On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
" The cold , negative , destroying work of scepticism was completing under French influence , flourishing with French influence , some twenty-four years ago , when firjst I felt that life was ' a battle and a march . It has lef t behind , still weighing like an incubusi on the heart of . the nation , a gigantic corpse , aping life . But everybody in Italy knows that it is a corpse ; and there it lies in hia state robe on his state ^ coffin , called . a throne , with a death ^ scroll in his hand , signed « Gaeta , ' from which no glittering of French or Austrian bayonets can dazzle our quick Italian eye away . To What kind of scepticism does M . Mazzini here allude ? The only kind of " scepticism" the France of our times has studied to propagate , is the same which ,
sprung from Luther , broke the papal mask , dethroned men-made gods , confounded hypocrisy , extinguished the flames of the Inquisition , threw down false idols , and proclaimed , with one and the same voice , liberty of conscience and the rights of the human mind . Ah ! it will be to the everlasting honour of France to have declared herself the apostle of that scepticism ; and we may point out to M . Mazzini that the invaders of Ttaly , the French accomplices of the high criminals of Gaeta , poured down upon Rome , not as the representatives of that scepticism which I have just described , but , contrariwise , as the saviours of that immense empire of intolerance and superstition , of which for centuries the Pope has been the supreme head , and pontifical Rome
the metropolis . . . But , if the scepticism , whose progress M . Mazzini attributes to French influence , is that which consists in denying all , in destroying all , in placing force above right , in holding nought sacred , in a word , m unbelief , I protest , by the open page of history , that , far from having taken upon herself the odious apostleship of such a scepticism , modern France has repudiated , and with incomparable energy stigmatized it . In what country , indeed , and in what age , has Right been ever more powerfully asserted than in France during the latter years of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth ? In what country and in
what age has the dogma of the mutual responsibility ( solidarity ) of nations been preached with more enthusiasm , and the doctrine of the unity of mankind as the children , of one Father , understood in a more exalted signification ? Follow out that long track of blood from the . barricades of June to the battle-fields of the first French revolution , and say if , at any point of time or of space , in the world ' s history , the religion of humanity was ever attested by more devotion , by more indomitable heroism ? We have , in behalf of France believing , of France full of faith , a whole army of martyrs , known or unknown , who would rise from the dead , if their graves could open , to protest . ion of
Was France alien to the relig humanity , or was she failing in faith , when , to defend the Rights of Man , proclaimed in an immortal declaration , she drew upon herself the fury of all the despots in coalition , and exclaimed by the lips of Isnard , " Let the kings carry war amongst us : we will carry liberty home to them ? " Was France sceptical or selfish , when in that December month of 1791 , the Jacobins decided that the three flags of France , England , and the United States should be suspended from the ceiling of their hall , and when they placed the bust of Price side by side with the bust of Jean Jacques—the bust of Sidney by the side of those of Mably and of Franklin ? Was she sceptical , when , forgetting Cr 6 cy , Poitiers ,
Azincourt , and many centuries of murderous rivalry , she exchanged with the envoys of the British people vows of eternal amity ; and that , too , at the very moment when Burke was launching against the young energies of the Revolution his insulting and furious pamphlets ? " But the union ( writes Michelet ) would have appeared incomplete , if our mothers , our wives—the mediators of tlio heart—had not come to marry the nations , and to join them hand to hand . They brought a touching pledge—their own labour . They had , themselves and their daughters , embroidered for the Englishmen three flags , the cap of liberty , the tri-colour cockade . All these emblems were linked together in an arch of alliance , with the Constitution , the new map of France , the fruits of the land of Franoe , ears of corn ! Holy
trustfulness of our forefathers I " Shall it bo said that the soul of France is sadly changed ? What ? Even in the roign of Louis Philippe , when the government was exhausting its powers in detestable offorts to etifle under the weight of industrialism all oxaltod faith and every noble aspiration , I remember to have soon ono of those spectacles of which a heart strongly moved preserves the image for ever . Ono day , at Paris , the boulevards , the streets , the public places were crowded with people . Thousands of men were there , wearing black crape upon
