XXXIV. 1840. CHAP. have done it was by me that Mehemet Ali was curbed; it was M. Cochelet and M. Walewski who conveyed to him my wishes. It was indispensable to gain time at that crisis; and that was the real object of the note of 1 Ann. Hist. 8th October. Such was the policy, such the aim of the 333; Moni- late cabinet; if it is not now to be carried into effect, let those answer for it who have given different counsels to the sovereign." 1 xxiii. 332, teur, Nov. 25, 1840. 107. M. Guizot. "1 On the other hand, it was answered by M. Guizot : Answer of "Would you know the real situation, the ultimatum of the cabinet of 1st March? I will tell you in one word : It was war-war certain and inevitable. Are you willing to incur its terrible chances for an accident of diplomacy, the debates of negotiators? It is not the stranger whom we would have to combat, if we engaged in such a contest; it is the factions in our own bosom who torture the words of the treaty of 15th July, in order to render it the firebrand which is to set the world in flames. What right have they to speak to us of having dishonoured France, by accepting peace on any terms? What right have they to suppose us less patriotic, or less disposed to take up arms, if necessary for the national safety or honour? The cabinet of 29th October is fitted to reassure all minds, to restore commerce, and all the interests which emanate from peace. Who is there amongst us, the friend of his country, who is not desirous to see it emerge from a crisis so menacing to society, and which is so evidently and fearfully rousing the revolutionary passions? 108. "We are told that France is isolated, that she is put to Continued. the ban of Europe, that the great powers act independent of her. Be it so. Who isolated her? Not the allied powers who signed the treaty of 15th July, but the cabinet of 1st March, which began of its own accord an isolated negotiation with the Pasha of Egypt, without the privity of the other powers, and which, when discovered, led to the treaty of 15th July.. MM. Cochelet and Walewski, our diplomatic XXXIV. 1840. agents in Egypt, had opened a negotiation with Mehemet CHAP. Ali long before that treaty was signed, which was purely a defensive measure against an isolated act of aggression on our part. That was the real cause of the treaty of 15th July. When once it was signed, matters looked serious; it was necessary to take precautions, and therefore I approved of the armaments. But there was in reality no cause for war. There was certainly a difference of views between France and the allied powers on the affairs of the East, which I deplore, but nothing more. 109. "Whenever a feeling unusually warm is manifested in France, Europe believes a revolution is approaching. Concluded. Whenever the powers approach each other, or act in concert, France sees a coalition. That is quite natural on both sides. None can be surprised at it on either; but men of sense, who have influence on public affairs, should judge coolly in such emergencies. I say now to you as I have often said to others, You deceive yourselves; we are not in reality menaced with the revolution which you apprehend and in like manner I say to you, You are wrong in feeling such alarm for the measures of the allied powers; they are defensive merely; they will lead to nothing if you do not provoke hostile measures. The treaty of 15th July has undoubtedly placed France in a serious situation; it has isolated it from Europe, and induced a coldness between it and its best and surest ally. That is the truth in its full extent; it is against that we must be on our guard against that we must make preparation. But yet there must be a certain measure even in purely defensive measures. If you assume an attitude, and make preparations corresponding corresponding not to the actual state of the fact, but to what you erroneously suppose to be the fact, you yourselves run France into the danger which you say she has incurred; you are your-Moniteur, selves the authors of the danger; you compel the for- 1840; Ann. mation of the coalition which is the object of so much 340, 341. apprehension."1 Nov. 27, Hist. xxiii. CHAP. XXXIV. 110. favour of Government. Nov. 28. The new Cabinet obtained a decisive majority on this question; the division was 247 to 161. More than even 1840. by this large division against him, M. Thiers was damaged Division in by the withering accusations brought against him, of having withheld for several days the publication of important intelligence, particularly of the treaty of 15th July, with a view to speculation in the Funds, in the benefit of which he largely participated. M. Thiers indignantly repelled these accusations, and there was no proof of their truth; but the honour of a minister must be like that of Calphurnia-it should not even be suspected; and men observed that no such stories were afloat when Count Molé and M. Guizot were at the head of affairs. This division put the new Ministry, in the mean time, in a secure position, and enabled them to carry on with some confidence the negotiations with England and the northern powers for the adjustment of the affairs of the East. But as the majority was composed of a coalition of many parties, it shared in the weakness of all such confederacies, and Government, during the Ann. Hist. remainder of the session, cautiously abstained from 383; Moni- bringing forward any measure which might betray the 10, 1840. latent seeds of dissolution which were implanted in its bosom.1 1 Cap. x. 282-284; xxiii. 