changes have altered completely the spirit of the constitution. The Senate and Corps Legislatif, which were little more than retarding administrative wheels, have, by these changes, begun to return to their former legitimate position as political bodies destined to control the actions of the Government.

The great step is made; what it will lead to depends on the disposition in which French public spirit wakes up from its lethargic sleep. May it awake sobered down from the last orgie which sent it to sleep! The debate on the Address last spring was not very promising, there were still considerable signs of drowsiness and ill-humour. It looked almost like anger at being aroused from the comfortable lethargy which vented itself in an attack on the liberal foreign and commercial policy of the Government. The old narrow-mindedness and acrimony seemed to have revived, and the world saw with astonishment that the representatives of the French people were more illiberal and retrograde than their Government.

But it would be wrong to be discouraged by their first exhibition; for it must be remembered that when the Corps Legislatif was elected in 1857, sleepiness was the great criterion of patriotism, and marmottes were thought the most eligible candidates, even before the annexation of Savoy. Already last session, after the new concessions, there was a general desire to see another popular assembly elected, more in accordance with the new position of the Corps Legislatif. Even before the decree of the 12th of November, it was rumoured that, after an early session this year, the new elections should take place. This is doubly necessary now; and until another Corps Legislatif meets, it can scarcely be said that France has made a fresh start on the path of self-government.

CHAPTER XII.

BODY AND MIND.

"PANEM ET CIRCENSES" was the motto of Imperial Rome, and a modest motto it was for the proud people which carried on its standard the high-soaring eagle as the emblem of its bold aspirations. Imperialism in France has adopted both the emblem and the motto, and prides in them. Of all the incense offered up by officious writers on the shrine of Imperialism, none is so much relished as those effusions in prose and verse which choose for their theme the resemblance between French and Roman Imperialism.

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Cæsar, who saves France from internal factions". Cæsar, who becomes the champion of the people against a tyrannical aristocracy"-" Cæsar, the father of the poor." But, more fortunate than his Roman prototype, Cæsar is able to give to French citizens "the seventy drachmas," "walks," "arbours,” common pleasures to walk abroad," in his lifetime, and needs no Mark Antony to announce these boons in his testament. The eagle is again restored to its former proud position, and is carried triumphantly into all the corners of the earth. Cæsar and Augustus in one person, the Emperor transforms Paris into a city of palaces.

The Tuileries have taken the place of the Capitol; to it kings and peoples are anxiously turning their eyes, for there resides the power which decides their fate. Amphitheatres and their savage games are out of date, but there is no want of "circenses" for that. The world has been thrown open as one large arena, to supply excitement and sport to the "grande nation." The stakes are not the life of a few wretched savages, but the happiness and misery of millions which depend on the nod of the Imperator. Even those most "blasés" must appreciate such refinement.

But however successful in the imitation or emulation of its prototypes in other respects, there is one feature of which Imperialism in Paris has not been able to learn as yet the secret from Imperialism at Rome. Not even the most injudicious friends of it have ever thought of accusing the former of having produced a "golden era” of literature. Indeed, if there be one charge brought forward against Imperialism more frequently than any other, by those who have no fancy for eagles or "circenses," it is the intellectual dearth which has come over France under the iron pressure of the last ten

years.

There are no traces of a new Augustan era; on the contrary, even the old brilliancy of French genius seems to have faded away. Who has forgotten that long series of acute thinkers, bold theoreticians, inspired poets, brilliant historians, charming novelists, inexhaustible dramatic authors, powerful journalists, clever painters and composers, inimitable actors and musicians, who have succeeded each other ever since the Restoration in France? Who does not remember the influence which they exercised on the ideas and tastes, not only of their

own country, but of all Europe, by ridding literature and art of that traditional formalism which had hampered them so long, and by striking out a new path, rejecting old worn-out rules, and following boldly the dictates of their own genius? The long line has failed, and the source of inspiration is dried up. Many of the bright luminaries who shed such lustre once on literature and art in France have passed away, and those who still remain of the old race are a mere shadow of their former selves. Victor Hugo, the brilliant founder of the romantic school almost forgotten by his countrymen, but not broken in faith, has still some strings left on his lyre, but uses them to utter his dying cry of sadness and indignation. Lamartine has had to turn pennya-liner in his old age, and to rake up painfully his reminiscences, to satisfy his creditors. Guizot draws in his turn on his souvenirs, or writes on the maintenance of the temporal power two long volumes, which no one thinks of reading or even of criticising. Thiers is laboriously spinning out his history of the Empire. Other celebrities are either silent, or only busy with their "Mémoires." The Dumases and Georges Sands are adding some more volumes to those which they have already written. Michelet writes poetry on the sea; Montalembert takes up monastic institutions in the West; and so on-all faint echoes only of once powerful voices. Scarcely raised, they die away, leaving no impression on the public mind. None of those works, full of genius and freshness, which once electrified the world, and gained that lasting fame for their authors on which most of them still live.

However painful this agonising process may be to witness, it is but a natural phenomenon which would

scarcely be remarked, had a new generation arisen to supply the place of those who had to pay their tribute to time.

The Turkish wag, Hodja Nasreddin, when asked what became of the moon when on the wane, replied that it was cut up and made into stars. One would be almost inclined to apply the astronomical notions of the Turkish wag to the literary and artistic spheres of France— such is the number of small stars which have arisen and are arising daily, while the larger luminaries pass through their last quarter, and by degrees vanish.

Indeed, if the number of litterateurs and the quantity of their yearly productions were taken alone as a test, the ten years of Imperialism might not only rival but would actually surpass any former period. So strange this may sound, it is borne out by figures. The number of yearly publications has doubled since the establishment of Cæsarism in France. In 1851, 7350 books and pamphlets appeared, while for the last two years the number has been close on 15,000, and this does not include musical publications, engravings, and lithographs, in which a proportionate increase has taken place. In the thirty years before 1851, comprising the most brilliant epoch of French literature, the average number of publications reaches not more than 6000 a-year.

Nor is there any lack of variety. Poems of all shades and colours-melancholy, gay, sentimental, and gloomy. Satires and idyls, elegies and chansons, dramas and comedies, tragedies and fairy-plays; novels, in all styles -historical, domestic, extravagant, pictures from social life; historical essays, economical dissertations, and philosophical researches on all subjects in heaven and