CHAP. 1834. 37. against the measure, as to declare annihilated by a law a right without which society could not exist-a right which is, of all necessities, the most imperious, the most indispensable! What! are Argument we to go back to that 291st article, born of the despotism of the Empire, and which, under the Restoration, was felt as so oppressive! Is this what we have gained by a revolution, conducted in the name of liberty? Does the Government ask this to secure its existence? Can it not live without destroying the principle which generates society itself? Does the necessity of subjecting the right to some restraint, imply the right to extirpate it; and are we, like certain savages, to cut down the tree to reap its fruit? Are we to submit to previous authority the right to license associations? That is to vest an immense, an arbitrary power in the executive-a power before which all our liberties may be swept away-the charter, the guarantees which it stipulates, the electoral right, the liberty of the press. The moment the citizens meet together to come to an understanding on the candidate to whom they are to give their suffrages, they fall under the law against associations. When a few citizens, to set up a journal, subscribe the requisite funds, and mutually communicate their thoughts, there is an association. Are the Opposition electors to be compelled to elect a Ministerial candidate? If so, farewell to the rights of electors. Is the yoke of a previous license to be imposed on the writers who combine to set up a journal? There is an end of the liberty of the press. The project of Government then, in its full extent, is of unheard-of insolence. It is, further, of impossible execution. This much at least was to be said for the 291st article, as it originally stood, that the material fact of an assemblage of more than twenty persons, the element of periodical meetings, and the limitation of the right of prosecution to the office-bearers of societies, 1 Ann. Hist. were some limitation on despotism. But what limit is here imposed to the right of prosecutions? An indefinite number of persons may be indicted. The project xvii. 129, 130. of Government, brutal in theory, will be found, when CHAP. applied to practice, to be puerile and insensate." XXX. 38. the Minis 1834. Every right in civilised society," said M. Guizot and M. Thiers in reply, "requires to be regulated by law. Answer of A previous license is required in anonymous societies or terialists. associations for the purposes of beneficence. On what principle, then, is it not reasonable to require it in political associations, the cradles of sedition, the schools of discord? The The power of Government, in a country embracing 32,000,000 of inhabitants, does not consist in its authority over a few thousand functionaries, or two or three hundred thousand soldiers, but in the right which it possesses to make its will penetrate everywhere, to act in concert by means of a hierarchy wisely constituted ; to be, in a word, present everywhere. To vest individuals with so precious a prerogative, is to displace power to their advantage-to give to them the power of government. The danger of this is incalculable. The State is lost if regularity is allowed to enter into revolt, discipline into anarchy. The law against association is therefore a law essential to the public safety. It cannot be less stringent than the one proposed; the mere power to close existing associations which are deemed dangerous, would lead to their being immediately dissolved, and reconstituted under a different appellation. The apprehensions expressed as to the possible abuse of the law, are entirely chimerical. Government has no interest to interdict associations for the purposes of religion, beneficence, science, or literature; it is concerned only in the putting down of poli- Moniteur, tical associations, the strongholds of the factious, the in- 1834. trenched camps of treason."1 March 27, 39. of the Op "How," replied M. Garnier Pagès, "are you to distinguish innocent from dangerous societies? Who is to be Rejoinder the umpire between them? If a Frenchman, a worthy position. man, wishes to unite with others to strengthen and propagate Christianity, I am his man, despite your ministers and your law. If a Frenchman, a worthy man, wishes to unite XXX. 1834. CHAP. with others to extend works of beneficence to the working and humbler classes-to workmen without employment, without bread-I am his man, despite your ministers and your law. If a Frenchman, a worthy man, desires a wide diffusion of acknowledged truths, of sound doctrines, of those lights which sustain morality and prepare the future happiness of mankind, I am his man, despite your ministers and your law. If a Frenchman, a worthy man, wishes to secure for his country the independence of elections, and to oppose the shameless venality and corruptions of electors, I am his man, despite your ministers and your law. The willing servant of all just laws, the determined enemy of all unjust ones, we will never hesitate. 1 Ann. Hist. We will never yield an obedience to man which would render us apostates to God, to humanity, to France. We will disobey your law to obey that of our own consciences." 1 These violent recriminations decided nothing, and are Passing of only valuable as indicating the extreme asperity of party there feelings which now distracted France, and the irreconcilsures, and able divergence of opinion between the Government and the Cabinet. the democratic faction alike in the Chambers and the xvii. 131, 132. 