250 The French Revolution of July, 1830. [SEPT. 



ground and shake France, the ground teemed with materials of ruin. 

 His own hand flung the match into the mine, and the explosion extin- 

 guished and swept away him and his race for ever. 



Whether the revolution will pause on the height which it has gained ; 

 or whether it will struggle to ascend into some higher region of barren 

 metaphysical government, and take for its guides the republican and 

 atheistic adventurers, who so speedily, in 1797* flung France down into 

 the hands of the fiercest despotism of the modern world, are questions 

 which are to be resolved only by the result. But one conclusion is 

 irresistible ; that if Charles Xth's decrees had been carried into execution, 

 not only Paris, but all France, must have rapidly become a theatre of chains 

 and blood; that the popular spirit would have been persecuted, until 

 every village had its Bastile, its scaffold, and its massacre ; that if the 

 people were successful, the desperate memories of such a time would 

 have inflamed them into ungovernable rage, and sent them like the mad 

 dog, furious, and rushing with their venom through all Europe ; while if 

 the throne, in some hidden wrath of heaven against earth, triumphed, 

 the liberty of nations might count its existence by hours. The 

 example of success in France would stimulate the lurking evil in the 

 breast of all the conspirators against freedom ; with the great idol erected 

 in the heart of France, a hundred idols would be affiliated, until the 

 Moloch of military tyranny reigned, and its rites were celebrated by 

 flinging the miserable multitude into the flames of all its altars. 



It is now beyond all denial, and it is scarcely attempted to be denied, 

 that the French king's intention to overthrow the constitution was 

 known to powerful individuals on the continent long before the expe- 

 riment was made. Whether it were urged; or discountenanced, only for 

 a more fitting opportunity ; whether, with that diplomatic art, which 

 makes the name of diplomacy scandalous, the advice was withheld, 

 though the hint was given, are matters whose revelation cannot be 

 remote, and when it comes, will mark many a proud head for scorn. But 

 the great question which Englishmen must ask is, whether the British ca- 

 binet were aware of the plot ? and being aware, willingly suffered it to 

 make progress to its fearful catastrophe ? If his Grace of Wellington and 

 his clerks were in the dark upon such a subject, what are we to think 

 of their sagacity ? What is the use of the 50,000 a year secret service 

 money? What is the use of my Lord Stuart's 12,000 a year, besides 

 " outfit, house, allowances," and the other unaccountable items that make 

 up the price of that polite and virtuous noble Lord's services ? What is 

 the value of our having a troop of diplomatic coxcombs sauntering 

 through the purlieus of the Palais- Royal, and making themselves the 

 scorn of one half of the population, and the dupes of the other ? 



But if the British Cabinet did know it, what are we to think of them? 

 What may be the essential texture of a cabinet minister's brains, such as 

 they are in the year 1830, we have no desire to examine. But if we took 

 the first dozen men we met in the street, and asked them what must be 

 the consequence of an attempt of the French King to extinguish the 

 charter ? The answer would inevitably be " Blood ! the people will 

 go to war with the government soon or late. If they attack the govern- 

 ment at once, and by main force, or if they oppose it in detail and at in- 

 tervals, in all cases there will be blood. For the people will resist, and 

 vengeance will be let loose on both sides, until either tyranny triumphs, 

 and the example of the French is a stronghold for tyranny all over 



