cles were agreed upon as a minimum for gent. The 'Leipzig Gazette' was prohibiteach state; 1. A definite part in the legislature. 2. The sanction of the taxes. 3. Representation of the Constitution against an undue interference of the King or the Diet. The king of Prussia now published the well-known order of the 22d of May, 1815, in which he says, among other things, ed throughout the kingdom of Prussia, because it commenced a contest with the Bureaucracy. The Rhenish Gazette' was utterly quashed for the same unpardonable offence, the Bureaucrats cried out that the 'State and Church' (meaning their office and salaries) were in danger! The censorship has different departments. There is a censor whose business in each town is solely with newspapers; another "That the principles upon which we have gov-looks sharp' over the pamphlets; another erned may be truly handed down to posterity by means of a written document as a Constitution of "3. Out of the provincial diets shall be elected a Diet for the whole kingdom, which shall have its seat at Berlin. 4. The efficiency of the representatives of the kingdom extends over all the legislature, including taxation. If anybody should ask,' says Heinzen, whether we know an instance in which Frederick William III., has broken his word, we must answer-It is certain that he never publicly revoked it as he publicly pledged it—but he has, in fact, left it unfulfilled.'' How unanswerable these remarks are must be sufficiently apparent; but those only who are aware of the shackled condition of the press in Prussia can properly estimate the moral courage of the man who has thus dared to use the powerful simpli us takes care of the novels and romantic litera- city of truth. And this naturally leads of a wholesale kind in some cases. All the There are in Prussia, and even in its smallest towns, civil officers called censors, and nothing can be published anywhere without the examination and permission of as Heinrich Heine, and Ludwig Börne, are this officer. He sees everything that is prohibited in Prussia; and everything printintended to be printed and published-even and Winterthur im litterarischen Comptoir), ed in Switzerland (that is to say, at Zurich mercantile advertisements and circulars! He is guided by secret orders from the gov-minions. This is a bad state of things, and is prohibited throughout the Prussian doernment, and is not liable to any other check needs alteration. A change has already upon his conduct. He can erase what he been demanded by the Diet of West Pruspleases from a manuscript or printer's proof, sia (the oldest and most genuinely Prussian and need give no sort of explanation to an author or other writer; the censor's will or there now lies before us a well-argued proprovince), and the Rhenish Diet; while caprice being arbitrary and admitting of no posal presented to the latter diet, which is question. Two years ago, it is true, the king constituted a high court of appeal, ported by many petitions. at this time sitting at Coblentz. It is supcalled Ober-Censurgericht, to which comThe Army Service, as one might expect, plaints may be addressed; but the judges is severely dealt with by Heinzen. How are Bureaucrats. With regard to newspa- far any of his remarks will apply to the pers, the censorship is more especially strin-military institutions of other countries, we leave the reader to determine. We should, * Except books which exceed twenty sheets, however, observe that although the princibut these may be suppressed by a summary order, before the sale of them commences.- See For. ple of the power of brute force is the same in all cases, there is yet a great difference Quar. Rev.' No. lxvi. in the circumstances between the standing | Frederick II.; but since that time it has army of a nation, and a 'nation of soldiers.' been so much altered by cabinet orders (from the king) and ministerial rescripts "There is a brilliant misery and a brilliant slavery in the institution of the standing army; both (which in Prussia have the power of laws), are most beautifully united. When it is beautiful that it now creates more difficulties and erto be a machine under a coat of two colours; rors than it cures, and the most experienced when it is a blessing to be a slave under stunning lawyer can scarcely find his way through music; when it is dignifying to have the soul and the immense complexity. The late king body drilled for gaiter-service and parade; then had already ordered the formation of a law will you find beauty, happiness, and human dig- commission to compile a new Book of Laws nity, united in a life in the standing army. for the entire kingdom. At the head of this commission stands the celebrated professor and state-minister, Von Savigny; but up to this time the commission has never published any of its labours. In the Rhenish provinces, which it will be recollected were for many years under the dominion of the French, the 'Code Napoleon' is still the recognized Book of Laws. sian ministers, and more especially the minister Von Kamptz, endeavoured to do away with this admirable code, and to give the Rhenish provinces the 'Landrecht' instead. But public feeling and opinion were so very strong against the design, that none of the ministers could venture to do it for fear it should excite the loyal inhabitants of these provinces to an insurrection, or at least to a state of dissatisfaction with their present government. It was not thought prudent to inspire them with any regrets concerning their late rulers, the French. Neverthe "Nothing presents a greater contrast to the culture of our times, than the reflection that the security of the state should still be based on a military institution! an institution by which every independent power of man becomes a fault; by which each free volition is annihilated, together with all spirit; by which the nature that distinguishes us from other creatures of the earth is destroyed; in which even the rudest word of command becomes reason; the most arduous order, law; the blindest obedience, virtue; and the most god-deserted loss of free-will (die gottverlassenste Willenlosigkeit) is a duty !”