Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 401, March 1849. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ and despised, would inevitably produce what they termed a reactionary, and what they suspected might prove, a counter-revolutionary and monarchic majority; and they had determined, in spite of their defeat in June, to attempt another revolution, in the hope of again surprising the capital by a coup-de-main, and seizing the reins of power into their own hands at once. This conspiracy was affiliated together, in its various branches, by those formidable sociétés secrètes, which, long organised, had been again called into service by the persevering activity of the party, not only in Paris, but in all the larger provincial towns, and for which fresh recruits had been zealously drummed together. A general outbreak all over the country was regulated to explode simultaneously on the 29th of January, or during the following night: that monomania, which has never ceased to possess the minds of the frantic chiefs of the Red-republican party, and which still entertains the vain dream that, if they rise, all the lower classes, or what they call "the people," must rise at their call, to fight in their wild cause, gave them support in their designs. Pretexts for discontent, at the same time, were not wanting. The project of the government for a general suppression of the clubs – a measure which they declared unconstitutional, gave a colour to disaffection and revolt; and hopes that fresh allies would join the insurrection gave the party a bold confidence, which it had not possessed since the days of June. The garde mobile, in fact, had been tampered with. The spirit of these young janissaries of the capital, for the most part but a year ago the mere gamins de Paris, always vacillating and little to be relied upon, spite of their deeds in June, had already been adroitly worked upon by the fostering of that jealousy which subsisted between them and the regular army into a more decided hatred, when a decree of the government for the reorganisation of the corps was interpreted by the designing conspirators into an insult offered to the whole institution, and a preparatory measure to its total dissolution. Such insinuations, carefully fomented among these young troops, led to tumultuous demonstrations of disaffection and discontent. This ferment, so opportune for the designs of the Red republicans, induced them to believe that their hour of struggle and of approaching triumph was at hand: they counted on their new allies; all was ready for the outbreak. But the government was alive to the tempest rising around it; it was determined to do its duty to the country in preventing the storm, rather than in suppressing it when once it should have broken forth. Hence the military preparations which, on the morning of the 29th of January, had once more rendered all Paris a fortress and a camp; hence the warning sound of the rappel, which at an early hour had once more roused all the citizens from their beds, and called alarmed faces forth at windows and upon balconies in the gloom of the dawn; hence the stern commanding words of General Changarnier, and the orders to the troops and the national guards, that any man attempting to raise a stone from the streets should be shot forthwith, and without mercy; hence the consternation with which the outpost allies of the Red republicans hurried back growling to their mysterious dens, wherever such may exist. Prevention was considered better than cure, in spite of the misinterpretations and misapprehensions to which it might be exposed, and by which it was subsequently assailed by the disappointed faction. Arrest then followed upon arrest; upwards of two hundred of the suspected chiefs of the conspiracy were hurried off to prison. Among them were former delegates to the once famous committee of the Luxembourg, whose conduct gave evidence of the results produced by the dangerous utopian theories set forth under the lectureship of M. Louis Blanc, and his noble friend the soi-disant ouvrier Albert. Chiefs of the clubs bore them company in their incarceration; and the ex-Count D'Alton Shee, the ex-élégant of the fashionable salons of Paris, but now the socialist-atheist and anarchist, suffered the same penalty of his actions as leading member of the club "De la Solidarité Républicaine." Turbulent officers of the Garde Mobile underwent a similar fate. Even the national guard was not spared in the person of one of its superior officers, whose agitation and over-zealous movements excited suspicion; and, by the way, in the general summing up, arrest, imprisonment, restriction of liberty, may also take their place in the row as another little figure in the total.

      The conspiracy, however, was suppressed; the insurrection failed entirely for the time; and Paris was told that it might be perfectly reassured, and doze quietly again upon its pillow, without any fear that Red-republicanism should again "murder sleep." But Paris, which has not learned yet to recover its old quiet habit of sleeping calmly, and has got too much fever in its system to close its eyes at will, is not to be lulled by such mere sedatives of ministerial assurance. Once roused in startled hurry from its bed again, and seeing the opiate of confidence which was beginning to work its effect in very small doses snatched from its grasp, it cannot calm its nerves at once. It will not be persuaded that the crisis is over, and has passed away for ever; like a child awakened by a nightmare, it looks into all sorts of dark holes and corners, thinking to see the spectre lurking there. It knows what it had to expect from the tender mercies of its pitiless enemies, had they succeeded in their will; what was the programme of a new Red-republican rule – a comité du salut public, the régime of the guillotine, the épuration of suspected aristocrats, the confiscation of the property of emigrants, a tax of three milliards upon the rich, a spoliation of all who "possess," the dissolution of the national guard, the exclusive possession of all arms by the soi-disant people, and – but the list of such new-old measures of ultra-republican government would be too long; it is an old tale often told, and, after all, only a free translation from the measures of other times. Paris, then, knows all this; it knows the fanatic and inexpressible rage of its antagonist, to which the fever of madness lends strength; it allows itself to be told all sorts of fearful tales – how Socialists, in imitation of their London brethren, have hired some thousand apartments in different quarters of the capital, in order to light a thousand fires at once upon a given signal. It goes about repeating the old vague cry – "Nous allons avoir quelque chose;" and, however foolishly exaggerated its alarm, the results it experiences are the same – again want of confidence arising from anxiety, again suspension of trade, again a renewal of misery. The fresh want of confidence, then, with all the attendant evils in its train, may again, as the year of republicanism approaches to its close, be taken as another figure in the sum-total that is sought.

      In the midst of this sudden ferment, which has appeared towards the end of the republican year like a tableau final at the conclusion of an act of a drama – hastily thrust forward when the interest of the piece began to languish, – how stands the state of parties in that Assembly which, although it is said – and very correctly, it would appear – no longer to represent the spirit of the country at large, must still be considered as the great axis of the republic, around which all else moves? Always tumultuous, disorderly, and disdainful of those parliamentary forms which could alone insure it the aspect of a dignified deliberative body, the National Assembly, as it sees its last days inevitably approaching – although it retards its dissolution by every quack-doctoring means within its grasp – seems to have plunged, in its throes, into a worse slough of triple confusion, disorder, and uncertainty than ever. Jealous of its dignity, unwilling to quit its power, unwilling – say malicious tongues – to quit its profit, and yet pressed upon by that public opinion which it would vainly attempt to deny, to misinterpret, or to despise, it has shown itself more vacillating, capricious, and childish than ever. It wavers, votes hither and thither, backwards and forwards – now almost inclined to fall into the nets spread for it by the ultra-democratic party, that supports its resistance against all attempts to dissolve it, and upon the point of throwing itself into that party's arms; and now, again, alarmed at the allies to whom it would unite itself, starting back from their embrace, turning round in its majority, and declaring itself against the sense of its former decisions. Now, it offers an active and seemingly spiteful opposition to the government; and now, again, it accepts the first outlet to enable it to turn back upon its course. Now it is sulky, now alarmed at its own sulkiness; now angry, now begging its own pardon for its hastiness. It is like a child that does not know its own mind or temper, and gives way to all the first vagaries that spring into its childish brain: it neglects the more real interests of the country, and loses the country's time in its service, in its eternal interpellations, accusations, recriminations, jealousies, suspicions, and offended susceptibilities; it quarrels, scratches, fights, and breaks its own toys – and all this in the midst of the most inextricable confusion. To do it justice, the Assembly, as represented by its wavering majority, is placed between two stools СКАЧАТЬ