THE FRENCH AND THE KING OF THE FRENCH. 369 



convulsion, to stand forth and prevent the dissolution of society, or its 

 fall into the hands of anarchists. 



It may, indeed, be asserted, that republicanism should be crushed and 

 cut away like a canker, with the knife of persecution in every monar- 

 chic state. Nor am I prepared here to support logically, that it might 

 not be for the interest of said monarchy so to do, were the thing pos- 

 sible ; or, could it be hoped by severity to extinguish certain sentiments. 

 But as this is not possible, and as sincerity would increase the noxious 

 sentiment and the professors of it, the evil must be tolerated. Of course, 

 I am speaking of France. 



The ministerialists applaud this division of the republicans. They 

 think it will weaken both parties. It will, no doubt, for the present. 

 But the object with the country, or with every philanthropist, is not, 

 certainly, for the present, that any such party should prevail, but that it 

 should continue to exist, to be represented, and to bring its views and 

 its sagacity to increase the political wisdom of the epoch. 



The general tendency of parties, indeed, in France, has of late been 

 to subdivide. Let us take the Chamber of Deputies for example, and its 

 original compactments of right, centre, and left. The right may be 

 said to contain two shades of opinion, the stubborn Carlists, and those 

 willing to be reconciled to the present monarch. The centres contain 

 two or three shades, the doctrinaires at one extremity, then the Perierites, 

 and the Bonapartists (likely to rally to Dupin). The left contains the 

 monarchic and the republican oppositionists, Odillon Barrot seeking to 

 head the first, though flung by necessity and by the tide of circumstances 

 back upon his more violent neighbours. 



This great subdivision of parties, which would constitute the force of 

 a legitimate monarch, if one, who could reckon upon a numerous per- 

 sonal party, proves but a source of perplexity and weakness to Louis 

 Philippe. He does not know where to look, on whom to choose. 

 Mutual jealousies prevent the different coteries from uniting ; the king 

 is without influence to overcome these obstacles. Whilst to offend one, 

 by preferring the other, creates him as many enemies as friends. Thus, 

 Dupin will not take the ministry in conjunction with Guizot or De 

 Broglie. Nor will Barrot with Dupin. The king presses upon each 

 the necessity of uniting with the other. He presses Guizot upon Dupin, 

 Dupin upon such of the Carlists as have been converted. But by no 

 means can he succeed in putting them together. Louis Philippe is thus 

 to be pitied and excused in certain respects for keeping a ministry at the 

 head of affairs, contemptible for their incapacity and their lack of 

 influence. The loss of Perier is irreparable. His genius and character did 

 work a kind of fusion, or, at least, commanded respect. The doctri- 

 naires dared not oppose him, though he gave them no employ. And 

 Dupin could but show ill humour, without letting it assume the acer- 

 bity of opposition. 



Where Louis Philippe, however, was decidedly and irrevocably 

 wrong was, that, although knowing the counsellors around him to be 

 mere men of straw, he still listened to their adulatory and absurd 

 councils, and dared to take such extra-legal steps, as to declare martial 

 law and place Paris in a state of siege. True although it be, that these 

 measures did not at first excite indignation, except from the sufferers, 

 still, now that people have come calmly to reflect on the coup d'etat, (for 

 it was nothing less) and on the source from whence its author derived 



M. M. No. 82. 2 C 



