RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE STATE OF EUROPEAN POLITICS, ESPECIALLY OF GERMANY, SINCE THE LAST CONGRESS OF VIENNA.

BEFORE proceeding with our Register of Events, it will be necessary, in order that our readers may understand clearly the present condition of public affairs in Europe, and to enable them to keep pace with the progress of political events in that most important quarter of the world,—to take a glance at the existing state of its various nations, with such a retrospective view of their recent history as will suffice to exhibit the causes of that predominance of liberal opinions, which is so potently exhibited in every political movement of our time.

No sooner was the Corsican lion overpowered, and the great, but degenerate, representative of the French revolution trodden in the dust, than the same princes who, in Paris, had sued for the permission of wearing crowns, and plundering and selling the remnant of their subjects, assembled at the Congress of Vienna, to deliberate on the fate of Europe. England and the continent joined in exultation at the humil iation of the tyrant, whose eagle-bannered legions had been the terror of kings, and the woe and desolation of the people. But in the convulsive struggle of Europe against one man, whose great historic crime was the impious audacity with which he attempted to convert the principles of democracy, that had brought him into power, into a delusive phantom of military glory, for the re-establishment of a Byzantinic empire, there were employed elements which could only act in concert on the spur of the moment, to avert a common danger, and must needs have assumed a mutually hostile attitude, from the moment they were again left to their fate. England had nobly fought for conservative principles,-for her lords and bishops; the nations on the continent had been thirsting for liberty, and were quenching their thirst with the blood of unfortunate France.

When Napoleon had trampled on freedom and law, it was for the princes of Europe to drag them from under his feet, and exhibit them to the people as their household gods, to fire them with indignation at their bloody invader. So far had the "child of revolution" been untrue to his mission, that even Austria could say to her myrmidons, "the liberty of Europe has taken refuge under your banners,❞—that the Czar of the Moscovites could be taken for the genius of freedom, and Cosacks, and Tartars, be hailed as her glorious van. The great usurper was hurled from his throne; but eternal justice did not suffer one of the guilty princes, who were then deluding the enthusiasm of their people, to earn that advantage from his fall which, in their eagerness for uncontrolled sovereignty, they had vainly hoped to derive from it. The English ministry and the holy alliance imagined they had destroyed the germ of democracy, because they had plucked out the weed which grew on its soil, little heeding the immortality of principles, proved on every page of universal history.

As soon as the Congress of Vienna met, the people began to undeceive themselves They became aware of their true position. They found that they had changed the gorgeous despotism of the great Emperor for the pusillanimous tyranny of their own sordid princes; the humiliating necessity of obeying the mandate of a foreign dictator, for the abject condition of domestic slaves. The seed of liberty, which the Germans had sown on the battle-fields of Leipsic and Hanau, tilled with their swords, and moistened with their blood, had indeed sprung up and borne fruit; but their kings carried off the harvest.

So completely was the principle of representation—the basis of every democracy— excluded from the Congress of Vienna, that the rumour of a deputy of the German merchants having arrived at that capital, gave to Prince Metternich no small degree of uneasiness; and it was with the utmost difficulty this diplomatist could be pre

vailed upon to allow professor List,* the deputy in question, to stay a few weeks in the imperial city. The friends of liberal principles were not even permitted to be present when their doom was spoken. The police officers were strictly enjoined not to sign their passports, and to admit no stranger into the city whose moral and political principles were not endorsed by two persons of unquestionable faith and property. Patriotism, that magic which had created their armies and taught them to conquer Napoleon, ceased to be a virtue, or was perverted into a RELIGIOUS attachment to kings and princes; while the demand for representative forms of government was decried as leading to fresh revolutions and to anarchy.

