XIV.

CHAP. to waft into heaven the thanksgivings of a whole people for some new and signal mercy vouchsafed to them by Almighty God. It was because of what had been done to France within the last thirty days that the Hosannas arose in Notre Dame. Moreover, the priests lifted their voices and cried aloud, chanting and saying to the Most High, 'Domine, salvum fac Ludovi'cum Napoleonem'-O Lord! save Louis Napoleon.

The President becomes

Emperor of the French.

The inaction of

bers of

French

men at
the time
when their
country
was fall-

What is good, and what is evil? and who is he that deserves the prayers of a nation? If any man, being scrupulous and devout, was moved by the events of December to ask these questions of his Church, he was answered that day in the Cathedral of our Lady of Paris. In the next December the form of the state system was accommodated to the reality, and the President of the Republic became what men call a French Emperor.' The style that Prince Louis thought fit to take was this :-Napoleon the Third, by the Grace of God, and by the will of the people, Emperor of 'the French.'

6

Of course, when any one thinks of the events of great num- December 1851, the stress of his attention is apt to be brought to bear upon those who were actors, and upon those who, desiring to act, were only hindered from doing so by falling into the pits which the trappers had dug for them; but no one will fail to see that one of the main phenomena of the time was the wilful acquiescence of great numbers of men. It may seem strange that during a time of danger the sin of inaction should be found in a once free and always brave people. The cause of this was the

ing.

XIV.

hatred which men had of democracy. A sheer de- CHAP. mocracy, it would seem, is so unfriendly to personal liberty, and therefore so vexing or alarming, not only Its cause. to its avowed political enemies, but to those also who in general are accustomed to stand aloof from public affairs, that it must needs close its frail existence as soon as there comes home a General renowned in arms who chooses to make himself King. This was always laid down as a guiding principle by those who professed to be able to draw lessons from history; but even they used to think that, until some sort of hero could be found, democratic institutions might last. France showed mankind that the mere want of such a hero as will answer the purpose is a want which can be compensated by a little ingenuity. She taught the world that when a mighty nation is under a democracy, and is threatened with doctrines which challenge the ownership and enjoyment of property, any knot of men who can get trusted with a momentary hold of the engine of State (and somebody must be so trusted), may take one of their number who never made a campaign except with counterfeit soldiers, and never fired a shot except when he fired by mistake, and may make him a dictator, a lawgiver, and an absolute monarch, with the acquiescence, if not with the approval, of a vast proportion of the people. Moreover, France proved that the transition is not of necessity a slow one; and that, when the perils of a high centralisation and a great standing army are added to the perils of a sheer democracy, then freedom, although it be hedged round and

XIV.

CHAP. guarded by all the contrivances which clever, thoughtful, and honest Republicans can devise, may be stolen and made away with in one dark winter night, as though it were a purse or a trinket.

The gen

tlemen of

Although France lost her freedom, it would be an error to imagine that upon the ruins of the commonwealth there was founded a monarchy like that, for the Gov. instance, which governs the people of Russia.

France resolved to stand

aloof from

ernment.

The con

In

empires of that kind the Sovereign commands the services of all his subjects. In France, for the most part, the gentlemen of the country resolved to stand aloof from the Government, and not only declined to vouchsafe their society to the new occupant of the Tuileries, but even looked cold upon any stray person of their own station who suffered himself to be tempted thither by money. They were determined to abide their time, and in the meanwhile to do nothing which would make it inconsistent for them, as soon as it suited their policy, to take an opportunity stant peril of laying cruel hands on the new Emperor and his associates. It was obvious that, because of the instinct which makes creatures cling to life, a monarch thus kept always standing on the very edge of a horrible fate, but still having for the time in his hands the engine of the State, would be driven by the very law of his being to make use of the forces of the nation as means of safety for himself and his comrades; and that to that one end, not only the operations of the Home Government, but even the foreign policy of the country, would be steadily aimed. And so it happened. After the 2d December in

in which the confederates were kept.

The foreign policy of

XIV.

the year 1851, the foreign policy of France was used CHAP. for a prop to prop the throne which Morny and his friends had built up.

France

to

was used prop the new

Therefore, although I have dwelt awhile upon a singular passage in the domestic history of France throne. I have not digressed. The origin of the war with Russia could not be traced without showing what was the foreign policy of France at the time when the mischief was done; and since it happened that the foreign policy of France was new to the world, and was governed in all things by the personal exigencies of those who wielded it, no one could receive a true impression of its aim and purpose without first gathering some idea of the events by which the destinies of Europe were connected with the hopes and fears of Prince Louis and Morny and Fleury, of Magnan and Persigny and Maupas and Monsieur Le Roy St Arnaud.

Immediate effect of

the coup d'état upon the tranquillity of Europe.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAP. ALMOST instantly the change which was wrought by XV. these French transactions began to act upon Europe. The associates of the Elysée well understood that if they had been able to trample upon France and her laws, their success had been made possible by the dread which the French people had of a return to tumult; and it was clear that, until they could do something more than merely head the police of the country, their new power would be hardly more stable than the passing terrors on which it rested. What they had to do was to distract France from thinking of her shame at home by sending her attention abroad. For their very lives' sake they had to make haste, and to pile up events which might stand between them and the past, and shelter them from the peril to which they were brought The policy whenever men's thoughts were turned to the night of the 2d of December, and the Thursday, the day of blood. There could be no hesitating about this. Ambition had nothing to do with it. It was matter of life and death. If Prince Louis and Morny and

which it

necessitated.