“ABSORPTION OF RAILWAYS BY THE STATE.
“Let us reproduce to-day, with the certainty of being heard by the country, the wishes which the Democratie Pacifique has announced every morning since its origin, seventeen years ago.
“I. All railways, roads, canals, and public ways, by which the life of France circulates, to be absorbed by the state.
“II. The state should undertake all stage-coaches, carriers, waggons, and means of conveyance or transport, of every description.
“III. All joint-stock banks should be absorbed by the state—(A l’état les banques confédérées.)
“IV. All insurance companies, mines, and salt-works, to be undertaken by the state.
“V. No more forestalling, accumulating, regrating, or anarchical competition. Feudal industry is pierced to the heart; let us not allow it to raise itself from the dust.”[[5]]
Such are the proposals to be found in a single journal which represents the ideas that are now fermenting in the mind of France.
These propositions will probably “donnent à penser,” as the French say, to most of our readers. Some of them will perhaps be of opinion that our lively neighbours are getting on at railway speed in the regeneration of society. We recommend their projects to the consideration of the numerous holders of French railway and other stock, in the British islands. They will doubtless get good round sums for their claims of damages against the French government, when it has absorbed all the joint-stock companies of the country!—the more so when it is recollected, 1st, That the damages will be assessed by juries elected by universal suffrage. 2d, That they will be paid by a government appointed by an assembly elected in the same way. We are not surprised, when such ideas are afloat in the ruling and irresistible workmen of Paris, who have just overturned Louis Philippe, at the head of one hundred thousand men, that the French funds have fallen thirty-five per cent in these few days, and railway and other stock in a still greater proportion. The Paris 3 per cents are now (March 18) at 50; the 5 per cents at 72!
Nor let it be said these ideas are the mere dreams of enthusiasts, which never can be carried into practice by any government. These enthusiasts are now the ruling power in the state; their doctrines are those which will quickly be carried into execution by the liberal and enlightened masses, invested by universal suffrage with supreme dominion in the Republic. Most assuredly they will carry their ideas into execution: the seed which the liberal writers of France have been sowing for the last thirty years, will bring forth its appropriate fruits. What power is to prevent the adoption of these popular and highly lauded “improvements,” after the government of Louis Philippe and Guizot has been overturned by their announcement? These persons stood as the barrier between France and the “social revolution” with which it was menaced: when they were destroyed, all means of resisting it are at an end, and the friends of humanity must trust to prevent its extension to other states, mainly to the reaction arising from its experienced effects in the land of its birth.
Already there appears, not merely in the language of the popular journals, but in the official acts of the Provisional Government, decisive evidence that the socialist ideas are about to be carried into execution by the supreme authority in France. On March 1st, there appeared the following decree of the Provisional Government:—
“The Provisional Government, considering that the revolution made by the people should be made for them:
“That it is time to put an end to the long and iniquitous sufferings of the working classes:
“That the question of labour is one of supreme importance:
“That there can be no higher or more dignified preoccupation of the Republican Government:
“That it becomes France to study ardently, and to solve, a problem which now occupies all the states of Europe:
“That it is indispensable, without a moment’s delay, to guarantee to the people the fruits of their labours:
“The Provisional Government has decreed,—
“That a permanent commission shall be formed, which shall be entitled, ‘The Commission of Government for the Labourers,’ and charged, in a peculiar and especial manner, with their lot.
“To show the importance which government attaches to this commission, it names one of its members, M. Louis Blanc, president of the commission, and for vice-president, another of its members, M. Albret, mechanical workman.
“Workmen are invited to form part of the commission.
“It shall hold its sittings in the palace of the Luxembourg.
“Louis Blanc.
“Armand Marrast.
