Under what form, then, does the public spirit exhibit itself in circumstances of so much doubt and instability? The attitude of the working classes in general, of the very great majority, in fact—for those still swayed by the delusive arguments, and still more delusive and destructive promises of the Socialists and Republicans are comparatively few, although formidable in the ferocity of their doctrines and their plans, and in the active restlessness of their feverish and excited energies, which resemble the reckless, sleepless, activity of the madman—the attitude of the working classes in Paris is calm, and even expectant; but calm from utter weariness—calm from the convictions, founded on the saddest experience, in the wretched results of further revolutions—calm from a sort of prostrate resignation, and almost despair, in the midst of the miseries and privations which the last fatal year has increased instead of diminishing, and written with a twofold scourge upon their backs: an attitude reassuring, inasmuch as it implies hatred and opposition to the subversive doctrines of the anarchists, but not without its dangers, and, to say the least, heartrending and afflicting—and expectant in the hope and conviction of change in the cause of stability and order. The feeling which, after a few months of the rule of a reckless provisionary government, was the prevailing one among the majority of the working classes—the feeling, which has been already noted, that king Log, or even king Stork, or any other concentrated power that would represent stability and order, would be preferable to the uncertainties of a vacillating republican rule—has ever gained ground among them since those hopes of re-established confidence, and a consequent amelioration of their wretched position, which they first founded upon the meeting of the National Assembly, and then upon the election of a president, have twice deceived them, and left them almost as wretched as ever in the stagnation of trade and commercial affairs. The feeling thus prevalent among the working classes in the capital, is, at the same time, the feeling of the country at large, but to an even far wider extent, and more openly expressed. The hatred of the departments to Paris, as the chief seat of revolution and disorder, has also increased rather than diminished; and everywhere the sentiments of utter weariness, disaffection to the Republic, and impatience under a system of government of which they are no longer inclined to await the promised blessings, are displayed upon all possible occasions, and by every possible organ. The upper classes among moneyed men, and landed proprietors, remain quiet and hold their tongue. They may be expectant and desirous of change also, but they show no open impatience, for they can afford to wait. It is they, on the contrary, who more generally express their opinions in the possibility of the establishment of a prosperous republic—a possibility which the working classes in their impatience deny. In spite of all that ultra-democratic journals may say, in their raving denunciations, borrowed of the language of another Republic, some of the most eager and decided of those they term "reactionary," and denounce as "aristocrats," are thus to be found among the lower working classes. To do justice to the truth of the accusations brought by the Red republican party, in another respect, it is in the bourgeois spirit that is to be found the strongest and most openly avowed reactionary feeling. It is impossible to enter any shop of the better order in Paris, and speak upon the position of affairs, without hearing not only the hope, but the expectation openly expressed, of a monarchic restoration, and that restoration in favour of the elder branch of the Bourbons. The feeling is universal in this class: the name of "Henri V.," scarce mentioned at all, and never under this title, during the reign of Louis Philippe, except in the exclusive circles of the Faubourg St Germain, is now in every shopkeeper's mouth. Louis Philippe, the Regency, all the members of the Orleans family, the Empire, a Bonapartist rule—all are set aside in the minds of these classes for the now-desired idol of their fickle choice, the Duke of Bordeaux. In these classes a restoration in favour of Henri V. is no longer a question of possibility; it is a mere question of time: it is not "L'aurons-nous?" that they ask; it is "Quand l'aurons-nous?" In this respect the real and true republicans, in the "honest" designation of the term, have certainly every reason to raise an angry clamour; if sedition to the existing régime of the country is not openly practised, it is, at all events, openly and generally expressed. Nor are their accusations brought against the government entirely without justice; for while, on the one hand, a measure of a nature altogether arbitrary, under the freedom of a republican rule, is exercised against a well-known artist, by seizing in his atelier the portraits of the Duke of Bordeaux, or, as he is called, the Count of Chambord, and of the Countess, as seditiously exhibited, lithographed likenesses of the Bourbon heir are to be seen on all sides at print-shop windows, and in popular temporary print-stalls; in galleries, arcades, and upon street walls; in vignettes, upon ballads, with such titles, as "Dieu le veut," or "La France le veut," or in busts of all dimensions. Again, the Henri-quinquiste feeling, as it is called, is universal among the fickle bourgeoisie of Paris—the rock upon which Louis Philippe founded his throne, and which sank under him in his hour of need: and the bourgeois, eager and confident in their hopes, wilfully shut their eyes to the fact that, were their detested republic overthrown, there might arise future convulsions, and future civil strife, between a Bonapartist faction—which necessarily grows, and increases, and flourishes more and more under the rule, however temporary, of a chief of the name—and the legitimist party: for the Orleanists, whether fused by a compromise of their hopes with the Legitimists, as has been said, or fallen into the obscurity of forgetfulness or indifference in the majority of the nation, hold forth no decided banner at the present moment. In regarding, then, the public spirit among the majority of all classes in Paris, without consulting the still more reactionary feeling of the departments, the figures to be added to the sum-total of the year's republican account will be again found similar to those already enumerated, in the shape of disaffection, abhorrence of the republican government, want of confidence in its stability, expectation and hope of a change, however it may come, and although it may be brought about by a convulsion.
