TO WALTER BINKIE, ESQ., PROVOST OF DREEPDAILY.
My dear Provost,—In the course of your communings with nature on the uplands of Dreepdaily, you must doubtless have observed that the advent of a storm is usually preceded by the appearance of a flight of seamaws, who, by their discordant screams, give notice of the approaching change of weather. For some time past it has been the opinion of those who are in the habit of watching the political horizon, that we should do well to prepare ourselves for a squall, and already the premonitory symptoms are distinctly audible. The Liberal press, headed by the Times, is clamorous for some sweeping change in the method of Parliamentary representation; and Lord John Russell, as you are well aware, proposes in the course of next Session to take up the subject. This is no mere brutum fulmen, or dodge to secure a little temporary popularity—it is a distinct party move for a very intelligible purpose; and is fraught, I think, with much danger and injustice to many of the constituencies which are now intrusted with the right of franchise. As you, my dear Provost, are a Liberal both by principle and profession, and moreover chief magistrate of a very old Scottish burgh, your opinion upon this matter must have great weight in determining the judgment of others; and, therefore, you will not, I trust, consider it too great a liberty, if, at this dull season of the year, I call your attention to one or two points which appear well worthy of consideration.
In the first place, I think you will admit that extensive organic changes in the Constitution ought never to be attempted except in cases of strong necessity. The real interests of the country are never promoted by internal political agitation, which unsettles men's minds, is injurious to regular industry, and too often leaves behind it the seeds of jealousy and discord between different classes of the community, ready on some future occasion to burst into noxious existence. You would not, I think, wish to see annually renewed that sort of strife which characterised the era of the Reform Bill. I venture to pass no opinion whatever on the abstract merits of that measure. I accept it as a fact, just as I accept other changes in the Constitution of this country which took place before I was born; and I hope I shall ever comport myself as a loyal and independent elector. But I am sure you have far too lively a recollection of the ferment which that event created, to wish to see it renewed, without at least some urgent cause. You were consistently anxious for the suppression of rotten boroughs, and for the enlargement of the constituency upon a broad and popular basis; and you considered that the advantages to be gained by the adoption of the new system, justified the social risks which were incurred in the endeavour to supersede the old one. I do not say that you were wrong in this. The agitation for Parliamentary Reform had been going on for a great number of years; the voice of the majority of the country was undeniably in your favour, and you finally carried your point. Still, in consequence of that struggle, years elapsed before the heart-burnings and jealousies which were occasioned by it were allayed. Even now it is not uncommon to hear the reminiscences of the Reform Bill appealed to on the hustings by candidates who have little else to say for themselves by way of personal recommendation. A most ludicrous instance of this occurred very lately in the case of a young gentleman, who, being desirous of Parliamentary honours, actually requested the support of the electors on the ground that his father or grandfather—I forget which—had voted for the Reform Bill; a ceremony which he could not very well have performed in his own person, as at that time he had not been released from the bondage of swaddling-clothes! I need hardly add that he was rejected; but the anecdote is curious and instructive.
In a country such as this, changes must be looked for in the course of years. One system dies out, or becomes unpopular, and is replaced by a new one. But I cannot charge my memory with any historical instance where a great change was attempted without some powerful or cogent reason. Still less can I recollect any great change being proposed, unless a large and powerful section of the community had unequivocally declared in its favour. The reason of this is quite obvious. The middle classes of Great Britain, however liberal they may be in their sentiments, have a just horror of revolutions. They know very well that organic changes are never effected without enormous loss and individual deprivation, and they will not move unless they are assured that the value of the object to be gained is commensurate with the extent of the sacrifice. In defence of their liberties, when these are attacked, the British people are ever ready to stand forward; but I mistake them much, if they will at any time allow themselves to be made the tools of a faction. The attempt to get up organic changes for the sole purpose of perpetuating the existence of a particular Ministry, or of maintaining the supremacy of a particular party, is a new feature in our history. It is an experiment which the nation ought not to tolerate for a single moment; and which I am satisfied it will not tolerate, when the schemes of its authors are laid bare.
I believe, Provost, I am right in assuming that there has been no decided movement in favour of a New Parliamentary Reform Bill, either in Dreepdaily or in any of the other burghs with which you are connected. The electors are well satisfied with the operation of the ten-pound clause, which excludes from the franchise no man of decent ability and industry, whilst it secures property from those direct inroads which would be the inevitable result of a system of universal suffrage. Also, I suppose, you are reasonably indifferent on the subjects of Vote by Ballot and Triennial Parliaments, and that you view the idea of annual ones with undisguised reprobation. Difference of opinion undoubtedly may exist on some of these points: an eight-pound qualification may have its advocates, and the right of secret voting may be convenient for members of the clique; but, on the whole, you are satisfied with matters as they are; and, certainly, I do not see that you have any grievance to complain of. If I were a member of the Liberal party, I should be very sorry to see any change of the representation made in Scotland. Just observe how the matter stands. At the commencement of the present year the whole representation of the Scottish burghs was in the hands of the Liberal party. Since then, it is true, Falkirk has changed sides; but you are still remarkably well off; and I think that out of thirty county members, eighteen may be set down as supporters of the Free-trade policy. Remember, I do not guarantee the continuance of these proportions: I wish you simply to observe how you stand at present, under the working of your own Reform Bill; and really it appears to me that nothing could be more satisfactory. The Liberal who wishes to have more men of his own kidney from Scotland must indeed be an unconscionable glutton; and if, in the face of these facts, he asks for a reform in the representation, I cannot set him down as other than a consummate ass. He must needs admit that the system has worked well. Scotland sends to the support of the Whig Ministry, and the maintenance of progressive opinions, a brilliant phalanx of senators; amongst whom we point, with justifiable pride, to the distinguished names of Anderson, Bouverie, Ewart, Hume, Smith, M'Taggart, and M'Gregor. Are these gentlemen not liberal enough for the wants of the present age? Why, unless I am most egregiously mistaken—and not I only, but the whole of the Liberal press in Scotland—they are generally regarded as decidedly ahead even of my Lord John Russell. Why, then, should your representation be reformed, while it bears such admirable fruit? With such a growth of golden pippins on its boughs, would it not be madness to cut down the tree, on the mere chance of another arising from the stump, more especially when you cannot hope to gather from it a more abundant harvest? I am quite sure, Provost, that you agree with me in this. You have nothing to gain, but possibly a good deal to lose, by any alteration which may be made; and therefore it is, I presume, that in this part of the world not the slightest wish has been manifested for a radical change of the system. That very conceited and shallow individual, Sir Joshua Walmsley, made not long ago a kind of agitating tour through Scotland, for the purpose of getting up the steam; but except from a few unhappy Chartists, whose sentiments on the subject of property are identically the same with those professed by the gentlemen who plundered the Glasgow tradesmen's shops in 1848, he met with no manner of encouragement. The electors laughed in the face of this ridiculous caricature of Peter the Hermit, and advised him, instead of exposing his ignorance in the north, to go back to Bolton and occupy himself with his own affairs.
This much I have said touching the necessity or call for a new Reform Bill, which is likely enough to involve us, for a considerable period at least, in unfortunate political strife. I have put it to you as a Liberal, but at the same time as a man of common sense and honesty, whether there are any circumstances, under your knowledge, which can justify such an attempt; and in the absence of these, you cannot but admit that such an experiment is eminently dangerous at the present time, and ought to be strongly discountenanced by all men, whatever may be their kind of political opinions. I speak now without any reference whatever to the details. It may certainly be possible to discover a better system of representation than that which at present exists. I never regarded Lord John Russell as the living incarnation of Minerva, nor can I consider any measure originated by him as conveying an assurance that the highest amount of human wisdom has been exhausted in its preparation. But what I do say is this, that in the absence of anything like general demand, and failing the allegation of any marked grievance to be redressed, no Ministry is entitled to propose an extensive or organic change in the representation of the country; and the men who shall venture upon such a step must render themselves liable to the imputation of being actuated by other motives than regard to the public welfare.
You will, however, be slow to believe that Lord John Russell is moving in this matter without some special reason. In this you are perfectly right. He has a reason, and a very cogent one, but not such a reason as you, if you are truly a Liberal, and not a mere partisan, can accept. I presume it is the wish of the Liberal party—at least it used to be their watchword—that public opinion in this country is not to be slighted or suppressed. With the view of giving full effect to that public opinion, not of securing the supremacy of this or that political alliance, the Reform Act was framed; it being the declared object and intention of its founders that a full, fair, and free representation should be secured to the people of this country. The property qualification was fixed at a low rate; the balance of power as between counties and boroughs was carefully adjusted; and every precaution was taken—at least so we were told at the time—that no one great interest of the State should be allowed unduly to predominate over another. Many, however, were of opinion at the time, and have since seen no reason to alter it, that the adjustment then made, as between counties and boroughs, was by no means equitable, and that an undue share in the representation was given to the latter, more especially in England. That, you will observe, was a Conservative, not a Liberal objection; and it was over-ruled. Well, then, did the Representation, as fixed by the Reform Bill, fulfil its primary condition? You thought so; and so did my Lord John Russell, until some twelve months ago, when a new light dawned upon him. That light has since increased in intensity, and he now sees his way, clearly enough, to a new organic measure. Why is this? Simply, my dear Provost, because the English boroughs will no longer support him in his bungling legislation, or countenance his unnational policy!
Public opinion, as represented through the operation of the Reform Act, is no longer favourable to Lord John Russell. The result of recent elections, in places which were formerly considered as the strongholds of Whiggery, have demonstrated to him that the Free-trade policy, to which he is irretrievably pledged, has become obnoxious to the bulk of the electors, and that they will no longer accord their support to any Ministry which is bent upon depressing British labour and sapping the foundations of national prosperity. So Lord John Russell, finding himself in this position, that he must either get rid of public opinion or resign his place, sets about the concoction of a new Reform Bill, by means of which he hopes to swamp the present electoral body! This is Whig liberty in its pure and original form. It implies, of course, that the Reform Bill did not give a full, fair, and free representation to the country, else there can be no excuse for altering its provisions. If we really have a fair representation; and if, notwithstanding, the majority of the electors are convinced that Free Trade is not for their benefit, it does appear to me a most monstrous thing that they are to be coerced into receiving it by the infusion of a new element into the Constitution, or a forcible change in the distribution of the electoral power, to suit the commercial views which are in favour with the Whig party. It is, in short, a most circuitous method of exercising despotic power; and I, for one, having the interests of the country at heart, would much prefer the institution at once of a pure despotism, and submit to be ruled and taxed henceforward at the sweet will of the scion of the house of Russell.
I do not know what your individual sentiments may be on the subject of Free Trade; but whether you are for it or against it, my argument remains the same. It is essentially a question for the solution of the electoral body; and if the Whigs are right in their averment that its operation hitherto has been attended with marked success, and has even transcended the expectation of its promoters, you may rely upon it that there is no power in the British Empire which can overthrow it. No Protectionist ravings can damage a system which has been productive of real advantage to the great bulk of the people. But if, on the contrary, it is a bad system, is it to be endured that any man or body of men shall attempt to perpetuate it against the will of the majority of the electors, by a change in the representation of the country? I ask you this as a Liberal. Without having any undue diffidence in the soundness of your own judgment, I presume you do not, like his Holiness the Pope, consider yourself infallible, or entitled to coerce others who may differ from you in opinion. Yet this is precisely what Lord John Russell is now attempting to do; and I warn you and others who are similarly situated, to be wise in time, and to take care lest, under the operation of this new Reform Bill, you are not stripped of that political power and those political privileges which at present you enjoy.