their arms , as a sign of moupnng ; consternation was painted on every countonanco ; thoro were many in that crowd who wept . What , then , had happened ? What national calamity had stricken us ? In a distant country , very far away , Right hiul succumbed to Might—the tidings of the fall of Warsaw had just como 1 Is this a nation paralyzed with scepticism , to bo capable of that lofty solicitude , of those anxieties , of that majestic sorrow ? And , sliico the name of Louis Philippe falls under my pon » I munt needs reoul the true onuses of hia dieantrous , end . That Prlnoo ww » gifted , with incontestable
having been overthrown , almost like dropping loose from a branch without a breath of wind to stir the leaves ! No 1 it is not true that the cold , negational , destructive work of scepticism has been completed under French influence , under the influence of a country which , within the space of half-a-eeritury has engendered that band of lofty minds , gained at once , or soon won over to the religion which M . Mazzini worships . From whom , then , springs that work of scepticism , cold , negational , destructive , " due to French influence ?" . Would you impute it , peradventure , to the two Chemers , to Chateaubriand , to Jouffroy , to Lamennais , to Michelet , to Edgar Quinet , to Felix Pyat , to Lamartine , or to Victor Hugo , to Eugene Sue , or to George Sand ? Would you makeit the cr ime of Socialism ?—of Socialism , Imean , studied , not in
rotten fruit qualities : his domestic virtues were of a nature to command respect ; he was not wanting in enlightened perceptions ; he was humane ; liberty under his reign had not , after all , received mortal wounds , and the bourgeoisie was indebted to him for the repose it so dearly prized . How was it , then , that , in 1848 , not a man rose up to defend him ? Whence comes it that he was overthrown in a few minutes , with a gesture and a shout ? If is that he had consumed eight years in struggling against all that there was of chivalrous , against all that , in the highest acceptation of the word , may be called religious , in the genius of France . He was not a believer in the religion of humanity : he was a sceptic . That was his crime , in the eyes of France , and that is why his power fell , so to speak , without
the disgraceful libelsof the Rue de Poitiers , or in the antisocialist works of Proudhonj but in Pierre Leroux , its philosopher , Pierre Dupont , its poet , Lachambeaudie , its fabulist ? Accuse them , if you will , but quote them . What , however , does M . Mazzini say concerning the productionswhich , withoutdoubt , he holds to have exercised that injurious influence which he has just denounced ? He expresses himself thus : —" All those reactionary , short-sighted , impotent conceptions , which have cancelled in France all bond of moral unity , all power of self-sacrifice , and have , through intellectual anarchy and selfish terror , led to the cowardly acceptance of the most degrading despotism that ever was . " I know
that there are many , in these last days , strongly disposed to judge of France , as she is , by the facility with which Louis Napoleon accomplished his abominable purpose . Paris was the victim of an ambuscade , a masterpiece of perfidy , cruelty , and audacity ; and since , thanks to our fatal system of administrative centralization , who holds Paris , holds France , France is a nation without courage , sceptical , materialist , degraded , henceforward incapable of devotion , and unworthy of liberty . Thus do these people reason . Not so fast , gentlemen ! Do not be in such haste to compose the funeral oration of a country like France . Be assured , she is destined to give to the world far other surprises than this last !
It is now some years since I wrote at the conclusion of my History of Ten Tears , the following lines" God forbid , nevertheless , that we should despair of our country ! There are peoples , stiff and inflexible , as it were , who may not inaptly be compared to the heavy cavaliers of the middle ages , cased all in iron ; those men were hard to wound through their thick armour , but once brought to the ground , they could not rise again . Different is France , whose strength is
combined with marvellous suppleness , and which seems ever young . What unexampled , indescribable fatigues has it not resisted ! From 1789 to 1815 , it has gone through fits of intestine wrath , endured sufferings , and accomplished labours sufficient to exhaust the most vigorous nation . It did not die for all that ; and in 1830 , after fifteen years of apparent lassitude , its blood was found to have been renovated . Yes , France is made to live many lives . She bears within her wherewith to astonish men under various and unforeseen
aspects . Never had people ( to use Montaigne ' s expression , speaking of Alexander ) a beauty illustrious under so many visagea ? Has not France proved herself adequate to parts the most diverse and the most brilliant ? Has she not been , successively , the Revolution and the Empire ? " Why should we bo discouraged ? The evil comes of an error which it is bo easy to repair 1 Who can believe that the bourgeoisie Avill obstinately persist in its infatuation ? Itself , the natural guardian of the people , can it possibly persevere in distrusting it as an onemy ? Those who urge the bourgeoisie to this courso , docoive it , and are preparing to enslave it ; by dint of making it afraid of the people , it has been blinded to the sense of its own dangers . They are not so much at its foot as above its head and around it . Lot it look to thin !"
