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beginning to return to its natural course, and the era of restoration is preparing. The general developement of manufacturing industry is the prelude of the enfranchisement of the civilised world from the British monopoly. Peace has deprived that nation of its exclusive privilege of commercial wealth; and, by so doing, has deprived her of all her strength. Her numerous conquests are now only embarrassments that enervate and divide her power. In resting upon England since the Revolution of July, we only support ourselves by a mouldering and crumbling trunk. There is something fatal to France in that country, whose alliance is yet more pernicious than her enmity.

"What can she do for us? Nothing. What can the rest of Europe do? Everything. It is England that withholds from us Belgium (that she has seized herself) and the boundary of the Rhine, which Europe would not contest with us if Europe were constituted of its natural elements. It is England that, in maintaining the absurd empire of the Turks, prevents the natural extension of Russia to the Bosphorus, and thereby opposes the establishment of heroic and unhappy Poland; it is England that maintains the anarchy and misery of Greece, and will not permit her to relieve herself; it is England who excites and maintains the dis

cord between Spain and Portugal; always prepared to maintain in the Peninsula the principle most hostile to France: a revolutionary principle, if France be monarchical; absolute power, if France be revolutionary.

"This diplomatic Machiavelism is in accordance with its interests and its cupidity. It keeps everything in suspense; every where it sows division, and foments an unsettled spirit; it keeps Europe in arms; it exhausts the nations with taxes; it ruíns commerce and industry; it excites revolts and seditions; the ravage and annihilation of manufactures: in short, it undermines and ruins France, who ought to be the soul and pivot of the Continent. In peace or in war, England labours to destroy her ancient rival; and, ultimately, she will make a prey of all the other states when de→ prived of our assistance.

"These projects, we trust, draw to a close; the hour of retribution is at hand for our implacable enemy: her internal state will soon be an agony. Then the Continent of Europe will right itself, and establish a real peace upon a lasting and legitimate basis; then Russia will have her head at Petersburgh, and her feet at Constantinople; then Poland will resume her place in the rank of nations; then Greece and the Ionian Isles, with free

and generous institutions, will pass under the imperial sceptre of Austria; then Hanover will belong to Prussia, with whom it is already connected by so many ties; et la Belgique est à nous, avec la limite du Rhin, sans que l'Angleterre s'y puisse opposer.

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"Voila notre politique exterieure, elle est toute rationelle!"

I do most sincerely believe, that this is a true exposition of the national feeling of France, of France our ally, of France, whose example of a week, and whose intrigues of a year have already deprived us- and the civilised world-of the fruits of a quarter of a century of victories.

It is important to repeat, that the only mode to secure popularity in France is to abuse England. M. de Chateaubriand is well aware of this great principle; and his late brochure on the banishment of Charles X. teems with tirades against "l'alliance contre nature avec l'Angleterre." After showing that in a defensive war our fleets cannot assist France, and that, in an offensive war, as her ally, we shall dread her victories more than her defeats, he observes, "Comme il n'y a aucune homogénéité entre la France et l'Angleterre, la prétendue solidarité des deux ministères Anglais. et Français, porte sur des intérêts contradictoires ;

ce qui fait le triomphe de l'un fait la perte de l'autre."

But the ministerial majority in the French Chamber Is not that decisive? Is not that an

assurance of present good-will, and a guarantee of future amity? France speaks by her representatives, and her representatives support M. Casimir Perier, and M. Casimir Perier supports my Lord Grey.

The majority in the Chamber! It ill becomes us, who have just decided that there is no sympathy between our House of Commons and the nation, it ill becomes us to assume, without enquiry, that a closer connection subsists between the Chamber of Deputies, and thirty-two millions of French people, who have recently been compensated for the disasters of a Revolution by being presented with a constituency very inferior to that which, from its numerical amount, we in England decide to be ineffective.* Is the French Chamber, as at present constituted, a representation of the national will? Is it a representation of the property or the intelligence of France? Is it even a representation of its factions? Is it or is it not

* In France there are only 200,000 electors, and nearly half of these do not exercise their suffrages, from an unwillingness to take the oath to Louis-Philippe.

*

notorious that a most influential party in the state declined exercising their suffrages at the late election, taking care, however, in one instance, that the most eloquent man in France should be returned as their parliamentary organ? Who are the men at present exercising power in France? How did they obtain it? How will they preserve it? Is M. Casimir Perier backed by the nation? Or is he maintained by a clique, whose hours are numbered? Surely these are important questions, questions interesting to every member of the European Family, whose quiet so essentially depends on France. It is of the first importance that we, above all, should know our exact position. Is it, from a peculiar combination, the interest of the two administrations in the two different countries to mystify the people of both? These are the questions that these pages propose to ascertain and answer. England, no doubt, desires peace; but, if the dreadful word "War" be already inscribed in the book of Fate, for the sake of all we value let us be prescient, and let us be prepared!

I shall now endeavour to explain the causes that have occasioned the present unnatural alliance

*M. Berryer fils.

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