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Paris, Friday, December 19,1851. My Dear...
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Letters From. Paris. [Fkom A Special Co-...
Talking of " family , " I ask you whether such brutal beasts as Veron and Delamarre have the better right to talk of family , or such a man as Manin , the President of the Venetian Republic , who of course is called a " rouge . " This noble man has been in Paris since the capitulation of Vienna , after its heroic resistance of eighteen months . He left Vienna with his wife and one daughter , who is subject to epileptic fits , obliged to be constantly watched , and never left alone . On arriving at Marseilles during the cholera , his wife died in the lazaretto ! He came with his
only daughter lo Paris to gain his honourable bread . So chivalrous is his delicacy , that he will not accept of a farthing in the shape of pension * or support . He gives lessons in Italian , but with what difficulty ! being ever exposed to the suspicions of an inquisitorial police ; and so he devotes his life to alleviate the sufferings of his poor child—the only daughter of her he has lost . Is not this " la famille" r or is it better exemplified at the Elyse ' e ? But I could tell you a hundred instances of unrecorded devotion among the " rouges . "
1224 4£Tt$ He Atl $T* [Saturday ,
1224 4 £ tt $ He atl $ T * [ Saturday ,
Paris, Friday, December 19,1851. My Dear...
Paris , Friday , December 19 , 1851 . My Dear Friend , —M . Louis Napoleon Bonaparte ' s adherents and satellites are not content with his shameless parody of a great epoch , they are nowsetting to work to revmte history , " done to order , " from the point of view most agreeable to the intrigues and usurpations of the masters of to-day . In the face ( I do not say of French history , but ) of all the impartial writers of all countries , and of the contemporary records and documents which have come down to us , we are to accept , soberly and seriously , with our eyes open and our memories awake , an
article in the Constitutionnel on the coup d ' etat of the 2 nd of December , 1851 , four mortal columns long , as an undeniable rectification of the " romances" ( as they are called , forsooth !) of all the great European historians who have gravely and profoundly described the causes of the Great Revolution of ' 89 , and calmly and seriously weighed its effects and consequences , The extravagant balderdash and enormous impudence of this pretended reply to the English Press would not merit a word of rejoinder from any respectable London journal if the name of the writer were alone to be considered ; for even in the lowest sinks of
English corruption there is not , I rejoice to know and to state with certainty , the equal of A . Granier de Cassagnac in disgrace and disrepute . I say this most advisedly , for I now knoto the antecedents of this man , step by step , exactly ; and I denounce him ( with whose reckless and insolent paradoxes and brutal declamations many of our journals are too ready to stain their columns ) as a foul blot upon the honourable profession of journalism . A . Granier de Cassagnac is , not figuratively , but most strictly and literally , a hired bully and bravo , the bare recital of whose past career strikes upon the ear of any honest man like a personal insult . In ordinary times , I admit , no personality should enter even into the
hottest polemics ; to none more than to myself would it be repugnant to assail the personal character of a political adversary ; but in these unhappy days of ours , when the vilest of men are holding up to public horror and to public execration the purest and best , when men sullied witli every vice that can debase , start up as the privileged champions of the holiest and most sacred of ties and institutions ; it is not simply our right , but our duty , during the enforced silence of our brothers of the French Press , to cry aloud to all the winds of publicity who and what manner of men are the professed championH of Law , Society , and Religion , in whose mouths no insult is too base , no calumny too cruel , against the imprisoned and oppressed survivors of a successful
massacre . I therefore engage , as soon as I return to England , to write and ( if you will ) to sign a biography ( for which I am getting tho fullest and most authentic materials ) of this M . A . Grimier dC i Cassagnac , and of this M . le Docteur Veron , whose powers of invective and audacities of invention would indeed be formidable , if any credit could be thought worthy to be attached to their lucubrations . It is they and theirs who have proclaimed a war ii , l ' outrnnce : lot us accept it . We only demand a preference for virtue and for honesty . For the present moment I content myself with calling your notice to an article in to-day ' s Constitzttionnel ( the chief organ of the coup d'Hat ) . Tt begins by assuring us that the opinions of the Times and other English ioumals upon " the grand net recently accomplished , '' proceed " evidently , necessaril y from ft complete ignorance of the state ; of France , of the plans and the worth of its parties , of tho nature and tendency of its objects . " It then proceeds to assert that the dominant fact in the history of France , for tin ; last sixty years , is that the French people , really and unrepresented by their own Government , have been constantly subjected to a series of minorities which have got at the head of affairs by different ways , and directed them according to their views , their passions , and their intercuts . That—whatever romantic histories may say to tho contrary—it i « now an incontcHtible fact that Louis
