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Paris and the great towns were to be kept in employment CHAP. by continuing all the public works set on foot by preceding governments, and commencing new ones, and in goodhumour by splendid spectacles at the theatres, the more licentious the better, supported by large contributions from the public purse. The vast expense with which these internal measures were attended was to be provided for by preserving external peace, and the good-will of the Continental sovereigns to be secured by cautiously repressing the spirit of propagandism which had been so powerfully excited by the Revolution of July, and diffused such universal consternation in the neighbouring governments. And in the midst of all this policy, so adverse to the principles which had seated the Citizen King on the throne, those principles were to be constantly announced and loudly proclaimed in public acts and by the members of Government,-proceeding thus on the maxim of Augustus, that men will willingly submit to the reality of slavery, provided they are deluded by the language of freedom.

4.

in the end.

It was said by a minister well versed in the ways of the world, that "every office he gave away made one Its danger ungrateful and three discontented." The maxim is true, and of general application; and it unfolds the real reason why, in popular governments, which must always in the long-run more or less rest on the influence of patronage, discontent generally succeeds popularity, and the sway even of the most powerful administration is shortlived. How great soever may be the number of offices at the disposal of government, it cannot for a length of time keep pace with the demands of its supporters, far less disarm the hostility of its opponents. If it limits itself to the first, the basis of influence is never extended, and ere long it contracts; if it attempts the last, discontent is generally produced among its friends, and gratitude is seldom awakened among its enemies. Envy is sure to fasten upon those who bask in the sunshine of govern

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CHAP. ment favour, discontent to spread among those who are excluded from its rays. The greater the intelligence and intellectual activity of the people, the greater is the difficulty with which government has to contend from this cause, because the greater is the number of aspirants who must be disappointed, of conscious ability which must be kept in the shade. Whoever considers the influence of these causes, will cease to wonder at the practical difficulty of establishing a stable authority in highly educated communities, or the frequent changes of administration which in them paralyse the action of government, and imprint a character of vacillation and inconsistency on its

of the

5.

Berri. June 8.

measures.

A gracious and well-judged act first signalised the conLiberation fidence felt by Government from the victory of June 6 Duchess de in Paris. On the 9th June the Moniteur announced that the Duchess de Berri had, on the 8th, been liberated by order of the Government from the Chateau of Blaye, and embarked for Palermo. Upon being questioned in the Chamber whether this had been done in consequence of any foreign interposition, the Ministers answered that it had not, and that any such interference would only have prolonged the Princess's captivity. She arrived in safety at Palermo shortly after. Government acted wisely in this act. They did exactly what Napoleon said the Convention should have done when Louis made the attempt at evasion by the journey to Varennes. The heroic but frail Princess had been morally slaughtered by what 1 Moniteur, had occurred in the Chateau of Blaye; it would have 1832; Ann. been the worst policy to have restored her fame, as 270,271. that of Queen Mary had been, by the scaffold of

June 9,

Hist. xv.

Fotheringay.1

The Duke of Orléans returned soon after from an extensive tour through the south of France. His partialities and prepossessions were all for the liberal side, and his words on all occasions bespoke the ardour of his patriotic feelings. In giving a standard to the artillery of the

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I have

1832.

6.

the Duke

of

national guard of Marseilles he said, "On the 30th April* CHAP. you have trampled under foot the white flag, the standard of ignominy; here is the standard of honour. come to Marseilles to make a paction with the patriots. Journey of I should be glad to shed the last drop of my blood for of Orléans freedom." Strange words in the mouth of a descendant through the of Henry IV., and the inheritor of his throne! In France. addressing many of the municipalities, however, he received rude and even insolent answers; and he returned to Paris deeply impressed with the republican spirit which even in the south had infected the middle class, which in the towns had got possession of the municipalities. "Two years," said the magistrates of Aix, "have destroyed all our illusions: the patriots imprisoned, the Carlists flattered, caressed, filling the offices of administration. The conduct of all local authorities has produced its wonted fruits: our souls are divided, our enemies are united." "We owe the truth to princes," said the council of Draguignan, "and you are worthy to hear it. We say with all the fervour of our hearts, that there is not one man faithful to the Revolution of July, or who has courage enough to repudiate that false system under which we live, and of which the happiness of France, so dear to your heart, absolutely requires the change." So violent were the addresses he received that the young Prince had no small difficulty in answering them without compromising the Government; and in truth he could not have done so were it not that he bore no ostensible part 1 Ann. Hist. in the Administration, and that, in Bossuet's words, "the xvi. 241; Cap. vi. 260, heir-apparent is separated from the crown by the whole 262. breadth of the kingdom." 1

ness of the romances and theatres of Paris.

