importunity, nothing would have been done-that not a step has been taken without external impulse-and that the people had to wait two hours, on that wonderful Thursday, before the Provisional Government would announce a republic. Since that moment the deputations may be said never to have ceased in Paris. For the first week they did not affect a distinctive character, but came as accident had thrown them together-ten thousand from this quarter, and twenty thousand from that; sometimes the people, and sometimes the National Guard, or a medley of all sorts. In those days they were armed. Lamartine had to turn out six times a-day, make gestures half an hour for a hearing, and then spend his brilliant eloquence on a field of bayonets and blouses. When the poet had sunk from sheer exhaustion, the indefatigable deputation adjourned to the Ministry of the Interior, and drew forth M. Ledru Rollin, who had not learned his way about the apartments, or the names of the officials, before he was required to promulgate, off-hand, a complete system for the internal administration of France. It is possible that his first thoughts might have been as good as his second on this subject; but the demand was nevertheless premature. The stream of deputation has since become less turbid, violent, and full; but it has been quite continuous, and, to all appearance, Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum. "We believe there is not a single branch of employment or of idleness in Paris, that has not marched en masse to the Hotel de Ville to demand more wages, less work, certainty of employment, and a release from all the rules and restrictions which the experience of their masters had found to be necessary. It is unwise to damp the expectations of 5000 armed men. In some cases, therefore, the Government capitulated on rather hard terms. By-and-by it adopted what we really think the best possible alternative. It requested the trades to nominate their several deputies, and set the operative parliament to adjust all its rival pretensions at the Luxembourg. Then there came deputations of women, of students, of pawnbrokers' tickets, of bankers, of breadeaters, of bread-makers, of cabmen, of 'bussmen, of sailors, of porters, of everything that had, or had not, an office and a name. France, of course, has had the precedence, having, in a manner, the first start; but the nations of the earth are beginning to find room in the endless procession. All the world will run into it in time. The vast column is just beginning to form in Chinese Tartary, and is slowly debouching round the Caspian Sea. Already we see a hundred European sections. They follow in one another's trail. An Anacharsis Clootz is waiting to receive them at the barriers, and marshal them to the Hotel de Ville.”—Times, March 15, 1848. This state of matters is certainly abundantly formidable to France and to Europe. A great experiment is making as to the practicability of the working-classes governing themselves and the rest of the state, without the aid of property or education. France has become a huge trades-union, the committee of which forms the Provisional Government, and the decrees of which compose the foundation of the future government of the republic. Such an experiment is certainly new in human affairs. No previous example of it is to be found, at least in the old world; for it will hardly be said that the republic of 1793, steeped in blood, engrossed in war, ruled with a rod of iron by the Committee of Public Salvation, is a precedent to which the present regeneration of society will refer, in support of the principles they are now reducing to practice. We fear its state has been not less justly than graphically described by one of our most distinguished correspondents, who says " They are sitting as at a pantomime; everything is grand and glorious; France is regenerated, and all is flourish of trumpets. Meanwhile France is utterly insane-a vast lunatic asylum without its doctors." The present state of Paris, (March 21,) and the germs of social conflict which are beginning to emerge from amidst the triumph of the Socialists, may be judged of from the following extracts of the correspondent of the Morning Chronicle, dated Paris, 18th March :— "PARIS, Friday Evening.-There has been another day of great excitement and alarm in Paris. Upwards of 30,000 of the working classes congregated in the Champs Elysées, and went in procession to the Hotel de Ville, to assure the Government that it might depend upon their assistance against any attempt that might be made to coerce it, from whatever quarter it came. I need hardly inform you that this formidable demonstration is intended as a contre coup to the protest presented by the National Guards yesterday, against M. Ledru Rollin's decree dissolving the grenadier and light companies of the National Guards. It is not the least alarming feature in this affair, that it exhibits an amount of discipline among the working classes, and a promptitude of execution, which are but too sure indications both of the power and the readiness of the leaders of the movement to do mischief. It was only yesterday that the demonstration took place which displeased the masses; yet in one short night the order goes forth, the arrangements are made, and before ordinary mortals are out of their beds, 30,000 of the working classes are marshalled under their leaders, and on their march to make a demonstration of their force, in presence of the executive government-a demonstration which, on the present occasion, to be sure, is favourable to the Government, but which to-morrow may be against it. Who have the orders proceeded from that drew together these masses? How were they brought together? The affair is involved in mystery; but there is enough in it to show an amount of organisation for which the public was not prepared, and which ought to show all those within its operation that they are sitting upon a barrel of gunpowder. The fact is, and there is no denying or concealing it-Paris is in the possession of the clubs, who rule not only it, but the ostensible government. The National Guards, so powerful only a week ago, are now impotent whether for good or evil. