5. The Rivals. By the Author of The Collegians,' 410 IX. 1. The Life of Reginald Heber, D.D., Lord Bishop of Calcutta. By his Widow. With Selections from bis Correspondence, Unpublished Poems, and Pri- vate Papers; together with a Journal of his Tour in Norway, Sweden, Russia, Hungary, and Germany, and a History of the Cossacks. 2. The Last Days of Bishop Heber. By Thomas Robinson, A.M., Archdeacon of Madras, and late Domestic Chaplain to his Lordship. 3. Essays on the Lives of Cowper, Newton, and Heber; or an Examination of the Course of Nature being interrupted by the Divine Government, X. The Greek Grammar of Frederick Thiersch, trans- lated from the German, with brief Remarks, by Sir D. K. Sandford, M.A. of Christ-Church, Oxford, XI. Seventeenth Report of the Commissioners appointed to enquire into the Duties, Salaries, and Emoluments of the Officers, Clerks, and Ministers of Justice of all Temporal and Ecclesiastical Courts in Ireland. XII. A Refutation of an Article in the Edinburgh Review (No. CII.) entitled, Sadler's Law of Population, and Disproof of Human Superfecundity;' contain- ing also Additional Proofs of the Principle enun- ciated in that Treatise, founded on the Censuses of THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. OCTOBER, 1830. No. CIII. ART. I.-Reflexions sur la France; vices de son Gouvernement; causes du Mécontentement des Français sous le Ministère de Polignac, &c. Par M. ST MAURICE. 8vo. London : 1830. SINCE INCE the breaking out of the French Revolution, excepting, perhaps, the failure of Napoleon in Russia and the downfall of his enormous power, no event has occurred on the continent of Europe that will stand in any kind of comparison with the late proceedings in Paris. The influence which they are calculated to exert, both upon the condition of the great people over whose name they have shed the lustre of an imperishable renown, and the more wide-spreading consequences that must speedily flow from them in every other country, forcibly arrest our attention at the present moment, and demand a calm discussion. If all mankind are interested in this glorious achievement, Englishmen surely have of all others the deepest concern in its effects, not merely as well-wishers to the liberties of other nations, but as feeling watchful of every encroachment upon their own; for with the fullest disposition charitably to construe the feelings and principles of our own rulers, we take it to be abundantly manifest, that the battle of English liberty has really been fought and won at Paris. Under the influence of these impressions, we advance to the contemplation of this mighty theme; and we deem it a sacred duty to view it, deliberately and candidly indeed but with entire freedom, and without even the least respect of persons, or the most remote care to whom our remarks may prove offensive. Our purpose is certainly to speak the truth, and not to give offence; but if the truth prove unpalatable to any, be theirs the blame, not ours. As soon as the Prince Polignac was called to the head of the French king's councils, the disposition to favour the Jesuits, to undo the effects of the Revolution, and to counteract the current of liberal opinions, long enough apparent in the conduct of Charles X. and his bigoted daughter-in-law, broke forth without any restraint, and kept no terms with any antagonist. The Dauphin, if indeed he really differed from his family in point of sense, and thus perceived the precipice towards which they were hurrying, was silenced, and borne along by the imperious passions of his fanatical consort. Among the old nobility who surrounded the throne, none had the wisdom to discern or the virtue to point out the perils which beset it. The priests ruled supreme over the monarch, or divided their dominion with the Dauphiness. Nor had they the sense to see, in their thirst for revenge, that the impetuosity of the pursuit might frustrate the attainment of their object. One or two military men, of Napoleon's school, were in some credit with the court; but their habitual disregard of the people, and confidence in the steadiness of the army, made them the worst of all advisers, while they gave encouragement to those who looked for their services, as tools at once unprincipled and submissive. The description of the colleagues to whom the Prince was associated, further betrayed alike the dispositions and the blindness of the court. Labourdonnaye was a man of honour and principle; but, from the sustained violence of his political opinions, all avowedly in favour of arbitrary power, and against every vestige of the revolutionary improvements, his name was regarded as the synonyme of the ancient régime, in church and in state-old parliaments-old feudal privileges-an insolent nobility-and a bloated priesthood. His extreme violence in debate had marked him out still more for general dislike; and he was the object of unceasing animosity to one party, without securing the goodwill of the other, whose distrust was excited by his intolerant presumption, and unheeding temerity. A few unknown and insignificant men, such as Ranville, were the make-weights of the junto; but one there was besides Labourdonnaye, for whom it would have been well could he have been unknown. General Bourmont was hated, if not despised, by the army; but his treachery to it was sufficient to win the confidence of the Bourbons; and, whether from the disposition, too common with kings, to trust those who are thrown as it were into their arms, by being left at their mercy, in the universal distrust and hatred of the rest of mankind, or because such an arrangement would insult and degrade the French army, this person was selected from