Duchess d'Angoulême. He never hesitated as | employment for your workmen; with the same

to his divine mission, and gave himself out for the prophet of a new religion, the high priest of a new church.

"In literature what a chaos of new and extravagant ideas-what a torrent of absurd revolting madness has burst forth in a short period! It is especially during the last eighteen months, that all men of reflection have become sensible of the reality of our state of perfection; they have seen that the inefficiency of our literary and political character is at least equal to their pride, and nothing more can be said of

them.

ships that your merchants are starving; with the same revenues that you are compelled to sell the royal forests, contract enormous loans, pillage the fund laid aside for the indemnity of individuals, and incessantly increase the floating debt; that it is with peace both within and without that you are obliged to augment the army, and restore all the severity of the conscription. How is it that the ancient dynasty preserved us from so many misfortunes, and the new one has brought us such terrible scourges? I will explain the cause.

"Confidence creates this prosperity of na"One would imagine, in truth, that Provi- tions. Disquietude and apprehension cause dence had intentionally rendered the triumph of the it to disappear. Security, for the future, given Revolutionists so sudden and complete, expressly in or taken away, produces activity or languor, order to open the eyes of those by a new example, to riches or misery, tranquillity or trouble. You whom the first would not suffice. Nothing has con- have made your election for the wrong side of tended against them but the consequence of that alternative, when instead of Right you their own principles, and yet where are they? substitute Might: because Right, which never They have declaimed for fifteen years against changes, bears in itself all the elements of the undue preponderance of the royal authori- stability, while Power, which changes every ty, and the want of freedom; and yet they have day, brings home to every breast the feeling proved by their actions that they could take of instability. I know well, that to the present nothing from that authority, and add nothing triumph of power its leaders strive to annex to that freedom, without plunging us into anar- an idea of right; but it will be just as easy, chy. Follow attentively their reign-their own when the next heave of the revolutionary principles have been sufficient to destroy them, earthquake displaces the present authority, to without the intervention of a human being. clothe that which succeeds it with a similar The first ministry, M. Guizot and the Duke de title to permanent obedience. Every succesBroglio, had the favour of the king, and of the sive party in its turn can rest its pretensions majority in both chambers. Under the Resto- to sovereignty on the authority of the People. ration, a ministry could never have been over- On the other hand, our right of succession turned which stood in such a situation; but depends on an immovable basis. If Charles nevertheless it did not exist three months; X. or Henry V. is on the throne, every one without being attacked it perished; disap- knows that no person can claim the crown on peared in the midst of a tumult. The repres- the same title as that by which they held it: sion of that disorder was the nominal, the prin- but under the present government, how is it ciples of the government itself the real cause. possible to avoid the conviction, that if it The same causes overthrew in a few months pleases 300 persons at Metz or Grenoble to more the succeeding ministry. The adminis- proclaim a republic, or 300 others at Toulouse tration of Casimir Perier had also the support or Bordeaux, Henry V., and if a general stupor, of the king and of the chambers, and no one arising from the weakness of each of the deattacked it; but nevertheless it was compelled partments taken singly, prevents any effectual to purchase a disgraceful and ephemeral exist-resistance, the new government will immedi ence, by the suppression of the hereditary ately acquire the same title to obedience as peerage. Such is the state of this government; that which now fills the throne ?"-St. Chawith all the elements of force it is incapable of mans, 57, 58. governing; with 500,000 men, and an annual budget of 1500,000,000, (64,000,000l.,) which it has at its disposal, it is not obeyed. At Paris, nothing has occurred but revolt upon revolt, which could be suppressed only by abandoning to their fury the Cross, the emblem of Chris-organized anarchy, we may despair of the tianity, the palace of the Archbishop, and the arms of the throne; while in the provinces insurrections have broken out on all sides, sometimes against the authority of the magistrates, sometimes with their concurrence, which have led to such a stoppage of the revenue, as has led to the contraction of debt to the amount of 20,000,000l. a year.

Whence is it, that with the same elements from whence Charles X. extracted so much prosperity, and maintained such perfect peace, nothing can be produced under Louis Philippe but misery and disorder? It is impossible to blink the question; it is with the same capital that industry and commerce are perishing; with the same manufactures that you cannot find

