proper standing, outwitted as she had been by the diplomacy of Russia, Austria, and England, in respect to the Eastern question. He prepared for this emergency, by reinforcing the regular army, reorganizing the National Guards; and by constructing the fortifications of Paris, which he has lived to see the last refuge of the Capital. Unable, however, to make the King partake of his war views, he resigned the Premiership, and has not again been called to the administrative control of public affairs.

From 1845 to 1848 he figured as one of the opposition leaders to the Guizot cabinet, and was prominent in denouncing the growing influence of the Jesuits. His speeches were eagerly read and commented upon; and his articles in the "Constitutionel," in the ownership of which he had a share, contributed to the spread of the reform agitation. In 1846 he denounced the cabinet for declaring itself against the annexation of Texas to the United States, under the poor pretence of preserving an American equilibrium, which was in reality only an English equilibrium; and thus, as he expressed it, "alienating France from the great American nation, which is destined to effect the enfranchisement of our political system."

Although M. Thiers voted for the Presidency of Louis Napoleon, he pronounced, only fifteen days before the coup d'état, while demanding the independence of the Assembly, as it were the funeral oration of the Republic, by predicting that it was perhaps the last Assembly which should really represent France. The political seer, who had penetrated the designs of the imperial usurper, could not fail to fall under his ban. Thiers was imprisoned, and afterwards temporarily banished. He was shortly after permitted to return, when he abandoned politics, and entered upon the completion of his great work, the "History of the Consulate and the Empire," a work published in 20 volumes, which has been translated into every language in Europe; and, in 1863, won for its author, from the Institute of France, the extraordinary prize of 20,000 francs. As we have more to do with M. Thiers as a practical statesman than as a historian, we will pass by this work, with the single quo

tation of its concluding sentence, a passage which reveals the liberal, and at the same time conservative, tone which characterizes the political opinions of a statesman writing history which he has helped to make:

"The life of this great man, so instructive for soldiers, rulers, and politicians, contains a lesson also to citizens. It teaches them that they ought never to abandon their country to the power of one man, no matter who he may be, no matter under what circumstances! This is the cry which springs from my heart, the sincere wish I utter as I conclude this long history of our triumphs and our successes, and which I hope will penetrate the heart of every Frenchman, and persuade him never to sacrifice his liberty, nor run the risk of doing so, by abusing it."

In 1863, M. Thiers reappeared upon the political stage as a member of the Corps Législatif, being one of nine deputies, of liberal politics, returned by the city of Paris. He at once took the first place in the opposition, as the defender of the public liberties; and his discourses, always carefully prepared for the press, were eagerly read by the country, if not religiously listened to by the Assembly. In the recent events M. Thiers has been conspicuous for the sagacity with which he pronounced upon the want of preparation, on the part of France, for the terrible struggle into which the Emperor had so rashly rushed; and for the patriotic forbearance which withheld him from discouraging the army by an expression of his views. The Assembly evinced its confidence in his wisdom and vast military sagacity, by electing him, against his own remonstrance, without a dissenting voice, a member of the Committee of Defence. His own country, as well as Europe, has listened to every word which has fallen from his lips, with an eagerness which has sufficiently recognized him as the first of the statesmen of France.

It is said by his biographers, in pronouncing upon his forensic powers, that it is not the style of his discourses, though declared at times to have attained the most austere beauties of eloquence, nor his stature or voice, which make M. Thiers a great orator, but it is "the intelligence and good sense

which he exhibits in an incomparable degree." Of his char

ee

acter as a statesman, it is said, that among the men who served Louis Philippe, that which distinguished M. Thiers in a remarkable degree is his vivid sentiment of national dignity, and a sort of practical genius, which enabled him to govern otherwise than by pure formulas of political theory. Enamoured with the wonders of art and the grandeurs of industry, he has always applied his thoughts to the first necessities of a nation." Again it is said: "One of the most remarkable characteristics of the talent of M. Thiers is a powerful faculty of assimilation in the presence of things the most unlike, the relations of which he is able to seize at once, and which he is able to unite into a system full of lucidity and practical utility. The different consulative committees of commerce, manufactures, and agriculture, which he frequently called together, under his presidency as Minister of Public Works, and whose apparently opposite interests he sought to reconcile, brought out particularly this eminent quality."