Meanwhile the uncertainty and anxiety are increased by the continued expectation of some approaching crisis, which the explosion of the insurrection, destined for the 29th of January, would have hastened, and which the precautions taken for the suppression of the outbreak have evidently averted for the time. But what confidence can be expressed in the stability of this temporary state of order in a country so full of excitement and love of change, and in a state of continual revolution, in which such conspiracy ceases not to work in darkness, with the hope of attaining despotic power, and in which disaffection to the state of things is openly expressed? Events have run their course with such fearful rapidity, and the unexpected has been so greatly the "order of the day," in the last year's history of France, that who can answer for the future of the next months, or even weeks? Political prophets have long since thrown up the trade of oracle-giving in despair; and the tripod of the oracle has been left to the occupation of the chances of the imprévu. In spite, then, of the temporary reassurance of peace given by the last measures of the government, which have been denounced by the ultra-democrats as arbitrary, subversive, and unconstitutional, the underground agitation still continues. Paris dances once more, repeating to itself, however, the often-repeated words, "Nous dansons sur un volcan." The carnival pursues its noisy pleasures, under the protection of the forests of bayonets that are continually glittering along the gay sunlit streets, and to the sound of the drum of the marching military, who still give Paris the aspect of a garrison in time of war. Gay salons are opened, and carriages again rattle along the streets on moonlit nights; but the spirit of Parisian gaiety reposes not upon confidence, and is but the practical application of the epicurean philosophy that takes for its maxim, "Carpe diem."
Whatever may be the reality of an approaching crisis, which, however feeble the symptoms at present, the Parisians insist upon regarding as near at hand,—whatever may be the hopes of some that the crisis, however convulsive, must produce a desired change, and the fears of others of the civil strife,—whatever thus the desires of the sanguine, the expectations of the hopeful, the apprehensions of the peaceful, and the terrors of the timorous, the result is still the same—the uncertainty, the want of confidence, the evils attendant upon this feeling of instability, so often already enumerated. The violence and struggling rage of the ultra-democratic and socialist journals, increasing in denunciation to the death, and positively convulsive in their rage, as the anti-republican reactionary spirit grows, and spreads wider, and every day takes firmer root, and even dares to blossom openly in the expression of public opinion, are looked upon as the throes of dying agony by the bold, but are regarded with dread by the less courageous, who know the force of the party's exaggerated violence, and have already felt the miseries of their fanatic subversive attempts. Meanwhile, the moderate or honest republic, which vainly attempts a juste milieu of republicanism, between extravagance and disaffection, limps sadly forwards; or, as one of the late satirical pieces, which openly attack the republic on the stage, expresses it—amidst the applause and shouts of deriding laughter, which hail it nightly in crowded houses, not so much from the boxes as from the galleries thronged with types of the "people"—"Elle boîte! elle boîte!" Republicans may thus clamour against the culpable laxity of a government, which permits these much-applauded attacks upon the Republic, in accordance with the principle of freedom of opinion, and in pursuance of the abolition of a theatrical censorship which they themselves condemned: but so it is; and therein may be sought and found one of the strongest popular evidences of popular disaffection. And satires too, and caricatures, abound, in which the unhappy Republic is still more soundly scourged—demonstrations not less lively, although they call not forth the evident approbation of a congregated multitude. Now, then, that the revolutionary year has almost closed there—now that the anniversary of the days of February is at hand—let people take the figures enumerated, and justly enumerated, as they will, and place them as they fancy in the sum-total, and cast them up as they please, or deduce what value they may from the amount of the first year of new republicanism in France. Another question. What fêtes are to greet the anniversaries of the "glorious" days of the "glorious" revolution which established a "glorious" Republic? Assuredly the fête will not be in the people's hearts: no, not even in the hearts of those whom their mis-named, self-appointed friends choose to call, par excellence, "the people."
THE CAXTONS—PART XI.
CHAPTER LII.
The next day, on the outside of the Cambridge Telegraph, there was one passenger who ought to have impressed his fellow-travellers with a very respectful idea of his lore in the dead languages; for not a single syllable, in a live one, did he vouchsafe to utter from the moment he ascended that "bad eminence," to the moment in which he regained his mother earth. "Sleep," says honest Sancho, "covers a man better than a cloak." I am ashamed of thee, honest Sancho! thou art a sad plagiarist; for Tibullus said pretty nearly the same thing before thee,—
"Te somnus fusco velavit amictu."[4]
But is not silence as good a cloak as sleep?—does it not wrap a man round with as offusc and impervious a fold? Silence—what a world it covers!—what busy schemes—what bright hopes and dark fears—what ambition, or what despair! Do you ever see a man in any society sitting mute for hours, and not feel an uneasy curiosity to penetrate the wall he thus builds up between others and himself? Does he not interest you far more than the brilliant talker at your left—the airy wit at your right, whose shafts fall in vain on the sullen barrier of the silent man! Silence, dark sister of Nox and Erebus, how, layer upon layer, shadow upon shadow, blackness upon blackness, thou stretchest thyself from hell to heaven, over thy two chosen haunts—man's heart and the grave!