“Garnier Pages.”[[6]]
How is the Provisional Government to find funds for the enormous multitudes who will thus be thrown upon them, or to satisfy the boundless expectations thus formed of them, and which their own acts have done so much to cherish? Already the want of money has been experienced. Nearly all the banks of Paris have failed; the savings’ banks have been virtually confiscated, by the depositors being paid only a tenth in specie, and the Bank of France has suspended cash payments. The government has got into an altercation with a class of the highest importance, under existing circumstances, which is striving to liberate itself from the imposts which are more immediately felt by it. So early as March 2d, the journalists claimed an exemption from the stamp duties on the public journals; and on the government hesitating to comply with their requests, they loudly demand the dismissal of M. Cremieux, the new minister of justice. The Democratie Pacifique of March 2d, observes—
“The greatest danger of our situation is, not that which comes from without, but that which comes from within. The most imminent danger would be the slightest doubt on the intentions of government, the least retrograde step in the presence of events. That disquietude, we are bound to admit, already exists in the minds of many—distrust is the precursor of revolutions.
“The government has had under its eyes the conduct of the people. Let it imitate it. Energy, constant energy, is the only way to do good. The people have proved it. It is by energy alone that the prolongation of struggles is prevented—the effusion of blood arrested—dangerous reactions averted.
“Forward, and Force to power! Such is the double cry of the Republic.
“The Chamber of Deputies and of Peers must not only be interdicted from meeting; like royalty, they must be abolished.
“M. Cremieux, the minister of justice, has forgotten his principles. He is not prepared for the part he has to perform. He blindly yields to old attachments and prejudices. At the moment when the most absolute liberty of the press, the most rapid and ceaseless emission of ideas, is the sole condition of the public safety—at the moment when we are in the midst of a chaos from whence we cannot escape if light does not guide our steps—at that moment M. Cremieux proposes to extinguish it—he proposes this, a retrograde step, to the minister of finance—the reestablishment of the stamps on journals.
“A revolution of yesterday cannot be thus braved.
“These gentlemen wish a republic surrounded by republican institutions.
“The people have not yet laid down their arms.”[[7]]
The government, after having made a show of resistance, yielded to their masters. The duties on journals were abolished, and absolute freedom given to the pouring of the rankest political poisons into the mind of France.
It is easy to see, with a government resting on such a basis, where the first practical difficulty will be found. Embarrassment of finance is the rock on which it will inevitably split: the more certain that it has been preceded by a huge deficit created by the former government; the more galling that it will be accompanied by the flight or hoarding of capital from the measures of the present one. Capitalists are universally alarmed over the whole country. A monetary crisis, as is the case with all successful revolutions, and that too of the severest kind, has ensued. M. Gouin’s bank, the same which formerly bore the name of Lafitte, has failed under liabilities to the extent of three millions. Nearly all the other banking establishments of Paris have already followed the example. The payment of all bills was, by government, postponed for three weeks, from February 28: a farther extension of the time of payment for a month after March 20, has been petitioned for by eight hundred of the first bankers and merchants in Paris. This amounts to a declaration of a general public and private insolvency. Overwhelmed by the difficulties of his situation, the first minister of finance has resigned; the second, M. Garnier Pages, has published a financial account, which exhibits so deplorable a state of the finances, that it may almost be said to amount to an admission of national bankruptcy. Despite all the efforts made to uphold them, the French three per cents, on this publication, fell to forty-seven. The terrors of the holders of stock are extreme.
An able eye-witness gives the following account of the state of Paris, amidst this terrible social and financial crisis.—
“I have seen daily and intimately persons of all parties; Legitimatists, Conservateurs, or adherents of the late government—adherents of the Molé Ministry of half-an-hour—adherents of the Barrot Ministry, equally short-lived—friends and intimates of members of the Provisional Government. I can most truly and distinctly affirm, that I saw and heard nothing from any of them but alarm and consternation; mingled with the strongest condemnation of the two conflicting parties whose obstinacy had brought about a collision which every body had feared, though no one’s fears had come within the widest range of the reality. I heard only expressions of the conviction that the present order of things could not last; that, in spite of the heroic efforts, the excellent intentions, and the acknowledged talents of several members of the government, it had undertaken to construct an edifice which must fall and crush them under its ruins; that it was now forced by fear upon promises, and would be forced upon acts utterly inconsistent with the stability of any government whatever. In short, the profoundest anxiety and alarm sit at the heart of the educated classes of France, of whatever party—and, not the least, of those who have undertaken the awful task of ruling her. Of that you may be fully assured.
