principle which, though he had himself outraged it, would be fully satisfied by his own withdrawal and the substitution of his grandson in his place. The proposition was met in the tumultuous assembly that had taken possession of the Chamber of Deputies by the solitary cry, "Il est trop tard;” and that one cry not only sealed the fate of monarchy in France, but was the expression of a force that has since shaken all Christendom to its centre. It was a memorable sentence: kings have learnt their weakness and subjects their power in considering it.

The revolution which has recently occurred has this peculiar significance, that it is a first instalment, so to speak, of the true and ultimate development of the democratic element, The movement against Charles X. was made by the bourgeoisie. The workpeople were irritated to take their part in it by an elaborate enumeration of wrongs which, as far as they were concerned, had only an illusory existence, and encouraged by promises which were never meant to be realised; but though it was by their courage, and with their blood, that the revolution of 1830 was effected, it was promoted and directed by the bourgeoisie to answer their own ends. They selfishly desired for their wealth that aristocracy which had only attached to blood: they coveted for themselves its advantages and powers, and the revolution was their means of attaining them. The throne was to be established on their prerogative-the dynasty was to be the expression of their power-the court the representative of their privilege, Charles X. was the King of France-the descendant of a long line of chivalry and nobility-the inheritor and champion of the spirit and immunities of high estatethe first gentleman of his kingdom. Louis Philippe, on the contrary, was the King of THE FRENCH (a significant distinction) a bourgeois monarch, pledged to maintain the claims of wealth, who commenced his reign by walking about the streets of Paris with a cotton umbrella in true tradesman's guise, to show the people how he understood the condition of his elevation; and who ended it by trampling on the class which had raised him, to show them how he despised it when it had served his purpose. After all, there was something more of nobility in the fate of him who fell in a consistent struggle to uphold the privilege of his rank than in the ignominious defeat of one who entertained the vain idea of building a monarch's dignity on the base elements to which he was indebted for a monarch's name.

But the bourgeoisie were, in their turn, to find that the

limit which they had placed to the manifestation of the democratic element, as most expressive of their own wants and most consistent with the safety of the kingdom, was by no means the true or the final limit. In aiding them, the working classes had learned their strength, and they now added their powerful voice in settling the point as to what should constitute the boundary of revolutionary movements. With much more intelligence than their masters they entered into the struggle of February; and, in using the bourgeoisie for their own purposes, paid them back in their own coin for the wrong which had been inflicted on them in 1830. Thus, the recent revolution is significant of the fact that a further step in the progress of democracy has been attained, from which it is impossible to recede: as the aristocracy was made to yield to the bourgeoisie, so these, in their turn, have found a more terrible master in the domination of the ouvriers.

The accounts which are given of the three days of February inform us that, on the second day, about five or six hundred of the National Guards assembled in the Rue Lepelletier. As this was their first appearance in the struggle, the people looked on with anxiety, uncertain as to the part which they were about to take. At length one of their number stepped forward and said "We are not all agreed as to the nature or the measure of the reform which you demand; but we are agreed as to its necessity and determined to enforce it." We mention this incident because it was indicative of two things -the mistaken notion that they had the command of the movement in their hands, and the ignorance which they displayed of the true position of things in assigning, as an ultimate limit, a point which was soon distanced, The king, whose power they had created, was to receive a lesson and to be reminded of the true basis of his authority—this is all they seem to have contemplated. This time, however, the people rose with a very different understanding of their own position from that which they had possessed in 1830. They had been deceived alike by the bourgeoisie and their monarch; they had it already in their hearts to be avenged on both; nevertheless, they kept their counsel; used the aid of the National Guard till it was too fully compromised to recede; and then, to its astonishment, compelled it to grace a triumph which it regarded with distaste, and to help in attaining an object which it had never anticipated.

If a struggle between a king and his people were not so full of melancholy and fearful elements, we might be tempted to smile at the lesson which these turbulent shopkeepers received,

and the manner in which it was taught. It is difficult to say which was the greater-their presumption in assuming that the movement was to be measured at their will, or the mortification that they must have felt at the part which they were ultimately made to play. We confess that we have little sympathy with this class. As things stand, it is much to be desired that the 200,000 bayonets which the National Guard are said to muster, in the awakened condition of their danger, will avail to check the rampant monster which they_themselves have fostered into being, for the peace of Europe rests upon the issue. But, as far as the class is concerned, we have no respect for its selfishness and no pity for its defeat. The working man, fighting for a principle without a care for the blood or the suffering which it will cost him in its attainment, is, with all his extravagances of thought and action, a far nobler being than the comfortable and egotistical National Guard, who only fights for the preservation of order when his own goods are in peril, and who, when it suits his purpose, levels his musket without compunction at the man with whom he has fraternised in insubordination.

