Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 401, March 1849

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Various. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 401, March 1849

SCIENTIFIC AND PRACTICAL AGRICULTURE.1

THE SYCAMINE

AFTER A YEAR'S REPUBLICANISM

THE CAXTONS – PART XI

CHAPTER LII

CHAPTER LIII

CHAPTER LIV

CHAPTER LV

CHAPTER LVI

CHAPTER LVII

CHAPTER LVIII

M. PRUDHON. – CONTRADICTIONS ECONOMIQUES. 5

THE GREEN HAND

MÉRIMÉE'S HISTORY OF PETER THE CRUEL. 20

THE OPENING OF THE SESSION

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The revolutionary year has almost closed; the anniversary of the days of February is at hand. A Year's Republicanism has run the course of its unchecked experience in France: to believe its own boast, it has ridden boldly forward, seated upon public and popular opinion, in the form of the widest, and, upon republican principle, the honest basis of universal suffrage; it has been left to its own full career, unimpeded by enemies either at home or abroad. And what has been the result of the race? – what has been the harvest which the republican soil, so carefully turned over, tilled, and manured, has produced?

It would be a useless task to recapitulate all the different stages of the growth of the so-called fair green tree of liberty, and enumerate all the fruits that it has let drop from time to time, from the earliest days of last spring, to the tempestuous summer month of June; and then, through the duller, heavier, and gloomy months of autumn, to those of winter, which brought a president as a Christmas-box, and which have shown a few scattered gleams of fancied sunshine, cold at the best, and quickly obscured again by thick-coming clouds of dis-accord, misapprehension, and startling opposition of parties. All the world has had these fruits dished up to it – has handled them, examined them, tasted them; and, according to their opinions or prejudices, men have judged their savour bitter or sweet. All that can be said on the subject, for those who have digested them with pleasure, is, that "there's no accounting for tastes." In calculating the value of the year's republicanism which France has treasured up in its history, it is as well, then, to make no further examination into the items, but to look to the sum-total as far as it can be added up and put together, in the present aspect of affairs. In spite of the openly expressed detestation of the provinces to the capital – in spite of the increasing spirit of decentralisation, and the efforts made by the departments to insure a certain degree of importance to themselves – it is still Paris that reigns paramount in its power, and as the influential expression, however false in many respects it may be, of the general spirit of the country. It is upon the aspect of affairs in Paris, then, and all its numerous conflicting elements, that observation must still be directed, in order to make a résumé, as far as it is practicable, of this sum-total of a year's republican rule. The account must necessarily be, more or less, a confused one, for accounts are not strictly kept in Republican Paris – are continually varying in their results, according as the political arithmeticians set about their "casting up" – and are constantly subject to dispute among the accountants: the main figures, composing the sum-total, may, however, be enumerated without any great error, and then they may be put together in their true amount, and according to their real value, by those before whom they are thus laid.

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The conspiracy, however, was suppressed; the insurrection failed entirely for the time; and Paris was told that it might be perfectly reassured, and doze quietly again upon its pillow, without any fear that Red-republicanism should again "murder sleep." But Paris, which has not learned yet to recover its old quiet habit of sleeping calmly, and has got too much fever in its system to close its eyes at will, is not to be lulled by such mere sedatives of ministerial assurance. Once roused in startled hurry from its bed again, and seeing the opiate of confidence which was beginning to work its effect in very small doses snatched from its grasp, it cannot calm its nerves at once. It will not be persuaded that the crisis is over, and has passed away for ever; like a child awakened by a nightmare, it looks into all sorts of dark holes and corners, thinking to see the spectre lurking there. It knows what it had to expect from the tender mercies of its pitiless enemies, had they succeeded in their will; what was the programme of a new Red-republican rule – a comité du salut public, the régime of the guillotine, the épuration of suspected aristocrats, the confiscation of the property of emigrants, a tax of three milliards upon the rich, a spoliation of all who "possess," the dissolution of the national guard, the exclusive possession of all arms by the soi-disant people, and – but the list of such new-old measures of ultra-republican government would be too long; it is an old tale often told, and, after all, only a free translation from the measures of other times. Paris, then, knows all this; it knows the fanatic and inexpressible rage of its antagonist, to which the fever of madness lends strength; it allows itself to be told all sorts of fearful tales – how Socialists, in imitation of their London brethren, have hired some thousand apartments in different quarters of the capital, in order to light a thousand fires at once upon a given signal. It goes about repeating the old vague cry – "Nous allons avoir quelque chose;" and, however foolishly exaggerated its alarm, the results it experiences are the same – again want of confidence arising from anxiety, again suspension of trade, again a renewal of misery. The fresh want of confidence, then, with all the attendant evils in its train, may again, as the year of republicanism approaches to its close, be taken as another figure in the sum-total that is sought.

