with a man old enough to be her father, while she was an infant, and next to a man she never was loved by; and to the same cause she owed the persecution she encountered when his coldness had been turned into aversion. To the same cause, Madame le Monnier owed her forced marriage, when a girl, to a man old enough to be her great-grandfather, and the life of agony, rather than misery, she afterwards led. The powers of the Crown came in aid of Aristocratic pride and Aristocratic fury; and the State prison yawned to receive whatever victim was required by the demon of family pride or domestic tyranny,-aping, almost passing, the tyranny of the Crown. These are the blessings which the Revolution is charged with having torn from unhappy France! These are the glories, and this the felicity of the old régime! These are the goods which the Gods of legitimacy provide for their votaries! And to regain these joys it is, that our English Tories would aid the Carlist's handful of priests and nobles against the thirty millions of our free and dauntless neighbours--just as to perpetuate the like glories of absolute Monarchy and pure Aristocracy elsewhere, the same Tories are knit in the bands of hearty friendship, with all that is most bigoted and despotical in countries not yet visited by the irresistible wave of General Reform!* * We have, however reluctantly, been compelled to give all our extracts without translation. Our wish is, above every thing, on all occasions, to make every word of our Journal acceptable to all classes of our readers, more especially when we are dwelling on subjects so peculiarly interesting to the middle and humbler classes of society as the evils of aristocratic domination. But here, there really was no choice; for the letters from which almost all our extracts are taken appear to us quite impossible to translate. The attempt would make the whole merits of these compositions evaporate. May we not, drawing good from evil, hope that some readers will be induced to study the French language by the curiosity we may have here excited? Even the French are now universally learning ours, through love and respect for us. ART. XII.-Adresse d'un Constitutionel aux Constitutionels. Paris: 1835. TH HIS is the avowed production of one of the ardent, most virtuous, and most persevering of the French statesmen whom the extraordinary times of the Revolution produced-the Count Roederer. He is now living, at a very advanced age, in the full possession of his vigorous understanding, and of the respect and esteem of all good men; and, equally above both the manoeuvres of intrigue and the bustle of faction, he reserves for his country the benefits of his wisdom, gathered from long observation and much experience, and matured by the tranquillizing influence of e'ghty winters. His principles have been no doubt biassed by the dreadful scenes through which he passed; and to prevent their recurring is his chief and not unnatural desire. But this may also lead him too far in his tolerance of abuses, and in his dread of unsalutary reforms; while the injustice which he had formerly experienced from popular caprice, and the ingratitude and levity too often characteristic of party combination, may have given him too general a distrust of such connexions, and even extended to the people a blame, only justly due to factious leaders, and their selfish followers. We believe it may be taken as a truth, confirmed by all experience, that the people at large, in a community of reading and reflecting men, living under a tolerably free government, may easily be misled for a little while by the violence and by the machinations of the knots of silly or selfish men who abound in all parties; just as the people may be for a season led astray by the clamours of the press. A mob in like manner, -and it is the extreme case,-may, for a day or two, be excited by some falsehood or some fury, got up to serve the of purpose the hour; and yet the next sun may rise upon the sober sadness and calm judgment of that mob itself: so the delusions of a more extensive kind, produced by factions and their agents, never last above a very short time; because the truth will, in the long run, pierce all the mists raised by the intrigues of the jobber, or the violence of the partisan, and justice be finally and amply done. So, we doubt not, that Count Roederer has long since had the verdict of his countrymen-even of all parties-reversing the decision, first pronounced, possibly by men of many various classes, against his conduct in 1792; grounded as that was in the purest principles, and offending both the factions of the day, because terrified by a moderation which kept him from joining in the excesses of either. The principal object of the present tract is to warn the French politicians, how they confine too closely within the bounds suited to a long settled government, and to ordinary times, the interference of the King with the administration of affairs. Our readers are aware, that both his present ministers, and those who are expected to be such, have grave objections to his Majesty presiding, as he always does, in his Cabinet. They say, that this prevents full and free discussion; and that a person who has no responsibility in the measures adopted, is thus the most powerful counsellor in bringing about their adoption. They also argue, that in England such a thing is unknown. But Count Roederer justly says-and it is his whole argument in a sentence-You must compare the situation of the King of the French not with that of William IV., but with that of William III.;-and true this is in a great degree. Nevertheless, we do not see how so very constant and systematic, so daily and hourly an interference with every detail of office, as is understood to be the present course of the French Government,- -can be consistent either with the conduct of much business, or with the responsibility of the ministers, or with the unrestrained discussion of the ministerial measures. It has another bad effect, greatly to be regarded by the Monarch himself above all other parties. If his servants are always, in their councils, to be under the restraint of his Majesty's presence, it will be impossible to prevent them from meeting privately; and this will give umbrage as a caballing, and will even be forced into something like a cabal, apart from, and so against the King; but it will also, which is far worse, be impossible to avoid meetings of a few, apart from their colleagues, as well as their Royal Master, and this will produce every kind of intrigue. We