"It is therefore in the principle on which the government is founded, that we must look for the cause of our suffering and our ruin. If to this cause we add the consequences, not less powerful, of a democratic constitution, that is, to an

safety of our country, if it is not destroyed by the seeds of destruction which such a government carries in its bosom. In no country, and in no age, has democracy made a great state prosper, or established it in a stable manner; and even though it should become inured to the climate elsewhere, it would always prove fatal in France. The foundation of the French character is vanity; and that feeling which, under proper direction, becomes a noble desire for illustrators, which has been the source of our military glory, and of our success in so many different departments, is an invincible bar to our essays in democracy, because every one is envious of the superiority of his neighbour, conceives himself qualified for every

sent. That liberty is an object of universal interest; its preservation the source of universal solicitude. I support the extension of that species of liberty to the utmost extent that society can admit; and I would carry it to a much greater length than ever has been imagined by our democrats. I would have every one's property held sacred; his person and estate inviolable, without the consent of his representatives, or the authority of the law; absolute security against forced service of any kind, or against either arrest or punishment, but under the strongest safeguard, for the protection of innocence.

thing, and pretends to every situation."-|without molestation, of one's person and esIbid. 60. tate, and be secure that neither the one nor "The Revolution of 1830 has lighted anew the other will be disquieted without your conthe torch of experience on many controverted points, and I appeal with confidence upon them to the many men of good faith who exist among our adversaries. They seek like us the good of our common country, and the welfare of humanity; they hold that in the Charter there was too little political power conferred upon the people. Let them judge now, for the proof has been decisive. They will find that on every occasion, without one exception, in which political power, unrestrained by strict limits, has been conferred upon the people, personal liberty had been destroyed; that the latter has lost as much as the former has gained. Such an extension of political power is nothing but democracy or supreme authority lodged in the hands of the people. Reflect upon the fate of personal freedom under the democratic constitutions which promised us the greatest possible extension of individual liberty. Was there liberty under the Constituent Assembly, for those who were massacred in the streets, and whose heads they carried on the ends of pikes? Was there liberty for the seigniors whose chateaux they burnt, and who saved their lives only by flight? Was there liberty for those who were massacred at Avignon, or whom the committee of Jacobins tore from the bosoms of their families to con-ruary, 1830, the same principles are laid down duct to the guillotine? Was there liberty for the King, who was not permitted to move beyond the barriers of Paris, nor venture to breathe the fresh air at the distance of a league from the city? No, there was liberty only for their oppressors: the only freedom was that which the incendiaries, jailers, and assassins enjoyed.

"Since the Revolution of July, has there been any freedom for the clergy, who do not venture to show themselves in the streets of Paris, even in that dress which is revered by savage tribes; for the Catholics, who can no longer attend mass but at midnight; for the Judges, who are threatened in the discharge of their duties by the aspirants for their places; for the Electors, whose votes are overturned with the urns which contain them, and who return lacerated and bleeding from the place of election; for the Citizens arbitrarily thrust out of the National Guard; for the Archbishop of Paris, whose house was robbed and plundered with impunity, at the very moment when the ministers confessed in the chambers they could allege nothing against him; for the officers of all grades, even the generals expelled from their situations at the caprice of their inferiors; for the curates of churches, when the government, trembling before the sovereign multitude, close the churches to save them from the profanation and sacking of the mob; for the King himself, condemned by their despotism, to lay aside the arms of his race?"

"These evils have arisen from confounding personal with political liberty; a distiction which lies at the foundation of these matters.

"I call personal freedom the right to dispose,

"The other species of liberty, called Political Liberty, is an object of interest to the great body of the citizens; it consists in the right of taking a part in the government of the state. It cannot affect the great body, because in every country the immense majority can influence government neither by their votes nor their writings. This latter kind of liberty should be restrained within narrow limits, for experience proves it cannot be widely extended without destroying the other."

These observations appear to be as novel as they are important. They are not, strictly speaking, new; for in this Magazine for Feb

and illustrated; and this furnishes another proof, among the many which might be col lected, of the simultaneous extrication of the same original thought, in different countries at the same time, from the course of political events. But to any one who calmly and dispassionately considers the subject, it must be manifest that they contain the true principle on the subject. The difference, as St. Chamans says, between personal and political liberty, or, as we should say in this country, between Freedom and Democracy, is the most important distinction which ever was stated; and it is from confounding these two different objects of popular ambition, that all the misery has arisen, which has so often attended the struggle for popular independence, and that liberty has so often been strangled by its own votaries.

To produce the greatest amount of personal freedom and security with the smallest degree of political power in the lower classes; to combine the maximum of liberty with the minimum of democracy, is the great end of good government, and should be the great object of the true patriot in every age and country. There is no such fatal enemy to Freedom as Democracy; it never fails to devour its offspring in a few years. True liberty, or the complete security of persons, thoughts, property, and actions, in all classes, from injury or oppression, never existed three months under an unrestrained Democracy; because the worst of tyrannies is a multitude of tyrants. The coercion of each class of society by the others;

* French Revolution, No. 2. February, 1830, written by the author.