—Heinzen, Büreaukratie, p. 101. The chapter on Justice' is interesting. We offer the following abstract of the principal points. All the Prus Ministers can make what laws they please without submitting them to public consideration, there being no representation of the people in Prussia; and the ministers can generally make the judges decide as they wish, inasmuch as the former have the power, if displeased with them, of dismiss-less, the ministers have continued virtually ing them from office. to alter the Code Napoleon' to a very Heinzen very truly remarks, that 'where great extent, without making any nominal justice is not wholly free and inviolate in all or literal change, by the addition of all sorts respects, there is no right and no security of of new laws, and the alteration of others. the citizens possible. In Prussia,' continues This manœuvre was sometimes so glaring he, this security does not exist. Neither that they did not dare to publish these new the author of this book, nor the author of laws in the government papers, where they any other' (nor, we might humbly add in a ought all by right to appear, in order to acwhisper, the writer of the present article), quire the power of laws, by being thus 'is at any time sure that he may not be tak- made known to the population. They, en out of his house by the police, and con- therefore, sent them quietly to the different ducted in custody to Berlin or any other courts of law and other administrations, and place, the moment the Bureaucracy thinks thus the new law was first learnt by its him deserving of its especial consideration.' effect being felt. The trick would be Among other examples, they have treated laughable were it not a serious thing to play in this way no less a person than the Arch- with justice. Heinzen says, 'After the rebishop of Cologne. The poor author and script of the 22d of December, 1833, the the rich prelate fare alike; but that is very verdicts of a court of law in matters that indifferent consolation to actual sufferers. concern high-treason, or disloyalty towards They took the archbishop out of his house the king or country, are no verdicts, but under mere accusations, and out of the dis-only advices for a verdict ! The minister of trict of his jurisdiction, withdrew him from all clerical functions, treated him for several years as a prisoner, and finally-declared that nothing could be proved against him! In the old Prussian provinces (as distinguished from the Rhenish), the Book of Laws is called 'Landrecht.' It first appeared in the last century, in the reign of justice, after having had them minutely examined and brought into unison with the laws, makes them into verdicts!' Falsehoods ludicrously palpable have also been told. Although the Minister Von Kamptz continually made the greatest alterations, virtually, in the Code Napoleon,' by issuing new ministerial rescripts in direct oppo sition to the corresponding cases in the Code, he nevertheless declared, on leaving his seat as Minister of Justice in 1838, that 'not a single article in the Civil Code, in the Civil Process Order, or the Penal Code, had been altered.' Heinzen says, 'This I call cutting off the nose and ears of a man, and then saying we have not hurt a hair of his head!' Nor is the system of Education in Prussia, excellent as this is in so many respects, free from the reproach of despotic influence. Children and young men acquire a great general knowledge; but professors and schoolmasters are not allowed to teach according to any views of their own, or to instil any convictions they may entertain which are not in strict accordance with the regular government system. Hence, besides other limitations, the pupils do not acquire the knowledge of matters that concern actual life, and which might enable them to stand upon their own ground in entering the active world. But a free instruction could hardly be expected in a country where the free expression of thought is not permitted either to the pen or the tongue. This applies not merely to politics, but also to theology, and to philosophy generally. A professor,' says Heinzen, who should indulge in a free expression of thought at his lecture-desk, would be equally punished with a rebel who declaimed in the streets.' Heinzen's work is divided into three Parts, the first and most important of which we have now gone through. The remainder we have seen, but do not at present possess, the separate Parts being handed about privately. Should we obtain them, however, as we fully expect, we shall probably return to the subject; and after exhibiting the work in detail, offer some general comments on the whole, together with the state of things it discusses. "For all who have an opinion of their own these few words are written. That which makes man a slave, is the mean fear of a prison. But to be obliged to take one's conviction into the grave is a greater punishment than a prison could be; and to spread one's free opinion is a greater happiness than the security derived from a timorous silence. It is a duty and an honour to enter a gaol, when its doors are opened for rectitude and truth. The path to liberty lies through the prison."-Heinzen, Preuss. Büreaukratie, p. 207. Heinzen has at present taken refuge in Belgium; but we understand that he offers to return and submit himself to the laws, provided they will try him by the 'Code Napoleon,' and not by a secret tribunal. Meanwhile a subscription for his wife and family has been made in Cologne. ART. VI.-Histoire du Consulat et de l'Em pire, par L. A. THIERS. Tomes I. et II. Paris. March, 1845. History of the Consulate and the Empire, by L. A. THIERS. Translated by D. FORBES CAMPBELL. London. Colburn. 