M. Thiers and M. Lamartine were contributors, a similar article appeared, for which the editor was also prosecuted and convicted; and several other prosecutions were instituted. The king opened the Chambers in March, and is met by a hostile address, drawn up by M. Dupont de L'Eure and others, in which it is alleged that "an unjust distrust of the sentiments and reason of France is the fundamental idea of the king's administration." This address was voted

by a majority of 221 to 181. The chamber is again dissolved; every resource of power and corruption is brought to bear upon the country; but in vain. The opposition press is equally active and equally hostile; and the result is, a majority of from 60 to 70 against the ministers. The king now saw that the only chance which was left him for maintaining his throne was by a determined act of arbitrary power, supported, if necessary, by military force. The fourteenth article of the Charter ran thus:-" Le Roi nomme a tous les emplois d'administration publique, et fait les réglements et ordonnances necessaire pour l'exécution des lois et la sûreté de l'Etat." Under this article, which Louis Philippe, in his opening speech, denounced as "having been so hatefully interpreted," the king issued his three famous ordonnances, the one prohibiting any periodical to be published without the licence of the crown, the second dissolving the newly-elected chambers, and the third restricting the elective franchise to that class of voters exclusively who had acquired the double vote by the law of 1820. To these ordonnances the editors of twelve newspapers, headed by M. Thiers, next day publish their defiance. A force is sent to break the printing-presses; the populace of Paris rise in tumult in their defence; Marshal Marmont is entrusted with the command of the forces, and the Revolution of 1830 breaks forth.

And here again, as of course, was the treason of the French soldiery exhibited. This desertion of the soldiery is, as we have already said, the true

cause of the facility with which the French revolutions have been accomplished, and it forcibly illustrates the perfidy of the French race. The veteran battalion, a force consisting of 1,100 men, surrendered at the first summons; the 50th regiment of the line refused to act; the 5th regiment, posted at the Chamber of Deputies, withdrew from their position; at length two regiments of the line in the Place Vendome join the people; the revolt becomes general, and further resistance is hopeless. Nay, so entirely can these Frenchmen calculate on each other's treason, that the Marquis de Semonville, the grand referendary of the Chamber of Peers, deliberately proposed to Marshal Marmont to stop the fighting, "by making prisoners of the king's ministers;" and he says "that he saw the marshal twice, with vehemence, refuse his officer's leave to use cannon"-the only hope plainly that remained in the general defection of the troops of the line. M. Arago, too, tampers with Marmont, and says, "that he found the marshal entirely concurring with him as to the ordonnances." He scattered his troops so injudiciously through the streets, that on the first day they were wholly inefficient. On the evening of that day the king directs him to persevere, to assemble his forces in the open places, and to act with masses.' But why should Marshal Marmont expose himself to the reproach of being loyal to his king? why should he let himself be eclipsed by Marshal Ney? He, too, swore allegiance to his sovereign, the predecessor and brother of this same Charles. He vauntingly promised him, when entrusted with his army, that he would bring back Bonaparte to Paris in an iron cage; but scarcely had he gone half way, when he published a proclamation, announcing that the cause of the Bourbons had fallen, and joined with the invader; and yet Ney got the death of a soldier, instead of being hanged to a lamp-post, as he should have been.* It was but poor satisfaction to Charles that the dau

Thus expressly

phin took Marmont's sword from him at St. Cloud, and branded him for a foul traitor, as he was.

Once more, then, did ill-fated France experience the inevitable consequences of a revolution-consequences precisely similar to those from which she is now suffering-stoppage of credit, factories thrown idle, crowds of unemployed artisans, grants for public works, and perpetually-recurring riots in her great cities. Then, as now, did the popular party insist that France should assist the cause of revolution in all countries; then, as now, did they proclaim that the treaties of 1815 were nullities. The evils of revolution were by no means, however, so great as in 1789, and nothing as compared with what they promise now to be; for the government was at once settled; Louis Philippe, the citizen king, was appointed to the throne-that throne which he declared, on his accession, should be surrounded with republican institutions, and which, before many years, he was forced to convert into a perfect despotism-a despotism more stern than that of his predecessors, by reason of the increased strength and confidence of the democratical spirit with which it had to contend. In fact, he was foisted on the throne by the management of Lafitte, Lafayette, and a few others of the constitution-mongers, and his appointment was never acceptable to the great bulk of the French people.