Don't suppose that I am speaking rashly or without consideration. All I know touching this new Reform Bill, is derived from the arguments and proposals which have been advanced and made by the Liberal press in consequence of the late indications of public feeling, as manifested by the result of recent elections. It is rather remarkable that we heard few or no proposals for an alteration in the electoral system, until it became apparent that the voice of the boroughs could no longer be depended on for the maintenance of the present commercial policy. You may recollect that the earliest of the victories which were achieved by the Protectionists, with respect to vacant seats in the House of Commons, were treated lightly by their opponents as mere casualties; but when borough after borough deliberately renounced its adherence to the cause of the League, and, not unfrequently under circumstances of very marked significance, declared openly in favour of Protection, the matter became serious. It was then, and then only, that we heard the necessity for some new and sweeping change in the representation of this country broadly asserted; and, singularly enough, the advocates of that change do not attempt to disguise their motives. They do not venture to say that the intelligence of the country is not adequately represented at present—what they complain of is, that the intelligence of the country is becoming every day more hostile to their commercial theories. In short, they want to get rid of that intelligence, and must get rid of it speedily, unless their system is to crumble to pieces. Such is their aim and declared object; and if you entertain any doubts on the matter, I beg leave to refer you to the recorded sentiments of the leading Ministerial and Free-trade organ—the Times. It is always instructive to notice the hints of the Thunderer. The writers in that journal are fully alive to the nature of the coming crisis. They have been long aware of the reaction which has taken place throughout the country on the subject of Free Trade, and they recognise distinctly the peril in which their favourite principle is placed, if some violent means are not used to counteract the conviction of the electoral body. They see that, in the event of a general election, the constituencies of the Empire are not likely to return a verdict hostile to the domestic interests of the country. They have watched with careful and anxious eyes the turning tide of opinion; and they can devise no means of arresting it, without having recourse to that peculiar mode of manipulation, which is dignified by the name of Burking. Let us hear what they say so late as the 21st of July last.
"With such a prospect before us, with unknown struggles and unprecedented collisions within the bounds of possibility, there is only one resource, and we must say that Her Majesty's present advisers will be answerable for the consequences if they do not adopt it. They must lay the foundation of an appeal to the people with a large and liberal measure of Parliamentary reform. It is high time that this great country should cease to quake and to quail at the decisions of stupid and corrupt little constituencies, of whom, as in the case before us, it would take thirty to make one metropolitan borough. The great question always before the nation in one shape or another is—whether the people are as happy as laws can make them? To what sort of constituencies shall we appeal for the answer to this question? To Harwich with its population of 3370; to St Albans with its population of 6246; to Scarborough with its population of 9953; to Knaresborough with its population of 5382; and to a score other places still more insignificant? Or shall we insist on the appeal being made to much larger bodies? The average population of boroughs and counties is more than 60,000. Is it not high time to require that no single borough shall fall below half or a third of that number?"
The meaning of this is clear enough. It points, if not to the absolute annihilation, most certainly to the concretion of the smaller boroughs throughout England—to an entire remarshalling of the electoral ranks—and, above all, to an enormous increase in the representation of the larger cities. In this way, you see, local interests will be made almost entirely to disappear; and London alone will secure almost as many representatives in Parliament as are at the present time returned for the whole kingdom of Scotland. Now, I confess to you, Provost, that I do not feel greatly exhilarated at the prospect of any such change. I believe that the prosperity of Great Britain depends upon the maintenance of many interests, and I cannot see how that can be secured if we are to deliver over the whole political power to the masses congregated within the towns. Moreover, I would very humbly remark, that past experience is little calculated to increase the measure of our faith in the wisdom or judgment of large constituencies. I may be wrong in my estimate of the talent and abilities of the several honourable members who at present sit for London and the adjacent districts; but, if so, I am only one out of many who labour under a similar delusion. We are told by the Times to look to Marylebone as an example of a large and enlightened constituency. I obey the mandate; and on referring to the Parliamentary Companion, I find that Marylebone is represented by Lord Dudley Stuart and Sir Benjamin Hall. That fact does not, in my humble opinion, furnish a conclusive argument in favour of large constituencies. As I wish to avoid the Jew question, I shall say nothing about Baron Rothschild; but passing over to the Tower Hamlets, I find them in possession of Thomson and Clay; Lambeth rejoicing in d'Eyncourt and Williams; and Southwark in Humphrey and Molesworth. Capable senators though these may be, I should not like to see a Parliament composed entirely of men of their kidney; nor do I think that they afford undoubted materials for the construction of a new Cabinet.
But perhaps I am undervaluing the abilities of these gentlemen; perhaps I am doing injustice to the discretion and wisdom of the metropolitan constituencies. Anxious to avoid any such imputation, I shall again invoke the assistance of the Times, whom I now cite as a witness, and a very powerful one, upon my side of the question. Let us hear the Thunderer on the subject of these same metropolitan constituencies, just twelve months ago, before Scarborough and Knaresborough had disgraced themselves by returning Protectionists to Parliament. I quote from a leader in the Times of 8th August 1850, referring to the Lambeth election, when Mr Williams was returned.
"When it was proposed some twenty years ago to extend the franchise to the metropolitan boroughs, the presumption was, that the quality of the representatives would bear something like a proportion to the importance of the constituencies called into play. In other words, if the political axioms from which the principle of an extended representation is deduced have any foundation in reality, it should follow that the most numerous and most intelligent bodies of electors would return to Parliament members of the highest mark for character and capacity. Now, looking at the condition of the metropolitan representation as it stands at present, or as it has stood any time since the passing of the Reform Bill, has this expectation been fulfilled? Lord John Russell, the First Minister of the Crown, sits, indeed, as member for the city of London, and so far it is well. Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the noble lord's capacity for government, or whatever may be the views of this or that political party, it is beyond all dispute that, in such a case as this, there is dignity and fitness in the relation between the member and the constituency. But, setting aside this one solitary instance, with what metropolitan borough is the name of any very eminent Englishman associated at the present time? It is of course as contrary to our inclination as it would be unnecessary for the purposes of the argument, to quote this or that man's name as an actual illustration of the failure of a system, or of the decadence of a constituency. We would, however, without any invidious or offensive personality, invite attention to the present list of metropolitan members, and ask what name is to be found among them, with the single exception we have named, which is borne by a man with a shadow of a pretension to be reckoned as among the leading Englishmen of the age?"
You see, Provost, I am by no means singular in my estimate of the quality of the metropolitan representatives. The Times is with me, or was with me twelve months ago; and I suppose it will hardly be averred that, since that time, any enormous increase of wisdom or of ability has been manifested by the gentlemen referred to. But there is rather more than this. In the article from which I am quoting, the writer does not confine his strictures simply to the metropolitan boroughs. He goes a great deal further, for he attacks large constituencies in the mass, and points out very well and forcibly the evils which must inevitably follow should these obtain an accession to their power. Read, mark, and perpend the following paragraphs, and then reconcile their tenor—if you can—with the later proposals from the same quarter for the general suppression of small constituencies, and the establishment of larger tribunals of public opinion.
"Lambeth, then, on the occasion of the present election, is likely to become another illustration of the downward tendencies of the metropolitan constituencies. We use the word 'tendency' advisedly, for matters are worse than they have been, and we can perceive no symptom of a turning tide. Let us leave the names of individuals aside, and simply consider the metropolitan members as a body, and what is their main employment in the House of Commons? Is it not mainly to represent the selfish interests and blind prejudices of the less patriotic or less enlightened portion of their constituents whenever any change is proposed manifestly for the public benefit? Looking at their votes, one would suppose a metropolitan member to be rather a Parliamentary agent of the drovers, and sextons, and undertakers, than a representative of one of the most important constituencies in the kingdom. Is this downward progress of the metropolitan representation to remain unchanged? Will it be extended to other constituencies as soon as they shall be brought under conditions analogous to those under which the metropolitan electors exercise the franchise? The question is of no small interest. Whether the fault be with the electors, or with those who should have the nerve to come forward and demand their suffrages, matters not for the purposes of the argument. The fact remains unaltered. Supposing England throughout its area were represented as the various boroughs of the metropolis are represented at the present time, what would be the effect? That is the point for consideration. It may well be that men of higher character, and of more distinguished intellectual qualifications, would readily attract the sympathies and secure the votes of these constituencies; but what does their absence prove? Simply that the same feeling of unwillingness to face large electoral bodies, which is said to prevail in the United States, is gradually rising up in this country. On the other side of the Atlantic, we are told by all who know the country best, that the most distinguished citizens shrink from stepping forward on the arena of public life, lest they be made the mark for calumny and abuse. It would require more space than we can devote to the subject to point out the correlative shortcomings of the constituencies and the candidates; but, leaving these aside, we cannot but arrive at the conclusion that there is something in the constitution of these great electoral masses which renders a peaceful majority little better than a passive instrument in the hands of a turbulent minority, and affords an explanation of the fact that such a person as Mr Williams should aspire to represent the borough of Lambeth."
What do you think of that, Provost, by way of an argument in favour of large constituencies? I agree with every word of it. I believe, in common with the eloquent writer, that matters are growing worse instead of better, and that there is something radically wrong in the constitution of these great electoral masses. I believe that they do not represent the real intelligence of the electors, and that they are liable to all those objections which are here so well and forcibly urged. It is not necessary to travel quite so far as London for an illustration. Look at Glasgow. Have the twelve thousand and odd electors of that great commercial and manufacturing city covered themselves with undying glory by their choice of their present representatives? Is the intelligence of the first commercial city in Scotland really embodied in the person of Mr M'Gregor? I should be very loth to think so. Far be it from me to impugn the propriety of any particular choice, or to speculate upon coming events; but I cannot help wondering whether, in the event of the suppression of some of the smaller burghs, and the transference of their power to the larger cities, it may come to pass that the city of St Mungo shall be represented by the wisdom of six M'Gregors? I repeat, that I wish to say nothing in disparagement of large urban constituencies, or of their choice in any one particular case—I simply desire to draw your attention to the fact, that we are not indebted to such constituencies for returning the men who, by common consent, are admitted to be the most valuable members, in point of talent, ability, and business habits, in the House of Commons. How far we should improve the character of our legislative assembly, by disfranchising smaller constituencies, and transferring their privileges to the larger ones,—open to such serious objections as have been urged against them by the Times, a journal not likely to err on the side of undervaluing popular opinion—appears to me a question decidedly open to discussion; and I hope that it will be discussed, pretty broadly and extensively, before any active steps are taken for suppressing boroughs which are not open to the charge of rank venality and corruption.
The Times, you observe, talks in its more recent article, in which totally opposite views are advocated, of "stupid and corrupt little constituencies." This is a clever way of mixing up two distinct and separate matters. We all know what is meant by corruption, and I hope none of us are in favour of it. It means the purchase, either by money or promises, of the suffrages of those who are intrusted with the electoral franchise; and I am quite ready to join with the Times in the most hearty denunciation of such villanous practices, whether used by Jew or Gentile. It may be, and probably is, impossible to prevent bribery altogether, for there are scoundrels in all constituencies; and if a candidate with a long purse is so lax in his morals as to hint at the purchase of votes, he is tolerably certain to find a market in which these commodities are sold. But if, in any case, general corruption can be proved against a borough, it ought to be forthwith disfranchised, and declared unworthy of exercising so important a public privilege. But of the "stupidity" of constituencies, who are to be the judges? Not, I hope, the Areopagites of the Times, else we may expect to see every constituency which does not pronounce in favour of Free Trade, placed under the general extinguisher! Scarborough, with some seven or eight hundred electors—a good many more, by the way, than are on the roll for the Dreepdaily burghs—has, in the opinion of the Times, stultified itself for ever by returning Mr George F. Young to Parliament, instead of a Whig lordling, who possessed great local influence. Therefore Scarborough is put down in the black list, not because it is "corrupt," but because it is "stupid," in having elected a gentleman of the highest political celebrity, who is at the same time one of the most extensive shipowners of Great Britain! I put it to you, Provost, whether this is not as cool an instance of audacity as you ever heard of. What would you think if it were openly proposed, upon our side, to disfranchise Greenwich, because the tea-and-shrimp population of that virtuous town has committed the stupid act of returning a Jew to Parliament? If stupidity is to go for anything in the way of cancelling privileges, I think I could name to you some half-dozen places on this side of the border which are in evident danger, at least if we are to accept the attainments of the representatives as any test of the mental acquirements of the electors; but perhaps it is better to avoid particulars in a matter so personal and delicate.