Of the hopes and designs of the extreme moderate and supposed reactionary party, little can be said, inasmuch as it has kept its thoughts to itself, and not permitted itself to give any open evidences whatever upon the point. But the ardent and impetuous Montagnards are by no means so cautious: their designs, and hopes, and fears, have been clearly enough expressed; and they flash forth continually, as lightnings in the midst of the thunder of their incessant tumult. The allies and representatives, and, if all tales be true, the chiefs of the Red-republican party out of the Assembly – they still cherish the hope of establishing an ultra-democratic republican government, by some means or other – "by foul if fair should fail" – a government of despotic rule by violence – of propagandism by constraint – of systematic anarchy. They still form visions of some future Convention of which they may be the heroes – of a parliamentary tyrannical oligarchy, by which they may enforce their extravagant opinions. Driven to the most flagrant inconsistencies by their false position, they declare themselves also the true and supreme organ – not only of those they call "the people," but of the nation at large; while, at the same time, they affect to despise, and they even denounce as criminal, the general expression of public opinion, as evidenced by universal suffrage. They assume the attitudes of sauveurs de la patrie; and in the next breath they declare that patrie traitre to itself. They vaunt themselves to be the élus de la nation; and they openly express their repugnance to meet again, as candidates for the new legislative assembly, that majority of the nation which they now would drag before the tribunal of republicanism as counter-revolutionary and reactionary. In short, the only universal suffrage to which they would appeal is that of the furious minority of their perverted or hired bands among the dregs of the people. They have thus in vain used every effort to prolong to an indefinite period, or even to render permanent, if possible, the existence of that Assembly which their own party attacked in May, and which they themselves have so often denounced as reactionary. It is the rock of salvation upon which they fix their frail anchor of power, in default of that more solid and elevated foundation for their sway, which they are well aware can now only be laid for them by the hands of insurgents, and cemented by the blood of civil strife in the already blood-flooded streets of Paris. With the same necessary inconsistency which marks their whole conduct, they fix their hopes of advent to power upon the overthrow of the Assembly of which they are not masters, together with the whole present system of government; while they support the principle of the inviolability and immovability of that same Assembly, under such circumstances called by them "the holy ark of the country," when a fresh appeal is to be made to the mass of the nation at large. During the waverings and vacillations of the majority – itself clinging to place and power – they more than once expected a triumph for themselves in a declaration of the Assembly's permanence, with the secret hope, en arrière pensée, of finding fair cause for that insurrection by which alone they would fully profit, if a coup-de-main were to be attempted by the government, in obedience to the loudly-expressed clamour of popular opinion, to wreck that "holy ark" in which they had embarked their lesser hopes. When, however, they found that the crew were disposed to desert it, on feeling the storms of public manifestation blowing too hard against it – when they found that they themselves must in a few weeks, or at latest months, quit its tottering planks, their rage has known no bounds. Every manœuvre that can be used to prolong life, by prolonging even the daily existence of the Assembly, is unscrupulously put into practice. They clamour, they interrupt discussion – they denounce – they produce those daily "incidents" of French parliamentary tradition which prevent the progress of parliamentary business – they invent fresh interpellations, to create further delays by long-protracted angry quarrel and acrimony. Part of all this system of denunciation, recrimination, and acrimonious accusation, belongs, it is true, to their assumed character as the dramatis personæ of an imaginary Convention. They have their cherished models of old, to copy which is their task, and their glory; the dramatic traditions of the old Convention are ever in their winds, and are to be followed in manner, and even costume, as far as possible. And thus Ledru Rollin, another would-be Danton, tosses back his head, and raises his nose aloft, and pulls up his burly form, to thunder forth his angry Red-republican indignation; and Felix Pyat, the melodramatic dramatist, of the boulevard du crime– fully in his place where living dramas, almost as extravagant and ranting as those from his own pen, are to be performed – rolls his large round dark eyes, and swells his voice, and shouts, and throws about his arms, after the fashion of those melodrama actors for whose noisy declamation he has afforded such good stuff, and because of his picturesque appearance, fancies himself, it would seem, a new St Just. And Sarrans, soi-disant "the young," acts after no less melodramatic a fashion, as if in rivalry for the parts of jeune premier in the drama, but cannot get beyond the airs of a provincial groundling; and Lagrange, with his ferocious and haggard countenance, and his grizzled long hair and beard, yells from his seat, although in the tribune he affects a milder language now, as if to contradict and deny his past deeds. And Proudhon shouts too, although he puts on a benevolent air patelin, beneath the spectacles on his round face, when he proposes his schemes for the destruction of the whole fabric of society. And Pierre Leroux, the frantic philosopher, shakes his wild greasy mane of hair about his heavy greasy face, and raves, as ever, discordantly; and old Lammenais, the renegade ex-priest, bends his gloomy head, and snarls and