among its gallant captains, and placed at the head of the war department, He had, moreover, served with the Dauphin in the shameful war against the liberties of Spain; and having enabled one branch of the Bourbons to trample upon freedom abroad, he might be employed in helping another to crush it at home. The announcement of such names completed the impression which the elevation of Polignac was calculated to excite, and it spread consternation through all France. Reflecting men saw on the throne a prince of weak understanding, but furious bigotry, the declared enemy of all liberty, civil and religious, and blindly bent, under the dictation of his confessor, upon working out his own salvation, by rooting up every vestige of the blessings which his people had gained, at the price of so much suffering for a quarter of a century. Around him they perceived a younger brood of the self-same character, who shut out all hope of better times, because the fanaticism of the old king's successors was quite as furious as his own. The chief minister was a weak and reckless bigot; a man of no pretensions to capacity, or knowledge, or experience; whose dulness and frivolity made his mind impervious to reason; whose fanaticism made it proof against fear. His colleagues were one or two obscure and desperate adventurers, the Coryphæus of the ultra royalists, and the deserter of his post on the eve of the battle which had inflicted on the French the unmitigated evils of the Restoration. Among the tools with which this portentous cabinet had to work, were some of the most unprincipled of Napoleon's generals, men grown grey in the career of cruelty, profligacy, and oppression; practising in the court of the Bourbons all the suppleness which they had learnt in their riper age under the despotism of the Usurper; and ready to rehearse once more in the streets of the capital, the early lessons of butchery which had been familiar to their more tender years, under the Convention and the Direc tory. So prodigious a combination of evil designs, blind violence, and unprincipled instruments, had seldom been arrayed against the happiness of any people. The firmest beholder could not contemplate it without alarm, nor could the most sanguine descry any ground of hope, save in the chance of fatal errors being committed by such adversaries. These errors we will not say rescued, but enabled the people to rescue, their country. For a while there were no grounds of discontent or of opposition afforded by the proceedings of the new ministry; and, ac cordingly, the slavish doctrine, so full of mischief, and so calculated to gain the favour of feeble, thoughtless, and spiritless natures, was every day echoed in our ears, Measures, not Men." We were told not to condemn the ministry without a trial; we were bid to wait until they should do some act deserving of reprobation; we were asked what harm they had done, or attempt 6 ed, that justified such an universal clamour as was raised against them? Only be quiet for a little while,' it was said significantly, and you may find their measures exactly such as you 'would yourself approve.' But the more reflecting and sagacious did not choose to wait until it should be too late to resist with effect-too late for any thing, except to be laughed at by the deceiver. They knew full well, that if you suffer men unworthy of confidence to rule, they can always choose their own time for undermining your defences; that they may, by slow degrees, by carrying little encroachments at a time, gain a power no longer to be resisted; that, if opposition is delayed until their time comes-until they shall do some act deserving of reprobation-they may be enabled to do the act, and may leave you, its victims, nothing for your consolation except to reprobate. The French had the sense to prefer effectual prevention while it was yet time, to unavailing blame when the time was past; they rejected the kind, and judicious, and, as it was termed, temperate counsel of their worst enemies on both sides of the Channel; and they raised all over the country one loud cry for the removal of a ministry at once odious and contemptible. The firmness of the court was not shaken by this universal expression of public opinion; the vain feeble creature who had become prime minister, held his ground; the Chambers were dissolved, that a new election might improve their subserviency; and the friends of despotic power, in both France and England, fondly and foolishly hoped that the day was their own. Every engine of influence was set in motion; praise to whom praise was due, honours to whom honours, threats to whom threats, and bribes to whom bribes. The existence, at least the peaceful existence, of the dynasty was staked upon the issue of the contest; and no pains were spared, and no scruples were allowed to intervene, and no means were either neglected, or despised, or rejected, which might further the return of a more complying legislature. The constant cry of Measures, not Men,' was repeated-that cry which so often bewilders honest, weak men in England, and leads to such remediless mischief, and stands in the way of so much solid improvement, enabling the enemies of all amendment in every branch of our system to maintain their ground, and resist every good measure:-that cry which, beyond every other, is in its operation self-contradictory, and in its effects self-destructive, inasmuch as, under the vain and flimsy pretext of making measures every thing, the means are afforded of frustrating all measures, and making all good intentions nothing. This cry, so plausible, so perilous among the ignorant, so well adapted to mislead the unwary and inexperienced, was echoed |