I am not in the least degree surprised to find the Free-Traders turning round against the boroughs. Four years ago, you would certainly have laughed in the face of any one who might have prophesied such a result; but since then, times have altered. The grand experiment upon native industry has been made, and allowed to go on without check or impediment. The Free-Traders have had it all their own way; and if there had been one iota of truth in their statements, or if their calculations had been based upon secure and rational data, they must long ago have achieved a complete moral triumph. Pray, remember what they told us. They said that Free Trade in corn and in cattle would not permanently lower the value of agricultural produce in Britain—it would only steady prices, and prevent extreme fluctuations. Then, again, we were assured that large imports from any part of the world could not by possibility be obtained; and those consummate blockheads, the statists, offered to prove by figures, that a deluge of foreign grain was as impossible as an overflow of the Mediterranean. I need not tell you that the results have entirely falsified such predictions, and that the agricultural interest has ever since been suffering under the effects of unexampled depression. No man denies that. The stiffest stickler for the cheap loaf does not venture now to assert that agriculture is a profitable profession in Britain; all he can do is to recommend economy, and to utter a hypocritical prayer, that the prosperity which he assumes to exist in other quarters may, at no distant date, and through some mysterious process which he cannot specify, extend itself to the suffering millions who depend for their subsistence on the produce of the soil of Britain, and who pay by far the largest share of the taxes and burdens of the kingdom.
Now, it is perfectly obvious that agricultural distress, by which I mean the continuance of a range of unremunerative prices, cannot long prevail in any district, without affecting the traffic of the towns. You, who are an extensive retail merchant in Dreepdaily, know well that the business of your own trade depends in a great degree upon the state of the produce markets. So long as the farmer is thriving, he buys from you and your neighbours liberally, and you find him, I have no doubt, your best and steadiest customer. But if you reverse his circumstances, you must look for a corresponding change in his dealings. He cannot afford to purchase silks for his wife and daughters, as formerly; he grows penurious in his own personal expenditure, and denies himself every unnecessary luxury; he does nothing for the good of trade, and is impassable to all the temptations which you endeavour to throw in his way. To post your ledger is now no very difficult task. You find last year's stock remaining steadily on your hands; and when the season for the annual visit of the bagmen comes round, you dismiss them from your premises without gratifying their avidity by an order. This is a faithful picture of what has been going on for two years, at least, in the smaller inland boroughs. No doubt you are getting your bread cheap; but those whose importations have brought about that cheapness, never were, and never can be, customers of yours. Even supposing that they were to take goods in exchange for their imported grain, no profit or custom could accrue to the retail shopkeeper, who must necessarily look to the people around him for the consumption of his wares. In this way trade has been made to stagnate, and profits have of course declined, until the tradesmen, weary of awaiting the advent of a prosperity which never arrives, have come to the conclusion, that they will best consult their interest by giving their support to a policy the reverse of that which has crippled the great body of their customers.
Watering-places, and towns of fashionable resort, have suffered in a like degree. The gentry, whose rents have been most seriously affected by the unnatural diminution of prices, are compelled to curtail their expenditure, and to deny themselves many things which formerly would have been esteemed legitimate indulgences. Economy is the order Of the day: equipages are given up, servants dismissed, and old furniture made to last beyond its appointed time. These things, I most freely admit, are no great hardships to the gentry; nor do I intend to awaken your compassion in behalf of the squire, who, by reason of his contracted rent-roll, has been compelled to part with his carriage and a couple of footmen, and to refuse his wife and daughters the pleasure of a trip to Cheltenham. The hardship lies elsewhere. I pity the footmen, the coach-builder, the upholsterer, the house proprietor in Cheltenham, and all the other people to whom the surplus of the squire's revenue found its way, much more than the old gentleman himself. I daresay he is quite as happy at home—perhaps far happier—than if he were compelled to racket elsewhere; and sure I am that he will not consume his dinner with less appetite because he lacks the attendance of a couple of knaves, with heads like full-blown cauliflowers. But is it consistent with the workings of human nature to expect that the people to whom he formerly gave employment and custom, let us say to the extent of a couple of thousand pounds, can be gratified by the cessation of that expenditure?—or is it possible to suppose that they will remain enamoured of a system which has caused them so heavy a loss? View the subject in this light, and you can have no difficulty in understanding why this formidable reaction has taken place in the English boroughs. It is simply a question of the pocket; and the electors now see, that unless the boroughs are to be left to rapid decay, something must be done to protect and foster that industry upon which they all depend. Such facts, which are open and patent to every man's experience, and tell upon his income and expenditure, are worth whole cargoes of theory. What reason has the trader, whose stock is remaining unsold upon his hands, to plume himself, because he is assured by Mr Porter, or some other similar authority, that some hundred thousand additional yards of flimsy calico have been shipped from the British shores in the course of the last twelve months? So far as the shopkeeper is concerned, the author of the Progress of the Nation might as well have been reporting upon the traffic-tables of Tyre and Sidon. He is not even assured that all this export has been accompanied with a profit to the manufacturer. If he reads the Economist, he will find that exhilarating print filled with complaints of general distress and want of demand; he will be startled from time to time by the announcement that in some places, such as Dundee, trade has experienced a most decided check; or that in others, such as Nottingham and Leicester, the operatives are applying by hundreds for admission to the workhouse! Comfortable intelligence this, alongside of increasing exports! But he has been taught, to borrow a phrase from the writings of the late John Galt, to look upon your political arithmetician as "a mystery shrouded by a halo;" and he supposes that, somehow or other, somebody must be the gainer by all these exports, though it seems clearly impossible to specify the fortunate individual. However, this he knows, to his cost any time these three years back, that he has not been the gainer; and, as he opines very justly that charity begins at home, and that the man who neglects the interest of his own family is rather worse than a heathen, he has made up his mind to support such candidates only as will stand by British industry, and protect him by means of protecting others. As for the men of the maritime boroughs—a large and influential class—I need not touch upon their feelings or sentiments with regard to Free Trade. I observe that the Liberal press, with peculiar taste and felicity of expression, designates them by the generic term of "crimps," just as it used to compliment the whole agriculturists of Britain by the comprehensive appellation of "chawbacons." I trust they feel the compliment so delicately conveyed; but, after all, it matters little. Hard words break no bones; and, in the mean time at least, the vote of a "crimp" is quite as good as that of the concocter of a paragraph.
Perhaps now you understand why the Free-Traders are so wroth against the boroughs. They expected to play off the latter against the county constituencies; and, being disappointed in that, they want to swamp them altogether. This, I must own, strikes me as particularly unfair. Let it be granted that a large number of the smaller boroughs did, at the last general election, manifest a decided wish that the Free Trade experiment, then begun, should be allowed a fair trial; are they to be held so pledged to that commercial system, that, however disastrous may have been its results, they are not entitled to alter their minds? Are all the representations, promises, and prophecies of the leading advocates of Free Trade, to be set aside as if these were never uttered or written? Who were the cozeners in this case? Clearly the men who boasted of the enormous advantages which were immediately to arise from their policy—advantages whereof, up to the present moment, not a single glimpse has been vouchsafed. Free Trade, we were distinctly told, was to benefit the boroughs. Free Trade has done nothing of the kind; on the contrary, it has reduced their business and lowered their importance. And now, when this effect has become so plain and undeniable that the very men who subscribed to the funds of the League, and who were foremost in defending the conduct of the late Sir Robert Peel, are sending Protectionists to Parliament, it is calmly proposed to neutralise their conversion by depriving them of political power!
Under the circumstances, I do not know that the Free-Traders could have hit upon a happier scheme. The grand tendency of their system is centralisation. They want to drive everything—paupers alone excepted, if they could by possibility compass that fortunate immunity—into the larger towns, which are the seats of export manufacture, and to leave the rest of the population to take care of themselves. You see how they have succeeded in Ireland, by the reports of the last census. They are doing the same thing in Scotland, as we shall ere long discover to our cost; and, indeed, the process is going on slowly, but surely, throughout the whole of the British islands. I chanced the other day to light upon a passage in a very dreary article in the last number of the Edinburgh Review, which seems to me to embody the chief economical doctrines of the gentlemen to whom we are indebted for the present posture of affairs. It is as follows:—
"The common watchword, or cuckoo-note of the advocates of restriction in affairs of trade is, 'Protection to Native Industry.' In the principle fairly involved in this motto we cordially agree. We are as anxious as the most vehement advocate for high import duties on foreign products can be, that the industry of our fellow-countrymen should be protected(!) We only differ as to the means. Their theory of protection is to guard against competition those branches of industry which, without such extraneous help, could never be successfully pursued: ours, is that of enlarging, to the uttermost, those other branches for the prosecution of which our countrymen possess the greatest aptitude, and of thereby securing for their skill and capital the greatest return. This protection is best afforded by governments when they leave, without interference, the productive industry of the country to find its true level; for we may be certain that the interest of individuals will always lead them to prefer those pursuits which they find most gainful. There is, in fact, no mode of interference with entire freedom of action which must not be, in some degree, hurtful; but the mischief which follows upon legislation in affairs of trade, in any given country, is then most noxious when it tends to foster branches of industry for which other countries have a greater aptitude."
You will, I think, find some difficulty in discovering the protective principle enunciated by this sagacious scribe, who, like many others of his limited calibre, is fain to take refuge in nonsense when he cannot extricate his meaning. You may also, very reasonably, entertain doubts whether the protective theory, which our friend of the Blue and Yellow puts into the mouth of his opponents, was ever entertained or promulgated by any rational being, at least in the broad sense which he wishes to imply. The true protective theory has reference to the State burdens, which, in so far as they are exacted from the produce of native industry, or, in other words, from labour, we wish to see counterbalanced by a fair import-duty, which shall reduce the foreign and the native producer to an equality in the home market. When the reviewer talks of the non-interference of Government with regard to the productive industry of the country, he altogether omits mention of that most stringent interference which is the direct result of taxation. If the farmer were allowed to till the ground, to sow the seed, and to reap the harvest, without any interference from Government, then I admit at once that a demand for protection would be preposterous. But when Government requires him to pay income-tax, assessed taxes, church and poor-rates, besides other direct burdens, out of the fruit of his industry—when it prevents him from growing on his own land several kinds of crop, in order that the customs revenue may be maintained—when it taxes indirectly his tea, coffee, wines, spirits, tobacco, soap, and spiceries—then I say that Government does interfere, and that most unmercifully, with the productive industry of the country. Just suppose that, by recurring to a primitive method of taxation, the Government should lay claim to one-third of the proceeds of every crop, and instruct its emissaries to remove it from the ground before another acre should be reaped—would that not constitute interference in the eyes of the sapient reviewer? Well, then, since all taxes must ultimately be paid out of produce, what difference does the mere method of levying the burden make with regard to the burden itself? I call your attention to this point, because the Free-Traders invariably, but I fear wilfully, omit all mention of artificial taxation when they talk of artificial restrictions. They want you to believe that we, who maintain the opposite view, seek to establish an entire monopoly in Great Britain of all kinds of possible produce; and they are in the habit of putting asinine queries as to the propriety of raising the duties on foreign wine, so as to encourage the establishment of vineyards in Kent and Sussex, and also as to the proper protective duty which should be levied on pine-apples, in order that a due stimulus may be given to the cultivation of that luscious fruit. But these funny fellows take especial care never to hint to you that protection is and was demanded simply on account of the enormous nature of our imposts, which have the effect of raising the rates of labour. It is in this way, and no other, that agriculture, deprived of protection, but still subjected to taxation, has become an unremunerative branch of industry; and you observe how calmly the disciple of Ricardo condemns it to destruction. "The mischief," quoth he, "which follows upon legislation in affairs of trade, in any given country, is then most noxious when it tends to foster branches of industry for which other countries have a greater aptitude." So, then, having taxed agriculture to that point when it can no longer bear the burden, we are, for the future, to draw our supplies from "other countries which have a greater aptitude" for growing corn; that aptitude consisting in their comparative immunity from taxation, and in the degraded moral and social condition of the serfs who constitute the tillers of the soil! We are to give up cultivation, and apply ourselves to the task "of enlarging to the uttermost those other branches, for the prosecution of which our countrymen possess the greatest aptitude"—by which, I presume, is meant the manufacture of cotton-twist!
