It effected the entire break-up of the concert which had existed between the great Powers of Europe, and clearly led to all the revolutions and disturbances of 1848. England and France were severed, and by their division Austria, Prussia and Russia were encouraged to expect to have their way. A further appropriation of Poland was intended, and was effected; but we find Palmerston endeavouring to prevent it. He writes to Lord Normanby on the 19th of November, 1846; “I have prepared an answer about Cracow, which I shall send off to Vienna without waiting for Guizot.” “Guizot will make a show of resistance; but the fact is, that, even if France and England had been on good terms, they have no means of action on the spot in question, and could only have prevented the thing by a threat of war, which, however, the three Powers would have known we should never utter for the sake of Cracow. The measure is an abominable shame, and executed by the most hollow pretences and the most groundless assertions.”
In January, 1847, the Queen protested, in her speech from the throne, against this new Polish outrage. Lord Palmerston was evidently nettled to think that he could not interfere so as to prevent it. It was but another scar on the Treaty of Vienna, and he could do nothing. Soon afterwards a French political officer of high standing had been condemned for corruption, and had endeavoured, or pretended to endeavour, to commit suicide. “In either way, these things must be a blow to Guizot and the Philippine system.” The Philippine system was to Palmerston unutterably damnable. It was sly, fraudulent, false, extremely courteous, and thoroughly un-English. But it was secret, clever, and at this moment seemed to be triumphant. It was above all things opposed to Palmerston. We can conceive nothing more bitter than the hatred which at this time raged between the two statesmen. And in speaking of it, we should by no means endeavour to wash Lord Palmerston quite white. It may have been that had the “suaviter in modo” been more customary with him, the “fortiter in re” might have been more apparent. Being an older politician, and, we may say, a much wiser one, he had thought to dominate the Frenchman; but the Frenchman knew himself to possess a brighter intellect, a more brilliant style of eloquence, and, in erudition, to be the greater man. We will concede it to him,—that he was so. But Lord Palmerston possessed two virtues by means of which his name will go down to posterity altogether unsullied. He was brave, and he was honest.
We now come to Lord Minto’s mission to Italy, which had been, we presume, arranged between Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell. Pio Nono, the late Pope, had been elected in 1846, and Lord Minto started for Italy in November, 1846. We still remember how decided was the Liberalism of the new Pope, when he first filled St. Peter’s chair,—an almost impossible condition for a Pope, and one which he soon vacated. But Lord Minto went to assist him in his Liberalism, to give him such aid as might be possible for an English Liberal Lord, and to find out in return what the new pope could do for England in keeping quiet seditious Irish bishops. “You will be at Rome,” said Lord Palmerston, “not as a minister accredited to the Pope, but as an authentic organ of the British Government, enabled to explain its views and to declare its sentiments upon events which are now passing in Italy.” “Her Majesty’s Government are deeply impressed with the conviction that it is wise for Sovereigns and their Governments to pursue, in the administration of their affairs, a system of progressive improvement; to apply remedies to such evils as, upon examination, they may find to exist, and to re-model, from time to time, the ancient institutions of their country,—so as to render them more suitable to the gradual growth of intelligence, and to the increasing diffusion of political knowledge; and Her Majesty’s Government consider it to be an undeniable truth, that if an independent Sovereign, in the exercise of his deliberate judgment, shall think fit to make within his dominions such improvements in the laws and institutions of his country as he may think conducive to the welfare of his people, no other Government can have any right to attempt to restrain or to interfere with such an employment of one of the inherent attributes of independent sovereignty.”