If the views of a statesman so eminently practical, upon the most practical of all public questions, outweigh all the theories of schoolmen and closet essayists, the passages which follow, and which we have translated from "L'Opinion Nationale," are the truest expression of the protective sentiment of France.

The question of an inquiry into the operation of the commercial treaties being before the Corps Législatif, M. Thiers, on the 22d of January, 1870, after calling attention to the gravity of the question before the Assembly, addressed it as follows:

"Every nation has three great affairs, which should be the object of its ardent and constant solicitude: liberty first, its greatness next, and finally its material prosperity. Liberty, which consists not merely in the right of the nation to criticise its government, but in the right of governing itself by its own hands, and conformably to its own ideas; greatness, which does not consist in subjecting its neighbors. by brute force, but in exercising over them so much influence that no question shall be resolved in the world against its interests and security; prosperity, finally, which consists in drawing from its

own soil, and from the genius of its inhabitants, the greatest possible amount of well-being.

"And do not think that this anxiety for the prosperity of the country has any thing in common with that passion for material interests which the highest minds despise. There is no work of higher morality than to diminish the sum of the evils which weigh upon man, even in the most civilized societies. To make man less unhappy, · that is, to make him better, it is to make him more just towards his government, to his fellow-beings, towards Providence itself.

"We have before us a noble task: we shall succeed, I hope, in accomplishing it. It is to give to the country liberty, without disturbance, without violence, without revolution. The work of establishing prosperity where it is wanting is not less grand or less worthy of your. thoughts.

"The Government has thought, for a time, that it could arrogate, for itself alone, the right of deciding upon the economical system of the country. I do not wish to recriminate as to the past: this is not the time. We must, on the contrary, forget the past, or remember the past only to derive from it instruction. Our task is to fecundate the present and the future.

"It was nevertheless a strange pretension, that of thinking that the Government could, of itself alone, decide upon the economical system of the country. I can understand that the Government — when it is composed of the most enlightened men of the country might believe that it could be a better diplomat, a better warrior, than the mass of the nation; but a better merchant, a better manufacturer, a better agriculturist, when the nation is composed of merchants, manufacturers, and agriculturists, is an unsustainable pretension."

After appealing to the Assembly to listen to details, however dry, without which they would have in mind only vague generalities, without practical utility, M. Thiers continues :—

"I have exhausted myself in this study, to which I have brought the greatest material disinterestedness, and that moral disinterestedness, which results from the absence of bias for any system. I shall proceed directly to the end which we have in view. In these debates some call themselves protectionists, others free traders, and we have even heard the term compensationists. I accept whatever term you will. It is the thing only which I have in view.

"It is asked, Shall we place around France a sort of Chinese wall?

No our object is the national labor, which we wish to preserve in the country; to give birth to it where it does not exist; but, above all, to preserve it where it does exist. Do we demand, for this, prohibitive duties? No. Duties sufficiently protective? Not even that."

After briefly showing that the duties in France are not sufficient to preserve such national industry as is already established, he resumes:

"I can understand that we might hesitate before undertaking to develop certain industries in a country; but what I cannot understand is, that, when they are already developed, we should leave them to perish.

"We are told that we would have a hot-house industry. What, then, are the nations which have sought to develop among themselves a national labor? They are the nations which are intelligent and free. When the foreigner brings them a product, after they have found it serviceable, they desire to imitate it. The nations which do not have this desire are the indolent nations of the East; intelligent and free nations seek to appropriate for themselves the products brought to them by foreign nations.

"We are constantly referred to England. Here is an example which this great and intelligent nation has given us. In the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, the people of the Low countries had become enriched by the beautiful products of their woollen manufactures; England, who had received these products, as soon as she commenced to wake up to her position, said to herself, 'It is out of my wools that these tissues are fabricated. I have the hands, the intelligence, the raw material; and shall the labor of foreigners provide me with my necessities?' She kept her wools: she put herself to work; and then commenced the great prosperity of England. Was there any barbarism in that? I am asked, Did not England soon after renounce this system? I answer by the question, Did not England, only a few years ago, in order to procure for herself the beautiful industry of flax and linens, cover herself with protective tariffs, forbid the exportation of machines, and even give premiums to the peasants of Ireland to encourage the production of flax?

"I wish it were in my power to conduct you through the history of civilization. I could show you that there has been no intelligent nation, which has not held it, not only for its profit, but for its honor, to create for itself the productions of other nations, whenever nature did not oppose it.