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sjuxypathy , and great practical experience . They idll be lectures from the ^ cr ^ siuapof all ^ g « s , delivered by a Master .
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LES IDEES NAPOUEQNIENNES . * Ma voix est libre comme ma penae ' e . . . et j ' aime la liberty . ( Preface to the ¦' ¦ " Idees Napoleoniennes . " ') * xX ) se word more , Messieurs . I represent before you a principle , a cause , arid a defeat . The principle is the Sovereignty of the People ; the cause is * ftrat of the Empire ; the defeat is that of Waterloo . The principle , you Jmve recognised it ; the cause , you have served in it ; the defeat , you would avenge & ' " Thus perorated Prince Xouis 2 Japoleon Bonaparte , when arraigned before . a Court of Peers to answer for his invasion of a peaceful Country that had transferred its worship from Moloch to Mammon . The
' *• principle" is elsewhere defined to be that excellent form of government -tfrfdir provides for the eorreotion of all grievances and abuse of power ^ without civic c otions , ibr the revision of the laws and constitution when - ^ requisite , andfor the summary dismissal of the Chief of the State whenever ^ auch shall be i&e pleasure of the sovereign people : " for no one generation has the power to _ impose _ its laws on those that succeed to it . " But as it is manifestly impossible in a great nation that every ~ citizen should take an active part in the administration of public affairs , it becomes-neeessary . that at least the executive power ehould be delegated to some man , or family , who enjoys the confidence of the majority ; " for it is the nature of a demoindividual Thus idea is fulld
tceoey to pereoriify itself in' an . more y eveloped list the Prince ' s pamphlet on the affair at Straaburg , published in the name m £ M . Armand -Laity , who expiated that honour by five years of imprisonment . ¦ . '" France—we are told : —is democratic , but not republican . By demo' « araey , I mean the government of an individual by the will of all ; by republic , I mean the governmeat of & number in obedience to a certain system . France desires to have national institutions as representatives Sttf her rights , and some man or some Jamily _ tQ represent her interests . . . . My design is 4 o come with a . popular banner— -the most popular , the most dgkauoua ' of ; all—to offer a sallying point to whatever is generous and national . asMsrerv uarty—to restore to France her dignity without a general war , her
Uibiwty without license , hervstabihty inthoutdespotism . And to accomplish vuch a -result , what must * we do ? We « a * ist derive irom the masses all our -strength artd ail iOurTigb *— for the masses are on the side of reason and justice / ' The destruction of the aristocracy , " the faithfnl , though oftentimes oppressive , guardian of the general and permanent interests , " induced J 2 * e ; neoes 8 ttyibx the creation of " . an hereditary family to exercise a conservative influence in favour of those general interests , and whose power should iaveno other foundation than the democratic spirit of the nation . " Unfortunately , this hereditary necessity accords somewhat inharmoniously with < the " idea" of responsibility on the part of the chief of the State , and of the obligation of obtaining the sanction of 4 he people on the accession of every . new emperor . Nor does it altogether agree with the spirit of the letter iaddreseed from . Ham to the Editor of the Juurnal du Loiret : " Never have I
. thought , never will I believe , that France is the apanage of any one man or family . Never have I claimed other rights than those o a French uStizen , and never shall I entertain any other wish than to behold the entire ¦ p eople , legally convoked , make free election of the form of government « noet suited to its ceaavrements . " Still less consistent is it with the proclaiKation of the 16 th of January , 1852 . " The . present constitution proclaims that . the chief whom you have elected is responsible to you ; that he has the right of appeal to your sovereign judgment , in order that in grave circumstances you may always be able to continue your confidence in him , or to withdraw it . Being responsible , his actions must bo free and without hin-, < derance / ' ......