40. repres sive mea changes in country, to whose efforts it had owed its elevation. The false position in which the Citizen King was placed was now apparent to all, and to none so much as to his own. Ministers; and it required all the versatile talents of M. Thiers, and all the learning and weight of M. Guizot, to maintain them in it. The repressive measures demanded by the Cabinet were, however, carried by large majorities in both Chambers ;*-so strongly had the necessity of the case presented itself to the ruling majorities in them, and so imperious was the law of self-preservation which had compelled the Government to repudiate its bastard origin, and revert to the principles of legitimate monarchy. The strife of parties, however, was so violent, and the difficulty of the position of its adherents in de * Viz., by 246 to 154 in the Deputies, and by 127 to 64 in the Peers.—Ann. Hist., xvii. p. 133. XXX. 1834. bate so great, that some modification of the Cabinet, and CHAP. considerable changes in the administrative department of the Government, were felt to be indispensable. They were made accordingly, and by the sole authority and decision of the King, who on this as on other occasions acted as his own prime-minister. The Duke de Broglie and General Sébastiani resigned their situations; and their retreat was soon followed by those of M. d'Argout and M. Barthé. The ostensible cause of these resignations was a hostile vote of the Chamber on a credit of 25,000,000 francs, asked by the Government for a debt due by Government for the losses sustained by the American subjects in consequence of the Berlin and Milan decrees of Napoleon, which was rejected by 176 to 169. These resignations, however, were in reality voluntary: they arose from dissensions in the Cabinet; and in particular, from the general animosity of the other members at M. Thiers, whose ambition, as had been that of Mr Canning in the English Cabinet, was generally dreaded, but whose influence, nevertheless, was such that he could not be dispensed with. To such a length did these animosities go, that it was only at the personal request of the King that M. Guizot was prevailed on to retain his situation; and when he did so, he remained the sole representative of the Doctrinnaire party in the Cabinet. It was evident that any arrangement concluded under these circumstances. could be temporary only; and in these new appointments the King had in view merely to get over an immediate difficulty. M. de Rigny, who was transferred from the Ministry of Marine to that of Foreign Affairs, belonged to the school of M. de Talleyrand; M. Thiers was raised to the office of Minister of the Interior; Baron vii. 152, Roussin made Minister of Marine; M. Persil, Keeper of 161; Or the Seals; and M. Barthé, who formerly held that office, April 4, transferred to the Presidency of the Court of Accounts, teur, Oct. 2; vacated, from extreme old age, by the veteran and able 367, 371. financier M. de Marbois.1 1 Ann. Hist. donnance, 1834; Moni Cap. vii. CHAP. 1834. 41. sistance to the law against se ties. The changes in the Cabinet consequent on the shock of parties in the metropolis, were but a faint type of the dissensions which tore the country. A law against secret General re- associations, brought forward by the Government, in an especial manner excited the indignation of the Republicret socie- cans: they felt that this stroke was levelled at the centre of their power, and they resolved to resist it to the last extremity. Everywhere they announced this intention in the most unmeasured language: the societies, so far from yielding obedience to the law, openly threatened to resist it to the utmost of their power.* In order to give greater consistency and strength to this resistance, three committees were formed in Paris, at the head of which were MM. de Lafayette, de Ludre, de Cormenin, and André de Puyraveau, the ostensible objects of which were, the establishment of the liberty of the press, of individual freedom, and public instruction. To these objects no reasonable man could take any exception; but their secret and real ends were very different, and pointed, not obscurely, to a future resistance to, and subversion of the monarchical form of government. Their secret aim was 6 * "Citoyens ! On s'accorde à penser généralement que la loi sur les associa tions aura pour résultat de détruire la Société des Droits de l'Homme, ou de la rendre secrète. Néanmoins cette société ne renoncera ni à son nom, ni à son organisation, et avisera aux moyens de se poser d'une manière plus imposante. Nous vous ferons connaitre ces moyens. Pour le moment, ralliez autour de vous vos sectionnaires, prenez ou faites-vous accorder un pouvoir discrétionnaire afin d'agir avec plus de promptitude et d'ensemble, à l'instant de la lutte qui paraît tres rapprochée. Salut et fraternité signé Cavaignac.' Le comité central, et les chefs de section de la société des droits de l'homme de Marseille, considérant que la loi sur les associations outrage à la fois la justice, et la liberté, en plaçant au dessus des droits sacrés de l'humanité la tyrannie la plus odieuse et la plus détestable, considérant qu'elle condamne l'homme de la misère et du travail, à vivre craintif et solitaire auprès de sa famille sans pain; considérant enfin qu'elle a pour but de satisfaire aux exigences oppressives de la sainte alliance, en nous dépouillant de la souveraineté au profit de quelques privilégiés corrompus dont la devise a toujours été ' diviser pour régner,' 'isoler pour détruire, arrête ce qui suit. 'La Société des Droits de l'Homme et des citoyens de Marseille, s'engage sur l'honneur à désobéir et à résister à la loi, pour n'obéir qu'à la conscience.' Suivent 150 signatures. Tous les comités de la Société des Droits de l'Homme firent des protestations semblables contre la loi sur les associations."-Lettre du Comité Central de Paris au Comité de Lyon. CAPEFIGUE, vii. 372, 374. |