LAST WEEK.
The Emperor of the French has just shown himself infinitely superior in statesmanship and intelligence to the courtiers whom he has hitherto used rather as the instruments of his policy than as his councillors and colleagues. For some nine years past France has been dumb. For nine years that great country which has contributed so much to the intellectual life of Europe has been struck with the curse of sterility in this respect. What has become of all the great speakers, and writers, and lawyers, and dramatists, and actors, and painters, who exercised so great an influence upon the thoughts, and who so much guided the taste of the human race? Without stopping to inquire whether in all instances this authority was exercised for good—the great intellectual stir and hubbub were a fact. But for nine years, with some inconsiderable exceptions, such as the work of M. E. About upon the Roman Question, there has not been a historical or political publication from the Paris press which has been spoken of in the capitals of other lands. If we make exception of an impure work or two, which had better remain unnamed, there has not for nine years been a work of fiction produced by French writers which deserves the name. What has become of Thiers, Guizot, Barante, Thierry, and of those who should have succeeded them when the hand of death had fallen upon any of the illustrious band? Balzac is gone; Dumas the elder has turned buffoon; Charles de Bernard, the most graceful of French novelists, will write no more pendants to the Femme de Quarante Ans; but where are those legions of busy pens which used day by day to contribute so largely to the amusement of France and of Europe? Lamartine writes no more “Reveries;” Victor Hugo seems to have hung up for ever one of the two only lyres which ever vibrated to French song. Even upon the stage Rachel, Bouffé, Déjazet, have left no successors. The great race of French painters has died out; and, with the exception, perhaps, of Rosa Bonheur, who is there to follow in the footsteps of Paul Delaroche, of Ary Scheffer, of Gudin in his prime? Music, too, that soft art which tyrants love, seems to have died an unnatural death in Paris. The pulpit and the bar have been reduced to equal silence, if we make honourable exception of two or three efforts made by members of the Parisian bar, at the risk of their own fortunes—perhaps of their personal liberty. They went down to plead, as our own great constitutional lawyers did in London in the arbitrary days of the First Charles or the Second James—true to the tradition of their order, and to their own dignity—whatever might be the cost. Of political eloquence the less said the better. The condition of Louis Napoleon’s power has been that he must consign all French orators to the lock-up, or drive them out of a country which they might animate to moral resistance, if not to armed rebellion.
Now the small men whom the French Emperor has been compelled to use as the tools of his policy hitherto have not, as their Master has, the intelligence to comprehend that you cannot kill, though you may stamp under foot for a while, the intellectual energy of such a country as France. The cuckoo cry of all tyrants great or small,—Francis-Joseph, now of Austria, or Squire Western, late of Somersetshire, has always been material well-being for the working classes—but against intellectual struggles—war to the knife! What does a man want more than a belly-full of victuals, and a kind master? It was not so long since in our island there were not wanting buzzards—Honourable Buzzards, too, duly girt with swords as Knights of Shires—who were not ashamed to say that Education was a country’s curse. We—for our parts—have done with human folly in that kind, but it is just in the same spirit that the Mornys and Walewskis of France have counselled the Emperor to maintain the Imperial ban against Genius and Intellect. Louis Napoleon knows better. Shakspeare’s Moor pauses by the lamp in Desdemona’s death-room.
Put out the light—and then—put out the light!
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, &c.
It is one thing to extinguish a lamp, and another to kill for ever that vital spark by virtue of which the eye sees—the ear hears—the brain understands—the heart thrills with sorrow or joy. Louis Napoleon, too, has paused for a time before his lamp—how dim it now is!—which represents the genius of the French nation—but he has arrived at a happier conclusion than the Moor. The parallel, to be sure, will not hold throughout, for in the war—had war à l’outrance been declared between Cæsar and his legions, on the one side, and that little flame on the other, the flame would have conquered in the long run. Louis Napoleon has had the sense to perceive this. Count Morny offers the extinguisher with a grin.
Amidst the signs of the times which may be looked to with reasonable confidence, here is one. Whenever Louis Napoleon is about to do anything, or to enter upon any course of policy which is really for the good of France, he sends for Count Persigny. Whenever he intends an act, or a course of policy which makes the judicious grieve, the first thing is to get Count Persigny out of the way. This Count Persigny is a Frenchman to the heart’s core, which is his praise. He is a Bonapartist by political conviction, and who shall blame him for sticking fast to his party? More than this, he is a personal adherent of the present French Emperor, tried and found faithful through years of penury and adversity. Thus he has earned the right to speak out, and he does speak out. If Louis Napoleon never heard a word of truth from the lips of any other man, he would hear it from Count Persigny. The late French Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, and actual Minister for the Home Department at Paris, has shown that neither by threats nor by favour, neither by appeals to his fidelity, nor by apprehensions for his own future, can he be induced to give the sanction of his name to a course of policy which he deems injurious to the Emperor, and the Imperial cause. Louis Napoleon knows this, and he knows the value of the man. Neither Count Persigny nor any one else can be said to possess absolute influence over Louis Napoleon in last resort, if his mind were once made up; but in the