“English Liberals will perhaps say ‘This we expected; but the people?’ Well, I must affirm that, if by ‘people’ they mean the industrious, quiet working-classes, the real basis of society, the object of the respect and solicitude of all enlightened rulers—if they mean these men, the alarm and consternation are greater among them than in the higher classes, in proportion to the slenderness of the resources they have to fall back upon; in many cases this amounts to a sort of blank despair. The more clear-sighted among them see the terrible chances that await them; they see capital leaving the country, confidence destroyed, and employment suddenly suspended or withdrawn, to an extent never seen before.
“Let me mention a few small but significant facts:—
“My locksmith told me he had always employed four men; he has discharged three. An English pastry-cook, who has constantly employed fifteen journeymen, was about to discharge nearly all. Every body is turning away servants, especially men, as the more expensive. I was told that good carriage-horses had been sold for five hundred francs each. A vast number of houses are becoming tenantless; the removal of the English alone would make a visible change in this respect. And what, think you, are the feelings of all the tribe of water-carriers, washerwomen, and the humble dependents for existence on these houses? Nothing, during the three days, seemed to be more affecting and alarming than the sight of these humblest ministrants to the prime wants of life rushing from door to door, even in the quietest streets, to get their hard labour accomplished in safety. Our porteur d’eau was every morning our earliest informant of the events of the night, and I was struck with the good sense and clearness of his views. ‘Ces messieurs parlent d’égalité,’ he said: ‘est ce qu’ils veulent se faire porteurs d’eau? C’est absurde—ce sont des mensonges.’ (‘These gentlemen talk of equality: will they turn water-carriers? It is absurd—these are lies.’) ‘Ils vont nous ruiner tous.’ (‘They are going to ruin us all.’) These last words I heard frequently repeated by persons of the working classes. A poor commissioner, who, for high pay, and through long détours, conveyed a letter for me on the 23d, came in looking aghast. ‘Nous voilà sans maître.’ (‘Here we are without a master,’) said he. ‘Bon Dieu! qu’est ce que nous allons devenir?’ (‘Good God! what will become of us?’) ‘Un pays sans maître ce n’est plus un pays.’ (‘A country without a master is no longer a country.’) ‘Nous allons retomber dans la barbarie.’ (‘We shall fall back into barbarism.’) This, indeed, was so soon felt by all, that masters were appointed. But has that restored the feeling of reverence for authority, or of confidence in those who wield it, indispensable to civil society?
“I heard with astonishment English people on the road saying, ‘Oh, all is quiet now.’ ‘All is going on very well now.’ From no Frenchman have I heard this superficial view of the case. Paris is indeed quiet enough, but it is the quiet of exhaustion, fear, distrust, and dejection. The absolute silence of the streets at night was awful. But a few nights before the 22d, I had complained of the incessant roll of carriages during this season of balls. From the night of the 26th to the 3d of March, the most retired village could not have been more utterly noiseless. Not a carriage—not a foot-fall—except at intervals the steady and silent step of the patrol of the National Guard, listened for as the sole guarantee for safety. ‘Every man,’ said a grocer, wearing the uniform of the Guard, to me in his shop, ‘must now defend his own. We have no protectors but ourselves; no police, no army.’”—Times, March 8, 1848.
These are sufficiently alarming features in the political and social condition of any country: but they become doubly so, when it is recollected that they coexist with unbounded expectations formed in the labouring masses, in whom supreme power is now both practically and theoretically vested. The Revolution has been the triumph of the workmen over the employers, of the “proletaires” over the “bourgeois,” of labour over capital. How such a triumph is to eventuate with a vehement and indigent population, impelling the government on in the career of revolution, and capital daily leaving the country or hiding itself from the dread of the acts of a government about to be appointed by nine millions of electors, is a question on which it well becomes all the holders of property, in whatever rank, seriously to reflect in this country.