Loud and incessant were the outcries of the journals against the king and his rule, and still more fiercely and perseveringly was this hostility resented. The censorship of the press had been abolished in 1830, and an act passed, enacting that all offences of the press should be referred to the ordinary courts of assize. Here the prosecutions were incessant. The Tribune alone, after fighting the battle for four years, was beaten down on its one hundred and twelfth prosecution. The prisons of France were crowded with state prisoners. An idea may be formed of the extent and nature of this struggle from the following table, which was published by the Tribune in 1833, of the number of actions and condemnations, which had taken place from August, 1830, up to that time. We quote from the Annual Register for 1833:—

This conflict, however, could not long continue; the failure of the government, in nearly three-fourths of the prosecutions, was but emboldening the democratical spirit. The king was determined to crush the evil he could not control, and in 1834, having obtained a docile chamber, he had a law passed, declaring all political offences of the press to be offences against the state, the effect of which enactment was to transfer such cases from the regular courts and juries, to the Chamber of Peers, by whom alone offences against the state were cognizable; and this he followed up by other very severe enactments against any one who should, directly or indirectly, express even a wish for a republican government, or who should venture to ridicule the king, or allude to him at all, in discussing the acts of his government. Having thus procured a law by which to make the press amenable, and a tribunal to apply it, that engine of democracy was to a great extent controlled.

But another power was now becoming formidable-political associations were growing up, both in the capital and in the provinces, and to suppress this organ of public opinion, was the next effort of the "citizen king." The control which Napoleon established over associations, by the articles of the penal code, and which articles were still in force, was wholly insufficient for Louis Philippe. Napoleon's law prohibited all associations, unless they

were first authorised by government, provided they were associations which consisted of more than twenty persons, and had stated periods of meeting. This law it was now becoming general to evade, by forming societies of a less number than twenty persons, but affiliated one with another. To guard against this evasion, Louis Philippe, in 1834, had a law passed, correcting this abuse, but at the same time extending the application of the law from societies with stated times of meeting, to which Napoleon had restricted it, to any single meeting whatsoever. As it was under this law that the Reform banquet was suppressed, which was the immediate cause of the recent revolution, we give the enactments as they appear in the statute-book :

66 CODE PENAL.

"291. Nulle association de plus de vingt personnes, dont le but sera de se réunir tous les jours ou a certains jours marqués pour s'occuper d'objets religieux, litteraires, politiques ou autres ne pourra se former qu'avec l'agrément du gouvernment, et sous les conditions qu'il plaira à l'autorité publique d'imposer à la société.

292. Tout association de la nature ci dessus exprimeé qui sera formeé sans autorization, ou qui, apres l'avoir obtenue, aura enfreint les conditions à elle imposées, sera dissoute."

The first article of April, 1834, ran thus:

"Les dispositions de l'article 291 du code pénal sont applicables aux associations de plus de vingt personnes alors même que ces associations seraient partagées en sections d'un nombre moindre, et qu'elles ne se reuniraient pas tous les jours ou à des jours marqués."

Thus fortified in his despotic rule, Louis Philippe persevered in his struggle with democracy, up to the suppression of the Reform banquet under the above law, and the Revolution which has ensued.

The Reform which was required was, an amendment of the electoral system, and a restriction on the number of public functionaries having seats in the Chamber of Deputies. By the settlement of 1830, the franchise was extended to all persons twenty-five

years of age, and paying direct taxes to the amount of 200f. (£8). Under this system there was not much over 200,000 electors in France; and the number was constantly decreasing, by the operation of the law of subdivision of property which we have noticed. The qualification which would exist in the father, would obviously, in many cases, be lost when the property was distributed amongst three or four chil dren. But no measure of Reform could be granted by a monarch who could only preserve his throne by crushing the voice of public opinion in the country; give it but utterance, and it would have proclaimed repub licanism.

The occurrences of this Revolution are so recent and so familiar, that it would be useless to present them again to our readers. We have already noticed such of them as appeared to us to be of chief importance, as illustrative of the workings of democracy; besides, the length to which this article has run admonishes us that we should draw it to a close. To one point only would we direct attention.