We cannot but observe here the way in which Lord Palmerston lays down the law for the governance of the nations generally. No doubt he was right in what he said; but he said it with the air of some superior being, whose word is to go for more than the words of other mortals. Lord Minto does not go at once to Rome, but stays awhile at Turin, where the Austrians have shown a desire to interfere with Charles Albert, the father of Victor Emanuel. It is to be hoped that the Ambassador Extraordinary knew the phraseology of the hunting-field as well as did his correspondent. If so, he would understand when he was told that, “As to the Austrians they have been headed, and will not break cover towards Italy.” Then Palmerston explains that, for having stopped the Austrians, the Pope ought to do him a good turn, in silencing a meddlesome bishop or two. Alas, that an opinion so absurd should ever have been held in regard to Pio Nono! “We wish to make the Pope the plain, and simple, and reasonable request that he will exert his authority over the Irish priesthood, to induce them to abstain from meddling in politics, but, on the contrary, to confine themselves to their spiritual duties.” “I shall be able to send you by the next messenger, a memorandum about the letter which has recently been received by McHale, from Rome, upon the subject of the Irish colleges. This is an unkind and most mischievous measure, and was little to be expected at the hands of the Pope at the very moment we were stepping out of our way to be of use to him. It is an ungrateful return.” And a little further on he writes to his correspondent; “You may confidently assure the Papal authorities that at present in Ireland, misconduct is the rule, and good conduct the exception, in the Catholic priests.”
Of course it would be so, human nature being the same with Roman Catholics as with Protestants. Had we paid the priests, as we paid, and still pay, the parsons, out of the funds collected by the Government, the priests would have worked for the Government. To expect that they should do so under other circumstances is to dream of a Utopia. But to imagine that assistance could be got from the Pope to induce the priests to do so, was beyond any Utopian dream. There was a notion afloat at the time that the Pope should send an ambassador to London to carry out the liberal views with which he was supposed to have been imbued. But to this Lord Palmerston will give no assent. “As for the idea that we could manage the Irish priests by means of a Roman priest in London, I am convinced that the presence of such a man would only have given the Irish priests an additional means of managing us.” Lord Minto writes back word that “The Pope is a most amiable, agreeable, and honest man, and sincerely pious to boot, which is much for a Pope; but he is not made to drive the State coach.”
The honesty and piety of Pio Nono must be judged from his whole career. Certainly Lord Minto could not teach him the political state of Europe. “As to the poor Pope,” says Lord Palmerston, writing back to Lord Minto, “I live in daily dread of some misadventure having befallen him. Events have gone too fast for such a slow sailer as he is.” Then he speaks of the deposition of Guizot’s ministry in Paris—for Guizot had been deposed. “What has been happening in Italy ought to have been a warning to Guizot. What has now happened to Guizot ought to be a warning to Italy. Guizot thought that by a packed Parliament and a corruptly-obtained majority, he could control the will of the nation, and the result has been that the will of the Crown has been controlled by an armed popular force. People have long gone on crying up Louis Philippe as the wisest of men. I always have thought him one of the most cunning, and therefore not one of the wisest. Recent events have shown that he must rank among the cunning, who outwit themselves; and not among the wise, who master events by foresight and prudence. This surrender of the King of the Barricades to the commons of the National Guard is, however, a curious example of political and poetical justice.” This was in 1848, when all Europe was on the stir. “Was there ever such a scene of confusion as now prevails almost all over Europe? Fortunate, however, has it been for Italy that you crossed the Alps last autumn. If the Italian sovereigns had not been urged by you to move on, while their impatient subjects were kept back, there would by this time have been nothing but Republics from the Alps to Sicily.” Then he ventures on a prophecy which has become absolutely true in later years. “We have just heard of the entrance of Sardinian troops into Lombardy to help the Milanese. Northern Italy will henceforth be Italian, and the Austrian frontier will be at the Tyrol. This will be no real loss to Austria.” His dislike to Austria and Metternich is only second to his hatred for Louis Philippe and Guizot. France itself he did not hate, or even dislike—or, rather, liked as well as he could any country except England. He says that Austria after such losses may, if well governed, become a powerful State. But he adds: “The question is, Has she any men capable of making any State a powerful one by good government.”