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' The National Guards have quarrelled. The Chasseurs look with jealousy on the compagnies d'élite-the compagnies d'élite will not fraternise with the Chasseurs. The 84,000 men, who formed the National Guards before the 24th of February, look with contempt upon the 150,000 new men thrust into their ranks by M. Ledru Rollin, for election purposes, and call them canaille. The new levies feel that they cannot compete in wealth with the good company in which they so unexpectedly find themselves, and they call the old guards aristocrats. Add to this the discontent of the grenadier and light companies at being deprived of their distinctive associations and dress-the displeasure of the old officers, who are about to be deprived of their epaulettes by their new and democratic associates-and the intriguing of the would-be officers to secure a majority of suffrages in their own favour, and you may arrive at a judgment of the slight chance there is of the National Guards of the present day uniting for any one purpose or object. The result of this is obvious. In case of an outbreak, the National Guards, who were so useful in re-establishing order on the two days after the abdication of Louis Philippe, could no longer be depended on. Paris would be in the possession of the mob, and that mob is under the direction of leaders composed of the worst and the most unscrupulous of demagogues." The same correspondent adds : "The financial and commercial crisis which has created such ravages here for the last week is rapidly extending. I have already given you a distressing list of private bankers who have been obliged to suspend payment. Another bank, though not one of any great name, was spoken of yesterday as being on the eve of bankruptcy; but, on inquiry, I find that the bank is still open this morning, although it is doubtful if it will continue so to the end of the day. I abstain from mentioning the name. The commercial world is just in as deep distress as the financial world. Every branch of trade is paralysed. It is useless to attempt to give particular names, or even trades. I shall therefore only mention, that in one branch of trade, which is generally considered one of the richest in France, namely, the metal trade, there is an almost total suspension of payments. It is not that the traders have not property, but that they cannot turn it into cash. They have acceptances to meet, and they have acceptances in hand; but they cannot pay what is due by them, for they cannot get what others owe. In short, trade is paralysed; for the medium by which it is ordinarily carried on has disappeared. In other trades precisely the same circumstances occur; but I only mention this one trade as showing the position of all others. How long is this to last? No one can say: but one thing certain is, that no symptom of amelioration has hitherto shown itself."-Morning Chronicle, March 20. As the experiment now making in France is new, and in the highest degree important, so it is to the last degree to be wished that it may go on undisturbed. The other powers of Europe cannot be too much on their guard against it: but no armed intervention should be attempted, if France retains the pacific attitude she has hitherto held in regard to other states. The Republicans of that country have never ceased to declare that the first Revolution terminated in internal bloodshed, military despotism, and foreign subjugation, because it was not let alone-because the Girondists plunged it into war, in order to provide a vent for the ardent passions and vehement aspirations of the unemployed multitudes in that country. Lamartine admits, in his celebrated circular, that in 1792 "war was a necessity to France." He disclaims, as every man of the least knowledge on the subject must do, the idea that it was provoked by the European powers, who, it is historically known, were drawn into it when wholly unprepared, and as unwillingly as a conscientious father of a family is forced into a duel. Lamar VOL. I. 2 G tine says the same necessity no longer exists-that the world has become pacific, and that internal regeneration, not foreign conquest, is the end of this revolution. We hope it is so. We are sure it is ardently desired in this country that pacific relations should not be disturbed with the great republic, provided she keeps within her own territory, and does not seek to assuage her thirst at foreign fountains. By all means let the long-wished-for experiment be made. Let it be seen how society can get on without the direction of property and knowledge. Let it be seen to what sort of state the doctrines of the Socialists and St Simonians, the dictates of the trades-unions, the clamour of the working masses, will speedily reduce society. Theirs be the glory and the honour if the experiment succeeds theirs the disgrace and the obloquy if it fails. Let all other nations stand aloof, and witness the great experiment-“ a clear stage and no favour" be the universal maxim. But let every other people abstain from imitating the example, till it is seen how the experiment has succeeded in the great parent republic. It will be time enough to follow its footsteps when experience has proved it is conducive to human happiness and social stability. But while, as ardently as any Socialist in existence, we deprecate the commencement of hostilities by any European power, and earnestly desire to see the great social experiment now making in France brought to a pacific issue, in order that its practicability and expedience may for ever be determined among men, yet it is evident that things may take a different issue in that country. It is possible though God forbid we should say it is probable-that the great republic may, from internal suffering, be driven to foreign aggression. This, on Lamartine's own admission, has happened once it may happen twice. France has four hundred thousand regular troops under arms; and every man capable of bearing a musket is to be forthwith enrolled in the National Guard. Twenty-five thousand of that body have already been taken into regular and permanent pay, at thirty sous, or about fifteenpence a-day, and sent to the frontier. It is impossible to say how soon this immense and excited mass, with arms in their hands, and little food in their stomachs, may drive the Government, as in 1792 they did that of the Girondists, on Lamartine's admission, into foreign warfare. It behoves Europe to be on its guard. Fortunately the course which its governments should pursue in such an event lies clear and open. They have only to resume the Treaty of Chaumont, concluded in 1813, to curb the ambition of the great military republic of which Napoleon was the head. Let that treaty be secretly but immediately renewed as a purely defensive league. Let no one think of attacking France; but the moment that France invades any other power, let the four great powers forthwith bring a hundred and fifty thousand men each into the field. Let not the wretched mistake be again committed, of the others looking tamely on when one is assailed-"et dum singuli pugnant, universi vincuntur." The moment the French cross the Rhine or the Alps, the states of Europe must stand side by side as they did at Leipsic and Waterloo, if they would avoid another long period of oppression by the conquering Republicans. Nearly sixty years have elapsed since Mr Burke observed -"The age of chivalry is gone; that of sophists, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex-that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life-the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiments-is gone. It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage while it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half of its evil, by losing all its grossness."+ What a commentary on these well-known and long-admired words have recent events afforded! It is indeed gone, the loyalty to rank and sexthe proud submission, the dignified obedience, the subordination of the heart, which formerly characterised and adorned. the states of modern Europe. With more courage than the German Empress, the Duchess of Orleans fronted the revolutionary mob in the Chamber of Deputies; but no swords leapt from their scabbards in the Chamber of Deputies |