Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

an old, premeditated and unremitted effort to overthrow the Bourbons; it is now the fashion among the conspirators to decree public honours to those less fortunate coadjutors who, months before the Ordonnances, were the victims of the law for offences that after the three days were blazoned as merits.

How, then, was the King to act? He had great duties to fulfil, to France and to Europe. It was his duty to defend his crown, to preserve peace, to maintain order, to guard the happiness and security of his realm and people from those whose unprincipled ambition and vindictive hate rendered them the implacable enemies of the Bourbons, under all systems and under all administrations. The world always judges by success; and, of course, the world decides that Prince Polignac was wrong in having had recourse to a coup d'état. Some may doubt whether he might not have better waited the attack; but that is a matter of discretion, of which no one out of the French Cabinet can be an adequate judge; but the spirit which prompted his resistance to movement I entirely approve. If he had not endeavoured to restore, by any and all means, the authority of the King, he would have been a traitor; and, in my opinion, the Prince de Po

lignac is to be blamed, not for his strong resolution, but for his weak measures.

It was quite impossible for the late French Government to proceed, without placing some bounds to the licence of the periodical press, and it is, and it will be, still more impossible for the present French government to proceed without some similar measures. There have been more prosecutions of the press in one year of Louis-Philippe's reign than in the whole reigns of Louis XVIII. and Charles X.; and what is still more important, the vast majority of the accused have been acquitted. Ay! they must now have recourse to some even stronger measure than those contemplated by the former Bourbons. And, indeed, the only difference between Casimir Perier and Polignac is, that Perier dares to do without even the form of an ordonnance, what Polignac only contemplated doing in that legal shape. This subject was the theme of frequent discussion in the Cabinet of Charles X. Every day only dawned to disseminate fresh and more infamous calumnies; every day, public morality was insulted, religion outraged, royalty ridiculed, truth distorted, and even glory the national idol loaded with

[ocr errors]

sarcasms and imprecations of hatred. Witness the Algerine expedition; witness the sinister vows

new

that accompanied it, and the patriotic prayers wafted from the press of France, and from the Exchange and Cafés, for the annihilation of the national army, and the destruction of the national fleet. With what mortified indignation did these gentry receive the news of the conquest! What interesting and sentimental commiserations they lavished on the unfortunate Dey! And, after all, what was the result of this conquest? Without speaking of the ultimate advantage which it might be to Europe if wisely managed, it procured immense and immediate benefits to France, markets, vast territory, and the glory of having avenged European civilisation. How should we have appreciated a similar success in England? And now that another King and other ministers are at the head of affairs-men, one of whose merits was to oppose this expedition, and to dispute the principle of this conquest—the very same individuals and the very same journals have learnt to view the affair in quite a different aspect, and now laud the event with an exultation, which resounds from the green hills of Barbary and the quays of Marseilles to the banks of the Rhine and the shores of Calais. All is now changed. The ruin and the shame have disappeared. All is glorious, and useful to France. We must colonise.

[ocr errors]

Sly rogues! And why not send the rédacteur of a revolutionary journal to Algiers, as governor-general? He would perhaps be, in the long run, as faithful, if not as efficient, a citizen-viceroy as the Duke of Rovigo, that prudent gentleman, of whom I have much to say. The whole secret is, that a certain knot of intriguers were not then in power, and now they are. And France and above all, young France, that has been their dupe, that has lavished her blood to seat them in their bureaus will France, and will young France be satisfied? Is M. Casimir Perier, with his petty prosecutions, breaking every printing press that dares to oppose this protocolising pawnbroker, this Richelieu of the Stock Exchange, -is M. Casimir Perier a lighter master than M. de Polignac? And is the doubled Civil List of the citizen King a sufficient compensation for the disappointment of not being governed by consuls and protected by tribunes?

As I am upon the Algerine expedition, I may as well contribute a fact of secret history. The army of Algiers recognised Louis-Philippe only as Lieutenant-General for the elder Bourbons, according to the act of abdication. But the new government had concealed from them the events

of the 7th of August, that glorious and unprecedented day, when 332 persons, 219 deputies, and 133 peers, proclaimed Louis-Philippe King of the French. Marshal Bourmont, who commanded the Algerine army, was apprised by an express vessel only of the abdication of Charles and the dauphin in favour of the Duke of Bourdeaux, and of the nomination of the Duke of Orléans, as the Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom during the minority of Henry V. In pursuance of the orders then received from Charles X., Bourmont proclaimed the abdication in favour of Henry V.; and it was only when this formality had been fulfilled that the faithful LieutenantGeneral, M. d'Orléans, exercised his power to recall Bourmont from the command of the troops, who had, most unwillingly, by the bye, mounted the tricoloured cockade. It were now idle to speculate what might have been the result if Bourmont had not been thus mystified, and had returned to France with a formidable fleet and 30,000 men devoted to the white flag, under which they had been so recently victorious.

I am tempted to commemorate the gratitude of the heroes of July to the conqueror of Algiers. Four of his sons had accompanied Bourmont in his expedition. All were distinguished officers,

« ZurückWeiter »