“The greatest danger of our situation is, not that which comes from without, but that which comes from within. The most imminent danger would be the slightest doubt on the intentions of government, the least retrograde step in the presence of events. That disquietude, we are bound to admit, already exists in the minds of many—distrust is the precursor of revolutions.
“The government has had under its eyes the conduct of the people. Let it imitate it. Energy, constant energy, is the only way to do good. The people have proved it. It is by energy alone that the prolongation of struggles is prevented—the effusion of blood arrested—dangerous reactions averted.
“Forward, and Force to power! Such is the double cry of the Republic.
“The Chamber of Deputies and of Peers must not only be interdicted from meeting; like royalty, they must be abolished.
“M. Cremieux, the minister of justice, has forgotten his principles. He is not prepared for the part he has to perform. He blindly yields to old attachments and prejudices. At the moment when the most absolute liberty of the press, the most rapid and ceaseless emission of ideas, is the sole condition of the public safety—at the moment when we are in the midst of a chaos from whence we cannot escape if light does not guide our steps—at that moment M. Cremieux proposes to extinguish it—he proposes this, a retrograde step, to the minister of finance—the reestablishment of the stamps on journals.
“A revolution of yesterday cannot be thus braved.
“These gentlemen wish a republic surrounded by republican institutions.
“The people have not yet laid down their arms.”[[7]]
The government, after having made a show of resistance, yielded to their masters. The duties on journals were abolished, and absolute freedom given to the pouring of the rankest political poisons into the mind of France.
It is easy to see, with a government resting on such a basis, where the first practical difficulty will be found. Embarrassment of finance is the rock on which it will inevitably split: the more certain that it has been preceded by a huge deficit created by the former government; the more galling that it will be accompanied by the flight or hoarding of capital from the measures of the present one. Capitalists are universally alarmed over the whole country. A monetary crisis, as is the case with all successful revolutions, and that too of the severest kind, has ensued. M. Gouin’s bank, the same which formerly bore the name of Lafitte, has failed under liabilities to the extent of three millions. Nearly all the other banking establishments of Paris have already followed the example. The payment of all bills was, by government, postponed for three weeks, from February 28: a farther extension of the time of payment for a month after March 20, has been petitioned for by eight hundred of the first bankers and merchants in Paris. This amounts to a declaration of a general public and private insolvency. Overwhelmed by the difficulties of his situation, the first minister of finance has resigned; the second, M. Garnier Pages, has published a financial account, which exhibits so deplorable a state of the finances, that it may almost be said to amount to an admission of national bankruptcy. Despite all the efforts made to uphold them, the French three per cents, on this publication, fell to forty-seven. The terrors of the holders of stock are extreme.