France. 77 



classes will then come to perceive that incompatibility betwixt monarchi- 

 cal government and republican institutions, which the leaders in the 

 Chambers have been some time aware of. 



Now Louis Philippe himself seems to have become convinced of this 

 truth, and he seeks to bring- the state of things back to a monarchy. His 

 policy shews this ; especially his late bold measures. He is at length 

 determined to try the principle of Charles X.. with more sagacity. But 

 what Charles failed in, with one fourth of the French population, the 

 present Carlists, at his back, can Louis Philippe succeed in, with them 

 in sworn hostility to him ? It is not enough to put down the people, to 

 quell riots, and conquer in the holding of a court of the Tuilleries. The 

 republican seeds and institutions must be up-rooted. Can any French 

 king introduce the droit cCainesse or prevent an equal division of property 

 betwixt children ? Can he create a noblesse, that will command respect ? 

 Faith, the legitimate Bourbons, with the most legal Chamber of Deputies, 

 could not do either. When Charles made a peer, that peer was obliged 

 to turn liberal and lean on popular support, were it but to hold his place 

 in society. Hence the peerage itself became anti-monarchic in its ten- 

 dency. It was driven with the tide, and forced to go against its own 

 nature and existence. 



But there is no use in heaping argument upon argument. The French 

 are republicans, and a republic they must form. We are monarchists 

 and are perfectly contented with monarchic organization. Reform will 

 render it perfectly compatible with the rights and liberty of all, and es- 

 tablish gradation in society, and lend that society a charm and a refinement, 

 that a republic perhaps may not know. But although this may be our 

 taste, we have no right to force it upon our neighbours. We might as 

 well preach a crusade against the Americans, because they do without a 

 court, as against the French for aiming at the same conclusion, not 

 through theory or restlessness, but because their domestic institutions, 

 and their prejudices, if you will, do not tolerate or harmonize with, such 

 superstructure. They will not have a Corinthian capital on a Doric 

 column. This is the secret of their discontent. 



We think that these observations fully account for the late improvised 

 insurrection; we say improvised, for, although there were plots and 

 parties, there was certainly much that was portentous both in its out- 

 break, and in its suppression. It depended on the turn of a card once or 

 twice, whether the National guards should take the side of, or against, the 

 government. To many have they arrived at the point of being con- 

 vinced, that the continuance of the present dynasty may be a source of as 

 much disorder as order. For there with them lies all the question. 



In fine, it is our decided conviction, that the French must, and will, try 

 a republic. We do not applaud, nor yet deplore ; we only see this ne- 

 cessity : a necessity that arises from the nature of the country and the 

 habits of its population, and that will force its completion, whether 

 insurrections be successful or put down. Indeed, the suppression of the 

 late insurrection has rather advanced the republican cause, since, by push- 

 ing Louis Philippe from his moderate principles of rule, into the extra- 

 legal ones of his predecessor, it has paved the way for a future re-action, 

 for which all were not yet prepared. With the French remains the alter- 

 native of meeting the great experiment : wisely, like America, or madly, 

 as they themselves have done before. Our part is to remain, certainly 

 not uninterested, but uninterfering spectators of the essay. 