Now, then, consider for a moment what is the natural, nay, the inevitable effect of this narrowing of the range of employment. I shall not start the important point whether the concentration of labour does not tend to lower wages—I shall merely assume, what is indeed already abundantly established by facts, that the depression of agriculture in any district leads almost immediately to a large increase in the population of the greater towns. Places like Dreepdaily may remain stationary, but they do not receive any material increment to their population. You have, I believe, no export trade, at least very little, beyond the manufacture of an ingenious description of snuff-box, justly prized by those who are in the habit of stimulating their nostrils. The displaced stream of labour passes through you, but does not tarry with you—it rolls on towards Paisley and Glasgow, where it is absorbed in the living ocean. Year after year the same process is carried on. The older people, probably because it is not worth while at their years to attempt a change, tarry in their little villages and cots, and gradually acquire that appearance of utter apathy, which is perhaps the saddest aspect of humanity. The younger people, finding no employment at home, repair to the towns, marry or do worse, and propagate children for the service of the factories which are dedicated to the export trade. Of education they receive little or nothing; for they must be in attendance on their gaunt iron master during the whole of their waking hours; and religion seeks after them in vain. What wonder, then, if the condition of our operatives should be such as to suggest to thinking minds very serious doubts whether our boasted civilisation can be regarded in the light of a blessing? Certain it is that the bulk of these classes are neither better nor happier than their forefathers. Nay, if there be any truth in evidence—any reality in the appalling accounts which reach us from the heart of the towns, there exists an amount of crime, misery, drunkenness, and profligacy, which is unknown even among savages and heathen nations. Were we to recall from the four ends of the earth all the missionaries who have been despatched from the various churches, they would find more than sufficient work ready for them at home. Well-meaning men project sanitary improvements, as if these could avail to counteract the moral poison. New churches are built; new schools are founded; public baths are subscribed for, and public washing-houses are opened; the old rookeries are pulled down, and light and air admitted to the heart of the cities—but the heart of the people is not changed; and neither air nor water, nor religious warning, has the effect of checking crime, eradicating intemperance, or teaching man the duty which he owes to himself, his brethren, and his God! This is an awful picture, but it is a true one; and it well becomes us to consider why these things should be. There is no lukewarmness on the subject exhibited in any quarter. The evil is universally acknowledged, and every one would be ready to contribute to alleviate it, could a proper remedy be suggested. It is not my province to suggest remedies; but it does appear to me that the original fault is to be found in the system which has caused this unnatural pressure of our population into the towns. I am aware that in saying this, I am impugning the leading doctrines of modern political economy. I am aware that I am uttering what will be considered by many as a rank political heresy; still, not having the fear of fire and fagot before my eyes, I shall use the liberty of speech. It appears to me that the system which has been more or less adopted since the days of Mr Huskisson, of suppressing small trades for the encouragement of foreign importation, and of stimulating export manufactures to the uttermost, has proved very pernicious to the morals and the social condition of the people. The termination of the war found us with a large population, and with an enormous debt. If, on the one hand, it was for the advantage of the country that commerce should progress with rapid strides, and that our foreign trade should be augmented, it was, on the other, no less necessary that due regard should be had for the former occupations of the people, and that no great and violent displacements of labour should be occasioned, by fiscal relaxations which might have the effect of supplanting home industry by foreign produce in the British market. The mistake of the political economists lies in their obstinate determination to enforce a principle, which in the abstract is not only unobjectionable but unchallenged, without any regard whatever to the peculiar and pecuniary circumstances of the country. They will not look at what has gone before, in order to determine their line of conduct in any particular case. They admit of no exceptions. They start with their axiom that trade ought to be free, and they will not listen to any argument founded upon special circumstances in opposition to that doctrine. Now, this is not the way in which men have been, or ever can be, governed. They must be dealt with as rational beings, not regarded as mere senseless machinery, which may be treated as lumber, and cast aside to make way for some new improvement. Look at the case of our own Highlanders. We know very well that, from the commencement of the American war, it was considered by the British Government an important object to maintain the population of the Highlands, as the source from which they drew their hardiest and most serviceable recruits. So long as the manufacture of kelp existed, and the breeding of cattle was profitable, there was little difficulty in doing this; now, under this new commercial system, we are told that the population is infinitely too large for the natural resources of the country; we are shocked by accounts of periodical famine, and of deaths occurring from starvation; and our economists declare that there is no remedy except a general emigration of the inhabitants. This is the extreme case in Great Britain; but extreme cases often furnish us with the best tests of the operation of a particular system. Here you have a population fostered for an especial purpose, and abandoned so soon as that special purpose has been served. Without maintaining that the Gael is the most industrious of mankind, it strikes me forcibly that it would be a better national policy to give every reasonable encouragement to the development of the natural resources of that portion of the British islands, than to pursue the opposite system, and to reduce the Highlands to a wilderness. Not so think the political economists. They can derive their supplies cheaper from elsewhere, at the hands of strangers who contribute no share whatever to the national revenue; and for the sake of that cheapness they are content to reduce thousands of their countrymen to beggary. But emigration cannot, and will not, be carried out to an extent at all equal to the necessity which is engendered by the cessation of employment. The towns become the great centre-points and recipients of the displaced population; and so centralisation goes on, and, as a matter of course, pauperism and crime increase.
To render this system perpetual, without any regard to ultimate consequences, is the leading object of the Free-Traders. Not converted, but on the contrary rendered more inveterate by the failure of their schemes, they are determined to allow no consideration whatever to stand in the way of their purpose; and of this you have a splendid instance in their late denunciation of the boroughs. They think—whether rightfully or wrongfully, it is not now necessary to inquire—that, by altering the proportions of Parliamentary power as established by the Reform Act—by taking away from the smaller boroughs, and by adding to the urban constituencies, they will still be able to command a majority in the House of Commons. In the present temper of the nation, and so long as its voice is expressed as heretofore, they know, feel, and admit that their policy is not secure. And why is it not secure? Simply because it has undergone the test of experience—because it has had a fair trial in the sight of the nation—and because it has not succeeded in realising the expectations of its founders.
I have ventured to throw together these few crude remarks for your consideration during the recess, being quite satisfied that you will not feel indifferent upon any subject which touches the dignity, status, or privileges of the boroughs. Whether Lord John Russell agrees with the Times as to the mode of effecting the threatened Parliamentary change, or whether he has some separate scheme of his own, is a question which I cannot solve. Possibly he has not yet made up his mind as to the course which it may be most advisable to pursue; for, in the absence of anything like general excitement or agitation, it is not easy to predict in what manner the proposal for any sweeping or organic change may be received by the constituencies of the Empire. There is far too much truth in the observations which I have already quoted from the great leading journal, relative to the dangers which must attend an increase of constituencies already too large, or a further extension of their power, to permit of our considering this as a light and unimportant matter. I view it as a very serious one indeed; and I cannot help thinking that Lord John Russell has committed an act of gross and unjustifiable rashness, in pledging himself, at the present time, to undertake a remodelment of the constitution. But whatever he does, I hope, for his own sake, and for the credit of the Liberal party, that he will be able to assign some better and more constitutional reason for the change, than the refusal of the English boroughs to bear arms in the crusade which is directed against the interests of Native Industry.
PARIS IN 1851.—(Continued.)
The Opera.—In the evening I went to the French Opera, which is still one of the lions of Paris. It was once in the Rue Richelieu; but the atrocious assassination of the Duc de Berri, who was stabbed in its porch, threw a kind of horror over the spot: the theatre was closed, and the performance moved to its present site in the Rue Lepelletier, a street diverging from the Boulevard.
Fond as the French are of decoration, the architecture of this building possesses no peculiar beauty, and would answer equally well for a substantial public hospital, a workhouse, or a barrack, if the latter were not the more readily suggested by the gendarmerie loitering about the doors, and the mounted dragoons at either end of the street.
The passages of the interior are of the same character—spacious and substantial; but the door of the salle opens, and the stranger, at a single step, enters from those murky passages into all the magic of a crowded theatre. The French have, within these few years, borrowed from us the art of lighting theatres. I recollect the French theatre lighted only by a few lamps scattered round the house, or a chandelier in the middle, which might have figured in the crypt of a cathedral. This they excused, as giving greater effect to the stage; but it threw the audience into utter gloom. They have now made the audience a part of the picture, and an indispensable part. The opera-house now shows the audience; and if not very dressy, or rather as dowdy, odd, and dishevelled a crowd as I ever recollect to have seen within theatrical walls, yet they are evidently human beings, which is much more picturesque than masses of spectres, seen only by an occasional flash from the stage.
The French architects certainly have not made this national edifice grand; but they have made it a much better thing,—lively, showy, and rich. Neither majestic and monotonous, nor grand and Gothic, they have made it riant and racy, like a place where men and women come to be happy, where beautiful dancers are to be seen, and where sweet songs are to be heard, and where the mind is for three or four hours to forget all its cares, and to carry away pleasant recollections for the time being. From pit to ceiling it is covered with paintings—all sorts of cupids, nymphs, and flower-garlands, and Greek urns—none of them wonders of the pencil, but all exhibiting that showy mediocrity of which every Frenchman is capable, and with which every Frenchman is in raptures. All looks rich, warm, and operatic.
One characteristic change has struck me everywhere in Paris—the men dress better, and the women worse. When I was last here, the men dressed half bandit and half Hottentot. The revolutionary mystery was at work, and the hatred of the Bourbons was emblematised in a conical hat, a loose neckcloth, tremendous trousers, and the scowl of a stage conspirator. The Parisian men have since learned the decencies of dress.
As I entered the house before the rising of the curtain, I had leisure to look about me, and I found even in the audience a strong contrast to those of London. By that kind of contradiction to everything rational and English which governs the Parisian, the women seem to choose dishabille for the Opera.
As the house was crowded, and the boxes are let high, and the performance of the night was popular, I might presume that some of the élite were present, yet I never saw so many ill-dressed women under one roof. Bonnets, shawls, muffles of all kinds, were the costume. How different from the finish, the splendour, and the fashion of the English opera-box. I saw hundreds of women who appeared, by their dress, scarcely above the rank of shopkeepers, yet, who probably were among the Parisian leaders of fashion, if in republican Paris there are any leaders of fashion.
But I came to be interested, to enjoy, to indulge in a feast of music and acting; with no fastidiousness of criticism, and with every inclination to be gratified. In the opera itself I was utterly disappointed. The Opera was Zerline, or, The Basket of Oranges. The composer was the first living musician of France, Auber; the writer was the most popular dramatist of his day, Scribe; the Prima Donna was Alboni, to whom the manager of the Opera in London had not thought it too much to give £4000 for a single season. I never paid my francs with more willing expectation: and I never saw a performance of which I so soon got weary.
The plot is singularly trifling. Zerline, an orange-girl of Palermo, has had a daughter by Boccanera, a man of rank, who afterwards becomes Viceroy of Sicily. Zerline is captured by pirates, and carried to Algiers. The opera opens with her return to Palermo, after so many years that her daughter is grown up to womanhood; and Boccanera is emerged into public life, and has gradually became an officer of state.
The commencing scene has all the animation of the French picturesque. The Port of Palermo is before the spectator; the location is the Fruit Market. Masses of fruits, with smart peasantry to take care of them, cover the front of the stage. The background is filled up with Lazzaroni lying on the ground, sleeping, or eating macaroni. The Prince Boccanera comes from the palace; the crowd observe 'Son air sombre;' the Prince sings—
"On a most unlucky day,
Satan threw her in my way;
I the princess took to wife,
Now the torture of my life," &c.
After this matrimonial confession, which extends to details, the prime minister tells us of his love still existing for Zerline, whose daughter he has educated under the name of niece, and who is now the Princess Gemma, and about to be married to a court noble.
A ship approaches the harbour; Boccanera disappears; the Lazzaroni hasten to discharge the cargo. Zerline lands from the vessel, and sings a cavatina in praise of Palermo:—
"O Palerme! O Sicile!
