"The nation," says the head of the present provisional government of France, "possessing within itself the inalienable sovereignty which rests in reason, in the right and the will of each citizen, the aggregate of which constitutes the people, possesses certainly the faculty of modifying the exterior form of its sovereignty, to level its aristocracy, to dispossess its church of its property, to lower or even to suppress the throne, and to govern themselves through their proper magistrates. But as the nation had a right to combat and emancipate itself, she also had a right to watch over and consolidate the fruits of its victories. If, then, Louis XVI., a king too recently dispossessed of sovereign power—a king in whose eyes all restitution of power to the people was tantamount to a forfeiture—a king ill satisfied with what little of government remained in his hands, aspiring to reconquer the part he had lost—torn in one direction by a usurping assembly, and in another by a restless queen or humble nobility, and a clergy which made Heaven to intervene in his cause, by implacable emigrants, by his brothers running all over Europe to drum up enemies to the Revolution; if, in one word, Louis XVI., KING, appeared to the nation a living conspiracy against her liberty; if the nation suspected him of regretting in his soul too much the loss of supreme power—of causing the new constitution to stumble, in order to profit by its fall—of conducting liberty into snares to rejoice in anarchy—of disarming the country because he secretly wished it to be defeated—then the nation had a right to make him descend from the throne, and to call him to her bar, and to depose him in the name of her own dictatorship, and for her own safety. If the nation had not possessed this right, the right to betray the people with impunity, would, in the new constitution, have been one of the prerogatives of the crown."
This is a pretty fair specimen of revolutionary reasoning; but it is rather a definition of Democracy, as Lamartine understands it, than a constitutional argument in favor of the decapitation of "Louis Capet." Lamartine is, indeed, a "Conservative Democrat," that is, ready to immolate the king to preserve the rights of the people; but he does not distinguish in his mind a justifiable act from a righteous one. But it is a peculiarity of the French mind to identify itself so completely with the object of its reflection, that it is impossible for a French mind to be impartial, or as they will have it, not to be an enthusiast. The French are partisans even in science; the Academy itself has its factions.
We have thus quoted the most important political opinions expressed in his "Girondists," because these are his latest political convictions, and he has subscribed to them his name. We look upon this his last work, as a public confession of his faith—as a declaration of the principles which will guide him in the administration of the new government. Lamartine has been indoctrinated with the spirit of revolution; but it is not the spirit of his youth or early manhood. Liberty in his hands becomes something poetical—perhaps a lyric poem—but we respectfully doubt his capacity to give her a practical organization, and a real existence. High moral precepts and sublime theories may momentarily elevate a people to the height of a noble devotion; but laws and institutions are made for ordinary men, and must be adapted to their circumstances. Herein consists the specific talent of the statesman, and his capacity to govern. Government is not an ideal abstraction—a blessing showered from a given height on the abiding masses, or a scourge applied to mortify their passions; it is something natural and spontaneous, originating in and coeval with the people, and must be adapted to their situation, their moral and intellectual progress, and to their national peculiarities. It consists of details as well as of general forms, and requires labor and industry as well as genius. The majority of the people must not only yield the laws a ready submission, but they must find, or at least believe, it their interest to do so, or the government becomes coercion. The great problem of Europe is to discover the laws of labor, not to invent them, for without this question being practically settled in some feasible manner, all fine spun theories will not suffice to preserve the government.
Lamartine closes his history of the Girondists with the following sublime though mystic reflection: "A nation ought, no doubt, to weep her dead, and not to console itself in regard to a single life that has been unjustly and odiously sacrificed; but it ought not to regret its blood when it was shed to reveal eternal truths. God has put this price on the germination and maturation of all His designs in regard to man. Ideas vegetate in human blood; revolutions descend from the scaffold. All religions become divine through martyrdom. Let us, then, pardon each other, sons of combatants and victims. Let us become reconciled over their graves to take up the work which they have left undone. Crime has lost every thing in introducing itself into the ranks of the republic. To do battle is not to immolate. Let us take away the crime from the cause of the people, as a weapon which has pierced their hands and changed liberty into despotism. Let us not seek to justify the scaffold with the cause of our country, and proscriptions by the cause of liberty. Let us not pardon the spirit of our age by the sophism of revolutionary energy, let humanity preserve its heart; it is the safest and most infallible of its principles, and let us resign ourselves to the condition of human things. The history of the Revolution is glorious and sad as the day after the victory, or the eve of another combat. But if this history is full of mourning, it is also full of faith. It resembles the antique drama where, while the narrator recites his story, the chorus of the people shouts the glory, weeps for the victims and raises a hymn of consolation and hope to God."
All this is very beautiful, but it does not increase our stock of historical information. It teaches the people resignation, instead of pointing to their errors, and the errors of those who claimed to be their deliverers. Lamartme has made an apotheosis of the Revolution, instead of treating it as the unavoidable consequence of misgovernment. To an English or American reader the allusion to "the blood sacrifice," which is necessary in politics as in religion, would border on impiety; with the French it is probably a proof of religious faith. Lamartine, in his views and conceptions, in his mode of thinking and philosophizing, is much more nearly allied to the German than to the English schools; only that, instead of a philosophical system, carried through with a rigorous and unsparing logic, he indulges in philosophical reveries. As a statesman Lamartine lacks speciality, and for this reason we think that his administration will be a short one.
With respect to character, energy, and courage, Lamartine has few equals. He has not risen to power by those crafty combinations which destroy a man's moral greatness in giving him distinction. "Greatness" was, indeed, "thrust upon him," and thus far he has nobly and courageously sustained it. He neither courted power, nor declined it. When it was offered, he did not shrink from assuming the responsibility of accepting it. He has no vulgar ambition to gratify, no insults to revenge, no devotion to reward. He stands untrammeled and uncommitted to any faction whatever. He may not be able to solve the social problem of the age; but will, in that case, surrender his command untarnished as he received it, and serve once more in the ranks.