what might happen if the Faubourgs were again to win the upper hand in Paris. France was sick of revolutions, and of the licentiousness of liberty. What she asked was to be guarded against the excesses of the popular principle. It was considered—let us travel back in thought to the beginning of the year 1853—that under the rule of Louis XVIII., of Charles X., and of Louis Philippe, the experiment of popular government had been fairly tried in France, and had resulted in a miserable failure. If the choice was to be between Anarchy and the Iron Hand, the deliberate choice of Frenchmen was in favour of the man who would ensure them against the results of 1792-93, and the possibilities of June, 1848. The rule of Louis Napoleon, which now partly rests upon habit and custom, in the first instance represented the apprehensions of the French nation in presence of an ascertained past and an unascertained future. If their Emperor, without increasing the financial burdens of the nation in too great a degree, can add a few more names to those which are already engraved on the triumphal arch at the Barrière de l’Etoile, so much the better. A purple rag and a successful tattoo are never very displeasing objects to a Frenchman’s mind.
Compare the moral conditions under which Italy is winning her way to independence with those which actually obtain in France. In the first place, they are not the excesses of liberty, but the excesses of despotism which are ever present as the bugbears of the Italian mind. An Italian matron thinks of her boy laid low by an Austrian firing party at Ferrara; an Italian wife still mourns over her husband who was buried alive for years, without trial, in the dungeons of the priests at Rome, and whom she never saw again; an Italian daughter weeps for her father who lived to suffer with Poerio, but who did not survive to triumph with Garibaldi. These feelings are deeply engraved into the hearts of the Italian people. When the popular party gained the upper-hand at Rome, at Venice, at Milan, and, for a brief space, at Naples, with the exception of the assassination by the mob of a single ruffian at Parma, the other day, what is there to regret? No one would for a moment defend the murder of Rossi a bit more than he would defend the attempt made, some two years ago, by Felice Orsini against the life of the French Emperor; but when this took place the priests were yet in power, and Rome was not under a popular government. It might also be said that when the people had gained a momentary supremacy they were so constantly under fire, that they had not the time, or opportunity, even if they had had the intention, for massacre and plunder. This is beside the purpose of the argument. The fact remains that the Italians have not any traditions of the guillotine and of revolutionary frenzy to forget. They may aspire to liberty, for they have never abused it. We may feel reasonably certain that if the Austrian war-cloud is dissipated, and Italy becomes constituted into a kingdom, the government will be directed essentially upon constitutional maxims.
There will be the three forms of liberty which are essential to the well-being and growth of a nation; liberty of speech in Parliament, liberty of speech at the bar, liberty of printed speech, or in other words, liberty of the press. There is, on the one hand, a vast amount of intelligence scattered about amongst the urban population of Italy; and, on the other, quite a sufficient pressure of adverse circumstances to prevent the Italians from degenerating into a nation of babblers and dreamers. Now, when we see with what extreme impatience Louis Napoleon regards the freedom of debate and discussion in Belgium, a country of which he may covet the possession, but which does not directly thwart his schemes of ambition, it may not unfairly be inferred that he would not regard the development of liberty in the Italian peninsula with any peculiar satisfaction. May there not come a moment when Frenchmen may say, “After all, are we not as good as the Italians whom we have helped to redeem from slavery with our blood, and with our treasure? Are we not to the full as much worth as the Belgians, whose highest boast it is to be imperfect Frenchmen?” With a constitutional Italy upon one side of France, and a constitutional Belgium upon the other (to make no mention of the Kingdom of the Netherlands), Louis Napoleon could scarcely maintain his system of government, which necessarily involves the repression of all expression—if not of the pressure—of public opinion. Surely such phrases as those which embodied the noble protest made Last Week by M. Berryer against the subjection of the French bar must find an echo in many a French heart. The government of Louis Napoleon and of Victor Emmanuel must certainly be conducted on different principles; and thus there arises a danger to the French Emperor, which would in the long run probably prove more fatal to him than any direct and material danger which he would incur from the entire and immediate liberation of Italy. At the present moment the belief is amongst many who make politics their trade, that he looks with an evil and grudging eye upon such an event as the complete independence of Italy, unless accompanied by a fresh cession of territory to France. The Genoese sailors would prove a far more useful addition to the navy, even than were the Savoyard soldiers to the army of France. These are men of very different mould to the hybrid mixture of soldier and sailor, which is warmed into a state of half efficiency by the rigour of the French law of maritime conscription. Your Genoese is a Jack Tar in the proper acceptation of the word, and would prove a very acceptable addition to the cadres of the French navy. Meanwhile Capua has fallen. Before these lines are published, the young ex-King of the Two Sicilies will probably have fled from Gaeta, and Victor Emmanuel and his advisers will be able to turn their attention to the northern region of the new kingdom of Italy, unless Louis Napoleon should transmit fresh orders to General Goyon at Rome. If Italy be independent in the long run, and without fresh territorial concession to France, Louis Napoleon will be what he has not often been—a dupe.