Above all things, it was the policy of the members of that memorable Congress to destroy the national impulse which had been imparted to Germany, and to lead the people of that country back to their local attachments, their love of home, and their enervating zeal for transcendental philosophy;—enervating, because the Germans of the present day exhibit the singular phenomenon of a great nation, enfeebled not by vice and corruption, not by the want of religion or the decline of domestic virtue, but by an inordinate application to learning, which absorbs every faculty of their minds, and saps the energy of their character. In this undertaking, Prussia and Austria were particularly successful; but in the rest of Germany, and especially in the provinces bordering on the Rhine, a different spirit began to manifest itself, which could no longer be spell-bound by the declamation of hired scribblers, or a sordid mockery of paternal affection on the part of nobles and princes. That part of Germany, therefore, was to be placed under the tutelage of Austria and Prussia, the best preparatory schools for the despotism of the Northern Czar. The crumbling ruins of the Germanic empire were for this purpose collected into a confederation, at which Austria and Prussia presided, not as German States, but as European powers, which might give weight and strength to their arguments by the number of their bayonets. The minor princes of the empire, it is true, were permitted to introduce into their states certain constitutional forms of government; but the liberties granted to their subjects were just sufficient to embarrass the administration of those countries, without ensuring to them the possession of any fixed and determined rights, and served only to make those princes the more dependent on the generosity and assistance of their treacherous allies. They were thus not only rendered incapable of offering the least assistance against the aggressions of the northern powers, but became also odious to their own people, as the base instruments of foreign despotism.

And what was the reward of the German people for the thousand sacrifices of

* Professor List, was afterwards obliged to flee from his country. He arrived in the United States nearly simultaneously with General Lafayette in 1824, distinguished himself, shortly after, by the publication of his Principles of Political Economy, and is now Consul of the United States, in the city of Leipsic in Saxony.

† Prince Pozzo di Borgo, in his "Memoire sur l'état et l'avenir de l'Allemagne, écrit sous la direction d'un ministre à St. Petersbourgh, et communiqué confidentiellement à plusieurs gouvernements Germaniques," published in Paris in 1836, avows openly that even the iron sceptre of Napoleon could not prevent the spreading of liberal ideas in Germany, where they soon established themselves permanently at the universities. "At first," says he, "their fruits were beautiful; for the war for liberty offered opportunities for the manifestation of the purest and loftiest sentiments. The inspiration of the people was as exalted by its noble end as by the moderation by which it was first distinguished. But the events of the following years showed how gravely ministers and princes had been mistaken. The political demands made in most states of the confederation, inmediately after the close of the war, proved, in the clearest manner, that the Germans had taken up arms not only against a foreign despot, but against their own princes."

"True religion," continues the Russian statesman, "composed always one of the principal traits of the German national character. The war of liberation from bondage, therefore, must needs have received a religious consecration. Several politicians, and especially Prince Metternich, were incessantly active to keep up this religious enthusiasm; but although the majority of Germans seemed to be in favour of those public rights which are founded on THEOLOGICAL principles, yet there was a strong and marked opposition to them in several of the most distinguished universities."

Compare Schlosser's inestimable work on the character of Napoleon-"Schlosser zur Beurtheilung Napoleons. Frankfurt am Main 1837."

lives and property during the long war of the revolution?-The establishment of thirty universities was once deemed a compensation for thirty years' war against Ferdinand and the Pope; this time "an improved system of common schools" was considered sufficient to heal the wounds of an hundred unfortunate battles. At the peace of Westphalia, Sweden and France were sharing the spoils, to obtain which, ten millions of German lives had been sacrificed:-after the peace of Paris, the trophies of the Germans were delivered up to Russia. Russia was the only European power which derived a signal advantage from the downfall of the French empire; she obtained by it the dutchy of Warsaw, which, united with France, had been her most formidable antagonist. She opened to herself the road to Turkey and the wealth of India, and acquired a most powerful and pernicious influence on continental politics, especially on that of Germany. England, who had paid nearly twothirds of all the expenses of the war, and who had involved herself in an immense national debt, lost nearly her whole induence on the continent, while the enormous sacrifices she had been obliged to make in order to exclude democratic principles from her dominions, only hastened their speedy introduction. Austria extended her influence over Italy; but the state of her finances, and the annual deficit in her budget, prove sufficiently the enormous rate at which this influence is purchased. Prussia is no longer the mock word of the French, though the words of Béranger,

"En quatre jours on fait une campagne,"

still ring in their ears; but she has become the van-guard of the Russian despot, and, as such, is loaded with the hatred and execration of all Germany.

