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TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



constitutional government in 1832. The exam- 

 ple of military usurpation was followed by Napo- 

 leon's reputed nephew, who in his turn was driven 

 by the discontent of the army, combined with 

 the influence of his priest-ridden wife, into the 

 war which overthrew his Empire, at the same 

 time bringing the invader for the third time into 

 Paris. The blow which military passion and the 

 spirit of aggrandizement received in that defeat 

 was to France a blessing in disguise. To it she 

 owes the recovery, however precarious, of free 

 institutions, of which there would otherwise 

 scarcely have been a hope. But, even now, 

 France, after all her efforts and revolutions, is to 

 a fearful extent at the mercy of a stupid and 

 self-willed soldier, a third-rate master even of his 

 own trade, totally devoid of political knowledge 

 and of sympathy with political aspirations, but 

 at the head of the army, and, as his language to 

 the soldiery on the eve of the elections proved, 

 sufficiently wanting in the true sense of honor to 

 admit into his mind the thought of using the 

 public force with which he is intrusted for the 

 overthrow of public liberty. No institutions, 

 however sound and stable in themselves, can 

 afford to a nation security for legal order while 

 there is a constant danger of military usurpation. 

 Nor is it easy to see how the danger can be re- 

 moved, so long as an army strong enough to 

 overpower all national resistance, and blindly 

 obedient to command, is at the disposal of the 

 executive for the time being. 



Two years hence, if not before, there will be 

 another crisis ; and it is idle to conceal the un- 

 happy and ignominious fact, that the decision 

 will rest ultimately with the army and with those 

 whom the army obeys. 



Whether, under the new system of universal 

 military service, with such influences as that of 

 the Erckmann-Chatrian novels, the soldier has 

 become more of a citizen and the army less of a 

 knife, ready, in any hand by which it may for the 

 moment be grasped, to cut the throat of public 

 liberty, the event will show. The French peas- 

 ant, if left to himself, is not fond of war ; he 

 hates the conscription, and has done so from the 

 time of Caesar ; the fatal ascendency of the mil- 

 itary spirit is due, not to him, but to a series of 

 ambitious rulers. This is true, but it does not 

 save France from being, as a matter of fact, to 

 a lamentable extent a stratocracy. How the 

 army can be placed in safe hands is a problem 

 of which it is almost impossible to suggest 

 a complete and permanent solution. The re- 

 duction of its numbers by the definite adoption 



of a pacific policy is the only real security for 

 the continuance of political liberty. In France 

 the peril is greatest, and its manifestations have 

 been most calamitous, but it extends more or less 

 to all the European nations. Everywhere in Eu- 

 rope public liberty and human progress are to a 

 fearful extent at the mercy of the vast standing 

 armies which are maintained by the mutual jeal- 

 ousies of nations, assiduously stimulated by courts 

 and aristocracies in the interest of moral and po- 

 litical reaction. He who said that science could 

 not be better employed than in devising means of 

 destroying praetorians gave utterance, in a cyni- 

 cal form, to a melancholy truth. It would be a 

 happier way of escape from the danger if sol- 

 diers could possibly be made to understand their 

 real duty to their country. 



By the Restoration of the Stuarts, and the 

 temporary recovery of its ascendency by a de- 

 feated and vindictive party, England was thrown 

 back into political discord, violence, and inter- 

 mittent civil law for three-quarters of a century. 

 The same calamity befell France, though in her 

 case the restoration was the work of foreign 

 hands ; and the same or even greater allowance 

 for the disturbing influence must be made. As 

 no institutions can be proof against military 

 treason, so none can be proof against passions 

 which go beyond political antagonism, beyond 

 even the utmost violence of party, and are, in 

 fact, the passions of civil war. The factions 

 which encountered each other in the legislative 

 assemblies of the Restoration were the same 

 which not long before had encountered each 

 other on the battle-fields of La Vendee. Their 

 hostility, scarcely diminished since they met in 

 arms, was incompatible with that common alle- 

 giance to the Constitution and its objects, in spite 

 of divergences on special questions, which is the 

 first condition of constitutional government. Both 

 extremes in the assemblies of Louis XVIII. and 

 Charles X. were striving, not to give effect to 

 their respective policies by constitutional means, 

 but to overthrow the Constitution itself, one ex- 

 treme in the interest of absolutism, the other in 

 that of democracy. It was then as it is now, 

 when the monarchical and aristocratic party is 

 manifestly using the Marshalate and the Senate, 

 not to modify legislation in a conservative sense, 

 but to overthrow the Republic, as, if it had been 

 successful in controlling the elections, it would 

 unquestionably have done. In such a case insti- 

 tutions can do no more than prolong for them- 

 selves a precarious existence by being so ordered 

 as to prevent rather than facilitate a pitched bat- 