This lesson would not suffice. The revolutionists saw their despotic rule melting away under the just and equal sway of the Bourbons, and therefore they inflamed the public mind till they got their government overthrown. Despotism of one kind or another instantly returned: that of the National Guard, the Parisian Emeutes, or Marshal Soult's cannoniers, and liberty has been destroyed by the demagogues who roused the people in its name. Thus it ever has been; thus it ever will be to the end of time. Individuals may be instructed by history or enlightened by reflection; the great masses of mankind will never learn wisdom but from their own suffering.

of the impetuosity and vehemence of the po- | words, the equal partition of the means of rispulace and their demagogues by the steadiness ing to glory and distinction in the state."* and weight of the aristocracy; of the ambition and oppression of the aristocracy by the vigour and independence of the commons, is indispensable to the equilibrium of government and the preservation of freedom; but it is precisely the state of things which the revolutionists will ever assail with most vehemence, because it affords the most effectual coercion to their passions and despotic ambition. The spirit of democracy, that keen and devouring element which has produced, and is producing, such ravages in the world, is to the political what fire is to domestic life: Political freedom cannot exist without it, and when properly regulated, it vivifies and improves every department of society; but if once allowed to get ahead, if not confined within iron bars, it will instantly consume the fabric in which it is placed.

This distinction between individual freedom and political power, between liberty and democracy, is the great point of separation between the Whigs and Tories. The Conservatives Napoleon has left the following picture of strive to increase personal freedom to the ut the manner in which freedom was devoured most degree, and to effect that they find it inby democracy, during the first French Revolu- dispensable to restrain the efforts of its worst tion:-"Liberty," said he, "was doubtless the enemies, the democracy. The Whigs attend first cry of the people when the Revolution only to the augmentation of popular power, arose; but that was not what they really de- and in so doing they instantly trench on civil sired. The first lightning of the Revolution liberty. When were persons, property, life, showed what talents then existed, which the and thoughts, more free, better protected or levelling principle would restore to society for secured, than in Great Britain from 1815 to the advantage and glory of the state. Thus it 1830, the days when the Democracy was rewas equality which the French people always strained? When have they been so ill secured desired; and to tell the truth, liberty hath never since the time of Cromwell, as during the last existed since it was proclaimed. For the proper two years, illuminated as they have been by definition of liberty is the power of freely ex- the flames of Bristol, and the conflagration of ercising all our faculties; and with the excep- Jamaica, the days of democratic ascendency? tion of some speeches which the orators of the Ireland, at present under the distracting rule sections were allowed to make in 1795, show of O'Connell, the demagogue, is the prototype me a period when the people were at liberty to of the slavery to which we are fast driving, say or do what they wished since 1789? Was under the guidance of the Whigs: England, it when the crowds of women and malecon- from 1815 to 1830, the last example of the tents besieged the Convention? Begone; think freedom from which we are receding, estabof your business, said they; and yet these poor|lished by the Tories. What farther evils the people only asked for bread. Will any one pretend that the years 1793 or 1794 were the eras of freedom? Under the Directory, no one dared to open their mouth; and after the 18th Fructidor in 1797, a second Reign of Terror arose. Never have the people, even under Louis XI. or Cardinal Richelieu, or in the most despotic states, had less liberty than during the whole period which has elapsed since the first Revolution broke out. What France always wished, what she still wishes, is equality; in other

farther indulgence of this devouring principle is to produce, we know not, though experience gives us little hopes of amendment till we have gone through additional suffering; but of this we are well assured, that the time will come when these truths shall have passed into axioms, and experience taught every man of intelligence, that the assassins of freedom are the supporters of democratic power.

Napoleon, en Duchesse Abrantes, vii. 169, 170.

THE FALL OF TURKEY.*

But though then so formidable, the Ottoman power has within these twenty years rapidly and irrecoverably declined. The great barrier of Turkey was reached in the first campaign of the next war, the Balkan yielded to Russian genius in the second, and Adrianople, the ancient capital of the Osmanleys, became celebrated for the treaty which sealed for ever the degradation of their race. On all sides the provinces of the empire have revolted: Greece, through a long and bloody contest, has at lengthers is not less amazing at this interesting crisis. worked out its deliverance from all but its own passions; the ancient war-cry of Byzantium, Victory to the Cross, has been again heard on the Ægean Sea;† and the Pasha of Egypt, tak