Some idea of the extravagance and universality of their expectations may be formed from the following passage in the description of a still later eye-witness:—
“Paris is to all appearance tranquil; but there is much agitation that does not show itself outwardly. The workmen of all trades are intent on legislation which shall secure more wages for less toil. They beset the Luxembourg with processions, and fill the Chamber of Peers with deputations. Louis Blanc has discovered that to organise labour in a pamphlet and put the theory into practice are two very different things. The walls are covered with the manifestoes of the several branches of occupation; every day sees a new crop; they reveal the existence of dissentions among the workmen themselves, though they are all based on nearly the same principles; the seven-hooped pot is to have ten hoops, and it is to be felony to drink small-beer. The cochers have secured a tariff, with an advance of wages; the tailors are demanding the same; the ‘cheap’ establishments are in despair, for they supply classes that cannot buy at higher prices. An anxious employer placed the difficulty before some of the men; the only answer recorded was the comforting assurance that every body will be able to pay five pounds for his coat ‘as soon as society is regenerated!’ What is to be said to such magnificence of hope? A citoyen coatmaker can only shrug his shoulders and wait for the end. One step has been taken that seems likely to lead to it—the Commission has opened a register of all employments, and all seeking to be employed, in Paris. Not till the stern truth is revealed by figures will the full difficulty be known, and some estimate formed of what a government can not do. All the edicts that can be forced from it by the pressure of the hour will break down under the weight of necessity, as they always have done.
“Parallel with this agitation, which is material, runs another, which is philosophical. The republic is not perfect enough, and some vile distinctions still exist, irritating to the eye of equality. The government is petitioned to abolish all marks of honour for civilians; the names of distinguished citizens can be recorded in a golden book, a livre d’or of the Republic, as the recompense of great services; but no cross or riband is to be worn. Equality devant la mort is also insisted on; the same place in the cemetery and the same bier for all are to render the grave in appearance, as in reality, the great leveller. This proscription of the poor vanities of life and death is made a serious object by some of the active spirits of the time, as if there were any real importance in them.”[[8]]—Times, March 13th, 1848.
If, with material resources continually and rapidly diminishing, capital leaving the country, employment failing, bankruptcies general, the expenditure of the opulent at an end, the finances of the State in hopeless embarrassment, the French Government can satisfy these extravagant wants and expectations without plunging in a foreign war, they will achieve what has never yet been accomplished by man.
Who is answerable for this calamitous Revolution, which has thus arrested the internal prosperity of France, involved its finances in apparently hopeless embarrassment, thrown back for probably half a century the progress of real freedom in that country, and perhaps consigned it to a series of internal convulsions, and Europe to the horrors of general war, for a very long period? We answer without hesitation that the responsibility rests with two parties, and two parties only—the King and the National Guard.
The King is most of all to blame, for having engaged in a conflict, and, when victory was within his grasp, allowing it to slip from his hands from want of resolution at the decisive moment. It is too soon after these great and astonishing events to be able to form a decided opinion on the whole details connected with them; but the concurring statements from all parties go to prove that on the first day the troops of the line were perfectly steady; and history will record that the heroic firmness of the Municipal Guard has rivalled all that is most honourable in French history. The military force was immense; not less than eighty thousand men, backed by strong forts, and amply provided with all the muniments of war. Their success on the first day was unbroken; they had carried above a hundred barricades, and were in possession of all the military positions of the capital. But at this moment the indecision of the King ruined every thing. Age seems to have extinguished the vigour for which he was once so celebrated. He shrunk from a contest with the insurgents, paralysed the troops by orders not to fire on the people, and openly receded before the insurgent populace, by abandoning Guizot and the firm policy which he himself had adopted, and striving to conciliate revolution by the mezzo termine of Count Molé, and a more liberal cabinet. It is with retreat in presence of an insurrection, as in the case of an invading army; the first move towards the rear is a certain step to ruin. The moment it was seen that the King was giving way, all was paralysed, because all foresaw to which side the victory would incline. The soldiers threw away their muskets, the officers broke their swords, and the vast array, equal to the army which fought at Austerlitz, was dissolved like a rope of sand. Louis Philippe fell without either the intrepidity of the royal martyr in 1793, or the dignity of the elder house of Bourbon in 1830; and if it be true, as is generally said, that the Queen urged the King to mount on horseback and die “en roi” in front of the Tuileries, and he declined, preferring to escape in disguise to this country, history must record, with shame, that royalty perished in France without the virtues it was entitled to expect in the meanest of its supporters.
