CAREER OF LOUIS PHILIPPE AS A SOVEREIGN.

BY J. WARD.

WE shall pass over the incidents of the fallen monarch's early life, which everybody is presumed to know,-his long and bitter trials, which everybody commiserates, - the wisdom and sagacity which experience was said to have taught him, and which everybody used to extol, - and place ourselves in his presence on the eve of his ascending the throne of France, the facts connected with which are known to few, although they form the keystone to his after-life.

On the 31st of July, 1830, we were detained for an hour at Auxerre, on our road from Lyons to Paris. We had left much excitement behind at Lyons; but as we approached the metropolis the storm visibly increased. At Melun the whole population, men, women, and children, were anxiously looking out for the diligence southward. The definitive success of the revolution was known, but not the form into which the government would be resolved. The people were not only prepared for a republic, but expected it; and when the conducteur of the diligence informed them that the Duke of Orleans had accepted the lieutenance générale of the kingdom, they were evidently surprised, disappointed, and mortified.

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But, how had Monsieur le Conducteur obtained his information, for he had by some hours anticipated the dénouement? It was not until the noon of the day that Louis Philippe and Lafayette came to an understanding; and up to the last moment the people in Paris were in the dark. How did it happen that the "coming event cast its shadow before" at a distance of fifty miles from Paris, while the Parisians themselves had no apprehensions of it? They do not appear even to have suspected such an event, until they Louis Philippe escorted by the deputies to the Hôtel de Ville, and even then they did not know in what capacity they were to recognise him. His reception was so cold and doubtful, that he well might have dreaded the début he was about to make as a king. Had there been one audacious demagogue to shout a velo upon his nomination to the throne, he would have been undone, for the public felt that they were about to be deceived. But the clap-trap was all on his side. Lafayette waved over his head the flag of the old republic, and the giddy people believed that by this idle spell he had reconciled monarchy with democracy. A bargain so lightly made was not likely to be much respected on either side, and it was soon broken.

That Louis Philippe had long speculated upon a possible revolution, which would offer him a chance of the crown, there can be no question. His close intimacy with the republicans, and the support which he lent to their cause both in purse and person, are facts known to all. For this he must have had some strong motive-love of his country, or love of the house of Orleans. That he had narrowly watched the conduct of the Hôtel de Ville committee during the three "days of July," is evident from the errors which he has since committed, and the false conclusion which he drew from their want of spirit and decision on that occasion. However ready the populace of France may be to precipitate them

selves into a revolution, her professed politicians have usually shewn much caution in mistaking treason for patriotism; and in 1830 they especially betrayed a want of unanimity and decision. On the 26th of July, M. Laborde called a meeting at his own house, at which, with a few others, he contended for proclaiming the people absolved from their allegiance, by the King's violation of the charter; but M. Perier, on the contrary, maintained that, in point of strict law, the obnoxious ordonnances might be reconciled with the letter of the constitution. It was neither their privilege nor their duty to assert either the will or the rights of the people. He was for leaving the King and the people to fight the quarrel out between themselves. He and other leaders (?) of the people were content to hold what he termed une position superbe ; but they kept aloof from the struggle, and contended that all would be lost if they abandoned the strict line of legality. This was a very convenient doctrine to preach.

M. Lafayette now appeared on the stage (on the 28th); but even his enthusiasm could not warm the sang froid of his colleagues. Guizot, Sebastiani, Dupin, and others, still refused to stir without the pale of the law, and dared not venture to compromise their own safety. They lingered on the safe side of the line of demarcation between loyalty and rebellion, afraid of quitting the neutral position of mediation; and even the greatness which they were destined to achieve in the course of the next twenty-four hours was thrust upon them by one of the most singular hoaxes on record. An ingenious person, M. Berard, conceived that the people would be much more animated in their proceedings, if they had the semblance of some authority to back them; and he, therefore, boldly announced an imaginary provisional government of his own creation, consisting of Generals Lafayette and Gerard, and the Duc de Choiseul. This government of course had no existence; but the people believed in it, and their faith gave a new impulse to their fury, which before had betrayed some symptoms of exhaustion. The troops reeled under the shock-the throne trembled; and when Perier and Guizot saw what a charm there was in the name of a provisional government, though a fictitious one, they no longer withheld their assent from the formation of a real one.

