XXXIV. 1838. CHAP. clamorous crowds pressing forward to acquire what they felt assured would, in a few weeks, without expenditure, trouble, or risk, put them in possession of an ample fortune. Ladies of the first rank and fashion hastened to bestow their smiles, and sometimes more than their smiles, on those who had the means of opening an early and secret door to the magic scenes, where riches, exceeding those at the disposal of the genii of the lamp and the ring, awaited the first fortunate entrant. And such was the astonishing rise of shares, sometimes to the amount of 1200 and v. 328, 329; 1500 per cent in a few months, that the expectations, extravagant as they were in many instances, were almost realised.1* 1 L. Blanc, Cap. ix. 317, 338. 11. General frauds com mitted on Immeasurable were the frauds perpetrated on the credulous and senseless public during this brief period of general insanity. Mines which never existed became the the public. subject of companies, the shares of which were, for a few weeks before the bubble burst, sold at extravagant profits. Inventions which had never been realised even in the brain of the most speculative mechanic, became the subject of eulogistic advertisement and eager purchase. France was inundated with impostures, which in many instances made the fortunes of their lucky fabricators. A dramatic piece got up at this period entitled Robert Macaire, which exposed the follies of the day, but at the same time turned into equal ridicule every generous or "Telle action constituée à 500 francs s'était élevée par la fiction du cours à 8000 francs."-CAP. ix. 335. 1 CHAP. XXXIV. 1838. elevated sentiment which could fill the human breast, was interdicted at the theatre from the immensity of its success. "Society had reached," says the annalist, "that point, the lowest in the scale of social degradation, when the selfish and degrading sentiments have ceased to be an object of shame even to those influenced by them, and the theatres are crowded to hear those feelings expressed v. 328, as common and unavoidable, of which all are conscious in ix. 333, 336. the recesses of their own breasts." "1 1 L. Blanc, 329; Cap. the passion literature The prevailing passion for gain comes soon to affect 12. both the higher and the more ephemeral branches of Influence of literature. M. Guizot, whose great powers were not ab- for gain on sorbed in the less durable objects of office, wrote three and the articles in the Revue Française on the state of society in press. France, which revealed its dangers, and displayed his usual impartiality and sagacity of thought. M. Lerminier abandoned his former extreme democratic opinions, and by several articles in the Revue des Deux Mondes in favour of Count Molé's government, incurred the lasting hostility of his former republican allies. At the theatres a number of popular pieces which fell in with the frivolity of the times attracted crowds to the comic boards, while the rising genius of RACHEL, who had made her first appearance on the stage, occasioned in some cultivated minds a reaction in favour of the elevated style of former tragedy. The young actress, however, met with a formidable rival in the Caligula of Alexander Dumas, which brought before the eyes of the admiring Parisians the manners of the Romans under the Empire, their armies, gladiators, and amphitheatre. History laboured with success to portray the glories of the Empire, as if to cry shame on the selfishness and frivolity of modern ideas; and we owe to that period many of the most remarkable works which characterise the era of Napoleon.2 2 Cap. ix. The universal object was to be amused or to make money; 324-336. and the daily press, despairing of political change, observation. adapted itself to the taste of its readers, and abandon Personal XXXIV. CHAP, ing the asperity of former political discussion, glided down the broad stream of social enjoyment or individual gain. 1838. 13. induced in ment. The effect of this change, which had occurred also Change it nearly in a similar degree in Great Britain shortly the system before, was to remove in a most material degree the of govern difficulties of Government. The passions of men having taken a different direction, and the thirst for individual gain having come to supersede that for political power, it became a comparatively easy task to manage them. Nothing was required but to adopt a prudent popular course of administration, which might eschew the resuscitation of the political passions, and meanwhile to disarm hostility by a plentiful diffusion of those advantages which had become the object of general and passionate desire. The immense patronage at the disposal of Government, which amounted to 140,000 offices in the civil service of the State, besides the commissions in the army and navy, gave them ample means of gratifying the prevailing thirst for gain; while the Chamber of Deputies and their constituents designated at once the channel in which the golden stream should flow. Influence, exerted not by the bestowing of bribes, as was the case for seventy years after the Revolution of 1688 by the Whig Government of England, but by the disposal of patronage, became the established means by which the administration of affairs was carried on; and the majority which it commanded, though sufficiently large on general questions, gave token of its origin when any change touching the pecuniary interests of the bourgeoisie was brought forward. Thus it threw out in the Peers the project of reducing the interest of the national debt, and took to itself from Government the administration of railways. This system has been openly admitted by M. Guizot, and defended on the footing of absolute necessity. When Government has neither the hereditary loyalty felt towards an ancient race of sove XXXIV. 