In every great political crisis there is always some one circumstance which is supposed to be its cause-which stamps a character on it and gives it a name. It will be found, however, that the real causes of all revolutionary movements are more remote-have been long in operation; and that the peculiar and characteristic circumstance of the moment rather furnishes the fitting opportunity than the original motive. The famous ordonnances of July, like the hindrance of the banquet in February, yielded occasion for the explosion of the elements which had been long in process of combustion; but the elements owed their origin to the existence of principles of which these acts were but isolated expressions. Under the empire, the bourgeoisie had been taught to understand their power, but had not been elevated to the position which they coveted. The restoration was, as they fancied, one step towards its attainment; but, with the return of the Bourbon, came a host of titled idlers, who had recollected nothing in their exile but their misfortunes, and learned nothing from their misfortunes but the desire of retaliation. The aristocracy of wealth was again at a discount: as a natural consequence, it struggled for the ascendancy; and, maturing in strength of purpose with the progress of events, it finally found a fitting opportunity in the ordonnances of July for the assertion of its power.

But if, in the creation of a citizen king with a banker for

prime minister, they complacently beheld the work of their hands and the elevation of their order, these results were by no means satisfactory to another class who had helped to attain them. With a very different interpretation of the word "people," and a very different understanding of their rights, these beheld in the monarchy of Louis Philippe but another form of the despotism against which they had protested. They soon felt that the barricade must be again erected, but with another object in view. With indefatigable energy they, therefore, seized upon every opportunity which the events of the last fifteen years have presented; and, though often foiled and defeated, at last found the one fitted to their purpose. The names which figure most in the recent doings, and at the present moment in Paris, are the very names which meet the eye in reading the relation of every republican insurrection or emeute during this period. He who is an anarchist whilst in subjection becomes a maintainer of order when he is in authority; and so we cannot wonder that the men who are now eloquently wise in the advocacy of moderation and subordination are the self same men who have violently broken through the bounds of both when endeavouring to attain their object.

But the grave question which remains to be settled is— have they found the true terminus of the movement which they love to designate as the movement of the people? Can they rule and coerce the spirit which they have evoked? They have given to the democratic element an enlarged development-have they given to it its final one? They have passed by the plotters of 1830 in their notions of popular rights and privileges-will they not in their turn be successfully distanced by others? This is what the world waits

to see.

The events of the revolution in France have told fearfully over the greater part of the civilised world; and we have thus at length alluded to it, because, in its general results, it proves the rising power and terrible importance of a class long held in subjection-we mean the people; and because one of the characteristic facts of the day is highly illustrative of the subject matter so ably treated by the author of the work before us-we mean the tendency of distinct races, notwithstanding the so-called Catholic cry of equality and fraternity, to stand out in isolation from each other.

Almost all the capitals of Christendom have witnessed imitations of the Parisian movement: the measure of success attained by the democratic party has greatly varied; but one

of two results is everywhere manifest. Success has contributed to the consolidation of a mighty and irresponsible power: failure has furnished fresh elements of exasperation and energised the hope of revenge. Madrid has been coerced by the rude hand of a soldier, and Naples has suffered a massacre of its inhabitants at the command of its monarch. With these two exceptions, the victory has been on the side of the people wherever such movements have taken place;* but the social condition of Spain is a paradox in the history of nations, and it is more than probable that, ere these pages are in print, the Neapolitans will have exacted a terrible and sanguinary compensation for their defeat. Be this as it may, we have commenced a new and a solemn social era, "The people" are now words which denominate a formidable class, possessed of an universal creed, Catholic, so to speak, in its articles of evil import, and holding as a cardinal point of faith the doctrine that, as power is alone of popular creation, so resistance to it at pleasure is a matter of popular privilege.

Many assert that the important aspect usurped by this class is but a political phenomenon of ephemeral existence; that after a time, out of the present convulsed condition of society, a better state of things will arise; that order will resume its reign under purified forms; and that the people will naturally and easily fall back into the place of subordination which properly belongs to them. We confess that we are not of this opinion: that which we are called to witness is another step towards the final result of a great tendency of centuries. There is a cycle in the manifestation of tyrannies as in other things. The world has suffered under the despotism of monarchical power; has been harrassed by the oppressions of aristocratic prerogative; has groaned under the tyrannies of the mastership of wealth; but one thing is needed to complete this cycle-that is, the tyranny of irresponsible power, and it is now the turn of the people. It is the condition of our common humanity to know when we suffer: it is its natural instinct to resist the infliction of suffering: it is also as natural an abuse of the possession of power to inflict it. To suppose that the people, as a class, will form an exception to this rule, is to suppose that, whilst they are subject to the conditions of a common humanity, they are exempt from its infirmity: and this is to suppose a fact which the experience of nearly six thousand years has pronounced to be impossible. Whenever the advent of the

We do not include England in this remark, for the obvious reason that the Chartist riot in London was not worthy the name of "a movement."