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1070 THE LEADER. [No. 39S, November 7. l...
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THE LEVIATHAN. Atsd there is that Leviat...
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A. M1LLWALL ILLUSTRATION. It is reported...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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No. Aaa -Woviimbeb 7,1«&U__
patriotism exacts from a man even the sacrifice of his reputation . By doing a little wrong , Ca . vaiqnao might , perhaps , have done a great right . He had but to insist , whilst the vast mass of middle classes were huddling , affrighted , under his wing for shelter , that the clause of the proposed Constitution which ' reasonably gave the election of the President
to the Assembly , should ba discussed and voted at once . After that , theorists and lawyers might have disputed as they pleased about the details . But every one was at that time in favour of a certain pedantic formality —every one but tliat silent , and meditative pretender , and those boisterous sectaries whose activity had just been stamped out by the iron heel of the African G-eneral . Time
for reaction was allowed . The very men who had executed the acts of / rigour which had renewed popular hatred , shrank , from- that hatred , and did their best to make the chief of the executive power the scapegoat of the day . His fall was a concession to the ninety thousand disarmed Socialists—disarmed , but still terrible—^ -the only men sufficiently earnest to be ready at any time to risk their lives in the streets for their opinions .
All this has since been seen through ; and the name of Cavaign ^ . c , though it did not excite universal affection , was becoming gradually more popular . As the Journal des Debate acknowledges , ' hopes' had begun to cluster around it . The fact is , that although it is considered puerile to think of any immediate termination of the present
regimethere being no means of execution , and no sufficient motive that has not been , in operation six years—yet all reflecting persons contemplate the possibility of a change at some period more or less distant . That a sort of date exists in their minds may be inferred from the fact that no reference to this change has been made without some reference to the
name of CAVATGira . c—an older man than the present incumbent of the throne . But it would be a mistake to suppose that he was , with or without his knowledge , the head even of a tacit conspiracy . Only , every one felt certain that in case of any accident requiring the presence of a new dictator—a sudden malady , an assassination , an emewte—his neighbour would almost to a certainty , in . the first moment of alarm and disorder—unless a mere promoter of disorder—call for G-eneral Cavaignac , at least as a temporary expedient . No matter what followed . There was no fear
that he would force the country into a direction which it disliked . He would merely sit Bword in hand at the head of affairs , and compel all parties to discuss their pretensions and count their numbers without any appeal to violence . Gradually , therefore , by the mere force of circumstances , Cavaignac , whether leading a quietlife in his modest apartment of the 3 £ ue de Iiondres , or spending an hour or so in the studio of his friend
Jeanson : —where it was the etiquette never to provoke him to talk of public affairs—or engaged in building outhouses , or laying down drains on his new estate of Ourne , without intrigue , without active ambition , without relations more than those of a mere private gentleman , almost against his will—so sweet at that period of life had become the duties and the privileges of home , tbe society of an admiring and charming wife , of a promising
little boy—amidst all this repose , Cavaignao , we say , was rising to the position of a necessary mediator when the necessary crisis should come . No wonder , therefore , that every stop he took was watched with jealous eyoa from the Tuilories ; no wonder that the Paris elections were considered in the light of an insolent bravado . But what could bo done against a man who was gathering the sympathies of a nation around him , whilst scorning
to put his whole soul into shooting snipes in his fields ? He fell , and died as rapidly as he might on the field of battle at the head of a column . There was no connexion between his death and the position he had gradually assumed . Perhaps in the depths of that great heart there may have been some secret anxiety , some regret for the past , some hope or fear for the future , at which we can only guess . When we hear talk of so many great political
leaders and soldiers of civil war dying from aneurisms and not from grape-shot , we refuse to accept mere material explanations , and laugh at science which tells us that there is no such , thing as a broken heart . However , such speculations Ciinnofc lead to much now . The General died as soon as they had carried him from the garden to the house . Then followed an incident which can scarcely be surpassed for dramatic interest . The young Widow , having obtained , or not , due
authorization- — -it matters little—accompanied by a neighbour and her infant son , set out to carry the body to Paris . They wrapped him in his cloak , and placed hini in the corner of his carriage as if asleep ; and so , during the whole day , they journeyed , now by road and now by rail ; and with that rigid face always before her , Madame Cavaiqstac went on to Paris . It was daylight when they arrived : but no one knew what had happened , and uo
one was in the streets . The corpse of the G-eneral had been laid out twenty-four hours at least before the news was generally known . M . Jeanron , one of the oldest aud most energetic friends of the deceased , was instantly summoned , and entrusted with the task of making the necessary preparations : ¦—MM . ' GrOTJDClTAtrx , YAUIiABEIil ^ E , DE PoiSST , Gfin"abi > , and Bastide were summoned , and came in at various hours of the nisrh'fc . It is
