political and factious. There is the sin of persecution upon the nation; the sin of apostacy upon that large part of it which followed the example of Henry IV., and the sin of impiety upon that, it may be feared, still larger portion, who have rejected all revealed truths. With this apostacy immorality has kept pace. No other capital produces so great or so injurious an effect upon the provinces as Paris. When the Czar Peter saw the morals of the higher classes *The cases of Lady Hamilton and Mrs. Jordan will be remembered. in that city, and the disposition of the lower, he said that if he was King of France he would burn it to the ground. Every empire,' said the Emperor Timour, which is not established in morality and religion, from that empire all order, grandeur, and power shall pass away.' How are those foundations to be re-laid in a land where-to use the same emperor's words, the evil-minded have opened the door of discord and desolation, and have awakened the sleeping destruction?' Relaid they must be, before there can be any secure superstructure of civil order; but not with the same materials, or they will again be undermined and give way. If as a punishment for the manifold sins of our own distracted and corrupted nation, the Church of England, by the inveterate malice of its old enemies, and the treachery of those who should defend it, were to be overthrown, its foundations would remain unshaken, for it is built upon the rock, and a generation would not pass away before it would be reedified upon the same basis, with fairer proportions, and on an extended scale. There can be no such restoration for the Romish Church in France: before the national church can be re-established in that country, it must be purified of all that is directly repugnant to the word of God,-of all that insults the understanding and outrages the feelings of man. There may arise a government strong enough for effecting this, but till it is effected no government can be stable. Hitherto it has not been within the bounds of reasonable hope that this should be attempted by the Bourbons. Can it be accomplished by Louis Philip? If he thought it desirable (and for supposing this there is not the slightest ground), he is even weaker than his predecessor : 'for nothing's more uncertain Than power that stands not on his proper basis, He has still to maintain a struggle with the principle of democracy, which only attained half its object in placing him upon the throne. With what difficulty he has been able to form a ministry has just been seen. The Chamber which that ministry has to meet has been recently thus described:* Fear,-fear of a republic on one side, and of a Carlist revolution on the other, actuates it; but this fear is of such a nervous, unsettled, fluctuating sentiment, that there is no accounting what influence an orator, or an insurrection, or any of the chance accidents of public life might have upon it. As to a veritable principle, any thing fixed, or to be depended on, it is not to be found.' And what *Times,' 22nd September, 1832. says says the trumpeter of La Fayette,-that La Fayette-that old incorrigible-who, as his trumpeter declares, est toujours la plus. haute et la plus pure personification de la révolution de Juilletan Avatar of the revolutionary principle, its Krishna, or its Rama, -he tells us that the actual question is now less a question of liberty than of equality; that Louis Philip is roi de par les pavés; that torpor within, and peace without, are the conditions upon. which the system of his government exists; it cannot, therefore, exist during a war which must appeal to all the national strength, and to all generous passions; that the duty of the popular king was to press forward with all sails set upon the tide of the revolutionary waters; that legitimacy fell, eight and thirty years ago, with the head of Louis XVI. (!); that the present is a system of terror, which, like that of Robespierre, must have its 9th of Thermidor; that if Louis Philip, roi de par les pavés, refuses still to obey the impulse of the movement,-of the La Fayettists-of those who would kindle the flame of an insurrectionary war over Europe, in that case-le refus de l'impôt est le sens littéral, le sens complet, et en quelque sorte le dogme en pleine vigueur du système représentatif. Et alors que faire ? Des ordonnances? des coups d'état? Mais si l'on n'était pas de force à jouer ce jeu Attendons le jugement de DIEU!' And with these words, which, under the profanation of the holy name, threaten insurrection and appeal to physical force, M. Sarrans, formerly editor of the Courrier des Electeurs,' and late aide-de-camp of La Fayette, concludes a work which has this merit, that it faithfully represents its hero and his times. The power to which this agitator appeals has been described by the Belgian Catholic," in graphic language, which would be weakened by translation. L'Emeute,-puissance mystérieuse qu'a fait éclore le soleil de Juillet, qui a ses agens, ses ministres, sa police et sa diplomatie; drame politique qui se joue dans la rue, soumis, comme celui du théâtre, à certaines règles de temps et de lieu, aux applaudissemens ou aux sifflets des curieux; science nouvelle, qui a ses maîtres et ses docteurs, ses doctrines particulières, son langage, sa discipline-L'Emeute-personnage robuste, au teint plombé à la voix rauque, aux bras nus, à l'œil fier, à la démarche hardie, qui marche ou s'arrête, s'avance ou recule, à l'ordre d'un chef qu'on ne voit pas, et qui est partout; personnage téméraire, qui se fait un devoir de l'audace, jouit au milieu du désordre, frappe sans haine, tombe sans se plaindre-L'Emeute-prodigieuse invention de notre siècle,mélange singulier de courage et de férocité, phénomène moral horrible à voir, précieux d observer, dans lequel l'extrême civilisation semble se ratacher au premier anneau anneau de la barbarie, et qui montre, au milieu de la nation la plus polie de l'univers, une masse d'hommes conduits à l'état sauvage, ramenés à une enfance brutale par la corruption des mœurs et par l'athéisme-L'Emeute enfin, produit de la capitale-spéculation politique et financière, exploitée maintenant, dit-on, par des étrangers ennemis de la France, et qui du lieu de sa naissance se répand partout où il y a des hommes à ruiner, un commerce à détruire, partout où l'autorité peut être attaquée avec succès. L'Emeute est la vie de la France depuis les glorieuses journées de Juillet.' pp. 49, 50. But when M. Sarrans asked what was to happen if the government should not be strong enough to put down this insurrectionary power, he ought to have asked himself also what was to be expected if it should. Let not he that girdeth on his harness boast himself, as he that putteth it off!' The sort of language which he holds towards Louis Philip's government was held toward the Directory by the last and fiercest of the Jacobins, and the Directory appointed Buonaparte to answer it. The party of the Movement may deceive themselves, but they cannot long deceive others. No Government can be carried on with a legislative body that refuses to vote the indispensable supplies, nor with a press which, when they are voted, excites the people to refuse payment. No people, who are civilized enough to feel the necessity of order, will be contented with a Government which cannot make itself obeyed. The Parisians themselves,-who have long repented of the Three Days more sincerely than they ever exulted in them,— will support any Government in any measures that are necessary for preserving internal peace. If this can be done only by a military despot, they will submit to him, as entirely as they did to the Emperor Napoleon. If a Restoration be required for it, the French will again consecrate the spot upon which a restored Bourbon shall first set foot, and will kiss the ground upon which he has trod. The principle of order must triumph in France, unless the world is to be re-barbarised; and in Europe that principle is incompatible with democracy, whatever it may be in America. It must rest upon the foundation of religious obedience to lawful authority this is a Christian duty, and other foundation can no man lay.' Through what changes the French Government may pass before the foundation can be re-laid, it is impossible to foreBut if in the Bourbons the sins of the fathers have been so heavily visited upon the children, what has the house of Orleans to look for! The crown which Louis Philip has obtained in consequence of his father's crimes, may be expected to carry with it a curse, if it has been taken as ambitiously by the son, as it was see. sought |