must set Count Roederer right in the exceptions which he fancies he has found to the English rule of the King not attending Cabinets. He quotes our newspaper announcements (in what is called the Court Circulars) to show, that His Majesty held 'a Council, at which a proclamation was agreed upon for dis'solving the Parliament. This is a pure mistake. These councils are nothing but formalities; the whole matter having before been agreed upon at Cabinet meetings without the King, and at audiences of the several Ministers with his Majesty; and such paragraphs would just as well prove that Household-officers and Archbishops attend Councils as the King-for they, too, are generally there. The present state of parties in France is truly strange, and not wholly unlike our own condition. There is no longer room to say, as the wits of Paris did a few weeks ago, that we have a ministry and no majority, and they a majority and no ministry; for they have now a ministry, such as it is, and possibly the majority may be continued by the same concurrence of accidents which has hitherto created it. A great accession of weight, both from virtue, from capacity, and from knowledge, has no doubt been added to the King's government in the person of the new Premier, the Duc de Broglie; whom no time will ever see bartering his principles for place, and carrying on a wretched system of concessions, where one set of men will allow, and another compel a resistance. He has certain opinions, which he holds because he believes them to be true and right; and nothing on earth will bribe him to pretend either indifference to them, or favour for other sentiments, against the tenor of his past life, and the dictates of his own mind. But are his colleagues such men? The Duke is not a whole ministry; he has others to work with, and to work through, and these are surely not men formed to command the same respect and claim the like confidence from their country. Former Carlists, and even recent Republicans, uniting with each other, with the different shades of moderate men, and with the Doctrinaires, present not such an assemblage of statesmen, as will warrant any wellreflecting portion of the community in saying, We are for this government.' Dread of revolution-the difficulty of making a more pure ministry-a balance of conflicting parties in the Chambers may give such a cabinet a chance of ephemeral existence; and they may manage to get through the session, now somewhat advanced, and trust to the chapter of accidents during the vacation for getting on next year; but to no useful national purpose, in no rational sense, can it now be called a government equal to the affairs which it has been called to administer; and its continued existence must needs impair the stability of the monarchical system now happily established amongst them. It is most deeply to be lamented, that any such dangers should now beset the constitutional cause- -which is so dear not only to all good Frenchmen and all good Englishmen, but to every friend of peace and right principles all the world over. There are other perils, but all bound up with the want of a powerful and well-principled cabinet. The people all ask, what they have gained by the bloodshed in 1830 and in 1832 ?—what reform of abuses-what reduction of public burdens-what secu rity against the thing of all things most hateful to them, the revival of Priestly domination? Nor will they-nor ought they to be satisfied with the common answer, You have gained all 'you have not lost, and all you would have lost, but for the 'glories of the three days?' The people have a right to much more than this. It is true, that the despotism of Charles X. is put down for ever; true that the old Aristocracy can no longer domineer over the country; true that the Priests are not now the domestic tyrants of each village, and over each house, as they were fast becoming five years ago. But a country may have all this to thank the government for, and yet be justly discontented; and without being at all unreasonable, demand a great deal more. There is too large a revenue levied; too great an expense destined for the executive; too great an army maintained for a country that has two millions of National Guards; and there is far too limited a scale of representation-not, we believe, a hundred thousand voters to choose the representatives of thirty millions of people! Then, the foreign policy of the court is too placable towards the remains of the Holy Allies, and towards the Priests—as if the object of the new dynasty was to gain over the Legitimates and the Carlists abroad and at home. Vain thought! Wild fantasy! Can the King of the French ever hope to bribe those whose throne he fills-by any fair wordsnay, by any concessions short of descending from that throne? As well might a Liberal Ministry in England hope to convert over the Tories by smooth speeches, and by disappointing the hopes of the people, their natural supporters-an error, we devoutly believe, never again to be committed. Or can the constitutional monarch-the King of the French-conceive it possible to disarm the hatred to all such thrones as his, which domineers in all despotic breasts, and to win over from the exiled Legitimates, the Imperial and Royal sympathy towards a crown bestowed directly by the only true sources of all power'-the people— that object of ceaseless and inextinguishable hatred to all despots! There is another subject of much astonishment to us, and which we should think well calculated to give great uneasiness in France. We allude to the prosecutions against the Press, now proceeding with unrelenting and most impolitic severity. The Nationel was brought before the Chamber of Peers for a contempt; and M. Rouen, after a most able defence by M. Carrel, was condemned to pay a fine of 10,000 francs, and to two years' imprisonment, for a libel infinitely less defamatory and less insolent, than both our Houses of Parliament daily suffer to pass wholly unpunished. Some weeks afterwards he was sentenced to the same punishment for a libel upon the King. And within the last few weeks he was prosecuted for the third time; when the newspapers represent M. Carrel as having read, by way of defence, a letter written upon the subject of such prosecutions by Lord Brougham to M. Arago. We mention this to show how desirous our enlightened and most friendly neighbours are to benefit by our experience, instead of feeling any paltry rivalry or jealousy of us. On this occasion, the jury seem to have deemed the time for resistance come; and M. Rouen was ac |