The intolerance of the parties in France, and their desire to seize upon power, are further favoured by the conviction, so prevalent under the Revolution, that societies can be remade by means of laws.The modern State, whatever its leader, has inherited in the eyes of the multitudes and their leaders the mystic power attributed to the ancient kings, when these latter were regarded as an incarnation of the Divine will.Not only the people is inspired by this confidence in the power of Government;all our legislators entertain it also.[11]
[11] After the publication of an article of mine concerning legislative illusions, I received from one of our most eminent politicians, M.Boudenot the senator, a letter from which Iextract the following passage: ``Twenty years passed in the Chamber and the Senate have shown me how right you are.How many times I have heard my colleagues say: `The Government ought to prevent this, order that,' &c.What would you have? there are fourteen centuries of monarchical atavism in our blood.''
Legislating always, politicians never realise that as institutions are effects, and not causes, they have no virtue in themselves.Heirs to the great revolutionary illusion, they do not see that man is created by a past whose foundations we are powerless to reshape.
The conflict between the principles dividing France, which has lasted more than a century, will doubtless continue for a long time yet, and no one can foresee what fresh upheavals it may engender.No doubt if before our era the Athenians could have divined that their social dissensions would have led to the enslavement of Greece, they would have renounced them; but how could they have foreseen as much? M.Guiraud justly writes: ``Ageneration of men very rarely realises the task which it is accomplishing.It is preparing for the future; but this future is often the contrary of what it wishes.''
2.Summary of a Century's Revolutionary Movement in France.
The psychological causes of the revolutionary movements which France has seen during the past century having been explained, it will now suffice to present a summary picture of these successive revolutions.
The sovereigns in coalition having defeated Napoleon, they reduced France to her former limits, and placed Louis XVIII., the only possible sovereign, on the throne.
By a special charter the new king accepted the position of a constitutional monarch under a representative system of government.He recognised all the conquests of the Revolution:
the civil Code, equality before the law, liberty of worship, irrevocability of the sale of national property, &c.The right of suffrage, however, was limited to those paying a certain amount in taxes.
This liberal Constitution was opposed by the ultra-royalists.
Returned emigres, they wanted the restitution of the national property, and the re-establishment of their ancient privileges.
Fearing that such a reaction might cause a new revolution, Louis XVIII.was reduced to dissolving the Chamber.The election having returned moderate deputies, he was able to continue to govern with the same principles, understanding very well that any attempt to govern the French by the ancien regime would be enough to provoke a general rebellion.
Unfortunately, his death, in 1824, placed Charles X., formerly Comte d'Artois, on the throne.Extremely narrow, incapable of understanding the new world which surrounded him, and boasting that he had not modified his ideas since 1789, he prepared a series of reactionary laws--a law by which an indemnity of forty millions sterling was to be paid to emigres; a law of sacrilege;and laws establishing the rights of primogeniture, the preponderance of the clergy, &c.
The majority of the deputies showing themselves daily more opposed to his projects, in 1830 he enacted Ordinances dissolving the Chamber, suppressing the liberty of the Press, and preparing for the restoration of the ancien regime.
The effect was immediate.This autocratic action provoked a coalition of the leaders of all parties.Republicans, Bonapartists, Liberals, Royalists--all united in order to raise the Parisian populace.Four days after the publication of the Ordinances the insurgents were masters of the capital, and Charles X.fled to England.
The leaders of the movement--Thiers, Casimir-Perier, La Fayette, &c.--summoned to Paris Louis-Philippe, of whose existence the people were scarcely aware, and declared him king of the French.
Between the indifference of the people and the hostility of the nobles, who had remained faithful to the legitimate dynasty, the new king relied chiefly upon the bourgeoisie.An electoral law having reduced the electors to less than 200,000, this class played an exclusive part in the government.
The situation of the sovereign was not easy.He had to struggle simultaneously against the legitimist supporters of Henry V.the grandson of Charles X., and the Bonapartists, who recognised as their head Louis-Napoleon, the Emperor's nephew, and finally against the republicans.
By means of their secret societies, analogous to the clubs of the Revolution, the latter provoked numerous riots at various intervals between 1830 and 1840, but these were easily repressed.
The clericals and legitimists, on their side, did not cease their intrigues.The Duchess de Berry, the mother of Henry V., tried in vain to raise the Vendee.As to the clergy, their demands finally made them so intolerable that an insurrection broke out, in the course of which the palace of the archbishop of Paris was sacked.
The republicans as a party were not very dangerous, as the Chamber sided with the king in the struggle against them.The minister Guizot, who advocated a strong central power, declared that two things were indispensable to government--``reason and cannon.'' The famous statesman was surely somewhat deluded as to the necessity or efficacy of reason.