There can be little doubt as to Louis Philippe being minutely informed of the vacillation and timidity of the liberal hommes d'état of France during the three days; and he must have been excessively provoked by the want of decision and spirit which kept him so long in suspense about his chance of the crown. Nor must we be surprised that, once safely seated on the throne (as he thought), he should ever afterwards feel a certain degree of contempt for them. He must have seen that he had little to fear from them, if he could manage the people by finesse and force; and he appears to have thought that the people themselves had only been successful against Charles, because they had been deluded into an unmerited confidence in their leaders, which was not likely to be repeated after their sorry performances in the great drama of July. His error consisted in not perceiving that he would be a loser instead of a gainer by the alienation of the people from such milk-and-water conspirators; that, if these men had retained their hold upon the confidence of the people, the proved incapacity of the former for

organizing another revolution, and their personal fears of the consequences of such an experiment, would have been the best guarantee of his security. He did not reflect that the people, on another occasion, might have other leaders, men more uncompromising and audacious, who would have much less to risk, and much more to gain, by a bold dash at the government than the hesitating gentlemen of the Hôtel de Ville.

The coalition of the republicans and legitimists against Louis Philippe commenced almost from the very first day of his reign; but it was effectually crushed in the émeute of 1832. The Duc de Broglie, Lafitte, and Perier had then successively essayed the task of forming a firm administration; but they had all failed, and Lafitte, hopelessly excluded from the cabinet while the king ruled it, began openly to organize an agitation for a republic. One hundred and forty deputies assembled at his house, and signed a compte rendu of their objects, but prudently confined themselves to constitutional means for their achievement. There were so many disturbing forces in action at that period, that it is impossible to define clearly the share which this compte rendu had in producing the out break at the funeral of Lamarque; but, although warrants were issued against M. Garnier Pagès and others of the party, it is quite certain that they abstained from personal compromise, as they did in 1830. Nothing could be brought home to them, and it is fair to assume that they did not know exactly what they intended to do.

From this time Louis Philippe threw off all affectation of attaching the republicans to his dynasty. He felt satisfied that he estimated their courage and power rightly; and, with this impression on his mind, as he had nothing to fear from them, he left them nothing to hope from him. Had he conducted himself otherwise towards them, it is possible that the republicans might have died away, as the Carlists did, in the subsequent ten years; but having declared his final separation from them, they boldly declared their utter detestation both of his principles and his ingratitude.

Louis gave a last audience to the republican leaders, MM. Lafitte, Arago, and Odillon Barrot; but it was not to reason with or soothe them. Paris was, at the moment, in a state of siege; the roar of artillery and the shrieks of the people were a fitting introduction to the conversation which ensued; and the monarch himself had just returned from the conflict animated by the consciousness of victory. Odillon Barrot began by deploring the fatal disorders which had taken place, and begged the King to put an end to the effusion of blood. Louis appeared unmoved, except that a flush of triumph passed over his brow, when Barrot assumed a different tone. "Deplorable as these disorders were," he desired to add, "the people were fully excused by the conduct of the government, which seemed to have forgotten the principles of July, and whose meanness had not only led to the calamities, but would lead eventually to anarchy and civil war." The King asked him to be precise, and explain intelligibly what he wanted. Barrot replied, "That he and his friends had come to implore the king to silence the cannon, which were even then hurling destruction among the citizens, and to prevent further calamities by an immediate and complete return to the principles which had placed him on the throne."

"No," replied the king, haughtily, "audaciously attacked by my

enemies, I am only exercising my legitimate right of self defence. The time is come, gentlemen, when the principle of revolt must be put down; and I employ cannon only to have done with it the sooner. As to the pretended engagements and republican pledges, into which it is said I entered at the Hôtel de Ville on the day of my accession, I know not what they mean. I have overfulfilled all the promises I made, and revived more than enough of republicanism in the institutions of the state. Those pledges exist only in the imagination of M. Lafayette, who is certainly under some delusion."

Barrot said that he was sorry to hear that they had all been under a delusion, and that he saw no hope of repose for France unless the administration was entrusted to those in whom they could confide.

"That is another delusion," retorted the king. "You blame my ministers; but it is unjust to give them either the blame or the praise of the system which I have followed. It is my own; the result of my own experience and reflection. It is founded on the principles upon which I would have consented to take the crown; and they shall hash me in a mortar before I will abandon it."

