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Untitled Article
opposition , and by being the first to oppose . It has long lost its influence in Parin , and is daily losing it in the Departments , We have placed the Coustitutionnel first , because it is impossible to classify it aa belonging to any particular set of
opinions ; because it has nothing of its own , but contents itself with echoing the general feelings , without being bound to them ; because , in fact , it does not unfurl the flag of any party , but merely serves as a rallying-poiut to the stragglers of every shade of opinion .
We shall be obliged to adopt a different system with the other journals , and we shall arrange them in such a way as will enable our readers to understand their present position . But we must first make a few preliminary observations in order that we may be fully understood .
The last revolution was not a purely political one 5 some mistaken and narrow-minded men may persuade themselves that the people rose to maintain a charter about which they knew nothing , to punish illegalities which hurt them not ; in a word , that it was an insurrection against the ordinances in the Moniteur . There are some miserable politicians who deceive themselves and others by such absurdities .
At the time that these mistaken people suppose that we have only changed a cockade , a king , and a ministry , the 29 th of July opeued to the eyes of most reasonable men a new horizon . When they surveyed the city fortified in a manner capable of destroying a million of soldiers in a single day , and saw the ragged conquerors , their ardent eyes , and heaving breasts ; and entered the
Louvre , filled by the populace , and strewed with the bodies of the Royal Guard , the finest troops in Europe , the truth of the people ' s power was at once revealed to them . This was not only a political revolution , but it was also the commencement of a new state of society . A few days after , the cannon of Brussels announced that another pillar of the old social edifice had been crumbled into
dust . Next the German empire , that magnificent ruin of the old feudal times , began to totter . Iu England we find the populace agitated by theories ; the extreme misery of the people exciting systematic incendiaries , v more for the purpose of obtaining bread than their political rights ; the mob orators dictating to parliament ; the Tories more narrow-minded than ever ; the Whigs eagerly looking for place ; the people , in
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line , unprotected by the Jaws , becoming formidable : in this situation nothing but long habit preserves order , and every one is looking with anxiety towards the future . * At last Poland , awakening from its long sleep , trusted its future destiny and independence to the old swords of its ancestors . And every where the people looked on with a sympathetic eye , and encouraged each other in their new career . Insurrection shewed itself in a
thousand forms , and kings were attacked by the people and defended by the aristocracy . The wonderful coincidence of all these events plainly shews that the world has advanced one step nearer to its final state , a pure democracy . But , as is the case in all political and social reforms , one party wishes to turn back and regain those privileges which time has deprived them of ; another is
desirous to remain at that point at which humanity has arrived ; and others , again , are resolved to continue advancing towards that new era which the people have discovered . The principles of those who would retrograde , of those who would remain where we now are , and of those who would still proceed in the career of improvement , are the standards under which parties now range themselves .
It is from this point of view that we must examine the journals which serve as the organs of each . Two journals only represent the retrograde principle , the Gazette and Quotidienne . We shall presently have to speak of the Gazette , which has always been
edited with considerable talent ; at present its plan is to look upon the revolution as a settled affair , as a consequence of the faults of legitimacy ; it only now opposes the present powers by perpetually defying them to establish any thing durable or excellent . Skilful in
shewing its reminiscences , it seeks , in the life of tho . se who have made themselves great upon the ruin of the restoration , for every contradictory opinion , in order to injure them in public esteem . This is an easy task , and perhaps a superfluous one . Most of the old wrecks of all the Regime have but little to lose iu this respect .
The Quotidierme , which is not remarkable for any merit in its management , ia particularly so for the absurdity which reigns throughout the expression of its opinions . Its columns are filled with
* This passage must have been written in December or January , before the Whigs had so nobly redeemed their character .
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Critical Notice * . —Miscellaneous . 3 & £
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1831, page 399, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2598/page/39/
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