And were he to be received at the palace of our Queen, the insult would not only be monstrous towards the French people, who have expelled him, but equally great towards the English people, who abhor tyrants, and who are generous, humane, and merciful.
Working Men of England! rejoice and be glad—for amidst the changes which have so recently taken place in France, there is one “sign of the times” that is cheering and full of prophetic significancy for you! I allude to the grand—the glorious fact, that in the list of the Provisional Government which the Revolution raised up, these words appeared—“Albert, Working Man.”
Yes: a Working Man was included in that fine category of Republican names; and he has been instrumental in giving to the whole political world that impulse which must inevitably conduct even the present generation to the most glorious destinies.
Honour to Albert, the Working Man!
There is another point on which I must touch, ere I resume the thread of my narrative.
The Prime Minister of England has declared “that he has no intention whatever to interfere with the form of government which the French nation may choose for themselves.” He therefore admits the right of the nation to establish any form of government which it chooses;—and this concession is an important one, when coming from the principal adviser of the Queen, and from a man who is, after all, nothing more nor less than the chief of an aristocratic clique.
Well, then—it being admitted by the Prime Minister that a nation has a right to choose its own form of government, the sooner the people of England begin to think of establishing new institutions for themselves, the better. For there is no use in disguising the fact—and no possibility of exaggerating it,—that England is in a truly awful condition. Already are we enduring a war-tax; and it was only through fear of seeing the glorious example of the Parisians immediately followed by the inhabitants of London, that the Ministers abandoned their iniquitous and execrable scheme of doubling that shameful impost. But the financial ignorance and the wanton extravagance of the Whigs have plunged the country into serious pecuniary embarrassments, from which nothing but the sweeping reform of a purely democratic Ministry can relieve it. With a tremendous national debt,—with no possibility of levying another tax,—with Ireland to care for and almost support,—with a vast amount of absolute penury and positive destitution in the country,—with an aristocracy clinging to old abuses, and with the land in the possession of a contemptibly small oligarchy,—with the industrious classes starving on pitiable wages,—with a pension-list which is a curse and a shame,—with a cumbrous and costly Monarchy,—with a Church grasping at all it can possibly lay hands on,—with a Bench of Bishops in inveterate and banded hostility to all enlightening opinions and popular interests,—and with a franchise so limited that nine-tenths of the people are altogether unrepresented,—with all these, and a thousand other evils which might be readily enumerated, we repeat our assertion that England is in an awful state; and we must add that great, important, and radical changes must be speedily effected.[13]
Oh! how well and how truly has a great French writer declared that “men have only to will it, in order to be free!” France has set England and the world a great and glorious example in this respect.
These English newspapers which are interested in pandering to the prejudices and the selfishness of a bloated aristocracy and an oppressive oligarchy, of landowners, represent revolutions as scenes of spoliation, social ruin, and other demoralisation. But the incidents of the Revolution which gave Louis Philippe a throne in 1830, and those of the grand struggle which has just hurled him from his despot-seat, give the lie—the bold, unequivocal lie—to such statements.[14]
