To render this system perpetual, without any regard to ultimate consequences, is the leading object of the Free-Traders. Not converted, but on the contrary rendered more inveterate by the failure of their schemes, they are determined to allow no consideration whatever to stand in the way of their purpose; and of this you have a splendid instance in their late denunciation of the boroughs. They think—whether rightfully or wrongfully, it is not now necessary to inquire—that, by altering the proportions of Parliamentary power as established by the Reform Act—by taking away from the smaller boroughs, and by adding to the urban constituencies, they will still be able to command a majority in the House of Commons. In the present temper of the nation, and so long as its voice is expressed as heretofore, they know, feel, and admit that their policy is not secure. And why is it not secure? Simply because it has undergone the test of experience—because it has had a fair trial in the sight of the nation—and because it has not succeeded in realising the expectations of its founders.
I have ventured to throw together these few crude remarks for your consideration during the recess, being quite satisfied that you will not feel indifferent upon any subject which touches the dignity, status, or privileges of the boroughs. Whether Lord John Russell agrees with the Times as to the mode of effecting the threatened Parliamentary change, or whether he has some separate scheme of his own, is a question which I cannot solve. Possibly he has not yet made up his mind as to the course which it may be most advisable to pursue; for, in the absence of anything like general excitement or agitation, it is not easy to predict in what manner the proposal for any sweeping or organic change may be received by the constituencies of the Empire. There is far too much truth in the observations which I have already quoted from the great leading journal, relative to the dangers which must attend an increase of constituencies already too large, or a further extension of their power, to permit of our considering this as a light and unimportant matter. I view it as a very serious one indeed; and I cannot help thinking that Lord John Russell has committed an act of gross and unjustifiable rashness, in pledging himself, at the present time, to undertake a remodelment of the constitution. But whatever he does, I hope, for his own sake, and for the credit of the Liberal party, that he will be able to assign some better and more constitutional reason for the change, than the refusal of the English boroughs to bear arms in the crusade which is directed against the interests of Native Industry.
PARIS IN 1851.—(Continued.)
The Opera.—In the evening I went to the French Opera, which is still one of the lions of Paris. It was once in the Rue Richelieu; but the atrocious assassination of the Duc de Berri, who was stabbed in its porch, threw a kind of horror over the spot: the theatre was closed, and the performance moved to its present site in the Rue Lepelletier, a street diverging from the Boulevard.
Fond as the French are of decoration, the architecture of this building possesses no peculiar beauty, and would answer equally well for a substantial public hospital, a workhouse, or a barrack, if the latter were not the more readily suggested by the gendarmerie loitering about the doors, and the mounted dragoons at either end of the street.
The passages of the interior are of the same character—spacious and substantial; but the door of the salle opens, and the stranger, at a single step, enters from those murky passages into all the magic of a crowded theatre. The French have, within these few years, borrowed from us the art of lighting theatres. I recollect the French theatre lighted only by a few lamps scattered round the house, or a chandelier in the middle, which might have figured in the crypt of a cathedral. This they excused, as giving greater effect to the stage; but it threw the audience into utter gloom. They have now made the audience a part of the picture, and an indispensable part. The opera-house now shows the audience; and if not very dressy, or rather as dowdy, odd, and dishevelled a crowd as I ever recollect to have seen within theatrical walls, yet they are evidently human beings, which is much more picturesque than masses of spectres, seen only by an occasional flash from the stage.
The French architects certainly have not made this national edifice grand; but they have made it a much better thing,—lively, showy, and rich. Neither majestic and monotonous, nor grand and Gothic, they have made it riant and racy, like a place where men and women come to be happy, where beautiful dancers are to be seen, and where sweet songs are to be heard, and where the mind is for three or four hours to forget all its cares, and to carry away pleasant recollections for the time being. From pit to ceiling it is covered with paintings—all sorts of cupids, nymphs, and flower-garlands, and Greek urns—none of them wonders of the pencil, but all exhibiting that showy mediocrity of which every Frenchman is capable, and with which every Frenchman is in raptures. All looks rich, warm, and operatic.
One characteristic change has struck me everywhere in Paris—the men dress better, and the women worse. When I was last here, the men dressed half bandit and half Hottentot. The revolutionary mystery was at work, and the hatred of the Bourbons was emblematised in a conical hat, a loose neckcloth, tremendous trousers, and the scowl of a stage conspirator. The Parisian men have since learned the decencies of dress.