This lost clause is sufficiently intelligible , for a respqnsiblo chief ought certainly to be unrestricted in his choice of Ministers ; and that'the people does consider the sovereign responsible may be seen in the history of overy 'nation for in which has there not been a revolution and a monarch de--poeed ? But it is a very different thing to reconcile the **• ideas" of respon faibilcfcy , election , and hereditary descent , < nor , indeed , . do we undertake tp MUfplain all the ; difficult pa » 8 ag « s in this Cotaedv of Errors . The contradiction was apparent to the First Consul himself in the year X ., when he said : " Hereditary power depends upon the civil law . It implies the idea rf property , and is instituted to insure the transmission of that property . ( Haw- is it poamble to reconcile tko hereditary deseent o the first wmgistracy
with the principle of the sovereignty of the people ? How are we to per suade the people that this magistracy is a property ? When the crown was hereditary , there were many magistracies in the same condition . This fiction was almost a general law , but there is nothing of that kind now . " Perhaps , however , the best explanation is to be found in the very proclam ation cited above : —" I have-thought it reasonable to prefer the precep ts of genius to the specious doctrines of men of abstract ideas . " When the eagle soars aloft to the sun , it is in vain that blinking owls strive to follow its
course . Happily we are not left equally in the dark as to ^ the rights which France desires to have represented by national institutions , for they are thug enumerated in the Fifth Article of the Model Constitution proposed in tie Reveries jPolitiqnes : — " The right of expressing one ' s thoughts and opinions cannot be withheld . " Verily , Job did well to exclaim , " O , that mine enemy would write a book ! " By way of postscript to this rare Bill of Rights , it is added : — " A Minister must neither be a banker , nor gamble at the Bourse , " and ' The caution-money for periodical papers is abolished . " And the same liberal view , slightly modified , is enunciated in Louis Xapoleon ' s address to the French nation when offering himself as a candidate for the Presidentship , for he therein pledges himself " to protect the liberty of
either through the medium of the Press or in any other manner , the right of assembling together peaceably , and the free exercise of religious worship , the Press from the two excesses which endanger it at pi'esent , that o arbitrary authority on the one hand , and of its own licentiousness on the other . " In the time of Napoleon the Great , we are told , " the liberty of the Press would only have served to place in evidence the greatness of his conceptions , and to proclaim the benefits of his reign . . . . Nor could the liberty of diseussion in the Chambers have had more dangerous consequences for the Imperial Government ; for , as all were agreed on the fundamental questions , the Opposition could only have served to give birth to a noble emulation ; and , instead of consuming its energies to effect its overthrow , it would have limited its efforts to the task of improvement . " Is the converse of this'statement , we would humbly ask , equally true ? Is the Press now enslaved because of the littleness of the Third Napoleon ' s conceptions ? And is the liberty of discussion withheld because there is no agreement on
fundamental questions ? But what matters a partial disagreement , so long as the sovereign peoplews contented ? Surely , its irresponsibly-responsible , hereditarily-elective Chief is no other than the pei'sonification of the democracy , the representative of the national sovereignty , the exponent of the feelings , ideas , and desires of the majority ? But let xis return to our ^ nibbling flocks . " Napoleon was no . despot , * for in 1810 he expressed ¦ " his displeasure that no law had yet been framed for the Press , and it is especially worthy of remark that the Emperor frequently pronounced these memorable words : — " I do not wish" this power to be left to my successors , for they might abuse it . " "Oh , my prophetic soul , my uncle ! " We might here again inquire , as to the converse of this new proposition , -whether a prince who gags the Press is a despot ? But we prefer quoting the Emperor ' s remonstrance to the Council of State . " The Press , assumed to be free , is in the most abject slavery . The Police curtails and suppresses what works it pleases ; nor is ifc the Minister himself who judges , for he is obliged to refer the matter to those under him . Nothing can be more irregular and arbitrary
