THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
London, February 28th, 1848.—The French Revolution has driven for the time every other subject out of thought, and so astounding has the event been, so awful and surprising from its inconceivable rapidity and the immensity of the operation, that every mind has been kept in a restless whirl and tumult incompatible with calm reflexion; while from the quick succession of events crowding on each other, all dashed with lies, false reports, exaggerations, and errors, it has been almost impossible to sit down and give a clear, connected, and true account of what has happened; to jot down from hour to hour all that one hears would only have been to say one moment what must have been unsaid the next. By degrees the facts develope themselves and the fictions are cast aside; but the time is not yet arrived for completing this historical process. There are people alive who remember the whole of the first Revolution, and we of middle age are all familiar with the second; but this, the third, transcends them both, and all other events which history records, in the astonishing political phenomena which it displays. The first Revolution was a long and gradual act, extending over years, in which the mind traces an elaborate concatenation of causes and effects. The second was not unexpected; the causes were working openly and ominously; and at last the great stroke so rashly attempted, and by which the contest was provoked, was only the concluding scene of a drama which for a long preceding time had been in a state of representation before the world. In 1789 everybody saw that a revolution was inevitable; in 1830 everybody thought that it was probable; but in 1848, up to the very moment at which the explosion took place, and even for a considerable time after it (that is, considerable in reference to the period which embraced the whole thing from first to last), no human being dreamt of a revolution and of the dethronement of the King. The power of the Government appeared to be immense and unimpaired. The King was still considered one of the wisest and boldest of men, with a thorough knowledge of the country and the people he ruled; and though his prudence and that of his Ministers had been greatly impugned by their mode of dealing with the question of Parliamentary reform, the worst that anybody anticipated was the fall of Guizot's Cabinet, and that reform of some sort it would be found necessary to concede. But no one imagined that the King, defended by an army of 100,000 men and the fortifications of Paris (which it was always said he had cunningly devised to give himself full power over the capital), was exposed to any personal risk and danger. There was a strong reforming and, it might be, a strong republican or revolutionary spirit abroad, but the principal leaders of Opposition were understood to have no designs against the monarchy, and it was believed by those who had good opportunities of knowing that the bourgeoisie of Paris were comparatively indifferent to political questions, averse to revolutionary movements, and the determined advocates of order and tranquillity. For some time before the day appointed for the Reform banquet, much anxiety prevailed for the peace of the capital; but when it was announced that the Government did not mean to interfere, and that the question of the legality of the meeting was to be referred to a judicial decision, all apprehension subsided; and when the proclamation of Odilon Barrot and the chiefs of the Banquet appeared, it was regarded as a false and imprudent step, which by putting the Ministers in the right would only seem to strengthen their authority and avert their downfall, which otherwise had been probable. Duchâtel made a very good speech in the Chamber of Deputies, and proved that this last act was so clearly illegal and mischievous that the Ministers were bound to take the course they did; and as the banqueters showed a disposition to obey the Government, nobody doubted that the whole affair would end quietly.
When therefore this great and sudden insurrection took place, sweeping everything before it with the irresistible speed and violence of a hurricane, everybody here stood aghast; but for the first two days no one anticipated the final catastrophe. At Paris, from the King downwards, all seem to have lost their presence of mind and judgement. The state of things proved the fallacy of their former calculations and expectations, and their minds seemed incapable of keeping up with the march of events, of embracing the magnitude of the danger, and of discerning the means by which it could be met. Everything was involved in perplexity and confusion; the roar of insurrectionary Paris affrighted the ears and bewildered the senses of the inmates of the Tuileries. At the moment I am writing we are still ignorant of the minute details of all that passed, of what the King said and did, and how others played their several parts. We know that Guizot resigned, that Molé was appointed—a capital fault, for Molé was another Guizot, and the selection only proved how unconscious the King was of the precipice on the brink of which he was standing. Some precious hours were lost in Molé's abortive attempt. Then came Thiers and Odilon Barrot, Ministers of a few hours, who, seduced by the deceptive applause of the rabble, fancied they could command and restrain the people of Paris, and who persuaded the King to withdraw the troops, telling him they would answer for the people. This fatal advice cost him the Crown, which, perhaps, he could not have kept on his head. The tide swept on; a host of people, and among them Emile Girardin, rushed to the Tuileries, told the King his life was menaced, and advised him to abdicate; he refused. The people about him, and his own son amongst them (Duc de Montpensier), pressed him, and he signed the act of abdication. Still the crowd pressed on, and the palace was unprotected. He resolved, or was persuaded, to fly; and with the Queen and such of his family as were with him he quitted the palace with such precipitation that they had no time to take anything, and they had scarcely any money amongst them. They proceeded to Dreux, where they separated, and as yet no one knows where the King is, or where those of his family are who are not yet arrived in England.
FALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE.