The second cause which appears to have occasioned the overthrow of the monarchy in France, is the general, it may be said universal, defection of the National Guard. It had been openly announced that twenty thousand of that body were to line the Champs Elysés in their uniform on occasion of the banquet; it was perfectly known that that banquet was a mere pretext for getting the forces of this Revolution together; and that the intention of the conspirators was to march in a body to the Tuileries after it was over, and compel the King to accede to their demands. When they were called out in the afternoon, they declined to act against the people, and by their treachery occasioned the defection of the troops of the line, and rendered farther resistance hopeless. They expected, by this declaration against the King of their choice, the monarch of the barricades, to secure a larger share in the government for themselves. They went to the Chamber of Deputies, intending to put up the Duchess of Orleans as Regent, and the Count of Paris as King, and to procure a large measure of reform for the constitution. What was the result? Why, that they were speedily supplanted by the rabble who followed in their footsteps, and who, deriding the eloquence of Odillon Barrot, and insensible to the heroism of the Duchess of Orleans, by force and violence expelled the majority of the deputies from their seats, seized on the President’s chair, and, amidst an unparalleled scene of riot and confusion, subverted the Orleans dynasty, proclaimed a Republic, and adjourned to the Hotel de Ville to name a Provisional Government! The account given of this whole revolt by an eye-witness, which has appeared in the Times, is so instructive, that we make no apology for transferring it to our columns:—
“On the afternoon of Wednesday, Feb. 23, Paris was greatly agitated, but no severe fighting had taken place; a few barricades had been raised and retaken by the troops; the plans of the government were complete—Marshal Bugeaud had been named to the command of the forces in Paris, and M. Guizot informed the King that he was confident that the Executive Government could put down the insurrection. The royal answer was—a dismissal. The King dismissed M. Guizot, and dissolved the Cabinet at that momentous instant, when all the energies of united power were required to fight in the streets a battle which it had itself deliberately provoked.
“Still, however, the mischief might yet have been repaired if vigorous measures had been taken. But, from that hour, nothing but the most extraordinary blunders and pusillanimity marked the conduct of the Court. Count Molé was sent for, and the evening of Wednesday passed in attempts, or no attempts, we hardly know which, on his part to form a semi-Liberal Cabinet. In the city, the fall of the Guizot ministry was hailed with acclamation and illumination, as the first sign of popular victory; and at that same critical juncture the fatal discharge of musketry took place opposite the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which stained the pavement with blood, and inflamed the people to a revolutionary pitch. The night was spent in preparation for a more terrible morrow; but as yet the army had neither fraternised nor laid down its weapons. It was, on the contrary, for the most part prepared to act; but a circumstance occurred at Court which totally paralysed its resistance.