XVI . proposed to establish in 1788 , all the good and serious liberal institutions of modern France ! but that the parlemens , the noblesse , the clergy , and the bourgeoisie (?) , whom all these reforms stripped of their privileges ( qy . what were the privileges of the bourgeoisie in 1788 ?) , conspired to thwart him , and compelled him to convoke the States General . That the magistracy , the bar , the noblemen , the prelates , and the bourgeoisie , hoped to occupy the seats of this great Assembly , and so , after rejecting the reforms of Louis XVI ., to substitute their direction and influence for the decision and influence of the Court . That the 1200 deputies of the States General had no
sooner begun to sit at Versailles , than they forgot their mandate ( which was to preserve the monarchy and the national institutions ) ; and after stirring up a revolt of the populace against the throne , finished by constructing on a pedestal of declamations and sophistries , an ideal insensate constitution , which lasted thirteen months . These 1200 deputies were " an imperceptible minority of ambitious soi-disant philosophes , who launched the country , in opposition to its express will , into an unknown regime , having no root in the national habits , no precedent in the national history , no authority over the national mind . "
That the Convention which followed the Constituent after the 10 th of August , ' 92 , was of all Assemblies the most alien to the country ; both the electors and the representatives being nominated by a scandalous minority from the clubs . That on the dissolution of the Convention , the Constitution ( of the third year of the Republic ) , which lasted four years , was utterly foreign to the will of France ; and that , in short , during eleven years ( i . e . from 1789 to 1800 ) France was handed over to the domination of four successive minorities—^ Constituents ,
Girondins , the Mountain , the Ihermidonans—to each of whom in turn it owed terror , ruin of commerce and agriculture , without ever having been consulted by those who assumed the Government . In all elaborate perversions of this kind there is ever a grain of truth ; and it cannot be denied that there is a grain of truth in all this statement ; but only so much as to render the falsehood more glaring . Then ( it says ) , after fifteen years of a Government even less praiseworthy for having been regulary
accepted ( as Louis Napoleon s Plebiscite" will be regularly accepted !) than for having delivered the country from the bloody struggle of factions ( mark how appropriate to the Nephew . ' ) the Empire fell , and the Restoration , " patched in the brains of princes and nobles , reared in the school of the philosophy of the eighteenth century , " resumed the traditions of the Constituent , and introduced English Parliamentary institutions . This Government rested on the shoulders of about 80 , 000 , chiefly aristocratic families ; the rest of the country quite indifferent to its rise or fall .
Then the regime of 1830 was nothing but the restoration continued , plus increased power of the Chambers and diminished power of the throne , i . e ., " with another element of decadence , ruin , and dissolution introduced . " This regime was confided to about 200 , 000 families , mostly bourgeois ; the masses quite indifferent , treating it , like strangers , with mere deference , and letting it perish . Then the Republic of ' 48 was " less popular and less national than the two Monarchies it replaced . It was decreed by a gang of Clubbists and Conspirators who imposed it in the country , and divided the spoils and profits , in the shape of an extraordinary tax upon the proprietors and peasants , 190 , 000 , 000 of franca . " Sic .
( Mind , this tax was to save the country from imminent bankruptcy at the risk of unpopularity . ) About 700 or 800 political convicts and conspirators took-charge of this government ; " but" ( mark this avowal !) " 6 , 000 , 000 of peasants" { i . e . brutal ignorant peasants , who believed that the Emperor was come back ) struck it ( £ . e . the Republic ) a mortal blow on tho 10 th of December , in giving it for chief , for ruler , and for master a man , in two regardH , the enemy of the demagogy—both as Prince and as
Bonaparte . " ( It will be well that the Republic should treasure up this avowal . ) " So that ( continues the article ) we see that France has , for sixty years , with the exception of the interval of the Consulate and the Empire , been dominated and possessed by minorities . " So that we are to believe that France was not dominated by a minority when , sick with war and exhausted by conscriptions , she welcomed the allied armies an deliverers , and Bonaparte had to escape for his life !
So France is not dominated by an insolent and brutal minority now , at this moment . Then tho article proceeds to attack what it Alls " the political classes , " " the most turbulent , the most ambitious , the most capricious of the citizens ;" and these are the " lettered classes" and the " liberal professions . " To their domination a counterpoise is wanting , and that , is to he found in the " agricultural population" { i . e . the ( 5 , 000 , 000 of brutish peasants ) . It then says that the Legitimists , Orleauists , and Republicans were all powerful in tho laut Assembly ; but what were they in the country i The result of the coup d'e'tat proves—Nothing .