coerce the ambitious designs of the Cabinet of | volatile and inconsiderate mass from which it St. Petersburg, and twice she has saved Turkey sprung; and hence its menaces are disrefrom their grasp. When the Russians and garded, its ancient relations broken, its old Austrians, in the last century, projected an allies disgusted, and the weight of its influence alliance for its partition, and Catherine and being no longer felt, projects the most threatJoseph had actually met on the Wolga to ening to its independence are without hesitaarrange its details, Mr. Pitt interposed, and by tion undertaken by other states. the influence of England prevented the design: and when Diebitsch was in full march for Constantinople, and the insurrection of the Janissaries only waited for the sight of the Cossacks to break out, and overturn the throne of Mahmoud, the strong arm of Wellington interfered, put a curb in the mouth of Russia, and postponed for a season the fall of the Turkish power. Now, however, every thing is changed; -France and England, occupied with domestic dissensions, are utterly paralysed; they can no longer make a show of resistance to Moscovite ambition; exclusively occupied in preparing the downfall of her ancient allies, the Dutch in our own times, has been abandoned without and the Portuguese, England has not a thought to bestow on the occupation of the Dardanelles, and the keys of the Levant are, without either observation or regret, passing to the hands of Russia.

These events are so extraordinary, that they almost make the boldest speculator hold his breath. Great as is the change in external events which we daily witness, the alteration in internal feeling is still greater. Changes which would have convulsed England from end to end, dangers which would have thrown European diplomacy into agonies a few years ago, are now regarded with indifference. The progress of Russia through Asia, the capture of Erivan and Erzeroum, the occupation of the Dardanelles, are now as little regarded as if we had no interest in such changes; as if we had no empire in the East threatened by so ambitious a neighbour; no independence at stake in the growth of the Colossus of northern Europe.

Nor is the supineness and apathy of the nation less important or alarming. It exists to such an extent as clearly to demonstrate, that not only are the days of its glory numbered, but the termination even of its independence may be foreseen at no distant period. Enterprises the most hostile to its interests, conquests the most fatal to its glory, are undertaken by its rivals not only without the disapprobation, but with the cordial support, of the majority of the nation. Portugal, for a century the ally of England, for whose defence hundreds of thousands of Englishmen had died

a murmur to the revolutionary spoliation and propagandist arts of France. Holland, the bulwark of England, for whose protection the great war with France was undertaken, has been assailed by British fleets, and threatened by British power; and the shores of the Scheldt, which beheld the victorious legions of Wellington land to curb the power of Napoleon, have witnessed the union of the tricolour and British flags, to beat down the independence of the Dutch provinces. Constantinople, long regarded as the outpost of India against the Russians, is abandoned without regret; and, amidst the strife of internal faction, the fixing of the Moscovite standards on the shores of the Bosphorus, the transference of the finest harbour in the world to a growing maritime power, and of the entrepôt of Europe and Asia to an already formidable commercial state, is hardly the subject of observation.

The reason cannot be concealed, and is too clearly illustrative of the desperate tendency The reason is apparent, and it affords the of the recent changes upon all the classes of first great and practical proof which England the empire. With the revolutionists the pashas yet received of the fatal blow, which the sion for change has supplanted every other recent changes have struck, not only at her feeling, and the spirit of innovation has extininternal prosperity, but her external independ-guished that of patriotism. They no longer ence. England is now powerless; and, what is worse, the European powers know it. Her government is so incessantly and exclusively occupied in maintaining its ground against the internal enemies whom the Reform Bill has raised up into appalling strength; the necessity of sacrificing something to the insatiable passions of the revolutionists is so apparent, that every other object is disregarded. The allies by whose aid they overthrew the constitution, have turned so fiercely upon them, that they are forced to strain every nerve to resist these domestic enemies. Who can think of the occupation of Scutari, when the malt tax is threatened with repeal? Who care for the thunders of Nicholas, when the threats of O'Connell are ringing in their ears? The English government, once so stable and steadfast in its resolutions, when rested on the firm rock of the Aristocracy, has become unstable as water since it was thrown for its support upon the Democracy. Its designs are as changeable, its policy as fluctuating, as the

league in thought, or word, or wish, exclusively with their own countrymen; they no longer regard the interests and glory of England, as the chief objects of their solicitude; what they look to is the revolutionary party in other states; what they sympathize with, the progress of the tricolour in overturning other dynasties. The loss of British dominion, the loss of British colonies, the downfall of British power, the decay of British glory, the loss of British independence, is to them a matter of no regret, provided the tricolour is triumphant, and the cause of revolution is making progress in the world. Well and truly did Mr. Burlee say, that the spirit of patriotism and Jacobin ism could not coexist in the same state; and that the greatest national disasters are lightly passed over, provided they bring with them the advance of domestic ambition.

The Conservatives, on the other hand, are so utterly desperate in regard to the future prospects of the empire, from the vacillation and violence of the Democratic party who are