“After Count Molé’s failure, the King sent for M. Thiers. That gentleman may be said to have actually formed a Cabinet in conjunction with M. Odillon Barrot and M. Duvergier de Hauranne, for they instantly proceeded to the discharge of the highest possible duty which could devolve on ministerial responsibility. The one act of their government was the publication of that inconceivable proclamation, stating that no further resistance should be made, and the promulgation of orders to the officers commanding regiments to withdraw them. This was of course the capitulation of the Monarchy. Marshal Bugeaud—who had the command of the troops, had now completed his preparations for the general attack of the barricades, and was confident of success—protested most energetically against this extraordinary order, and said that if it was acted on all was lost. The King’s then ministers, M. Thiers and M. Barrot, insisted; the King took their advice, and Marshal Bugeaud resigned the command of the troops, observing that it was useless for him to retain it if nothing was to be done. General Lamoricière was therefore named to the command of Paris, and M. Thiers and his friends proceeded to effect their pacific arrangements. The effects of their orders were immediately perceptible, although the declaration of their names was certainly not followed by the consequences they had anticipated. The officers of the army, indignant at so unexpected a termination of their duties, sheathed their swords; the men allowed themselves to be disarmed by the mob, whom they had been ordered not to resist, and the people, encountering no serious opposition except from the Municipal Guard, which was cut to pieces, rushed on to the conquest of the Palais-Royal and the Tuileries. To sum up this narrative in two words—the dismissal of the Guizot government rendered it impossible for the Executive Government to act effectually; the subsequent advice of M. Thiers and the resignation of Marshal Bugeaud, rendered it impossible to act at all. If this be, as we have every reason to believe it is, a correct narrative of these transactions, we are not surprised that M. Thiers and his colleagues should not have made themselves conspicuous in the subsequent passage of this Revolution.
“The mob of Paris, at no hour of the day, (the 24th,) was formidable to ten thousand men, much less to a hundred thousand, or at least eighty thousand. On the Thursday (24th) public opinion had abandoned the émeute. The National Guard would now have done any thing to reproduce order, but they had no time; there was no opportunity to reunite themselves; besides which, they wanted courage and support, and did not even dream of the extreme to which things might be pushed. There never was, at any time, any acharnement among the people; the troops were every where well received; not a hostile head looked from a window. It was hoped that something might be done by a demonstration of public opinion, but nothing more. The émeutiers the first and second day simply took advantage of the absence of the National Guard. They were all the time ill looked upon by the real people of Paris, but they were permitted to go on as a means of action on the court and government. The accident, or rather the gross and infamous blunder, committed before the Bureau des Affaires Etrangères (of which the accounts published are erroneous), produced a violent irritation, which was ably worked upon by the Republican committee, who were all along on the watch; but this irritation, which certainly changed the character of the contest, gave no arms to the people; and although it increased their numbers, they were never, even numerically, formidable, as I have said, to ten thousand men. As for the barricades, there was not one that was ever defended except against some weak patrol, and then, after a little popping, it was always abandoned. Literally, there was no fighting; there was skirmishing on the part of the brave Municipals—the only force that acted—and I presume it acted on orders which did not emanate from the chief military authority, but had some separate and general instructions of its own. Literally, I repeat, there was no fighting. How could there be? There were no arms; that is, not a musket to a hundred men, till eleven or twelve o-clock in the day, when the troops, without orders—except “not to fire,” or act against the people—became, in several parts of Paris, mixed up and united with them.”—Times, March 8 and 14, 1848.
Here, then, is the whole affair clearly revealed. It was the timidity of Government, and the defection of the National Guard, which ruined every thing; which paralysed the troops of the line, encouraged the insurgents, left the brave Municipal Guards to their fate, and caused the surrender of the Tuileries. And what has been the result of this shameful treachery on the part of the sworn defenders of order—this “civic” prætorian guard of France? Nothing but this, that they have destroyed the monarchy, ruined industry, banished capital, rendered freedom hopeless, and made bankrupt the state! Such are the effects of armed men forgetting the first of social duties, that of fidelity to their oaths. How soon were these treacherous National Guards passed in the career of revolution by the infuriated rabble! How soon were Odillon Barrot and Thiers supplanted by Lamartine and Arago! How rapidly were the Duchess of Orleans and the Count of Paris expelled at the point of the bayonet from the Chamber of Deputies—the cry for reform drowned in that of revolution! How many of the twenty thousand National Guards, who by their treachery brought about the Revolution, will be solvent at the end of two months? Not a tenth of their number. They will perish deservedly and ignobly; ruined in their fortunes, beggared in their families, despised by their compatriots, execrated by Europe! That they may anticipate what history will say of their conduct, let them listen to the verdict which it has pronounced on the National Guard which, on a similar crisis, 10th August 1792, betrayed Louis XVI., as pronounced by an authority whom they will not suspect of leaning to the Royalist side—M. Lamartine.
