The Paris Sketch Book of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh; and the Irish Sketch Book. William Makepeace Thackeray
One remembers a certain consultation of politicians which is recorded in the Spelling-book; and the opinion of that patriotic sage who averred that, for a real blameless constitution, an impenetrable shield for liberty, and cheap defence of nations, there was nothing like leather.
Let us examine some of the Prince’s article. If we may be allowed humbly to express an opinion, his leather is not only quite insufficient for those vast public purposes for which he destines it, but is, moreover, and in itself, very bad leather. The hides are poor, small, unsound slips of skin; or, to drop this cobbling metaphor, the style is not particularly brilliant, the facts not very startling, and, as for the conclusions, one may differ with almost every one of them. Here is an extract from his first chapter, ‘On Governments in General:’—
‘I speak it with regret, I can see but two Governments, at this day, which fulfil the mission that Providence has confided to them; they are the two colossi at the end of the world; one at the extremity of the old world, the other at the extremity of the new. Whilst our old European centre is as a volcano, consuming itself in its crater, the two nations of the East and the West march, without hesitation, towards perfection; the one under the will of a single individual, the other under liberty.
‘Providence has confided to the United States of North America the task of peopling and civilising that immense territory which stretches from the Atlantic to the South Sea, and from the North Pole to the Equator. The Government, which is only a simple administration, has only hitherto been called upon to put in practice the old adage, Laissez faire, laissez passer, in order to favour that irresistible instinct which pushes the people of America to the west.
‘In Russia it is to the imperial dynasty that is owing all the vast progress which, in a century and a-half, has rescued that empire from barbarism. The imperial power must contend against all the ancient prejudices of our old Europe: it must centralise, as far as possible, all the powers of the State in the hands of one person, in order to destroy the abuses which the feudal and communal franchises have served to perpetuate. The last alone can hope to receive from it the improvements which it expects.
‘But thou, France of Henry IV., of Louis XIV., of Carnot, of Napoleon—thou, who wert always for the west of Europe the source of progress, who possessest in thyself the two great pillars of empire, the genius for the arts of peace, and the genius of war—hast thou no further passion to fulfil? Wilt thou never cease to waste thy force and energies in intestine struggles? No; such cannot be thy destiny: the day will soon come, when, to govern thee, it will be necessary to understand that thy part is to place in all treaties thy sword of Brennus on the side of civilisation.’
These are the conclusions of the Prince’s remarks upon Governments in general; and it must be supposed that the reader is very little wiser at the end than at the beginning. But two Governments in the world fulfil their mission: the one Government, which is no Government; the other, which is a despotism. The duty of France is in all treaties to place her sword of Brennus in the scale of civilisation. Without quarrelling with the somewhat confused language of the latter proposition, may we ask what, in Heaven’s name, is the meaning of all the three? What is this épée de Brennus? and how is France to use it? Where is the great source of political truth, from which, flowing pure, we trace American republicanism in one stream, Russian despotism in another? Vastly prosperous is the great republic, if you will: if dollars and cents constitute happiness, there is plenty for all: but can any one, who has read of the American doings in the late frontier troubles, and the daily disputes on the slave question, praise the Government of the States?—a Government which dares not punish homicide or arson performed before its very eyes, and which the pirates of Texas and the pirates of Canada can brave at their will? There is no Government, but a prosperous anarchy; as the Prince’s other favourite Government is a prosperous slavery. What, then, is to be the épée de Brennus Government? Is it to be a mixture of the two? ‘Society,’ writes the Prince axiomatically, ‘contains in itself two principles—the one of progress and immortality, the other of disease and disorganisation.’ No doubt; and as the one tends towards liberty, so the other is only to be cured by order: and then, with a singular felicity, Prince Louis picks us out a couple of Governments, in one of which the common regulating power is as notoriously too weak, as it is in the other too strong, and talks in rapturous terms of the manner in which they fulfil their ‘providential mission’!
From these considerations on things in general, the Prince conducts us to Napoleon in particular, and enters largely into a discussion of the merits of the imperial system. Our author speaks of the Emperor’s advent in the following grandiose way:—
‘Napoleon, on arriving at the public stage, saw that his part was to be the testamentary executor of the Revolution. The destructive fire of parties was extinct; and when the Revolution, dying, but not vanquished, delegated to Napoleon the accomplishment of her last will, she said to him, “Establish upon solid bases the principal result of my efforts. Unite divided Frenchmen. Defeat feudal Europe that is leagued against me. Cicatrise my wounds. Enlighten the nations. Execute that in width, which I have had to perform in depth. Be for Europe what I have been for France. And, even if you must water the tree of civilisation with your blood—if you must see your projects misunderstood, and your sons without a country, wandering over the face of the earth, never abandon the sacred cause of the French people. Ensure its triumph by all the means which genius can discover and humanity approve.”
‘This grand mission Napoleon performed to the end. His task was difficult. He had to place upon new principles a society still boiling with hatred and revenge; and to use, for building up, the same instruments which had been employed for pulling down.
‘The common lot of every new truth that arises, is to wound rather than to convince—rather than to gain proselytes, to awaken fear. For, oppressed as it long has been, it rushes forward with additional force; having to encounter obstacles, it is compelled to combat them, and overthrow them; until, at length, comprehended and adopted by the generality, it becomes the basis of new social order.
‘Liberty will follow the same march as the Christian religion. Armed with death from the ancient society of Rome, it for a long while excited the hatred and fear of the people. At last, by force of martyrdoms and persecutions, the religion of Christ penetrated into the conscience and the soul; it soon had kings and armies at its orders, and Constantine and Charlemagne bore it triumphant throughout Europe. Religion then laid down her arms of war. It laid open to all the principles of peace and order which it contained; it became the prop of Government, as it was the organising element of society. Thus will it be with liberty. In 1793 it frightened people and sovereigns alike; thus, having clothed itself in a milder garb, it insinuated itself everywhere in the train of our battalions. In 1815 all parties adopted its flag, and armed themselves with its moral force—covered themselves with its colours. The adoption was not sincere, and liberty was soon obliged to reassume its warlike accoutrements. With the contest their fears returned. Let us hope that they will soon cease, and that liberty will soon resume her peaceful standards, to quit them no more.
‘The Emperor Napoleon contributed more than any one else towards accelerating the reign of liberty, by saving the moral influence of the Revolution, and diminishing the fears which it imposed. Without the Consulate and the Empire, the Revolution would have been only a grand drama, leaving grand revolutions but no traces: the Revolution would have been drowned in the counter-revolution. The contrary, however, was the case. Napoleon rooted the Revolution in France, and introduced, throughout Europe, the principal benefits of the crisis of 1789. To use his own words, “He purified the Revolution,” he confirmed kings, and ennobled people. He purified the Revolution in separating the truths which it contained from the passions that, during its delirium, disfigured it. He ennobled the people in giving them the consciousness of their force, and those institutions which raise men in their own eyes. The Emperor may be considered as the Messiah of the new ideas; for—and we must confess it—in the moments immediately succeeding a social revolution, it is not so essential to put rigidly into practice all the propositions resulting from the new theory, but to become master of the regenerative genius, to identify one’s self with the sentiments of the people, and boldly to direct them towards the desired point. To accomplish such a task your fibre should respond to that