FRANCE, in the midst of her humiliation, laid the foundation of a better government than that of which she had been deprived by the united efforts of her enemies. The charter of Louis XVIII. contained a better guarantee of her liberty than all the victories of the heroes of the revolution, and was a higher prize paid to the bravery of her soldiers than all the eulogy wasted on Wellington, Blucher, and Schwarzenberg. But as all conquering nations imbibe the manners and customs of the conquered, and, by this means, finally become themselves vanquished, so did the invasion of France do more for the spreading of liberal principles, and the overthrow of monarchy in Europe, than all the victories of the republic; and the doctrines of the revolution were never nearer inflaming the world than when their last representative was retiring from the field.

The armies of the allied powers left France with respect for the manners, customs, and laws of her inhabitants. They had seen more equality in France than they had ever before or after witnessed in their own countries; they had seen the dignity of man respected in the humblest of his species; and their hatred and prejudice against the French, which were constantly nursed by cunning politicians, had gradually yielded to feelings of forbearance and kindness. In short, France, though young and inexperienced in every liberal form of government, abounded, nevertheless, with all the elements of democracy, and had given proof of her deserving to be free, by the readiness with which her children were prepared to die for liberty. Her example was far from being lost even upon Russia; and many a rude warrior, like the crusaders of old, returned home to the confines of barbarism, there to plant the seed of new life and civilization.

The wars of 1814 and 1815 were, indeed, a crusade upon democracy, or what was deemed as leading to it; and the respective princes of the coalition were about as successful in them as their forefathers in the conquest of the Holy Land. Not only were they obliged to surrender all the conquered territory, but they have since been unable to maintain their own, notwithstanding their enormous armies and the repeated but unavailing defeats of their enemies. The ghost of the French revolution is staring them everywhere in the face, whether they look to Italy or Spain, to Portugal or Belgium, France or Poland, England or Germany. Nor is it confined there; it is haunting Turkey and Egypt, convulsing Asia and Africa, and, in its more remote consequences, is even felt in the United States. Herein consists the immortality of principles which, once born to light, cannot, by any carthly power, be deprived

of their action, until they have produced all the ultimate consequences resulting from their single and combined application. No intolerance, no persecution, no martyrdom can prevent their promulgation; and they seem to acquire even an additional momentum from every obstacle they meet on their progress.

What would have been thought of the understanding and foresight of a politician who, at the time of the triumphal entry of Lous XVIII. into Paris, should have told the Duke of Wellington, "Thou, thyself wilt, in less than twenty years, be compelled to pass the Irish Catholic Emancipation Bill; thou wilt see thy military renown eclipsed by thy political errors; thy reputation for sagacity and patriotism plucked by the friends of the people whom thou despisest; thou wilt be a witness of their triumphs when they will carry the Reform Bill; which will put an end to the rotten boroughs, and the election of one-third of the members of the House by the nobility; thou wilt live to see the day on which municipal reform will be introduced into both kingdoms; thou wilt in vain oppose the passing of the Irish Corporation Bill; thou wilt see tithes commuted, the stamp-duty on newspapers reduced, and free bottomry allowed to every British subject. Thou wilt see more than all this: thou wilt see a 'poor Irish beggar'-a man who will prefer eating the bread of charity from his people, to being pampered by kings or nobles-acquire more power and influence on the deliberations of Parliament than the whole House of Lords; and thou wilt see that same Irishman, by the force of his eloquence and the strength of his character, produce throughout the kingdom a revolution in public opinion, which will render the position of the peerage extremely precarious, and call for a reform of the established church!" With what ineffable contempt would the hero of Waterloo have looked down upon such a wizard? And yet all this has come to pass! England has, for the last ten years, made greater progress towards a pure democracy than any other country in Europe. Her nobility, the wealthiest and worthiest aristocracy in the world, is daily losing more of its moral influence in Parliament and on the minds of the people. Its riches and learning-its physical and moral power-will yet for years be felt in the councils of the nation; but it is no longer based upon, and entwined with, the affection and loyalty of the people. It has lost the magic of directing the multitudes and inspiring awe. English politicians may ascribe this change to the preponderance of commercial and manufacturing interests over the landed property of the nobles; they may prove that the floating capital of the nation, which composes the wealth of a commercial people, has, within the last fifteen or twenty years, waxed greater than that invested in real estate, on which rests the towering edifice of English aristocracy, as, indeed, the whole feudal system; but the unprejudiced philosophical observer will view in it the development of principles which affect the form of society throughout the world, and the effects of which are the more perceptible in England, as the elements on which they operate are there more vigorous than in any other country. Twenty revolutions like that of 1688 might have been effected in different countries without imparting to them a common impulse, or changing materially the historical theatre of the world. They might have been tending to correct abuses in their local governments; but they could not have produced that unity of sentiment and singleness of purpose which characterise throughout the liberals of the present school. The French revolution matured principles independent of states and local governments, and for this reason these principles have survived the revolution itself, and the various forms of government suggested for their application in practice. These principles are essentially democratic-aiming at the happiness of the many in opposition to the privileges of the few-and will continue to effect reforms until they shall have produced the greatest good to the greatest number in all countries. Democracy is becoming the political creed of every people in Europe. France officiated as high priest at its baptism; but its confirmation it must receive from Great Britain.