“The National Guard, on the 10th August, returned humiliated and in consternation to their shops and counting-houses; they had justly lost the lead of the people. Thenceforth it could no longer aspire but to be the parade force of the Revolution, compelled to assist at all its acts, at all its fêtes, at all its crimes; a vain living decoration of all the mechanists of the Revolution.”[[9]]
Of which revolution is Lamartine now speaking; of that of 10th August 1792, or of 24th February 1848? Beyond all doubt history will pass a severer judgment on the treachery which overthrew Louis Philippe than on that which consummated the destruction of Louis XVI.: for the former had the example of the latter for its guide; they knew how soon the massacre of September followed the triumph of August, and what incalculable calamities the defection of their predecessors in the Place Carousel brought upon their country and Europe.
What benefit have the working classes derived, or are they likely to derive, from this deplorable convulsion? Great ones they doubtless expect, as it has issued in a triumph of labour over capital. But what has it realised? We shall mention one or two particulars to illustrate the benefits hitherto reaped by this class from its victory.
The savings’ banks of France had prospered immensely under the firm and pacific government of Louis Philippe. The following account of them is derived from official sources.
“The state of the savings’ banks in France at the time of the Revolution indicated an extraordinary degree of confidence in the stability of the late government. In 1834 there were only seventy savings’ banks in France, and the amount of deposits on hand was 34,000,000 francs. In 1839 there were four hundred and four banks, and the deposits had increased to 171,000,000 francs; in 1848, at the moment of the Revolution, the deposits had risen to 355,000,000 francs, or ten times the amount deposited fourteen years before. In 1839 the average value of each deposit was 550 francs, which is probably increased to 600 francs average at the present time. The partial suspension of payment by these institutions must affect at least half a million of persons of the most industrious and economical part of the population, chiefly belonging to the towns, and they are deprived of a large portion of their savings at the very moment they most need them.”—Times, March 14, 1848.
Now, these savings’ banks, holding deposits to the amount of about £14,000,000 at the commencement of the Revolution, and which had increased tenfold during Louis Philippe’s reign, have to all practical purposes been rendered bankrupt. Unable to stand the dreadful run upon them after the outbreak, or to realise the amount of their deposits by the sale of their funded property, in consequence of its prodigious fall, they had no resource but to suspend payment. By a decree of Government, the holders of deposits in the savings’ banks are to receive only a tenth in cash, the remainder being payable six months hence, in a paper now practically worth nothing. By this single result of the Revolution, above five hundred thousand of the most meritorious and hard-working of the operatives of France have been in effect deprived of the savings of a whole lifetime.
Nor is the condition of the labouring population in any degree more favoured. In the Times correspondent from Paris of March 14, we find the following account of their present condition:—
“The financial question, the state of trade and commerce, and the task of providing work and food for the people, with which the government has charged itself, are additional motives for seriousness, however. The credit of more than one banking-house is to-day said to be tottering. One firm, it is openly mentioned, has resolved to stop payment to-morrow. Trade is very bad. Work will soon become scarce, and distress and outcry must be expected; and with the knowledge of all these facts, and with the determination to do every thing possible for the relief of the working classes, possessed by the Provisional Government, this source of uneasiness is menacing to-day. I wish a more cheerful view of the situation of affairs were more general than it is, for it might check the departure of rich natives and foreigners from the capital, who continue to retire from it in alarming numbers, and, obviously, with no view to return, for we hear of sales of carriages and horses, for a fifth part of the value they bore three weeks since. Twelve thousand servants are said to be already discharged in Paris, and many houses or hotels in the fashionable quarters have become literally devoid of occupants.”—Times, 14th March 1848.