347, teur, Nov. 111. Continu ance of the fortifications of Paris. In one particular, however, the policy of the late Cabinet was continued with only a partial modification. The FORTIFICATION OF PARIS continued to be the object of special attention from Government. The commission to whom, in 1836,* when M. Thiers was The report of the commission in 1836 was in these terms:-" Qu'il soit élevé une muraille d'enceinte flanquée, surmontée d'un chemin de ronde crénelé, enveloppant les plus grandes masses d'habitation des faubourgs extérieurs de Paris, avec fossé là où cette disposition sera nécessaire. Que la trace de cette muraille embrasse les hauteurs qui dominent la ville, en suivant les directions les plus favorables à la défense, eu égard à la configuration du terrain; qu'elle soit assez haute pour être à l'abri de l'escalade, et assez épaisse pour ne pouvoir être ouverte qu'avec des batteries de siège; qu'il soit établi sur les parties de cette enceinte où le besoin s'en fera sentir des bastions susceptibles d'être armés d'artillerie, pour la flanquer, couvrir de leurs feux ses XXXIV. 1841. President of the Council, the matter had been remitted, CHAP. had reported in favour of a mixed system, consisting of an enceinte continue, with bastions and a ditch, protected in front by detached works upon advantageous eminences, intended to keep off the incendiary batteries of the enemy. Marshal Soult in person brought the matter before the Chamber, and insisted strongly on the necessity of the case, which admitted of no delay, and for which 13,000,000 francs had been already voted. The entire cost of the proposed works he calculated at 140,000,000 francs (£5,600,000), but he made no concealment of his opinion that the independence of France might come to depend on their completion. M. Thiers strongly advocated their necessity, but supported the enceinte continue in preference to the forts détachés, in which he was followed by the whole Liberal and Republican press, which loudly declaimed against the latter system as nothing more than a circle of bastiles, with which it was proposed to surround and overawe the capital. The case was happily summed 1 Moniteur, up by M. Pagès de l'Ariége, who said that the one Jan. 21 and party demanded the enceinte continue in the name of 1841; Ann. nationality, the other the forts détachés in name of the 7-16. monarchy.1 Feb. 1, Hist. xxiv. Soult's mi Marshal Soult, in a military point of view, argued that 112. a great city can never be effectually defended but by Marshal advanced and detached works, which may be each capable litary view of sustaining a separate siege, and prevent the enemy question. from approaching so near as to be able to set its build approches, et éclairer autant que possible la gorge des ouvrages extérieurs, qui formeront la première ligne de défense. "Qu'il soit construit en avant et autour de cette enceinte, notamment à la rive droite de la Seine, sur tous les points les plus favorables à la défense, des ouvrages en état de soutenir un siège, et fermés à la gorge. Leur objet sera d'éloigner les batteries incendiaires de l'ennemi, de protéger les diverses positions que pourraient occuper les forces défensives que les circonstances auraient amenées sous Paris, et de renfermer une grande partie du matériel à la défense.”—Rapport de la Commission, Nov. 8, 1836. CAPEFIGUE, X. 285, 286, note. of the XXXIV. 1841. CHAP. ings on fire by shells. In confirmation of this he cited the siege of Genoa in 1799, where the defence was conducted by Massena, and the utility of advanced forts was so strongly experienced that the conflict to the very last never reached the actual walls of the place. To carry the Liberals along with them, the Government adopted the mixed system recommended by the commission of 1836; but the whole strength of the fortifications was thrown by Soult's advice into the external forts, the enceinte continue being little more than an expensive muraille d'octroi. This modified project was adopted by the Chamber by a majority of 75-the numbers being 237 to 162 in the Deputies, and in the Peers by 147 to 85. The Government, to assuage the terrors of the Republicans, agreed that the detached forts were not to be armed without a vote of the Chambers, and that the artillery destined for that purpose, amounting to two thousand pieces, should in the mean time be deposited at Bourges. To us, who have seen the defence of the lines of Torres Vedras and the siege of Sebastopol, there can be no room for doubt that the opinion of the veteran Marshal was, in a military point of view, the better founded. Certainly an invading army, even of 200,000 Jan. 27 and men, could have little chance of subduing Paris, if in the Ann. Hist. principal detached forts with which it is surrounded they found a Malakhoff or a Redan, defended by a Todtleben or a Gortschakoff.1 1 Moniteur, 28, 1841; xxiv. 12, 18, 39, 40. 113. state of the finances. But in the middle of these warlike undertakings, which Alarming the exposed situation of Paris, so near the north-eastern frontier, the most exposed of the kingdom, without doubt rendered necessary, and the want of which the campaigns of 1814 and 1815 had too fatally demonstrated, the state of the finances became every day more alarming, and M. Hermann, with alarming statistical accuracy and without disguise, pointed it out to the Chamber. During his short ministry of eight months, M. Thiers had cost the nation, of supplementary credits beyond the estimated expendi |