The two most arbitrary sovereigns by whom France had ever been ruled, Louis the XIV. and Napoleon, never asserted greater pretensions than did Louis Philippe at the meeting we have just described. Louis the XIV. had his mot, l'état c'est moi; Napoleon copied it, je suis l'état; and Louis Philippe very closely imitated it when he answered, je suis le gouvernement.

"Don't trouble yourself about my ministers, gentlemen," quoth the monarch, "if there is anything wrong, it is I am the author of it."

The king, however, and his friends of the "Three days" stood in a wrong relation to each other from the first. The latter never could divest themselves of the idea that Louis was under a personal obligation to them for his throne, and, presuming too much upon this, they soon made themselves disagreeable at Court. They hoped, also, to gain something for themselves by the revolution, and what were the loaves and fishes at the king's disposal-though in France the government is not without patronage-among so many? They also considered themselves entitled not only to beg, but, more odious still, to advise. Louis might have borne with their importunities, but their impertinences were intolerable; he became disgusted, and shook them off, to use M. Sarran's expession, "to starve under the eye of a throne of which they were the pedestals." Still, he did not behave well; he could not, because his professions of principle, and still more his promises of personal favours, had excited expectations which it was out of his power to fulfil.

After the suppression of the émeute in 1832, Louis reigned with tolerable comfort for nearly four years. He played with Dupin, but found him untractable. The crotchety lawyer refused to be made a political machine. Louis Philippe next tried his hand upon Soult, whose discipline under Napoleon, rendered him more manageable. With Guizot, Thiers, and Broglie, a working cabinet was formed, which struggled through many difficulties, until 1835, when the oppressive" laws of September " against the press were enacted, and the fall of the ministry was consummated.

From '35 to '40, when the re-establishment of Guizot in power was permanent, the government of Louis Philippe was continually in dif

ficulties and dangers; but it is very evident that the king designedly contributed more to its embarrassment than any other person. He consented that M. Molé should try the experiment of conciliation, but with the thorough conviction that it would fail, and that the repressive system would then be submitted to as the only possible system of governing the country. How much secret service money was distributed by M. Molé's coadjutors, Montalivet and Salvandy, in the work of conciliation has never been made known; but if we are to judge by the sum which M. Guizot required when he took the administration out of their hands, they had rendered it impossible for any minister to manage the chambers without the grossest corruption. M. Guizot, indeed, boldly challenged the chamber of deputies to answer whether it was possible for him to command a majority of their votes unless they granted him a supply of money for the purchase of them, and the chamber with unblushing effrontery answered the question in the negative by voting the sum required. Before a body could so disgrace itself in the face of Europe, venality must have come to be considered as a privilege; and there can be little doubt, that, in addition to the enormous sums which the chambers voted for their own corruption, the King, from his immense private resources as well as his exorbitant civil list, materially assisted his Ministers in the work of political prostitution.

We now arrive at the last link in that long chain of corruption which Louis Philippe had so industriously forged for accomplishing his political aims. When M. Guizot seized the reins of power the political atmosphere was completely tainted, no man could breathe freely, or assume an independent attitude, every one felt afraid, as all were conscious of having received, directly or indirectly, some favour from the reigning influence of the day. Men viewed each other with distrust, as no one knew to what extent they were individually compromised; but all felt a conviction that they were not sinless and untainted.

During the latter years of his reign, Louis Philippe affected little secrecy in the uses to which his enormous resources were applied for strengthening and extending the dynasty of his family; and it is some palliation for his seeming selfishness, in letting his servants down the wind when he had done with them, that few of them had done anything for him which they had not been paid for beforehand. Under such a system as this, so rotten at the core, can we wonder that the ex-monarch had scarcely one friend in his extremity? But he had sown the seed, and he had no alternative but to reap the harvest.

We have not space to detail the arts and contrivances by which Louis Philippe attempted to establish his dynasty. Every observing and reflecting man in Europe foresaw that Louis Philippe's system could at the utmost only last his own time, even if he did not precipitate its destruction by some blunder of his own. Society in France was becoming so thoroughly disorganised that it could not be held together when relieved from the pressure of his own hand, even could he have maintained his grasp during his life-time. Its reconstruction by a revolution had become a social necessity which must have been obeyed within the next ten years, and it adds something to the force of the lesson that he should have survived to witness the catastrophe of a drama in which he played so important a part.