Beau ciel, plaine fertile!"
Zerline is a dealer in oranges, and she lands her cargo, placing it in the market. The original tenants of the place dispute her right to come among them, and are about to expel her by force, when a marine officer, Rodolf, takes her part, and, drawing his sword, puts the whole crowd to flight. Zerline, moved by this instance of heroism, tells him her story, that she was coming "un beau matin" to the city to sell oranges, when a pitiless corsair captured her, and carried her to Africa, separating her from her child, whom she had not seen for fifteen years; that she escaped to Malta, laid in a stock of oranges there;—and thus the events of the day occurred. Rodolf, this young hero, is costumed in a tie-wig with powder, stiff skirts, and the dress of a century ago. What tempted the author to put not merely his hero, but all his court characters, into the costume of Queen Anne, is not easily conceivable, as there is nothing in the story which limits it in point of time.
Zerline looks after him with sudden sympathy, says that she heard him sigh, that he must be unhappy, and that, if her daughter lives, he is just the husband for her,—Zerline not having been particular as to marriage herself. She then rambles about the streets, singing,
"Achetez mes belles oranges,
Des fruits divins, des fruits exquis;
Des oranges comme les anges
N'en goutent pas en Paradis."
After this "hommage aux oranges!" to the discredit of Paradise, on which turns the plot of the play, a succession of maids of honour appear, clad in the same unfortunate livery of fardingales, enormous flat hats, powdered wigs, and stomachers. The Princess follows them, apparently armed by her costume against all the assaults of Cupid. But she, too, has an "affaire du cœur" upon her hands. In fact, from the Orangewoman up to the Throne, Cupid is the Lord of Palermo, with its "beau ciel, plaine fertile." The object of the Princess's love is the Marquis de Buttura, the suitor of her husband's supposed niece. Here is a complication! The enamoured wife receives a billet-doux from the suitor, proposing a meeting on his return from hunting. She tears the billet for the purpose of concealment, and in her emotion drops the fragments on the floor. That billet performs all important part in the end. The enamoured lady buys an orange, and gives a gold piece for it. Zerline, not accustomed to be so well paid for her fruit, begins to suspect this outrageous liberality; and having had experience in these matters, picks up the fragments of the letter, and gets into the whole secret.
The plot proceeds: the daughter of the orangewoman now appears. She is clad in the same preposterous habiliments. As the niece of the minister, she is created a princess, (those things are cheap in Italy,) and she, too, is in love with the officer in the tie-wig. She recognises the song of Zerline, "Achetez mes belles oranges," and sings the half of it. On this, the mother and daughter now recognise each other. It is impossible to go further in such a denouement. If Italian operas are proverbially silly, we are to recollect that this is not an Italian, but a French one; and that it is by the most popular comic writer of France.
The marriage of Gemma and Rodolf is forbidden by the pride of the King's sister, the wife of Boccanera, but Zerline interposes, reminds her of the orange affair, threatens her with the discovery of the billet-doux, and finally makes her give her consent: and thus the curtain drops. I grew tired of all this insipidity, and left the theatre before the catastrophe. The music seemed to me fitting for the plot—neither better nor worse; and I made my escape with right good-will from the clamour and crash of the orchestra, and from the loves and faux pas of the belles of Palermo.
The Obelisk.—I strayed into the Place de la Concorde, beyond comparison the finest space in Paris. I cannot call it a square, nor does it equal in animation the Boulevard; but in the profusion of noble architecture it has no rival in Paris, nor in Europe. Vive la Despotisme! every inch of it is owing to Monarchy. Republics build nothing, if we except prisons and workhouses. They are proverbially squalid, bitter, and beggarly. What has America, with all her boasting, ever built, but a warehouse or a conventicle? The Roman Republic, after seven hundred years' existence, remained a collection hovels till an Emperor faced them with marble. If Athens exhibited her universal talents in the splendour of her architecture, we must recollect that Pericles was her master through life—as substantially despotic, by the aid of the populace, as an Asiatic king by his guards; and recollect, also, that an action of damages was brought against him for "wasting the public money on the Parthenon," the glory of Athens in every succeeding age. Louis Quatorze, Napoleon, and Louis Philippe—two openly, and the third secretly, as despotic as the Sultan—were the true builders of Paris.
As I stood in the centre of this vast enclosure, I was fully struck with the effect of scene. The sun was sinking into a bed of gold and crimson clouds, that threw their hue over the long line of the Champs Elysées. Before me were the two great fountains, and the Obelisk of Luxor. The fountains had ceased to play, from the lateness of the hour, but still looked massive and gigantic; the obelisk looked shapely and superb. The gardens of the Tuilleries were on my left—deep dense masses of foliage, surmounted in the distance by the tall roofs of the old Palace; on my right, the verdure of the Champs Elysées, with the Arc de l'Etoile rising above it, at the end of its long and noble avenue; in my front the Palace of the Legislature, a chaste and elegant structure; and behind me, glowing in the sunbeams, the Madeleine, the noblest church—I think the noblest edifice, in Paris, and perhaps not surpassed in beauty and grandeur, for its size, by any place of worship in Europe. The air cool and sweet from the foliage, the vast place almost solitary, and undisturbed by the cries which are incessant in this babel during the day, yet with that gentle confusion of sounds which makes the murmur and the music of a great city. All was calm, noble, and soothing.
The obelisk of Luxor which stands in the centre of the "Place," is one of two Monoliths, or pillars of a single stone, which, with Cleopatra's Needle, were given by Mehemet Ali to the French, at the time when, by their alliance, he expected to have made himself independent. All the dates of Egyptian antiquities are uncertain—notwithstanding Young and his imitator Champollion—but the date assigned to this pillar is 1550 years before the Christian era. The two obelisks stood in front of the great temple of Thebes, now named Luxor, and the hieroglyphics which cover this one, from top to bottom, are supposed to relate the exploits and incidents of the reign of Sesostris.
It is of red Syenite; but, from time and weather, it is almost the colour of limestone. It has an original flaw up a third of its height, for which the Egyptian masons provided a remedy by wedges, and the summit is slightly broken. The height of the monolith is seventy-two feet three inches, which would look insignificant, fixed as it is in the centre of lofty buildings, but for its being raised on a plinth of granite, and that again raised on a pedestal of immense blocks of granite—the height of the plinth and the pedestal together being twenty-seven feet, making the entire height nearly one hundred. The weight of the monolith is five hundred thousand pounds; the weight of the pedestal is half that amount, and the weight of the blocks probably makes the whole amount to nine hundred thousand, which is the weight of the obelisk at Rome. It was erected in 1836, by drawing it up an inclined plane of masonry, and then raising it by cables and capstans to the perpendicular. The operation was tedious, difficult, and expensive; but it was worth the labour; and the monolith now forms a remarkable monument of the zeal of the king, and of the liberality of his government.
There is, I understand, an obelisk remaining in Egypt, which was given by the Turkish government to the British army, on the expulsion of the French from Egypt, but which has been unclaimed, from the difficulty of carrying it to England.
That difficulty, it must be acknowledged, is considerable. In transporting and erecting the obelisk of Luxor six years were employed. I have not heard the expense, but it must have been large. A vessel was especially constructed at Toulon, for its conveyance down the Nile. A long road was to be made from the Nile to the Temple. Then the obelisk required to be protected from the accidents of carriage, which was done by enclosing it in a wooden case. It was then drawn by manual force to the river—and this employed three months. Then came the trouble of embarking it, for which the vessel had to be nearly sawn through; then came the crossing of the bar at Rosetta—a most difficult operation at the season of the year; then the voyage down the Mediterranean, the vessel being towed by a steamer; then the landing at Cherbourg, in 1833; and, lastly, the passage up the Seine, which occupied nearly four months, reaching Paris in December; thenceforth its finishing and erection, which was completed only in three years after.
This detail may have some interest, as we have a similar project before us. But the whole question is, whether the transport of the obelisk which remains in Egypt for us is worth the expense. We, without hesitation, say that it is. The French have shown that it is practicable, and it is a matter of rational desire to show that we are not behind the French either in power, in ability, or in zeal, to adorn our cities. The obelisk transported to England would be a proud monument, without being an offensive one, of a great achievement of our armies; it would present to our eyes, and those of our children, a relic of the most civilised kingdom of the early ages; it would sustain the recollections of the scholar by its record, and might kindle the energy of the people by the sight of what had been accomplished by the prowess of Englishmen.
If it be replied that such views are Utopian, may we not ask, what is the use of all antiquity, since we can eat and drink as well without it? But we cannot feel as loftily without it; many a lesson of vigour, liberality, and virtue would be lost to us without it; we should lose the noblest examples of the arts, some of the finest displays of human genius in architecture, a large portion of the teaching of the public mind in all things great, and an equally large portion of the incentives to public virtue in all things self-denying. The labour, it is true, of conveying the obelisk would be serious, the expense considerable, and we might not see it erected before the gate of Buckingham Palace these ten years. But it would be erected at last. It would be a trophy—it would be an abiding memorial of the extraordinary country from which civilisation spread to the whole world.
But the two grand fountains ought especially to stimulate our emulation. Those we can have without a voyage from Alexandria to Portsmouth, or a six years' delay.
The fountains of the Place de la Concorde would deserve praise if it were only for their beauty. At a distance sufficient for the picturesque, and with the sun shining on them, they actually look like domes and cataracts of molten silver; and a nearer view does not diminish their right to admiration. They are both lofty, perhaps, fifty feet high, both consisting of three basins, lessening in size in proportion to their height, and all pouring out sheets of water from the trumpets of Tritons, from the mouths of dolphins, and from allegorical figures. One of those fountains is in honour of Maritime Navigation, and the other of the Navigation of Rivers. In the former the figures represent the Ocean and the Mediterranean, with the Genii of the fisheries; and in the upper basin are Commerce, Astronomy, Navigation, &c., all capital bronzes, and all spouting out floods of water. The fountain of River Navigation is not behind its rival in bronze or water. It exhibits the Rhine and the Rhone, with the Genii of fruits and flowers, of the vintage and the harvest, with the usual attendance of Tritons. Why the artist had no room for the Seine and the Garonne, while he introduced the Rhine, which is not a French river in any part of its course, must be left for his explanation; but the whole constitutes a beautiful and magnificent object, and, with the sister fountain, perhaps forms the finest display of the kind in Europe. I did not venture, while looking at those stately monuments of French art, to turn my thoughts to our own unhappy performances in Trafalgar Square—the rival of a soda-water bottle, yet the work of a people of boundless wealth, and the first machinists in the world.
The Jardin des Plantes.—I found this fine establishment crowded with the lower orders—fathers and mothers, nurses, old women, and soldiers. As it includes the popular attractions of a zoological garden, as well as a botanical, every day sees its visitants, and every holiday its crowds. The plants are for science, and for that I had no time, even had I possessed other qualifications; but the zoological collection were for curiosity, and of that the spectators had abundance. Yet the animals of pasture appeared to be languid, possibly tired of the perpetual bustle round them—for all animals love quiet at certain times, and escape from the eye of man, when escape is in their power. Possibly the heat of the weather, for the day was remarkably sultry, might have contributed to their exhaustion. But if they have memory—and why should they not?—they must have strangely felt the contrast of their free pastures, shady woods, and fresh streams, with the little patch of ground, the parched soil, and the clamour of ten thousand tongues round them. I could imagine the antelope's intelligent eye, as he lay panting before us on his brown patch of soil, comparing it with the ravines of the Cape, or the eternal forests clothing the hills of his native Abyssinia.
But the object of all popular interest was the pit of the bears; there the crowd was incessant and delighted. But the bears, three or four huge brown beasts, by no means reciprocated the popular feeling. They sat quietly on their hind-quarters, gazing grimly at the groups which lined their rails, and tossed cakes and apples to them from above. They had probably been saturated with sweets, for they scarcely noticed anything but by a growl. They were insensible to apples—even oranges could not make them move, and cakes they seemed to treat with scorn. It was difficult to conceive that those heavy and unwieldy-looking animals could be ferocious; but the Alpine hunter knows that they are as fierce as the tiger, and nearly as quick and dangerous in their spring.
