which was soon in every man's mouth, and being set to music, became for a short period the German Marseillaise. Lamartine answered the German with the Marseillaise de paix, (the Marseillaise of peace,) which produced a deep impression; and the fall of the Thiers' ministry soon calmed the warlike spirit throughout Europe.
On the question of the Regency, Lamartine declared himself in favor of the Duchess of Orleans as Regent, should Louis Philippe die during the minority of the Count of Paris, and it is our firm belief that he would have accepted that Regency even in February last, if the king had abdicated a day sooner. Lamartine never avowed himself a Republican; but was left no alternative but to eclipse himself forever, or become its champion.
The star of Lamartine's political destiny rose in the session of 1843, when, utterly disgusted with the reactionary policy of Guizot, he conceived the practical idea of uniting all the elements of opposition, of whatever shade and color, against the government. But he was not satisfied with this movement in the Chamber, which produced the coalition of the Dynastic right with the Democratic left, and for a moment completely paralyzed the administration of Guizot: he carried his new doctrine right before the people, as the legitimate source of the Chamber, and thus became the first political agitator of France since the restoration, in the legitimate, legal, English sense of the word. Finding that the press was muzzled, or subsidized and bought, he moved his countrymen through the power of his eloquence. He appealed from the Chamber to the sense and the virtue of the people. In September, 1843, he first addressed the electors of Mâcon on the necessity of extending the franchise, in order to admit of a greater representation of the French people—generous, magnanimous, bold and devoted to their country. Instead of fruitlessly endeavoring to reform the government, he saw that the time had come for reforming the Chamber.
In the month of October, of the same year—so rapidly did his new political genius develop itself—he published a regular programme for the opposition; a thing which Thiers, up to that moment, had studiously avoided, not to break entirely with the king, and to render himself still "possible" as a minister of the crown. Lamartine knew no such selfish consideration, which has destroyed Thiers as a man of the people, and declared himself entirely independent of the throne of July. He advocated openly the abolition of industrial feudalism, and the foundation of a new democratic society under a constitutional throne.
Thus, then, had Lamartine separated himself not only from the king and his ministers, but also from the ancient noblesse and the bourgeoisie, without approaching or identifying himself with the Republican left wing of the Chamber. He stood alone, admired for his genius, his irreproachable rectitude, his devoted patriotism, but considered rather as a poetical abstraction, an impracticable Utopist; and yet he was the only man in the Chamber who had devised a practical means of regenerating the people and the government. Lamartine was now considered a parliamentary oddity rather than the leader of a faction, or the representative of a political principle; but he was indeed far in advance of the miserable routine of his colleagues. He personated, indeed, no principle represented in the Chamber, but he was already the Tribune of the unrepresented masses! The people had declared the government a fraud—the Chamber an embodied falsehood. At last Marrast, one of the editors of the National, (now a member of the provisional government,) pronounced it in his paper that the French people had no representation, that it was in vain to attempt to oppose the government in the legislature: "La Chambre," said Marrast, "n'est qu' un mensonge."[11]
Lamartine had thus, all at once, as if by a coup-de-main, become "a popular greatness." He was the man of the people, without having courted popularity—that stimulus (as he himself called it) to so many noble acts and crimes, as the object of its caresses remains its conscious master or its pandering slave. Lamartine grew rapidly in public estimation, because he was a new man. All the great characters of the Chamber, beginning with Casimir Perrier, had, in contact with Louis Philippe, become either eclipsed or tarnished. Lamartine avoided the court, but openly and frankly confessed that he belonged to no party. He had boldly avowed his determination to oppose the government of Louis Philippe, not merely this or that particular direction, which it took in regard to its internal and external relations; but in its whole general tendency. He was neither the friend nor the enemy of a particular combination for the ministry, and had, during a short period, given his support to Count Molé, not because he was satisfied with his administration, but because he thought the opposition and its objects less virtuous than the minister. In this independent position, supported by an ample private fortune, (inherited, as we before observed, by his maternal uncle, and the returns of his literary activity,) Lamartine became an important element of parliamentary combination, from the weight of his personal influence, while at the same time his "utopies," as they were termed by the tactitioners of Alphonse Thiers, gave but little umbrage to the ambition of his rivals. He alone enjoyed some credit with the masses, though his social position ranked with the first in the country, while, from the peculiar bend of his mind, and the idealization of his principles, he was deemed the most harmless aspirant to political power. The practical genius of the opposition, everlastingly occupied with unintellectual details of a venal class-legislature, saw in Lamartine a useful co-operator: they never dreamt that the day would come when they would be obliged to serve under him.