Let us now turn our eyes to France, that land of political miracles and popular credulity, whose people has in scarcely fifty years accomplished the history of five centuries-to that people which is constantly astonishing the world, and has ceased to

be astonished "at itself,” and ask, what has that nation gained by the revolution and the sacrifice of five millions of her citizens? Were we to strike a mere mercantile balance, comparing the revenue and expenditure of the state, the amount of taxation, the condition of the army and navy, and the statistics of her manufactures and commerce, then the gain might indeed be inconsiderable; but if we look upon a nation as representing the aggregate of intelligence and virtue of all the individuals composing it, we must at once admit that France has not only been regenerated by the revolu tion, but that her liberties—inconsiderable as they may appear to the English and Americans are nevertheless resting on the firmest basis on which they can possibly be established in any country-on the determination of the people to be free, and their courage to assert that freedom, in opposition to every moral or physical obstacle.

That the French are yet circumscribed in the exercise of an hundred privileges which belong to freemen, cannot be denied; yet, what statesman would now think it possible to lead the French people back to the state from which they emerged by the revolution? Does Louis Philippe think it possible? Does the Thiers party? Do the Doctrinaires believe it? Does Count Molé speculate on such a possibility? France, it must be admitted, is yet vacillating between republicanism and monarchy; but let us not be deceived by words. The French monarchists of the present day are essentially different from those of the age of Louis XIV. and XV. They support monarchy not from loyalty and attachment to the king; not from a pious acknowledgment of their obligations, or a religious respect for the birth-right of princes, (that, indeed, was invaded by the very succession of Louis Philippe to the throne);— they defend it as a political system which, at the present moment, happens to coincide with the views of the French monarch. This is the reason why the friends of legitimacy are as little disposed to put faith in the present administration of France, as the republicans themselves. The former consider it as a mere surrogate of monarchy; the latter, as a daring political fraud. There exists throughout France little or no devotion to the person of the king, and the interest taken in the preservation of his life is proportionate only to the importance of the changes which would inevitably follow his death. Louis Philippe is the rentier-king of France; and he is himself a stock-broker. He is no longer "king of the barricades;" he is "king of the exchange;" and the principles of his government agree as little with the French character as they promote the great and permanent interests of the nation. He is a king, "That from a shelf the precious diadem stole ;"

and we may safely conclude the quotation, by adding, to "put it in his pocket."

Some ascribe to Louis Philippe uncommon political wisdom; others consider him even a genius: very few, we believe, give him credit for honesty and integrity. If a man's talents be estimated by the adroitness with which he avoids difficulties, then Louis Philippe is unquestionably a great man; but if greatness consist in meeting dangers which honor and justice forbid us to shun; if it be a virtue in a ruler to lead his people onward, and a crime to retard their progress; if the wisdom of a king be estimated not by the immediate, but by the ultimate effects of his government on the social and national condition of his country, then, indeed, Louis Philippe will be found sadly wanting in the scale.

Louis Philippe was called upon to solve one of the most intricate problems in history, and has but deferred its solution. He bade the nation stand still, because he had not the courage to go on with her; and his administration, so far from resting on a firm and popular basis, derives its security only from the weakness of the leaders of the opposition. A dozen such men as Carrel would destroy it in less than a year, and it could not stand a week before the genius of a Bonaparte.

The king of the French seems to have conceived the singular plan of assigning to France a position in the middle, between England and Russia, as remote from the freedom of the one as from the despotism of the other. France shall become the point of indifference between the two extreme principles of liberty and slavery; so that while her own alliance with England shall protect her against the possi