The carnivorous beasts were few, and, except in the instance of one lion, of no remarkable size or beauty. As they naturally doze during the day, their languor was no proof of their weariness; but I have never seen an exhibition of this kind without some degree of regret. The plea of the promotion of science is nothing. Even if it were important to science to be acquainted with the habits of the lion and tiger, which it is not, their native habits are not to be learned from the animal shut up in a cage. The chief exertion of their sagacity and their strength in the native state is in the pursuit of prey; yet what of these can be learned from the condition in which the animal dines as regularly as his keeper, and divides his time between feeding and sleep? Half-a-dozen lions let loose in the Bois de Boulogne would let the naturalist into more knowledge of their nature than a menagerie for fifty years.
The present system is merely cruel; and the animals, without exercise, without air, without the common excitement of free motion, which all animals enjoy so highly—perhaps much more highly than the human race—fall into disease and die, no doubt miserably, though they cannot draw up a rationale of their sufferings. I have been told that the lions in confinement die chiefly of consumption—a singularly sentimental disease for this proud ravager of the desert. But the whole purpose of display would be answered as effectually by exhibiting half-a-dozen lions' skins stuffed, in the different attitudes of seizing their prey, or ranging the forest, or feeding. At present nothing is seen but a great beast asleep, or restlessly moving in a space of half-a-dozen square feet, and pining away in his confinement. An eagle on his perch and with a chain on his leg, in a menagerie, always appears to me like a dethroned monarch; and I have never seen him thus cast down from his "high estate" without longing to break his chain, and let him spread his wing, and delight his splendid eye with the full view of his kingdom of the Air.
The Jardin dates its origin as far back as Louis XIII., when the king's physician recommended its foundation for science. The French are fond of gardening, and are good gardeners; and the climate is peculiarly favourable to flowers, as is evident from the market held every morning in summer by the side of the Madeleine, where the greatest abundance of the richest flowers I ever saw is laid out for the luxury of the Parisians.
The Jardin, patronised by kings and nobles, flourished through successive reigns; but the appointment of Buffon, about the middle of the eighteenth century, suddenly raised it to the pinnacle of European celebrity. The most eloquent writer of his time, (in the style which the French call eloquence,) a man of family, and a man of opulence, he made Natural History the fashion, and in France that word is magic. It accomplishes everything—it includes everything. All France was frantic with the study of plants, animals, poultry-yards, and projects for driving tigers in cabriolets, and harnessing lions à la Cybele.
But Buffon mixed good sense with his inevitable charlatanrie—he selected the ablest men whom he could find for his professors; and in France there is an extraordinary quantity of "ordinary" cleverness—they gave amusing lectures, and they won the hearts of the nation.
But the Revolution came, and crushed all institutions alike. Buffon, fortunate in every way, had died in the year before, in 1788, and was thus spared the sight of the general ruin. The Jardin escaped, through some plea of its being national property; but the professors had fled, and were starving, or starved.
The Consulate, and still more the Empire, restored the establishment. Napoleon was ambitious of the character of a man of science, he was a member of the Institute, he knew the French character, and he flattered the national vanity, by indulging it with the prospect of being at the head of human knowledge.
The institution had by this time been so long regarded as a public show that it was beginning to be regarded as nothing else. Gratuitous lectures, which are always good for nothing, and to which all kinds of people crowd with corresponding profit, were gradually reducing the character of the Jardin; when Cuvier, a man of talent, was appointed to one of the departments of the institution, and he instantly revived its popularity; and, what was of more importance, its public use.
Cuvier devoted himself to comparative anatomy and geology. The former was a study within human means, of which he had the materials round him, and which, being intended for the instruction of man, is evidently intended for his investigation. The latter, in attempting to fix the age of the world, to decide on the process of creation, and to contradict Scripture by the ignorance of man, is merely an instance of the presumption of Sciolism. Cuvier exhibited remarkable dexterity in discovering the species of the fossil fishes, reptiles, and animals. The science was not new, but he threw it into a new form—he made it interesting, and he made it probable. If a large proportion of his supposed discoveries were merely ingenious guesses, they were at least guesses which there was nobody to refute, and they were ingenious—that was enough. Fame followed him, and the lectures of the ingenious theorist were a popular novelty. The "Cabinet of Comparative Anatomy" in the Jardin is the monument of his diligence, and it does honour to the sagacity of his investigation.
One remark, however, must be made. On a former visit to the Cabinet of Comparative Anatomy, among the collection of skeletons, I was surprised and disgusted with the sight of the skeleton of the Arab who killed General Kleber in Egypt. The Arab was impaled, and the iron spike was shown still sticking in the spine! I do not know whether this hideous object is still to be seen, for I have not lately visited the apartment; but, if existing still, it ought to remain no longer in a museum of science. Of course, the assassin deserved death; but, in all probability, the murder which made him guilty, was of the same order as that which made Charlotte Corday famous. How many of his countrymen had died by the soldiery of France! In the eye of Christianity, this is no palliation; though in the eye of Mahometanism it might constitute a patriot and a hero. At all events, so frightful a spectacle ought not to meet the public eye.
Hôtel des Invalides.—The depository of all that remains of Napoleon, the monument of almost two hundred years of war, and the burial-place of a whole host of celebrated names, is well worth the visit of strangers; and I entered the esplanade of the famous hôtel with due veneration, and some slight curiosity to see the changes of time. I had visited this noble pile immediately after the fall of Napoleon, and while it still retained the honours of an imperial edifice. Its courts now appeared to me comparatively desolate; this, however, may be accounted for by the cessation of those wars which peopled them with military mutilation. The establishment was calculated to provide for five thousand men; and, at that period, probably, it was always full. At present, scarcely more than half the number are under its roof; and, as even the Algerine war is reduced to skirmishes with the mountaineers of the Atlas, that number must be further diminishing from year to year.
The Cupola then shone with gilding. This was the work of Napoleon, who had a stately eye for the ornament of his imperial city. The cupola of the Invalides thus glittered above all the roofs of Paris, and was seen glittering to an immense distance. It might be taken for the dedication of the French capital to the genius of War. This gilding is now worn off practically, as well as metaphorically, and the prestige is lost.
The celebrated Edmund Burke, all whose ideas were grand, is said to have proposed gilding the cupola of St Paul's, which certainly would have been a splendid sight, and would have thrown a look of stateliness over that city to which the ends of the earth turn their eyes. But the civic spirit was not equal to the idea, and it has since gone on lavishing ten times the money on the embellishment of lanes.
The Chapel of the Invalides looked gloomy, and even neglected; the great Magician was gone. Some service was performing, as it is in the Romish chapels at most hours of the day: some poor people were kneeling in different parts of the area; and some strangers were, like myself, wandering along the nave, looking at the monuments to the fallen military names of France. On the pillars in the nave are inscriptions to the memory of Jourdan, Lobau, and Oudinot. There is a bronze tablet to the memory of Marshal Mortier, who was killed by Fieschi's infernal machine, beside Louis Philippe; and to Damremont, who fell in Algiers.
But the chapel is destined to exhibit a more superb instance of national recollection—the tomb of Napoleon, which is to be finished in 1852. A large circular crypt, dug in the centre of the second chapel (which is to be united with the first,) is the site of the sarcophagus in which the remains of Napoleon lie. Coryatides, columns, and bas-reliefs, commemorative of his battles, are to surround the sarcophagus. The coryatides are to represent War, Legislation, Art, and Science; and in front is to be raised an altar of black marble. The architect is Visconti, and the best statuaries in Paris are to contribute the decorations. The expense will be enormous. In the time of Louis Philippe it had already amounted to nearly four millions of francs. About three millions more are now demanded for the completion, including an equestrian statue. On the whole, the expense will be not much less than seven millions of francs!
The original folly of the nation, and of Napoleon, in plundering the Continent of statues and pictures, inevitably led to retribution, on the first reverse of fortune. The plunder of money, or of arms, or of anything consumable, would have been exempt from this mortification; but pictures and statues are permanent things, and always capable of being re-demanded. Their plunder was an extension of the law of spoil unknown in European hostilities, or in history, except perhaps in the old Roman ravage of Greece. Napoleon, in adopting the practice of heathenism for his model, and the French nation—in their assumed love of the arts violating the sanctities of art, by removing the noblest works from the edifices for which they were created, and from the lights and positions for which the great artists of Italy designed them—fully deserved the vexation of seeing them thus carried back to their original cities. The moral will, it is to be presumed, be learned from this signal example, that the works of genius are naturally exempt from the sweep of plunder; that even the violences of war must not be extended beyond the necessities of conquest; and that an act of injustice is sure to bring down its punishment in the most painful form of retribution.
The Artesian Well.—Near the Hôtel des Invalides is the celebrated well which has given the name to all the modern experiments of boring to great depths for water. The name of Artesian is said to be taken from the province of Artois, in which the practice has been long known. The want of water in Paris induced a M. Mulot to commence the work in 1834.
The history of the process is instructive. For six years there was no prospect of success; yet M. Mulot gallantly persevered. All was inexorable chalk; the boring instrument had broken several times, and the difficulty thus occasioned may be imagined from its requiring a length of thirteen hundred feet! even in an early period of the operation. However, early in 1841 the chalk gave signs of change, and a greenish sand was drawn up. On the 26th of February this was followed by a slight effusion of water, and before night the stream burst up to the mouth of the excavation, which was now eighteen hundred feet in depth. Yet the water rapidly rose to a height of one hundred and twelve feet above the mouth of the well by a pipe, which is now supported by scaffolding, giving about six hundred gallons of water a minute.
Even the memorable experiment confutes, so far as it goes, the geological notion of strata laid under each other in their proportions of gravity. The section of the boring shows chalk, sand, gravel, shells, &c., and this order sometimes reversed, in the most casual manner, down to a depth five times the height of the cupola of the Invalides.
The heat of the water was 83° of Fahrenheit. In the theories with which the philosophers of the Continent have to feed their imaginations is that of a central fire, which is felt through all the strata, and which warms everything in proportion to its nearness to the centre. Thus, it was proposed to dig an Artesian well of three thousand feet, for the supply of hot water to the Jardin des Plantes and the neighbouring hospitals. It was supposed that, at this depth, the heat would range to upwards of 100° of Fahrenheit. But nothing has been done. Even the Well of Grenelle has rather disappointed the public expectation; of late the supply has been less constant, and the boring is to be renewed to a depth of two thousand feet.
The Napoleon Column.—This is the grand feature of the Place de Vendôme, once the site of the Hôtel Vendôme, built by the son of Henry IV. and Gabrielle d'Estrées; afterwards pulled down by Louis XIV., afterwards abandoned to the citizens, and afterwards surrounded, as it is at this day, with the formal and heavy architecture of Mansard. The "Place" has, like everything in Paris, changed its name from time to time. It was once the "Place des Conquêtes;" then it changed to "Louis le Grand;" and then it returned to the name of its original proprietor. An old figure of the "Great King," in all the glories of wig and feathers, stood in the centre, till justice and the rabble of the Revolution broke it down, in the first "energies" of Republicanism. But the German campaign of 1805 put all the nation in good humour, and the Napoleon Column was raised on the site of the dilapidated monarch.
The design of the column is not original, for it is taken from the Trajan Column at Rome; but it is enlarged, and makes a very handsome object. When I first saw it, its decorations were in peril; for the Austrian soldiery were loud for its demolition, or at least for stripping off its bronze bas-reliefs, they representing their successive defeats in that ignominious campaign which, in three months from Boulogne, finished by the capture of Vienna. The Austrian troops, however, stoutly retrieved their disasters, and, as the proof, were then masters of Paris. It was possibly this effective feeling that prevailed at last to spare the column, which the practice of the French armies would have entitled them to strip without mercy.
In the first instance, a statue of Napoleon, as emperor, stood on the summit of the pillar. This statue had its revolutions too, for it was melted down at the restoration of the Bourbons, to make a part of the equestrian statue of Henry IV. erected on the Pont Neuf. A fleur-de-lis and flagstaff then took its place. The Revolution of 1830, which elevated Louis Philippe to a temporary throne, raised the statue of Napoleon to an elevation perhaps as temporary.