There had in the meantime sprung up a revolution in Sicily against Naples, and Lord Minto had gone on to Naples, and into the Sicilian waters, attempting to put it down. But it was not put down till 1849, when the seditious efforts of the previous year were nearly quelled throughout Europe. So Lord Minto returned home, having not apparently done much, but having brought with him more correct views of the Italian people than English Ministers had hitherto possessed.
Early in 1848 there came upon France that thorough disturbance of all things which has never yet quite rectified itself. Indeed, it may be said that there has been nearly a century of disturbance, during which, however, France has grown wonderfully in wealth and intelligence. But in 1830 France had once more re-established herself, and the Citizen King was put upon his throne as a thing of permanence and a just mixture of monarchical principles with democratic ideas. It must be acknowledged of Louis Philippe, as also of Napoleon III., that France did grow rich under him. But in both cases the riches came “post hoc” and not “propter hoc.” According to our thinking, neither the one ruler nor the other could have benefited his people much, because neither of them was simple in his way of ruling. Louis Napoleon was yet to come, but Louis Philippe had now brought himself and his administration to an end.
There had been a great demand for reforms in Paris and the King had expressed himself strongly. “I never will consent to reform,” he had exclaimed. “Reform is another word for the advent of the Opposition.” “Tell your master not to mind having popular assemblies,” is quoted by Lord Normanby as said by Louis Philippe to some foreign ambassador. “Let them only learn to manage things as I manage mine.” The dismissal of Guizot, the Minister, was demanded among other things. Guizot had stood high for personal integrity;—and we believe that he was perfectly honest; but he got into various troubles in which he consented to the expenditure of public money to satisfy the rapacity of others; and, though he was honest himself, he seems to have dealt easily with dishonesty in his subordinates. But Louis Philippe felt that to lose Guizot was to own himself beaten, and clung to his Minister. Then came the proposition for a popular banquet, and the stopping of the banquet by the police, but with permission given for a procession; and then the stopping of the procession; and then the catastrophe. Louis Philippe, with his family, ran away, and in a few days appeared as Mr. Smith on the coast of Sussex, at Newhaven.
On the 26th of February Lord Palmerston thus writes to Lord Normanby; “What extraordinary and marvellous events you give me an account of. It is like the five acts of a play, and has not taken up much more time. Strange that a king who owed his crown to a revolution, brought about by royal blindness and obstinacy, should have lost it by exactly the same means, and he a man who had gone through all the vicissitudes of human existence, from the condition of a schoolmaster to the pomp of a throne; and still further that his overthrow should have been assisted by a Minister deeply read in the records of history, and whose mind was not merely stored with the chronology of historical facts, but had extracted from their mass the lessons of events and the philosophy of their causes.” And then he gives instructions as to what shall be done by the English Ambassador in Paris. “Our principles of action are to acknowledge whatever rule may be established with apparent prospect of permanency, but none other.” “We will engage to prevent the rest of Europe from meddling with France, which, indeed, we are quite sure they have no intention of doing. The French rulers must engage to prevent France from assailing any part of the rest of Europe.” Then he goes on to lay down rules for different emergencies. What shall be done if the Revolution endeavours to protect itself by using the army for foreign conquest? But his heart beats warmly for his own child. “We cannot sit quiet and see Belgium overrun and Antwerp become a French port.” “If they will look to the stipulations of the treaty finally concluded between the five Powers, Belgium, and the Netherlands, they will see that there are in it guarantees which would have a very awkward bearing upon any attempt by France to annex Belgium to its territory.” He expresses his own feelings on the whole matter; “I grieve at the prospect of a Republic in France, for I fear it must lead to war in Europe and fresh agitation in England. Large Republics seem to be essentially and inherently aggressive, and the aggressions of the French will be resisted by the rest of Europe, and that is war; while, on the other hand, the example of universal suffrage in France will set our non-voting population agog, and will create a demand for an inconvenient extension of the franchise, ballot, and other mischievous things. However, for the present, ‘Vive Lamartine!’” Lamartine was the provisional President of the New Republic, and while he remained in office did behave with a better grace than could have been expected from a man so abnormally situated.