growls, and utters low imprecations, instead of priestly blessings, and looks like another Marat, even if he denies the moral resemblance to its full extent. And Greppo shouts and struggles with Felix Pyat for the much-desired part of St Just. And gray-bearded Couthons, who have not even the ardour of youth to excuse their extravagancies, rise from their curule chairs to toss up their arms, and howl in chorus. And even Jules Favre, although he belongs not to their party, barks, bites, accuses, and denounces too, all things and all men, and spits forth venom, as if he was regardless where the venom fell, or whom it blistered; and, with his pale, bilious face, and scrupulously-attired spare form, seems to endeavour to preserve, as far as he can, in a new republic, the agreeable tradition of another Robespierre. And let it not be supposed, that malice or prejudice attaches to the Montagnards these names. The men of the last republican era, whom history has execrated, calumniously and unjustly they will say, are their heroes and their demi-gods; the sage legislators, whose principles they vaunt as those of republican civilisation and humanity; the models whom they avowedly, and with a confessed air of ambition, aspire to copy in word and deed. Part, however, of the systematic confusion, which it is their evident aim to introduce into the deliberations of the Assembly, is, in latter days, to be attributable to their desire to create delays, and lead to episodical discussions of angry quarrel and recrimination, which may prolong the convulsive existence of the Assembly to an indefinite period, or by which they may profit to forward their own designs. Thus the day is rare, as a ray of sunshine in a permanent equinoctial storm, when the Montagnards do not start from their seats, upon the faintest pretext for discontent or accusation of reactionary tendencies; and, either en masse or individually, fulminate, gesticulate, clamour, shout, denounce, and threaten. The thunder upon the "Mountain's" brow is incessant: if it does not burst forth in heavy peals, it never ceases to growl. Each Montagnard is a Jupiter in his own conceit, and hurls his thunderbolt with what force he may. Not a word can be spoken by a supposed reactionary orator without a murmur – not a phrase completed without a shout of denegation, a torrent of interruptions, or peeling bursts of ironical laughter. The "Mountain" is in perpetual labour; but its produce bears more resemblance to a yelping pack of hungry blood-hounds, than to an innocent mouse: it is in perpetual movement; and, like crushing avalanches from its summit, rush down its most energetic members to the tribune, to attempt to crush the Assembly by vehemence and violence of language. These scenes of systematic tumult have necessarily increased in force, since the boiling spite of disappointment has flowed over in hot reality, in place of the affected and acted indignation: the rage and agitation no longer know the least control. The affair of the abolition of the clubs had scarcely lent an excellent pretext for this violence, when the suppression of the insurrection, and the arrests consequent upon the discomfiture of the conspiracy on the 29th of January, gave a wide field for the exercise of the system of denunciation commonly pursued. To be beforehand with accusation by counter-accusation, has been always the tactics of the party: when the party-chiefs find themselves involved in the suspicion of subversive attempts, they begin the attack. The Montagnards have burst forth, then, to declare that the military precautions were a systematic provocation on the part of the ministry and General Changarnier, to incite the population of Paris to civil discord; that the only conspiracy existed in the government itself, to suppress liberty and overthrow the republic – at least to cast a slur upon the only true republicans, and have an excuse for tyrannical oppression towards them. They closed their eyes to the fact that the insurrection, of the proposed reality of which no doubt can remain, spite of these angry denegations, would have produced a crisis to which the real reactionary anti-republicans looked as one that must produce a change in the detested government of the country, should the moderate party triumph in the struggle, as was probable; and that by the suppression of the insurrection the crisis was averted, and the republic evidently consolidated for a time, not weakened. With their usual inconsistency, and want of logical deduction, at the same time that they accused the minister of a useless and provocative display of the military force, they denounced the conspiracy as real, but as proceeding from "infamous royalists," and not anarchist Red republicans. And then, to follow up this pell-mell of self-contradictions – while, on the one hand, they denied any insurrectionary movement at all, and, on the other, attributed it to royalists – they called, in their language at the rostrum, the commencement of the street demonstration on the morning of the 29th of January – which could not be denied, and which had come down as usual from the faubourgs, ever ripe for tumult – "the sublime manifestation of the heroic people." Propositions couched in furious language, for "enquêtes parlementaires," and for the "mise en accusation des ministres" – every possible means of denunciation and intimidation were employed, to increase the agitated hurly-burly of the Assembly, and subvert, as far as was possible, the few frail elements of order and of confidence that still subsisted in it. In marking thus, in hasty traits, the position of parties in the Assembly, called together to establish and consolidate the republic upon a basis of peace and order, what are the figures which are so noted down as forming part of the sum-total, as the approaching conclusion of the revolutionary year is about to make up its accounts? As regards the Assembly, increased confusion, disunion, bitter conflict of exasperated parties, suspicion, mistrust, disaffection, violence.

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