It was the shortsighted policy of the new monarch to mingle royal power with "republican institutions." He thus introduced the tricolor once more, sent for Napoleon's remains to St Helena by permission of England, and erected his statue in the old "chapeau et redingote gris," the characteristics of his soldiership. The statue was inaugurated on one of the "three glorious days," in July 1833, in all the pomp of royalty,—princes, ministers, and troops. So much for the consistency of a brother of the Bourbon. The pageant passed away, and the sacrifice to popularity was made without obtaining the fruits. Louis Philippe disappeared from the scene before the fall of the curtain; and, as if to render his catastrophe more complete, he not merely left a republic behind him, but he lived to see the "prisoner of Ham" the president of that republic.
How does it happen that an Englishman in France cannot stir a single step, hear a single word, or see a single face, without the conviction that he has landed among a people as far from him in all their feelings, habits, and nature, as if they were engendered in the moon? The feelings with which the Briton looks on the statue of Buonaparte may be mixed enough: he may acknowledge him for a great soldier, as well as a great knave—a great monarch, as well as a little intriguer—a mighty ruler of men, who would have made an adroit waiter at a table d'hôte in the Palais Royal. But he never would have imagined him into a sentimentalist, a shepherd, a Corydon, to be hung round with pastoral garlands; an opera hero, to delight in the sixpenny tribute of bouquets from the galleries.
Yet I found the image of this man of terror and mystery—this ravager of Europe—this stern, fierce, and subtle master of havoc, decorated like a milliner's shop, or the tombs of the citizen shopkeepers in the cemeteries, with garlands of all sizes!—the large to express copious sorrow, the smaller to express diminished anguish, and the smallest, like a visiting card, for simply leaving their compliments; and all this in the face of the people who once feared to look in his face, and followed his car as if it bore the Thunder!
To this spot came the people to offer up their sixpenny homage—to this spot came processions of all kinds, to declare their republican love for the darkest despot of European memory, to sing a stave, to walk heroically round the railing, hang up their garlands, and then, having done their duty in the presence of their own grisettes, in the face of Paris, and to the admiration of Europe, march home, and ponder upon the glories of the day!
As a work of imperial magnificence, the column is worthy of its founder, and of the only redeeming point of his character—his zeal for the ornament of Paris. It is a monument to the military successes of the Empire; a trophy one hundred and thirty-five feet high, covered with the representations of French victory over the Austrians and Russians in the campaign of 1805. The bas-reliefs are in bronze, rising in a continued spiral round the column. Yet this is an unfortunate sacrifice to the imitation of the Roman column. The spiral, a few feet above the head of the spectator, offers nothing to the eye but a roll of rough bronze; the figures are wholly and necessarily undistinguishable. The only portion of those castings which directly meets the eye is unfortunately given up to the mere uniforms, caps, and arms of the combatants. This is the pedestal, and it would make a showy decoration for a tailor's window. It is a clever work of the furnace, but a miserable one of invention.
The bronze is said to have been the captured cannon of the enemy. On the massive bronze door is the inscription in Latin:—"Napoleon, Emperor, Augustus, dedicated to the glory of the Grand Army this memorial of the German War, finished in three months, in the year 1805, under his command."
On the summit stands the statue of Napoleon, to which, and its changes, I have adverted already. But the question has arisen, whether there is not an error in taste in placing the statue of an individual at a height which precludes the view of his features. This has been made an objection to the handsome Nelson Pillar in Trafalgar Square. But the obvious answer in both instances is, that the object is not merely the sight of the features, but the perfection of the memorial; that the pillar is the true monument, and the statue only an accessory, though the most suitable accessory. But even then the statue is not altogether inexpressive. We can see the figure and the costume of Napoleon nearly as well as they could be seen from the balcony of the Tuilleries, where all Paris assembled in the Carousel to worship him on Sundays, at the parade of "La Garde." In the spirited statue of Nelson we can recognise the figure as well as if we were gazing at him within a hundred yards in any other direction. It is true that pillars are not painters' easels, nor is Trafalgar Square a sculptor's yard; but the real question turns on the effect of the whole. If the pillar makes the monument, we will not quarrel with the sculptor for its not making a miniature. It answers its purpose—it is a noble one; it gives a national record of great events, and it realises, invigorates, and consecrates them by the images of the men by whom they were achieved.
Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile.—It is no small adventure, in a burning day of a French summer, to walk the length of the Champs Elysées, even to see the arch of the Star, (Napoleon's Star,) and climb to its summit. Yet this labour I accomplished with the fervour and the fatigue of a pilgrimage.
Why should the name of Republic be ever heard in the mouth of a Frenchman? All the objects of his glory in the Capital of which he glories, everything that he can show to the stranger—everything that he recounts, standing on tip-toe, and looking down on the whole world besides—is the work of monarchy! The grand Republic left nothing behind but the guillotine. The Bourbons and Buonapartes were the creators of all to which he points, with an exaltation that throws earth into the shade from the Alps to the Andes. The Louvre, the Madeleine, the Tuilleries, the Hôtel de Ville, (now magnified and renovated into the most stately of town-houses,) the Hôtel des Invalides, Nôtre Dame, &c. &c. are all the work of Kings. If Napoleon had lived half a century longer, he would have made Paris a second Babylon. If the very clever President, who has hitherto managed France so dexterously, and whose name so curiously combines the monarchy and the despotism,—if Louis Napoleon (a name which an old Roman would have pronounced an omen) should manage it into a Monarchy, we shall probably see Paris crowded with superb public edifices.
The kings of France were peculiarly magnificent in the decoration of the entrances to their city. As no power on earth can prevent the French from crowding into hovels, from living ten families in one house, and from appending to their cities the most miserable, ragged, and forlorn-looking suburbs on the globe, the monarchs wisely let the national habits alone; and resolved, if the suburbs must be abandoned to the popular fondness for the wigwam, to impress strangers with the stateliness of their gates. The Arc de St Denis, once conducting from the most dismal of suburbs, is one of the finest portals in Paris, or in any European city; it is worthy of the Boulevard, and that is panegyric at once. Every one knows that it was erected in honour of the short-lived inroad of Louis XIV. into Holland in 1672, and the taking of whole muster-rolls of forts and villages, left at his mercy, ungarrisoned and unprovisioned, by the Republican parsimony of the Dutch, till a princely defender arose, and the young Stadtholder sent back the coxcomb monarch faster than he came. But the Arc is a noble work, and its architecture might well set a redeeming example to the London improvers. Why not erect an arch in Southwark? Why not at all the great avenues to the capital? Why not, instead of leaving this task to the caprices, or even to the bad taste of the railway companies, make it a branch of the operations of the Woods and Forests, and ennoble all the entrances of the mightiest capital of earthly empire?
The Arch of St Denis is now shining in all the novelty of reparation, for it was restored so lately as last year. In this quarter, which has been always of a stormy temperature, the insurrection of 1848 raged with especial fury; and if the spirits of the great ever hover about their monuments, Louis XIV. may have seen from its summit a more desperate conflict than ever figured on its bas-reliefs.
On the Arch of the Porte St Martin is a minor monument to minor triumphs, but a handsome one. Louis XIV. is still the hero. The "Grand Monarque" is exhibited as Hercules with his club; but as even a monarch in those days was nothing without his wig, Hercules exhibits a huge mass of curls of the most courtly dimensions—he might pass for the presiding deity of perruquiers.
The Arc de Triomphe du Carousel, erected in honour of the German campaign in 1805, is a costly performance, yet poor-looking, from its position in the centre of lofty buildings. What effect can an isolated arch, of but five-and-forty feet high, have in the immediate vicinity of masses of building, perhaps a hundred feet high? Its aspect is consequently meagre; and its being placed in the centre of a court makes it look useless, and, of course, ridiculous. On the summit is a figure of War, or Victory, in a chariot, with four bronze horses—the horses modelled from the four Constantinopolitan horses brought by the French from Venice, as part of the plunder of that luckless city, but sent back to Venice by the Allies in 1815. The design of the arch was from that of Severus, in Rome: this secured, at least, elegance in its construction; but the position is fatal to dignity.
The Arc de l'Etoile is the finest work of the kind in Paris. It has the advantage of being built on an elevation, from which it overlooks the whole city, with no building of any magnitude in its vicinity; and is seen from a considerable distance on all the roads leading to the capital. Its cost was excessive for a work of mere ornament, and is said to have amounted to nearly half a million sterling!
As I stood glancing over the groups on the friezes and faces of this great monument, which exhibit war in every form of conflict, havoc, and victory, the homely thought of "cui bono?" struck me irresistibly. Who was the better for all this havoc?—Napoleon, whom it sent to a dungeon! or the miserable thousands and tens of thousands whom it crushed in the field?—or the perhaps more unfortunate hundreds of thousands whom it sent to the hospital, to die the slow death of exhaustion and pain, or to live the protracted life of mutilation? I have no affectation of sentiment at the sight of the soldier's grave; he has but taken his share of the common lot, with perhaps the advantage, which so few men possess, of having "done the state some service." But, to see this vast monument covered with the emblems of hostilities, continued through almost a quarter of a century, (for the groups commence with 1792;) to think of the devastation of the fairest countries of Europe, of which these hostilities were the cause; and to know the utter fruitlessness and failure of the result, the short-lived nature of the triumph, and the frightful depth of the defeat—-Napoleon in ignominious bondage and hopeless banishment—Napoleon, after having lorded it over Europe, sent to linger out life on a rock in the centre of the ocean—the leader of military millions kept under the eye of a British sentinel, and no more suffered to stray beyond his bounds than a caged tiger—I felt as if the object before me was less a trophy than a tomb, less a monument of glory than of retribution, less the record of national triumph than of national frenzy.
I had full liberty for reflection, for there was scarcely a human being to interrupt me. The bustle of the capital did not reach so far, the promenaders in the Champs Elysées did not venture here; the showy equipages of the Parisian "nouveaux riches" remained where the crowd was to be seen; and except a few peasants going on their avocations, and a bench full of soldiers, sleeping or smoking away the weariness of the hour, the Arc de Triomphe, which had cost so much treasure, and was the record of so much blood, seemed to be totally forgotten. I question, if there had been a decree of the Legislature to sell the stones, whether it would have occasioned more than a paragraph in the Journal des Debats.
The ascent to the summit is by a long succession of dark and winding steps, for which a lamp is lighted by the porter; but the view from the parapet repays the trouble of the ascent. The whole basin in which Paris lies is spread out before the eye. The city is seen in the centre of a valley, surrounded on every side by a circle of low hills, sheeted with dark masses of wood. It was probably once the bed of a lake, in which the site of the city was an island. All the suburb villages came within the view, with the fortifications, which to a more scientific eye might appear formidable, but which to mine appeared mere dots in the vast landscape.
This parapet is unhappily sometimes used for other purposes than the indulgence of the spectacle. A short time since, a determined suicide sprang from it, after making a speech to the soldiery below, assigning his reason for this tremendous act—if reason has anything to do in such a desperate determination to defy common sense. He acted with the quietest appearance of deliberation: let himself down on the coping of the battlement, from this made his speech, as if he had been in the tribune; and, having finished it, flung himself down a height of ninety feet, and was in an instant a crushed and lifeless heap on the pavement below.
It is remarkable that, even in these crimes, there exists the distinction which seems to divide France from England in every better thing. In England, a wretch undone by poverty, broken down by incurable pain, afflicted by the stings of a conscience which she neither knows how to heal nor cares how to cure, woman, helpless, wretched, and desolate, takes her walk under cover of night by the nearest river, and, without a witness, plunges in. But, in France, the last dreadful scene is imperfect without its publicity; the suicide must exhibit before the people. There must be the valete et plaudite. The curtain must fall with dramatic effect, and the actor must make his exit with the cries of the audience, in admiration or terror, ringing in the ear.