The Duchesse d'Orléans, after the terrible scene in the Chamber of Deputies, was taken to some house in or near Paris, where she now lies concealed. All these events passed with the velocity of an express train; hardly an interval was placed between circumstances and conditions of the most opposite description. No monarchy or monarch ever fell with such superhuman rapidity. There is something awful and full of fear and pity in the contemplation of such a tremendous vicissitude: of a great King and a numerous and prosperous family, not many hours before reposing in the security of an apparently impregnable power, suddenly toppled down from this magnificent eminence and laid prostrate in the dust, covered with ignominy and reproach, and pursued by terror and grief. All at once the whole edifice of grandeur and happiness fell to the ground; it dissolved, and, like the baseless fabric of a vision, left not a rack behind. The flight was undignified. It would be hard to accuse Louis Philippe of want of courage, of which he has given on various occasions many signal proofs; but he certainly displayed no resolution on this occasion. It is very doubtful whether his person would have been injured; the people have evinced no thirst for blood. It was then, indeed, too late for resistance, for the means had been withdrawn; but it may fairly be asked if it would not have been the more becoming and the wiser course to affront the danger of popular rage, and to have tried what might have been done by firmness, by reason, and by concession at the same time. All this is speculation. It may be that his life and that of his Queen would have been sacrificed; but on a more terrible occasion, when the same palace was invaded by a more formidable mob, a King still more unpopular and a detested Queen were left uninjured; and it is far more probable that the abdication of Louis Philippe would have satisfied and disarmed the wrath and fury of the people. At all events it is certain that he descended from the throne in a manner which, if it is cruel to call it ignominious, was not rendered captivating or affecting by any of those touching or striking circumstances which often environ and decorate the sacrifice of fallen majesty.
There is a strong impression that if they had unsparingly used the military means at their disposal while it was still time, the monarchy would have been saved and the tumult suppressed. The recollection of the 13th Vendémiaire and the Place St. Roch, when the troops of the Convention defeated the Sections of Paris, produces this notion. But when the time was given to the émeute to grow and expand, and when the National Guards took part in it, all was over; for the troops of the line, who would have repressed the mob, would not fight against the National Guards. Between blunders, bad advice, and delay, the insurrection sprang at once into gigantic proportions, and the world has seen with amazement a King who was considered so astute and courageous, with sons full of spirit and intelligence, sink without striking a blow for their kingdom, perishing without a struggle, and consequently falling dishonoured and unregretted. The end of Charles X. was far more dignified than that of his cousin, and the survivors of that shipwreck may see with a melancholy satisfaction their successful competitor 'whelmed in deeper gulfs' than themselves. Louis Philippe has been seventeen years on the throne; in many respects a very amiable man, and, though crafty and unscrupulous as a politician, and neither beloved nor respected, he has never done anything to make himself an object of the excessive hatred and bitter feelings which have been exhibited against him and his family. The mob, though, on the whole, moderate and good-humoured, have been violent against his person, and they plundered the Palais Royal, invaded the Tuileries, and burnt Neuilly to show their abhorrence of him. This manifestation is a cruel commentary on his reign and his character as King.
ARRIVAL OF THE FUGITIVES.
London, March 5th.—The fugitives have all arrived here day by day with the exception of the Duchesse d'Orléans and her children, who are supposed to be in Germany. The King and Queen came yesterday from Newhaven, where they landed; Madame de Lieven and Guizot the day before, the one from Paris, the other through Belgium; they were in the same train (leaving Paris at seven o'clock on Thursday night), but neither knew the other was there. The King, as soon as he reached England, wrote a letter to the Queen, in which he gave her to understand that he considered all as over with him, and he said that it was the Comte de Neuilly who thanked her for all her past and present kindness to himself and his family. It was a very good letter (Lord Lansdowne tells me), and the Queen was much moved by it. Her personal resentment had long ceased; Aberdeen told me last night that she had told him so not long ago, and that though the political question was another thing, her personal feelings towards the French Royal Family were what they had ever been.
Yesterday I saw Madame de Lieven, and heard her narrative, both personal and historical. With the sufferers, as with the spectators, the predominant feeling is one of intense astonishment amounting to a sort of incredulity; every one repeats (as well they may) that nothing that history has recorded, or fiction invented, ever approached this wonderful reality, wonderful in every way, in its whole and in all its parts, There is nothing in it that is not contrary to every antecedent probability, to all preconceived notions of the characters of the principal actors, and to the way in which almost everybody concerned might have been expected to act. The beginning, the middle, and the end of the contest have been equally wonderful: the conduct of the old Government and the conduct of the new; the events of months or years crammed into a few days or hours; the whole change so vast and complete, made as at the stroke of an enchanter's wand. France, on Monday, February 22nd, a powerful, peaceful, and apparently impregnable Monarchy; on Wednesday, 24th of the same month, the whole of her Royalty scattered over the face of the earth, and France become a Republic no less powerful and peaceful; the authority of the latter form of government as generally acknowledged as that of the former was a week before; and an able, vigorous, and despotic Government established in the name of the people, which was, with universal consent and approbation, and the admiration even of those whom it had displaced, discharging every legislative as well as executive function.
PRINCESS LIEVEN ON THE REVOLUTION.