You see , after eliminating thesethree iarti ^ r ^ r " onl yRemains the Botmpartist ,, and the 6 , 00 JdooS brutish peasants to represent the " will of Franoo » The tirade , after inveighing at length again !? ? h » supremacy of the » lettered classes , " and " l ; W i institutions , " and against Parliamentary inetitm ^ from which « France is now ^ VV ^ lSy ^ T ^ the bold initiative of Louis Napoleon B ^ SS * * perorates as follows : — * " »* «? » " Louis Napoleon Bonaparte , guided by the sub lime genius of the Emperor , is building with , th purified material ^ of his age the durable edifice in which , after him and like him , all the serious powers called by whatever name , may find a shelter whe ' ther republic or monarchy ; for the name may change but the conditions of a government ' s existence remain the same .
" Providence alone has the secrets of the future but if ever the Count de Chambord , or the Count de Paris should come to reign in France , it is to the coup d'etat of the 10 th of December that they would both owe their crowns . " Now really , after reading and rereading this article , I know not whether to admire most its insolence or its maladresse ; for it must offend ( though the last words are a bait to the most corrupt and least noble of the Royalist parties ) both the Legitimists and Orleanists ; it must once more and for ever undeceive the Republican party as to the intentions of the coup d ' etat ; and , lastly , it must very deeply offend as a personal insult that very large and very important class in France—the " lettered class "—the political class—the liberal professions .
But I have omitted one sentence of the article in which this bravo , whose whole public life has been a foul blot on journalism , thus speaks of journalists . classing them with the other liberal professions ; he calls them { en passant ) " pen-inenders , inkstandholders , and paper-scratchers . " There is powerful writing for you ! So much for the Constitutionnel of this morning . La Patrie of this evening , a sort of Government
hurdy-gurdy ( for it cannot be called an organ ) , has an article intended to catch the Republicans . It says— " Louis Napoleon is come to resume the unfinished and interrupted work of the organization of democratic France , and not to try to galvanize the corpse of a part which cannot again revive . " It then proceeds to dilate on the frightful consequences of a Parliamentary coup d ' etat , and on the impossibility of a legitimist restoration .
Such are the tunes the Government instruments are playing ; and they have it all their own way , for all opposition is mute , and under these conditions the will of France is to vote its own suicide 1 A nice little bit of Jesuitry is going on in the Parti Pretre Section of the Legitimists , headed b y De Falloux and Montalembert . The latter , in his letter to the Univers , recommended adhesion and support pro tanto to the President , as having done much for the Church , and as being next best to the right thing .
The Government papers reported that he was authorized b y M . de Falloux , in the name of a Legitimist Committee , to publish the assurance that M . de Falloux and his friends recommended an affirmative vote in favour of Louis Napoleon . M . de Montakmbert now writes to correct this impression , and to state the exact words of M . de Falloux , viz ., " That he and his friends most authorized to g ive counsel , would recommend to their party not to deposit any negative vote in the ballot of the 20 th of December . This , you will see , is very different from advising an affir mative vote , as no vote at all ia so much ot moral force subtracted from the numerical majority . The Parti Pretro will , however , in fact vote for Louis Napoleon Bonaparte .
The proudest and best of the Legitimists will abstain altogether . The Government papers are making a great fuss about the improved aspect of commercial activity , the state of the Funds , & c . Every evening criers are sent over Paris , selling papers with the last quotations of tho Bourse . So nets of different kinds are thrown out to catch all parties . To foreign eapitaliata ( especially to the city of London ) the bait is concession of the trunk lines of railway , and no jealousy of their profits 1 — ( Vide M . de Momy ' a speech to the deputation . ) Large public workB are already begun . Tho completion of the Louvre , the extension of tho Kue Rivoh , the cincture line of railway round Paris ( a really
important and valuable work ) , & c . The latest scheme is the amelioration of the « avi gable rivertt , and especially of the mouth of the Rhone . Another department ( the Jura ) has now boon placed under a . state of siege . . Nearly the half of France will he under inurtial law at the moment when the " free and ain am ; expression of the People ' s will , so ardently denned by Louis Napoleon , is to bo declared in tho votes ! Do you observe , that at Vienna a . nowupapor ha * boon suspended , for an article offensive to the person of the President qf the French Republic T I am sorry to have to record an instance ot that strong native llunkoyism which reigns in tho Euguw 1 breast : —
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 27, 1851, page 1224, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/ldr_27121851/page/4/
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