The king is blamed for not having placed himself at the head of his troops, and suppressed the outbreak by force. To this there is the best answer in the world. The king well knew that he had no troops to head; that of his 100,000 men there was not a regiment that would prove faithful; and the event showed that he was right, and that the lessons of two revolutions were not lost upon him. "The army," says M. Ledru Rollin, in the address to which we have already alluded, showed a lively sympathy for the republican cause, and it must be attached to it more and more;" and well did that army merit the commendation. Take the following as a specimen :—

"At about ten o'clock the troops were all under arms, as hitherto, opposite the hotel of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. A large body of cavalry was drawn up in the middle of the street, and a dense mass of infantry was drawn round the whole of the hotel. Drums were heard, and a body of infantry advancing. As they approached, it was perceived that they were preceded by a body of people all armed in different ways, and bearing the tri-colour flag. The people and this body of soldiers

advanced towards the soldiers on guard, and, after some explanations, accompanied by shakings of hands and crossing swords, in the military style of salutation, all the soldiers, en masse, sheathed their bayonets, the officers sheathed their swords, and quitted the hotel, leaving the people to act as they pleased. Everywhere the soldiers along the Boulevards took off their bayonets from their muskets, which they then reversed, appearing much to enjoy the scene."

This was on Thursday morning, when the king was sitting in council with Count Molé and Odillon Barrot, after having dismissed the obnoxious ministers, and with Marshal Bugeaud in command of his forces.

The following incident is eminently characteristic a body of the people went, on the day following the lastmentioned occurrence, to possess themselves of the arms of the 52nd regiment the colonel, however, presented himself on a balcony, and thus addressed them:

What the effects of this Revolution may be, we have already said that no man could venture to predict. We would confidently hope, that it may not be unattended with great advantage to this country. The degraded condition to which France will shortly be reduced, will forcibly impress upon every man the value of our popular institutions, which educate our people to freedom, and the vital importance of upholding the influence of our landed gentry and aristocracy, which tempers this freedom, and keeps it from excess. Our government, no longer fraternising' with that of France, will maintain the interests and the dignity of Great Britain, by asserting her right of judging and acting for herself. And among our people, there will once more spring up that good honest English hatred of French politics, French morals, and French principles.

"THE Irish Crisis" contains in one narrative two strikingly contrasted histories. It details the processes of bounty and benevolence in which the people of England gave most liberally of their abundance, and even of their "little," to lighten the horrors of Irish famine; and it details, with equal distinctness and fidelity, the efforts of legislation, to extend, and aggravate, and prolong, the evil influence of the dread visitation, through which we have been thus far mightily and marvellously sustained. Never, perhaps, in the history of any public calamity, has there been matter for two such statements furnished, as we have in the prompt and thoughtful mercies of a people on the one hand, and on the other, in the sinister and disastrous measures of a misguided legislature. Such phenomena should be carefully studied; they are ominous as they are unusual. It is a well-known prediction, that the glory and the power of Great Britain are to be abased, when her legislature becomes corrupt. There are sordid, no less than sensual corruptions. And prognostics of decadence should be carefully explored and noted, whenever a great people are seen, from the throne to the peasant's cot, engrossed by cares of Christian benevolence, self-denying, and munificently charitable; and the legislature, in which they ought to be represented, is found, whether consciously or in ignorance, acting in a spirit the very contrary to that by which the people are animated.

It is of no ordinary moment to have the tale of these contrasted movements told with precision and with authority-told by one whose duties rendered him cognizant of the charities of a nation, as well as of the purposes and schemes of a parliament; and who

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is able to recite, with the same freedom from excitement, the splendid efforts of individuals to relieve distress, and the contrivances of public bodies to take advantage of it. Qualifications and opportunities like those of Mr. Trevelyan, rarely meet together. calamity for which modern history can show no parallel-a spontaneous outpouring of benevolence, which finds no example in any portion of history— measures of legislation abhorrent from all times and countries, of which those splendid charities could be held characteristic: never, perhaps, before, had historian such a subject to deal with; and seldom, if we may judge of an author's character from a single work, has historian been better qualified, by accomplishments and by deficiencies, to do his subject justice.

The calamity experienced in parts of Scotland, and throughout Ireland, in the years 1846-7, which gave an impulse and a direction to the charities of human hearts in every other part of the world, was the signal to a British parliament for a new Irish poorlaw. We have no desire, even had we the power, to write epigrams or indulge in smartnesses, on a topic so pregnant with painful thought and apprehension. We admit, also, most freely, the desirableness of making some permanent provision for the distress to which so great numbers of our countrymen are but too often exposed. And it is in the sincerity and the strength of a deep feeling for this distress, that we find our strongest objections to the partial and oppressive enactments which pretend to aim at relieving it.

The Irish poor law has not for its end to mediate between rich and poor, so as that one class shall be ensured its rights, and both classes constrained to respect their duties. It is a law so

VOL. XXXI.-NO. CLXXXIV.

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