1845. THE appearance of these volumes has been looked forward to in Paris with all the eager vivacity of hope and triumph. In England, though we have neither been so eager nor so anxious, yet it would be vain to deny that the publication of the work has excited a more than ordinary interest. Widely different, however, are the motives by which the reading public in either country are prompted to seize on this novelty. In France, and more especially in Paris, there are a hundred different motives peculiarly appertaining to the nation; to the epoch whose history is here treated of; to the form of government and administration whose springs are unfolded; to the wonderful man who stands in the foreground of the picture; and to the remarkable person who has imposed upon himself the task of writing the history of a period, among the most stirring and dramatic; if not the most important, in the cycles of the world. These circumstances invest the work of Thiers, in France, with an interest which it can never obtain out of that country, and sufficiently account for the eager craving of the French public. But in England, in Germany, ay, and in America, the desire to see and devour the book, though neither so deep nor so demonstrated as in Paris, still exceeds the bounds of ordinary curiosity, and sufficiently attests that the historian and his hero are alike objects of study, of contemplation, and of interest. Both the one and the other rose from small beginnings to pride of place and power; we have seen both the one and the other ignominiously fall. Alternations of fortune like these afford a varying interest in vain sought in the histories of men who pursue the even tenour of their way, who are neither suddenly elevated nor suddenly depressed, neither cadets to-day nor consuls to-morrow, neither paupers this year nor prime ministers the year succeeding. But altogether apart from the hero of the book, and the political importance of the historian, there was sufficient in the name of THIERS as a mere homme de lettres to excite attention. A quarter of a century ago M. Thiers had, as a journalist, rendered himself remarkable by the vivacity and the vigour of his intellect, and some of his productions thus early published in a provincial journal had secured him the friendship of Manuel, and an introduction to M. Etienne, the chief editor of the Constitutionnel.' The articles which he published in that journal were characterized by beauty, strength, and logical precision; and, above all, by that lively, brilliant, and dramatic style, which then distinguished him from most of his contemporaries. It was while engaged as an almost daily and most successful writer in the Constitutionnel,' in 1821 and 1822, that M. Thiers bethought him that something more was necessary to permanent fame than these diurnal disquisitions; and with the resolution becoming a grave and serious subject, he determined to collect materials for history. The nature of his avocations, probably also his tastes, led Thiers to the study and contemplation of the French Revolution; that eventful period, in which every question had been touched on-some familiarly handled-but none settled. Social and political economy, financial and administrative science, the law, legislation, metaphysics, the art of war-everything, in a word, but the art of peace had then been dallied with and discussed. And, in order to pronounce on these questions, and on the manner in which they had been treated, it was necessary that Thiers should, at least, dig somewhat beyond the surface, in soils sometimes cold and clayey-sometimes dry and arid-occasionally stony and barren, anon fertile and fruitful. The then successful journalist, with no visions of a portfolio in perspective, did not shrink from so varied a labour. With the illustrious survivors of the Grande Armée, he talked of war and battles with the ex-deacon and ex-minister of finance, the Baron Louis, he discussed the question of the assignats, and the financial operations of the Directory and Consulate; while the Nestor of diplomatists, Talleyrand, lent him the aid of his clear head, correct judgment, and fine tact and sagacity, in fathoming the depths of foreign affairs. At length the first volume of the 'Histoire de la Revolution Française' appeared, in 1823; but so unknown was the then rising journalist to the booksellers, that he was forced to couple his name with one Felix Bodin, a burning and a shining light among the bright men of the Row of Paris, before Lecomte and Durey would give to one page of his manuscript the permanency of print. Before 1824, Thiers had made himself known and felt; and in that year the worthy booksellers launched forth the third volume, with the simple name of Adolphe Thiers, unencumbered with the heavy help of the prosperous, plodding hack, Bodin. This volume created quite a sensation in Paris. The boldness, not to say audacity, with which the young writer treated men and things equally hated by the Restoration, contributed to give the work a party value, independently of its literary merit. The History of M. Thiers soon became a textbook. Friends among the old admirers of Napoleon it was sure to find, and something more than friends among the young. It was a new revelation of the last half century, in which the events, the men, and, to use an expressive French phrase, les situations, were generally explained and extenuated, seldom or never exposed. The facts were set forth with wonderful art and dramatic effect, and the clearness and vigour of the style lent a new charm to the development of this great drama. The page was, indeed, a pictured one. The men were real men of flesh and blood, instinct with strong passion, muscular and sinewy, rushing with desperate determination to a great and glorious object. The reader was transported to the scene of action, and became, so to speak, participient in the passions of the desperate players. Volume after volume appeared, with continually increasing popularity, and shortly after the Revolution of 1830, the work had already gone through a third edition. This was not wonderful. Thiers had