These words contained two prophecies , the one of happy , the other of niinntor import , and both of thorn have been accomplished . In the first place , tho Revolution of 1848 camo , to prove how much of lifo and energy thoro still remained in Franco . And , again , tho KuocoHS of Louis Napoleon ' s last orimo has but too cruelly demonstrated tho reality of those porils to which the bourgcoisichm constantly oxpoaed itself whonovor , blinded by imbeoilo terrors which its own enemies assiduously spread before it , it lias separated its cause from that of the People It is in this , and not in the absence of " ftU power of flelf-sftori . fi . oe , " that wo shall
find the phildsbphic explanation of what it was that gave Louis Bonaparte the hardihood of assured imbn nity . Taken in the snare of atrocious calumnies against Socialism , the bourgeoisie has been afraid of the People ; it has had the folly to see no thing in 1352 but the era of pillage and murder ; it has thrown it self desperately into the most positive r ealities of despotism , 'to escape from-a vain , phantom of anarchy that has been dressed up before its very eyes . And for its part , the people , insulted every day by the official saviours of the bourgeoisie , robbed of universal suffrage , and treated as " the vile multitude , " hesitated to choose between the victory of General Changarnier
and that of Louis Bonaparte , as one would hesitate between two scourges equally to be dreaded . History will say , moreover , that the coiip-d'Stat was an infamous surprise ; that , twenty times disavowed with hypocritical solemnity by him who meditated it , it had almost ceased to be expected ; that it was announced by a proclamation / in terms which , alas ! were well calculated to deceive the people ; that the chiefs had been arrested in the night , and that on the morrow Paris awoke surrounded , her streets filled with cannons ; that the communications were everywhere cut off , and consultation rendered impossible
that for a long time the Faubourgs had been disarmed , complet ely disarmed , and that the people had only their naked limbs to oppose to the artillery and the loaded muskets of 120 > 000 soldiers , possessed by the fury of intoxication ; that , in spite of this , barricade s were constructed , and that > with the sole object of protesting with their blood against the Napoleonic crime , some of the Republicans rushed . to death , knowing that they could not conquer . Is this the act of a people degenerate , debased , sunk in the abyss of materialism and scepticism ? Ah , it has soon been forgotten that , scarcely three years have passed since
that-same people of Paris , to whom has been denied " power of self-sacrifice , " roused itself in a burst of the most intrepid enthusiasm ; and gave to the world the spectacle of a battle , the causes and results of which indeed may be deplored , but of which no one can at least deny the funereal grandeur . Surely it was hot a merely materialist interest which armed the people in June , 1848 . I myself saw in ^ the vestibule of the National Assembly , by the side of flags on which were traced the terrible words " Bread or lead" [ JDu pain ou du plomb ] , other flags raised on the barricades , which bore the most touching devices . On the doors of the closed shops the people had written , " Respect for property : " and many of these inscriptions might
still have been read on the ruins of the Faubourg St . Antoine after tho insurrection , f JDu XHiin ou dtb plomb , " "To live by labour or io die fighting" [ Fmw entravaillant ou mouriren combattanf]—such ) I acknowledge , were the prevailing ideas among the insurgents . But what then ? Is there , forsooth , in the right of speech , or in the right of written thought , something more sound , more sacred , than in that right to live , which involves all others ? Besides , let us remember how many of them fought on that occasion—not in the name of their own sufferings , but in the name of the sufferingsof their brothers , and in virtue of that " power of self-sacrifice , " which M . Mazzini reproaohes us with
having lost . What history will say , then , will be this , that if in June , 1848 , the people of Paris showed all the courage that can be brought to a field of battle , they had also , three months before , in February , 1848 , shown all the moderation that can be displayed after a victory . For there is one incident that never can be effaced from the memory of man—it was by a hundred thousand famished men , armed to the teeth , that , at that period , the Paris of the rich was guarded . There was not a soldier , there was not a scrgentde-ville left m the rnnifnl ; Tti « n in rnnm fltnnrl n , a sentinels at the gates 01
their calumniators . Was there , at that period , » single threat ?—was a single cry of vengeance mmgiea with the outcries of the people ? When the punisnment of death was abolished , was there a single protestation ? If such are the effects of the cold , negative , destructive socialistic doctrines attributed to . Kronen influence , it must be granted that no effects were oyei more strange ; and if M . Mazzini regards this as t «" proof that " every bond of moral unity" has been 01 necessity broken for ever in France by the preening of Socialism , then words have another sense for mm than for us . , 5-But tho monstrouvote that has consecrated W *™ uio monstrouvoiu i
" s j > us o wnu »«* n w """ - — -- , . * Bonaparte ' s outrage ? " I deny that vote ; and 1 asm there has been any possibility in France of V * & t oven of assertingthattheroturns producedwero tlioi " unscrupulous of falsehoods . At tho timo that «* w fraudulent returns wore impudently paraded about , w could have dared togive them thohe , even ? ° n °° P ™ jJ in a private letter , when the seoresy of letters w oponly violated , and when the threat of de P " l tion i suspended over every man ' s head ? Just now the iru is boginning to appear ; facts and proofs have co" > light , and all concur in establishing , beyond a douo , that falsehood ,, reduced to a system , has from tlie " »
formed ono half of that plan of Louis uan » v ™ £ js which violenoo is tho fitting complomont . vv » : ignorant that , in tho first days of the e&up-d Utah had the inconceivable effrontery to place on tho u » hia adherents men whom , « t that very momen t ,
Untitled Article
172 ' ; THE DEADER . ^^ ma ^
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 21, 1852, page 172, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1923/page/8/
-