than such a system . . But Prince Louis Napoleon represented a " cause" as well as a principle , " and this cause was the Empire . L'Umpire c '' est la paix . It is also de fined as a system which " consists in promoting civilisation , without discord and without exeeas ; in giving an impulse to ideas , at the same time developing mutual , interests ; in strengthening _ the ^ bands of power , by making it respected ; in disciplining the masses through the medium of theivintellectual faculties ; in short , in uniting around the altar of the country Frenchmen of all parties , by g iving them for motives of action honour and glory . Again : " The Imperial system is not a bastard imitation of the constitutions of ° England and America , but the governmental formula of the principles oi the Revolution ; it is a hierarchy in a democracy ; equal rights before the Jaw ; promotion by merit ; in fine , it is a pyramidal colossus with broad base and towering head . " The first Emperor ' s mission was to prepare the and in lo
way for Liberty . His wars were forced upon him , deiending v w he well nigh subdued tho world . He was not personally ambitious ; he did not surround himself with the illustrious names of the anci en recjime to satisfy his self-love ; he did not waste the treasures of France , nor spill her noblest blood , to ao-o-randise his own power and to place his brothers upou thrones ; nor did he espouse an archduchess of the House of Austria that a genuine princess might share his couch . Allons done ! We must be " pigmies ™ intelligence" to misunderstand him so grievously . No . The policy oi N-apoleon was sublime and disinterested . Ho contemplated the cnirancbisement of Europe from old traditions and worn-out usages ; and it he diu pinu . a royal crown on the heads of his near kinsmen , it was because they wouiodl more submissive and could be more easily deposed than other dependents , i or the Imperial system , so far as ita development had attained , was in a ivm > K tion state . Had final success waited upon his arms , he would have restoreu
the nationalities of Italy and Poland , have caused all monarehs to dispanu their armies and retain only a guard of honour , and have consohdatcd . liDeriy at home . " The government of Napoleon , more than any othei , * us cou patible with liberty , the simple reason that liberty would hove assurou the stability of his throne , while it subverts those that rest on no w { g "" g Liberty would have confirmed his power , because he had cs ^ K ^ tJc France all that should precede liberty ; because his power reposed on entire mass of the nation ; because his interests were those of the JJ ^ P j because , in short , the most perfect confidence existed between the '' 1 UJ £ ^ e rul ed . " Such was the cause which Louis Napoleon rop ~ sontod . « i £ the affair at Boulogne , and which he had repudiated at ** a *»*) ° { rom Colonel Vaudrey ho said : " The Emperor Napoleon held In a powci n > the French people ; four times did his authority roccivothejwpuUu ^ s ^
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* QZmnu&tJfapalifra HI- P » bUdeB pw M . C . E . Tamblaue . Paris .
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Not one-of the least remarkable signs of the timeson the northern horizon is < $ jbe announcement by ' the esteemed and distinguished exile Albxandbb Hbksek ,-whose whole Bfe is devotion to the cause of social emancipation among Hs countrymen , a Quarterly Russian Review to be published in London , as the organ of revolutionary Russia . It is to be called L'Etoiie Volntre : the first number -will appear on the 1 st of August . It will depend on the sapport i die « Sttiwr may receive from Russia whether the Review will appear « tintervals of three or of four months . In each number there will be a general article « f revolutionary philosophy , addressed more particularly to social quesfjtons , an historical or ( statistical article on Russia , or on the Slavonic race ; « n Analysis o some remarkable work of history , politics , or philosophy ; « nd a paper en Russian literature ; with the usual summary and correspondence . M . Hbbzen offers this Review as an asylum to his countrymen " ¦ who have been ship / wrecked by the censorship . " He desires to "fix in : type- the forbidden manuscript fragments of Pouchkine , Lebmontoff Useeieff . In the first number we are promised a curious correspondence % e % ween Bemksky and Gogol ; a political paper , with this text , " Qu ' est-ce gaeTEtat ? and a review , by the editor , of M . Michelet ' s Renaissance . 'We hail the -appearance of this Russian Review with real satisfaction , « nel we eordially Wish & 3 courageous editor success .
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# 02 _^_ THB Ji 3 SAP 3 BB . [ SA 3 ? PB ^ ftX a
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¦• Or if he were a despot , ho was one of those « « hom ^^^ t ^ no other . law ( tibua thair own caprice , but who ot leuat do not a ^« uu Apooioa : they oppress without demoralising it !
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Leader (1850-1860), April 28, 1855, page 402, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2088/page/18/
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