stirred up the vain-glory of the nation, and thrown out anew for discussion all the cardinal questions which had been mooted half a century before, though they still remained unsolved. That he understood these questions himself is more than we dare affirm; but this at least is certain, that he adjusted his style to the intellectual level of his reader, and made his countrymen believe that these great topics were within the grasp of the meanest capacity. It were beside our purpose here, and perhaps it were not worth the while at any time, to throw in the teeth of a man totally divested of principle, and altogether destitute of a moral sense, his political palinodes, his trickery and his tergiversation. without dwelling on these unpleasant passages in his public life, we may remark that the 'Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire,' But though cleverly and forcibly written, wants | or loans, not a fraudulent contractor that that earnestness and seemingly enthusiastic did not force his way into the congenial spirit of conviction which the author con- salons of Barras, or the anti-chambers of trived to throw into his 'History of the the ministers of the Directory. Every one, First Revolution.' There are no doubt man and woman, wished to be brought; and some strong and well-written passages in each Louis and Adolphe, and each Marie the work under review, but as a whole the and Toinette, had his and her price. It was two volumes which we have perused, a national cloud and coterie of chiffoniers, though a creditable performance, yet lack all raking for gold in the mud and offal of that picturesqueness and dramatic interest, the stinkingest and most sensual capital that happy talent of description which we of all Christendom, the good city of Paris. find in the earlier work. The political life This was a system that could not last. The of M. Thiers has no doubt destroyed the Royalists founded the Clichy Club; the prestige which hung about the writer of the Constitutional party, the Club of Sálm; the Constitutionnel' and 'National.' We see Republicans, the Club of the Manége. The now before us a man, the surfeited sensual- Directory stood in the midst of these facist and slave of power, who would take tions with its intriguants and its stock-joboffice to-morrow, not for the sake of princi- bers. Barras, the rotten Barras, as Napople or party, but for the luxury, the fortune, leon used to call him, inherited the flagrant and the personal consideration which office, immorality of the Thermodoriens. even in twice revolutionized France, still noble, he had all the tastes, all the vices, confers. It is no longer the eloquent pane- and all the frivolity, of the cankered and gyrist of Danton-the odorous embalmer of worn-out aristocracy of France-his misthe memory of Herault de Sechelles--the tresses--his cooks-his chiens de chasse and bold sketcher of Hoche--and the palliator de meute-his maitres d'hotel-his perruof the pillaging and plundering of Masséna quiers, sommeliers, &c. And whilst he was that we have to deal with, but the selfish rolling in this Sybarite luxury, and dining scorner of all principle and virtue, whose daily like Dives, the army and navy were system of regeneration and liberty for France and the world, is centered wholly in himself, in the proper person of Adolphe Thiers. An ex living like Lazarus, without coats to cover their looped and windowed raggedness,' or crumbs to satisfy their craving hunger. The spirits of robbery and rapine spread their wide wings over France, and these half spoliators, half Sybarites, called themselves a government. Paris was a sink of obscenity and corruption. The last volume of the former history terminated with the Directory. The Directory, too, had its military triumphs which the historian finds a pride and pleasure in describing; but these triumphs were Every impure, every corrupt, every lasdue to an army created by the Convention, civious, every licentious spirit found there frenzied by revolutionary fever, and impel- not merely a resting-place, but a welcome led by a wild desire to plant the one indivi- home. The liberty of the press had persible Republic far and wide by force of arms. ished in the general licentiousness. Barras But, notwithstanding all this fury and fus- had caused the journalist Poncelin to be tian of the new regenerators of mankind, carried off to the Luxembourg prison, where, public credit was destroyed. The abuse of being first gagged, he was afterwards flagelcredit had been the destruction of it. There lated so unmercifully, that he died the death were 581,000,000 fr. of assignats in circula- of a martyr. What was his crime? He tion, and such was the depreciation of this told the tyrant the truth in the hearing of paper, that the louis of 24 livres cost 5300f. the people. Is it wonderful that, under in assignats. Add to this, that the ministry such a system, the mandats of the 25th of of police destroyed in the revolution, and January, 1797, were only quoted, and that re-established in 1796, had become one of per force, at 1f. value for every 100f? Betthe most active mainsprings of the govern- ter days at length began to dawn on this afflicted country. By the influence of PicheThis establishment began by demoralizing gru, Barthélemy entered into the Directory, the power which created it, and continued while Talleyrand became a minister. But in its course by alternately corrupting and again the evil spirit prevails; again a cowcoercing the citizens of the capital of France. ardly tyranny recommences its horrible There was a government and ministerial reign; Hoche is dead, Moreau disgraced, party in that day, too, timid, vile, and venal. Carnot banished, Barthélemy arrested, and There was not an intriguant male or female, fifty-three deputies are uno flatu proscribed, not an ambitious speculator, not a public and Bonaparte, who had promised his supplunderer, not a dirty dabbler in the funds port to the wise and moderate, is sent to ment. |