That such a state of things must in the end terminate in domestic or foreign war must be evident to all who have looked even on the surface of past events. The causes which at present uphold, and must ere long destroy the Republican Government in France, are thus ably stated by the Paris correspondent of the same well-informed journal:—
“The Provisional Government continues to exist at the moment only from two causes. The first is, that all respectable persons hasten to its support under the influence of fear. The other day every body expected to be robbed and murdered: as the Provisional Government showed a strong desire to preserve order, all those individuals, still surprised to find themselves unplundered and unassassinated, attributed the miracle to the government, and ran to its support in self-defence. The adhesions have been readier and more numerous many times over than in 1830. The second cause which gives a short reprieve to the government is, that it humours the ferocious monster that made it,—and which is ready at any moment to overturn it as it set it up,—by the most absurd indulgences, by still more fatal promises for the future. The same set of ruffians (heroes) who forced the Chamber, and who thrust the Provisional Government on the deputies, are still there to invade the Hotel de Ville, and substitute another idol for Lamartine & Co. Still I believe they will not do so just yet; perhaps we may get on till the constitutional or National Assembly meets, but I doubt it. But then, even then,—what is to take place? Faction, clubs, war to the knife. The French are precisely the same men they were in ‘89—they are not changed in the least. Classes have been modified by wealth, commerce, prosperity, &c.; but these are the quiet classes, who will be swallowed up in the course of the next five years. At the present moment the working, or the soi-disant working classes, who are literally the sovereign power, are looked upon with fear, disgust, and abhorrence by every man in France of a superior condition, including the National Guard; and they are all speculating how to get quit of them; while, on the other hand, Louis Blanc is keeping them quiet by preaching Utopianism. He is doing so, honestly and enthusiastically, it is said; and certain it is, that a great mass of the people is flattered and soothed by the idea of converting work into an amusement, of obtaining perpetual easy employment by the state, and a pension at fifty-five years of age. This pause, however, does not deceive the commerce, the capital, the education of France, and, as I said, the universal consideration is how to throw off the many-headed tyrant. The plan of doing so, most consonant with the French character, is war. The National Guard is convinced they must shortly fight these men themselves, or send them to fight the foreigner; the latter is the expedient that will be hit upon; and unfortunately the state of Europe incites them to interfere in the concerns of others, from whom they will receive invitations which, in the condition of men’s minds in this country, it will be impossible for any government to reject. Besides which, even Frenchmen of the best order are, on questions of national glory or honour, not to be relied on for a moment; the best of them may be carried away by a word, a paragraph, a rumour, and all rave ‘Frontier of the Rhine,’ ‘Waterloo,’ and a thousand other follies, which, however sad, may be excused in the present state of their neighbours, though not for that reason the less to be lamented. In all international questions whatever, the characteristics of the French are arrogance, and susceptibility of so extreme a nature, that no body of Frenchmen can be dealt with by foreigners. A sovereign and a minister or two in cold blood, and with all the weight of undivided responsibility upon them, are difficult enough to manage even by the ablest and most impartial of negotiators; but the masses must always be intractable.
“I give the present Provisional Government immense credit for their efficient exertions, and I have considerable reliance on the good intentions of the majority of them; but they will not last; and, above all, whether they last or not, they must obey and not pretend to guide. Lamartine, by his genius, has now and then gained a point; but he, as well as the rest, have been rather the organs of the sovereign of the day than his directors and guides.”—Times, March 13, 1848.
It is not surprising that views of this description should be entertained by all well-informed persons on the spot in France, for the new “National Assembly,” to whom the formation of a constitution is to be intrusted in that country, is to be composed in such a way, as renders the direct or indirect spoliation of property a matter of almost certainty. The following is the decree of the Provisional Government on the subject:—