The theatres and romances of Paris, during the lull of 7. political excitement which followed the victory of June, Licentiousgave melancholy proof of the extent to which the public mind had become depraved, and the strength of that craving for excitement which, deprived of its former vent, The day when the Duchess de Berri landed.

VOL. V.

S

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CHAP. now sought one in private licentiousness. The Opera was crowded nightly to see the splendid exhibitions of "La Tentation" and "Robert le Diable," in the first of which a beautiful female was exhibited on the stage, at first in a state of absolute nudity, and latterly with a thin gauze only, to enhance the charms of nature; while, in the last, a choir of nuns are represented in a ruined church rising from their tombs, who immediately began waltzing in their transparent soi-disant grave-clothes. The dramatised romance of Victor Hugo, La Tour du Nesle, founded on the most frightful tales of systematic profligacy and subsequent murder which the middle ages had transmitted to our times, attracted prodigious crowds to one of the minor theatres. Such was the temper of the times that ladies of the highest rank went to see these 1 Personal extraordinary exhibitions, affording thus the clearest proof of general licentiousness in the oblivion of the safeguards of virtue even by those who had never transgressed its bounds.1

observa

tion at

Paris in 1833.

ans.

8.

These feelings produced in one extreme sect such extraTrial of the ordinary results as led to a prosecution by Government, St Simoni- however little inclined to interfere with excesses which did not threaten itself. The leaders of the St Simonians, MM. Enfantin, Rodrigues, and Michel Chevalier, were indicted for having formed a society of more than twenty persons, professedly for literary purposes, but which had propagated doctrines subversive of morality. The accused, accompanied by their friends of the same persuasion, marched to the place of trial in the Palais de Justice, clothed in the theatrical costume of the order. Among their attendants were a number of women elegantly dressed in blue, the distinctive mark of the association, and whom the accused requested might be permitted to sit near them at the trial, to aid them by their counsels "in a matter peculiarly affecting the rights of women.' The principal matter of accusation against them was,

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1832.

that they inculcated the abolition of marriage, and general CHAP. establishment of a promiscuous intercourse of the sexes. The prisoners did not deny the charge, but they justified it. Casting his eyes on the galaxy of beauty which surrounded him, M. Enfantin exclaimed, "I tell you, gentlemen, what importance we attach to the forms, to the looks of beauty. It is in their eyes that we seek the inspiration which is to defend us. It is not in solitary meditation, but in the enthusiasm which they awaken that we seek for wisdom. If an army is to be formed, every one exclaims, The carabineers must be fine men!' It is to love, and be loved, and introduce order into things now abandoned to disorder, that we are associated. It is the fair whom I would free from their fetters-beauty from its stains. The emancipation of woman is our main object. Marriage is the prison in which the jealousy of man has confined her. Can you deny this, you who boast of your bonnes fortunes,' which is just an effort to back it, and a secret admission of the necessity of adultery? Like you, we wish a period to be put to these scandals but a different method must be adopted from that which has hitherto been practised." In the close of these strange discussions, which, as an index to general feeling so strangely perverted, are more deserving of serious thought than ridicule, the accused were sentenced to a year's imprisonment; a result which, with the revelations made at the trial, had a material effect in checking these disorders. It is a curious proof of the tendency of extravagance in political thought to produce corresponding wildness in public morals, that doctrines of precisely the same kind emanated from the enthusiasm of the first Revolution, and induced the frightful laxity of manners which characterised the periods of the Conven- 278, 281. tion and the Directory.1

No sooner had the Government recovered from the shocks by which it had been assailed in the beginning of

1 Cap. vi.