1838. reigns to rest upon, nor the rude despotism of a soldier CHAP. of fortune to enforce its mandates, it is compelled to have recourse to the thirst for individual gain, which never fails, after a time, to make itself felt in every community. This necessity was felt, and this effect followed, in England after the Revolution of 1688, and in France after that of 1830; and those who object to a government being established on such a basis, would do well to pause before they overturn that which rests on another. 14. increase of in France. But although it may be easy to see how it happened that the government of corruption came after the Scandalous Revolution in France to succeed that of force, yet the corruption effects of the change were not the less injurious, or the less debasing to the national character of the people. The worst corruptions of the old monarchy anterior to the first Revolution were revived on a more extensive scale, and made to descend to and degrade a far greater number of men. The pots de vin, so well known as the douceur which followed the bestowing of an office on a minister, or a farmer-general of the revenue, came to be a regular and established part of almost every transaction, not only between Government and the people, but between all in authority or possessed of influence, and the recipients of what they had to bestow. Two celebrated trials which ere long occurred-that relating to the vessel "Ville de Paris," and another to the alleged maladministration of M. Gisquet, the Minister of Policerevealed in all their turpitude the base transactions of this venal period. It was judicially proved that, in consideration of shares allotted, money bestowed, mistresses bribed, actions promised, offices bestowed, political opposition was bought up; journals silenced, and men of powerful talent gained to the cause of Government, or the great railway or mercantile companies which shared with it distribution of patronage.1 So far did this system of 330; Moniuniversal corruption go, that it even tarnished the glory 23, 1838. of that branch of the public service which had hitherto 1 Cap. ix. the L. Blanc, 335, 336; v. 329, teur, Aug. CHAP. stood pre-eminent in purity as well as lustre 1838. 15. Count Molé, tention to ; and the catastrophe attending the first attack on Constantine led to strange revelations in the mutual accusations of the generals, which it would have been well for the honour of the French arms to have buried in oblivion. The effect of this state of things was, that before the Position of end of the session the Doctrinaire party, disgusted with and his at the venality and corruption with which the Government the Court. Was surrounded, diverged from Count Molé. The elder of the party were dissatisfied at not being admitted into the Administration, and the younger were alienated by the open establishment of government on the basis of venality and selfishness. Finding his position in the Chambers becoming more critical, Count Molé attached himself more strongly to the court; and in a magnificent fête given by him in his splendid chateau, and surrounded by his ancestral trees of Champlatreux, he was honoured by the presence of royalty, the queen, princes, and princesses. Everything there was redolent of the olden time on the walls of the saloon were the pictures given by Louis XV. to one of Count Molé's ancestors; in the gardens were the marble fountains, shady alleys, and overflowing jets d'eau which recalled the splendour of Versailles. Surrounded here by the memorials and reminiscences of the past, in which he so much delighted, and basking in the fleeting sunshine of the present, the monarch felt for a brief period the enjoyment of real felicity, which was soon enhanced by the accouchement of the Duchess of Orleans, who on 24th August gave Aug. 25, birth to a son and heir, who received the title of the 1838; Cap. ix. 393, 394. Count of Paris, and promised to perpetuate in future times the new-born monarchy.1 Aug. 24. 1 Moniteur, 16. the army, The war establishment of 1838 and 1839 was fixed at Statistics of a high standard, which the Chamber, alarmed by the first disaster of Constantine, voted without opposition. It amounted to 319,348 men, and 63,173 horses. Of this large force 38,000 men and 8779 horses were assigned to Africa. The men voted in Great Britain in the same concerns. |