In other cases, however varied, the passion for publicity is still the same. No man can bear to perish in silence. If the atheist resolves on self-destruction, he writes a treatise for his publisher, or a letter to the journals. If he is a man of science, he takes his laudanum after supper, and, pen in hand, notes the gradual effects of the poison for the benefit of science; or he prepares a fire of charcoal, quietly inhales the vapour, and from his sofa continues to scribble the symptoms of dissolution, until the pen grows unsteady, the brain wanders, and half-a-dozen blots close the scene; the writing, however, being dedicated to posterity, and circulated next day in every journal of Paris, till it finally permeates through the provinces, and from thence through the European world.
The number of suicides in Paris annually, of late years, has been about three hundred,—out of a population of a million, notwithstanding the suppression of the gaming-houses, which unquestionably had a large share in the temptation to this horrible and unatonable crime.
The sculptures on the Arc are in the best style. They form a history of the Consulate and of the Empire. Napoleon, of course, is a prominent figure; but in the fine bas-relief which is peculiarly devoted to himself, in which he stands of colossal size, with Fame flying over his head, History writing the record of his exploits, and Victory crowning him, the artist has left his work liable to the sly sarcasm of a spectator of a similar design for the statue of Louis XIV. Victory was there holding the laurel at a slight distance from his head. An Englishman asked "whether she was putting it on or taking it off?" But another of the sculptures is still more unfortunate, for it has the unintentional effect of commemorating the Allied conquest of France in 1814. A young Frenchman is seen defending his family; and a soldier behind him is seen falling from his horse, and the Genius of the future flutters over them all. We know what that future was.
The building of this noble memorial occupied, at intervals, no less than thirty years, beginning in 1806, when Napoleon issued a decree for its erection. The invasion in 1814 put a stop to everything in France, and the building was suspended. The fruitless and foolish campaign of the Duc d'Angoulême, in Spain, was regarded by the Bourbons as a title to national glories, and the building was resumed as a trophy to the renown of the Duc. It was again interrupted by the expulsion of the Bourbons in 1830; but was resumed under Louis Philippe, and finished in 1836. It is altogether a very stately and very handsome tribute to the French armies.
But, without affecting unnecessary severity of remark, may not the wisdom of such a tribute be justly doubted? The Romans, though the principle of their power was conquest, and though their security was almost incompatible with peace, yet are said to have never repaired a triumphal arch. It is true that they built those arches (in the latter period of the Empire) so solidly as to want no repairs. But we have no triumphal monuments of the Republic surviving. Why should it be the constant policy of Continental governments to pamper their people with the food of that most dangerous and diseased of all vanities, the passion for war? And this is not said in the declamatory spirit of the "Peace Congress," which seems to be nothing more than a pretext for a Continental ramble, an expedient for a little vulgar notoriety among foreigners, and an opportunity of getting rid of the greatest quantity of common-place in the shortest time. But, why should not France learn common sense from the experience of England? It is calculated that, of the last five hundred years of French history, two hundred and fifty have been spent in hostilities. In consequence, France has been invaded, trampled, and impoverished by war; while England, during the last three hundred years, has never seen the foot of a foreign invader.
Let the people of France abolish the Conscription, and they will have made one advance to liberty. Till cabinets are deprived of that material of aggressive war, they will leave war at the caprice of a weak monarch, an ambitious minister, or a vainglorious people. It is remarkable that, among all the attempts at reforming the constitution of France, her reformers have never touched upon the ulcer of the land, the Conscription, the legacy of a frantic Republic, taking the children of the country from their industry, to plunge them into the vices of idleness or the havoc of war, and at all times to furnish the means, as well as afford the temptation, to aggressive war. There is not at this hour a soldier of England who has been forced into the service! Let the French, let all the Continental nations, abolish the Conscription, thus depriving their governments of the means of making war upon each other; and what an infinite security would not this illustrious abolition give to the whole of Europe!—what an infinite saving in the taxes which are now wrung from nations by the fear of each other!—and what an infinite triumph to the spirit of peace, industry, and mutual good-will!
The Theatres.—In the evening I wandered along the Boulevard, the great centre of the theatres, and was surprised at the crowds which, in a hot summer night, could venture to be stewed alive, amid the smell of lamps, the effluvia of orange-peel, the glare of lights, and the breathing of hundreds or thousands of human beings. I preferred the fresh air, the lively movement of the Boulevard, the glitter of the Cafés, and the glow, then tempered, of the declining sun—one of the prettiest moving panoramas of Paris.
The French Government take a great interest in the popularity of the theatres, and exert that species of superintendence which is implied in a considerable supply of the theatrical expenditure. The French Opera receives annually from the National Treasury no less than 750,000 francs, besides 130,000 for retiring pensions. To the Théâtre Français, the allowance from the Treasury is 240,000 francs a-year. To the Italian Opera the sum granted was formerly 70,000, but is now 50,000. Allowances are made to the Opera Comique, a most amusing theatre, to the Odeon, and perhaps to some others—the whole demanding of the budget a sum of more than a million of francs.
It is curious that the drama in France began with the clergy. In the time of Charles VI., a company, named "Confrères de la Passion," performed plays founded on the events of Scripture, though grossly disfigured by the traditions of Monachism. The originals were probably the "Mysteries," or plays in the Convents, a species of absurd and fantastic representation common in all Popish countries. At length the life of Manners was added to the life of Superstition, and singers and grimacers were added to the "Confrères."
In the sixteenth century an Italian company appeared in Paris, and brought with them their opera, the invention of the Florentines fifty years before. The cessation of the civil wars allowed France for a while to cultivate the arts of peace; and Richelieu, a man who, if it could be said of any statesman that he formed the mind of the nation, impressed his image and superscription upon his country, gave the highest encouragement to the drama by making it the fashion. He even wrote, or assisted in writing, popular dramas. Corneille now began to flourish, and French Tragedy was established.
Mazarin, when minister, and, like Richelieu, master of the nation, invited or admitted the Italian Opera once more into France; and Molière, at the head of a new company, obtained leave to perform before Louis XIV., who thenceforth patronised the great comic writer, and gave his company a theatre. The Tragedy, Comedy, and Opera of France now led the way in Europe.
In France, the Great Revolution, while it multiplied the theatres with the natural extravagance of the time, yet, by a consequence equally inevitable, degraded the taste of the nation. For a long period the legitimate drama was almost extinguished: it was unexciting to a people trained day by day to revolutionary convulsion; the pageants on the stage were tame to the processions in the streets; and the struggles of kings and nobles were ridiculous to the men who had been employed in destroying a dynasty.
Napoleon at once perceived the evil, and adopted the only remedy. He found no less than thirty theatres in Paris. He was not a man to pause where he saw his way clearly before him; he closed twenty-two of those theatres, leaving but eight, and those chiefly of the old establishments, making a species of compensation to the closed houses.
On the return of the Bourbons the civil list, as in the old times, assisted in the support of the theatres. On the accession of Louis Philippe, the popular triumph infused its extravagance even into the system of the drama. The number of the theatres increased, and a succession of writers of the "New School" filled the theatres with abomination. Gallantry became the spirit of the drama—everything before the scene was intrigue; married life was the perpetual burlesque. Wives were the habitual heroines of the intrigue, and husbands the habitual dupes! To keep faith with a husband was a standing jest on the stage, to keep it with a seducer was the height of human character. The former was always described as brutal, gross, dull, and born to be duped; the latter was captivating, generous, and irresistible by any matron alive. In fact, wives and widows were made for nothing else but to give way to the fascinations of this class of professors of the arts of "good society." The captivator was substantially described as a scoundrel, a gambler, and a vagabond of the basest kind, but withal so honourable, so tender, and so susceptible, that his atrocities disappeared, or rather were transmuted into virtues, by the brilliancy of his qualifications for seducing the wife of his friend. Perjury, profligacy, and the betrayal of confidence in the most essential tie of human nature, were supreme in popularity in the Novel and on the Stage.
The direct consequence is, that the crime of adultery is lightly considered in France; even the pure speak of it without the abhorrence which, for every reason, it deserves. Its notoriety is rather thought of as an anecdote of the day, or the gossiping of the soirée; and the most acknowledged licentiousness does not exclude a man of a certain rank from general reception in good society.
One thing may be observed on the most casual intercourse with Frenchmen—that the vices which, in our country, create disgust and offence in grave society, and laughter and levity in the more careless, seldom produce either the one or the other in France. The topic is alluded to with neither a frown nor a smile; it is treated, in general, as a matter of course, either too natural to deserve censure, or too common to excite ridicule. It is seldom peculiarly alluded to, for the general conversation of "Good Society" is decorous; but to denounce it would be unmannered. The result is an extent of illegitimacy enough to corrupt the whole rising population. By the registers of 1848, of 30,000 children born in Paris in that year, there were 10,000 illegitimate, of which but 1700 were acknowledged by their parents!
The theatrical profession forms an important element in the population. The actors and actresses amount to about 5000. In England they are probably not as many hundreds. And though the French population is 35,000,000, while Great Britain has little more than twenty, yet the disproportion is enormous, and forms a characteristic difference of the two countries. The persons occupied in the "working" of the theatrical system amount perhaps to 10,000, and the families dependent on the whole form a very large and very influential class among the general orders of society.
But if the Treasury assists in their general support, it compels them to pay eight per cent of their receipts as a contribution to the hospitals. This sum averages annually a million of francs, or £40,000 sterling.
In England we might learn something from the theatrical regulations of France. The trampling of our crowds at the doors of theatres, the occasional losses of life and limb, and the general inconvenience and confusion of the entrance on crowded nights, might be avoided by the were adoption of French order.
But why should not higher objects be held in view? The drama is a public necessity; the people will have it, whether good or bad. Why should not Government offer prizes to the best drama, tragic or comic? Why should the most distinguished work of poetic genius find no encouragement from the Government of a nation boasting of its love of letters? Why shall that encouragement be left to the caprice of managers, to the finances of struggling establishments, or to the tastes of theatres, forced by their poverty to pander to the rabble. Why should not the mischievous performances of those theatres be put down, and dramas, founded on the higher principles of our nature, be the instruments of putting them down? Why should not heroism, honour, and patriotism, be taught on the national stage, as well as the triumphs of the highroad, laxity among the higher ranks, and vice among all? The drama has been charged with corruption. Is that corruption essential? It has been charged with being a nucleus of the loose principles, as its places of representation have been haunted by the loose characters, of society. But what are these but excrescences, generated by the carelessness of society, by the indolence of magistracy, and by the general misconception of the real purposes and possible power of the stage? That power is magnificent. It takes human nature in her most impressible form, in the time of the glowing heart and the ready tear, of the senses animated by scenery, melted by music, and spelled by the living realities of representation. Why should not impressions be made in that hour which the man would carry with him through all the contingencies of life, and which would throw a light on every period of his being?
The conditions of recompense to authors in France make some advance to justice. The author of a Drama is entitled to a profit on its performance in every theatre of France during his life, with a continuance for ten years after to his heirs. For a piece of three or five acts, the remuneration is one twelfth part of the gross receipts, and for a piece in one act, one twenty-fourth. A similar compensation has been adopted in the English theatre, but seems to have become completely nugatory, from the managers' purchasing the author's rights—the transaction here being made a private one, and the remuneration being at the mercy of the manager. But in France it is a public matter, an affair of law, and looked to by an agent in Paris, who registers the performance of the piece at all the theatres in the city, and in the provinces.
Still, this is injustice. Why should the labour of the intellect be less permanent than the labour of the hands? Why should not the author be entitled to make his full demand instead of this pittance? If his play is worth acting, why is it not worth paying for?—and why should he be prohibited from having the fruit of his brain as an inheritance to his family, as well as the fruit of any other toll?
If, instead of being a man of genius, delighting and elevating the mind of a nation, he were a blacksmith, he might leave his tools and his trade to his children without any limit; or if, with the produce of his play, he purchased a cow, or a cabin, no man could lay a claim upon either. But he must be taxed for being a man of talent; and men of no talent must be entitled, by an absurd law and a palpable injustice, to tear the fruit of his intellectual supremacy from his children after ten short years of possession.
No man leaves Paris without regret, and without a wish for the liberty and peace of its people.