But M. Montalembert, for his own part, has another way of viewing the events of the Revolution. He denies the doctrine of fatalism or of necessity. He will not allow that the follies of the monarchy drew down after them the crimes of the Republic as a natural consequence. He sees in all those events, on the contrary, a direct intervention of Providence, who inflicted the sufferings of the Revolution upon the French simply as retribution for their crimes and a punishment for their sins. Providence, in the imagination of Count Montalembert, is a Nemesis with sword and scourge in hand, exercising its chief duty in castigating humanity; and thus doth the French Academy in the middle of the nineteenth century proclaim the philosophy of history.
M. Guizot avoided the recognition of any assertion so extravagant as this, and so very unfair to poor Jaques Bonhomme. The crimes of the old monarchy were confined to the court, the clergy, the aristocracy, and the financiers; whereas the poor peasant was ground to poverty, yet a proverbially honest and cheerful fellow amidst his ignorance and privations. But, according to Montalembert, Providence sent the Revolution to punish the crimes of duchesses; and this Revolution decimated, arrested, and sent to perish all over the world poor Jaques Bonhomme. Was this justice? M. Guizot did not, as we say, endorse this portion of the Montalembert philosophy. But he warned the Count of having in his early life made one grand mistake, in allying religion with liberalism, and putting the names of both combined on the banners of opposition. M. Guizot could hardly mean that religion, like fortune, should be always on the side of the greatest number of battalions. For should not this be the creed of M. Bonaparte, rather than of his illustrious Academicians?
From Household Words.
AN ACCOUNT OF SOME TREATMENT OF GOLD AND GEMS.
Those who visit the metal works of Birmingham naturally desire to know where the metals come from; and especially the precious metals. Among the materials shown to the visitor, are drawers full of the brightest and cleanest gold; and ingots of silver, pure, or slightly streaked with copper. We have handled to-day an ingot which contains, to ninety-two ounces ten pennyweights of silver, seven ounces ten pennyweights of copper. We ask whether the gold comes from California; but we find that it has just arrived—from a much nearer place—from a refinery next door. We hear high praises of the Californian gold. It is so pure that some of it can be used, without refining, for second-rate articles. Some small black specks may be detected in it, certainly, though they are so few and so minute, that the native gold is wrought in large quantities. But what is this neighboring refinery? Whence does it obtain the metals it refines? Let us go and see.
It is a strange murky place; a dismal inclosure, with ugly sheds, and yards not more agreeable to the eye. Its beauties come out by degrees, as the understanding opens to comprehend the affairs of the establishment. In the sheds, are ranges of musty-looking furnaces; some cold and gaping, others showing, through crevices, red signs of fire within. There are piles of blocks of coal, of burnt ladles and peels, and rivulets of black refuse, which has flowed out from the furnaces into safe beds of red sand. In a special shed, is a black moist-looking heap of what appears to be filth, battened into the shape of a large compost bed. A man is filling a barrow with this commodity, and smoothing it down with loving care. And well he may; for this despicable-looking dirt is the California of the concern! Here is their gold mine, and their silver mine, and their copper mine. In another shed, is a mill-stone on edge, revolving with the post to which it is fixed, to crush the material which is to be calcined. In the yard, we see heaps of scoriæ—the shining, heavy, glassy-looking fragments, which tell tales of the prodigious heat to which they have been subjected. We see picks, and more ladles, and lanterns, and a most sordid-looking bonfire. A heap of refuse is burning on the stones; old rags, fragments of shoes, cinders, dust, and nails—the veriest sweepings that can be imagined. Something precious is there; but the mass must be burned to become manageable. The ashes will be swept up for the refinery.
But what is it that yields gold, and silver, and copper, and brass? What is that heap of dirt in the special shed? It is the sweepings of the Birmingham manufactories.
What economy! In all goldsmiths' shops every effort is made to save all the filings, and the minutest dust of the metals used. The floors are swept, and every thing recoverable is picked up. Yet the imperceptible loss is so valuable to the refiners, that they pay, and pay high, for the scrapings, sweepings, and picking of the work-rooms. A cart load of dirt is taken from a fork-and-spoon manufactory to the refinery, and paid for on the instant; and the money thus received is one of the regular items in the books of the concern. Perhaps it pays the wages of one of the workmen. Another establishment receives two hundred pounds a year for its sweepings. It is worth noting these methods in concerns which are flourishing, and which have been raised to a prosperous condition by pains and care; less flourishing people may be put in the way of similar methods. For instance, how good it would be for farmers if, instead of thinking there is something noble in disregard of trifling economy, they could see the wisdom and beauty of an economy which hurts nobody, but benefits every body! It would do no one any good to throw away these scattered particles of precious metal, while their preservation affords a maintenance to many families. In the same way, the waste of dead leaves, of animal manure, of odds and ends of time, of seed, of space in hedges, in the great majority of farms, does no good, and gives no pleasure to any body; while the same thrift on a farm that we see in a manufactory, would sustain much life, bestow much comfort, narrow no hearts, and expand the enjoyment of very many.
We must take care of our eyes when the ovens are opened—judging by the scarlet rays that peep out, here and there, from any small crevice. Prodigious! What a heat it is, when, by the turn of a handle, a door of the furnace is raised! The roasting, or calcining, to get rid of the sulphur, is going on here. The whole inside—walls, roof, embers, and all—are a transparent salmon-color. As a shovel, inserted from the opposite side, stirs and turns the burning mass, the sulphur appears above—a little blue flame, and a great deal of yellow smoke. We feel some of it in our throats. We exclaim about the intensity of the heat, declaring it tremendous. But we are told that it is not so; that, in fact, "it is very cold—that furnace;" which shows us that there is something hotter to come.