And, in truth, it must be admitted that without the Revolution of February, Lamartine must have been condemned to a comparative political inactivity. With the exception of a few friends, personally devoted to him, he had no party in the Chamber. The career which he had entered, as the people's Tribune, placed him, in a measure, in opposition to all existing parties; but it was even this singular position of parliamentary impotence, which confirmed and strengthened his reputation as an honest man, in contradistinction to a notoriously corrupt legislature. His eloquence in the Chamber had no particular direction; but it was the sword of justice, and was, as such, dreaded by all parties. As a statesman his views were tempered by humanity, and so little specific as to be almost anti-national. In his views as regards the foreign policy of France he was alike opposed to Guizot and Thiers; and, perhaps, to a large portion of the French people. He wished the external policy of France governed by a general principle, as the internal politics of the country, and admitted openly the solidarity of interests of the different states of Europe. He thus created for himself allies in Germany, in Italy, in Spain; but he lacked powerful supporters at home; and became the most impracticable man to carry out the aggressive views of the fallen Dynasty. Thiers never considered him a rival; for he considered him incapable of ever becoming the exponent of a leading popular passion: neither the present nor the future seemed to present a chance for Lamartine's accession to power. L'homme positive, as Thiers was pleased to call himself at the tribune of the Chamber, almost commiserated the poet statesman and orator.
Lamartine never affected, in his manner or in his mode of living, that "republican simplicity" which is so often nothing but the frontispiece of demagoguism. He despised to flatter the people, for whom he cherished a generous sentiment, by vulgar appeal to their ignoble prejudices. He gratified his tastes where they did not come in conflict with morality or justice, and thus preserved his individuality and his friends, in the midst of the swelling tide of popular commotion and conflicting opinions. Guizot affected in his déhors that severity and simplicity of style, which won for him the soubriquet of "the Puritan;" bestowed by the sarcasm of the Parisians, to punish his egotism, his craving ambition and his love of power. While Guizot was penetrating the mysteries of European diplomacy, under the guidance of Princess Lieven, Lamartine's hôtel, in the Rue de l'Université was the réunion of science, literature, wit, elegance and grace. His country-seat near Paris was as elegantly furnished and artistically arranged as his palace in the Faubourg St. Germain; and his weekly receptions in Paris were as brilliant as they were attractive by the intelligence of those who had the honor to frequent them. The élite of the old nobility, the descendants of the notabilities of the Empire, the historical remnants of the Gironde and the Jacobins, the versatility of French genius in every department, and distinguished strangers from all parts of the world were his guests; excluded were only the men of mere accidental position—the mob in politics, literature and the arts.
But the time for Lamartine had not yet come, though the demoralization of the government, and the sordid impulses given by it to the national legislature were fast preparing that anarchy of passions which no government has the power to render uniform, though it may compress it. The ministry in the session of 1845 was defeated by the coalition; but the defection of Emil de Girardin saved it once more from destruction. Meanwhile Duchâtel, the Minister of the Interior, had found means, by a gigantic system of internal improvement, (by a large number of concessions for new rail-ways and canals,) to obtain from the same Chamber a ministerial majority, which toward the close of the session amounted to nearly eighty members. Under such auspices the new elections were ushered in, and the result was an overwhelming majority for the administration. The government was not to be shaken in the Chambers, but its popular ascendancy had sunk to zero. The opposition from being parliamentary had become organic. The opposition, seeing all hopes of success vanish in the Chambers, now embraced Lamartine's plan of agitating the people. They must either fall into perfect insignificance or dare to attack the very basis of the government. The party of Thiers and Odillon Barrot joined the movement, and by that means gave it a practical direction; while Lamartine, Marrast, Louis Blanc, and Ledru Rollin were operating on the masses, Thiers and Odillon Barrot indoctrinated the National Guards. While Thiers was willing to stake his life to dethrone Guizot, the confederates of Lamartine aimed at an organic change of the constitution.
Was Lamartine a conspirator? may here be asked. We answer most readily, no! Lamartine is what himself says of Robespierre, "a man of general ideas;" but not a man of a positive system; and hence, incapable of devising a plan for attaining a specific political object. His opposition to Louis Philippe's government was general; but it rested on a noble basis, and was free from individual passions. He may have been willing to batter it, but he did not intend its demolition. The Republic of France was proclaimed in the streets, partly as the consequence of the king's cowardice. Lamartine accepted its first office, because he had to choose between it and anarchy, and he has thus far nobly discharged his trust. If he is not a statesman of consummate ability, who would devise means of extricating his country from a difficult and perilous situation, he will not easily plunge it into danger; if he be not versed in the intrigues of cabinets, his straight forward course commands their respect, and the confidence of the French people. This is not the time for Europe to give birth to new ideas—the old Revolution has done that sufficiently—but the period has arrived for elaborating them, with a view to a new and lasting organization of society. The present revolution in Europe need not forcibly overthrow any established political creed; for there is no established political conviction in Europe. The people have arrived at a period of universal political scepticism, which, like scepticism in religion, always prepares the soil for the reception of the seed of a new faith. The great work of the revolution is done, if the people will but seize and perpetuate its consequences. Such, at least, are the views of Lamartine, and with him of a majority of European writers, as expressed in the literature of the day.