an interesting fact that no hired hands were employed to put the General in his coffin . His friends performed that last duty for him ; aud one of them wrapped his head in linen cloths . It would be indiscreet to paint their emotion now , and to describe the scenes of grief that took place . But it is impossible not tonotice thatthere was something heroic in th e tone of all who came from that house duritiff
thosedays . All the women of the Ca . vaig : nac family have been famous for a sort of lloinan heroism ; and the young wife and mother , who now mourns the loss of her hope and that of Prance , from the beginning to the end of this sad catastrophe lias acted in a manner which only a Piajtaecii could fittingly record . Trance must now wait for a new reputation to rise up ; although , while Colonel Chajwas lives , the place of Cavaignao is not entirely
empty . Though the Orleanists may have consented to widen their programme , and though most moderate Be publicans may have persuaded themselves that any government would be good which would grant liberty of speech and free elections , yet the vast mass of the nation has jnofc yet been reached by these new ideas and conventions . The death of Cavaignao and the speculations to which it has given rise will reveal to many for the first time the existence of a Liberal party , which increases without conspiring , which lias
no absolute doctrines and no watchword , which is scarcely conscious of its own importance , and which , indeed , has as yet but a negative influence . If any of its members are to bo found in the army , except in exile , tliey cannot boast of much moral courage . Literary men , artists , merchants , bankers , oven stock-jobbers , followed tho funeral car to the Montmartro Cemetery between tho double lino of soldiers ; but not ono single uniform —an unprecedented occurrence—was seen ia tho whole column .
1070 The Leader. [No. 39s, November 7. L...
1070 THE LEADER . [ No . 39 S , November 7 . lftftT
The Leviathan. Atsd There Is That Leviat...
THE LEVIATHAN . Atsd there is that Leviathan ! is said no more of the monster of the Ocean but of the monster of Hillwall . There was something pathetic in the blank dejection visible on the faces of that noble army of workmen on the dreary November morning when the Bio-Ship , just like a horse too sharply bitted ° obstinately declined to go one way or the ' other , Mike a thing of life . ' So true it is , as M . Babinet observes , that while Nature obeys her own ordinances without effort or resistance , she is apt to resent man ' s arbitrary laws , or to obey them with groans and convulsions of resentment . On Tuesday last Nature did her part of the work to everybody ' s satisfaction ; the tide flowed up to the very keel of the slrip quite caressingly ; and , in accordance with a natural law , wheu the ship was started down an incline she went , as our Yankee cousins would say , ' slick enough . ' But when man ' s mechanism ' pulled her up on . her haunches with a bit severer than Chifney ' s , she protested most effectually against this sudden check to her inclinations , and stuck fast . The ' failure of vast enterprises from the slightest accidents is an old story ; the truth perhaps being that these ' " accidents are what a theologian would call sins of omission , and mostly of the preventible order . In the present case every luxury of precaution was employed that the boldest engineering science , tempered by calculations at once the most liberal and the most exact could devise to prevent the Big Ship from launching herself , and in that single respect tho success was complete . The great fear appears to have been lest by her own mere motion she should break loose like an infant Hercules from her cradle , scatter her chains like serpents from her path , convert a thick-sown acre or two of working men and sightseers into clay and stubble , walk through or over half a dozen lighters , and as many steamers crowded with Cockneys , and by way of a concluding tableau , make a run on the opposite Bank and dig up Deptford by the roots . The American language alone could do justice to the harrowing spectacle so successfully prevented from coming off last Tuesday , to the bitter disappointment of that atrocious Old Man who went every night to see the lion eat Van Ambuegii .
A. M1llwall Illustration. It Is Reported...
A . M 1 LLWALL ILLUSTRATION . It is reported that , on Tuesday evening last , a Junior Lord of the Admiralty fell into ecstasies . He had been to Millwall and had seen , the Leviathan hitch . He went home , met his friends at dinner , aud said , in exulting claret tones , " Who'll ever say another word about the Transit ? " Iu the exultation of the moment , tbe Junior Lord even made up his mind to write and ask Mr . W . S . Lindsay
whether he had not given up his notion about private enterprise . Indeed , some of the public departments were illuminated—not with gas or wax lights , but with tho irrideseenee of official grins , and every departmental backbone waa erected in an attitude of triumph . Already we catch an echo from the next session of Parliament . " The honourable gentleman .
says , that if precautions had been uaed , the mutiny could not have spread so dangerously , but I ask tho honourable gentleman , who is so fond of sneering at the administrative measures of tho Government , whether ho was present at tho attempted launch of tho Leviathan p Wore not precautions taken , and waa not tho experiment a failure ¥ " Let the bnck benches cheer . It waa democracy
thatbroko down on Tuesday afternoon , cogs and tiickle breaking with it . . That is to wiy , navvies could not do tho duty of eng ineers ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 7, 1857, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07111857/page/14/
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