Second French Empire

“ Cultured modern history, like Nature, would refuse to proceed per saltum. Yet the hundred years since gone by have brought wars as fierce, "leaps" of government as tremendous, as any century in the past. It is this same fair France that has contributed more than her share of them, and the Fall of the Second Empire was one of the most dramatic. ”

“ Probably France was never stronger than she is to-day in her national resources, in her readiness for war, and in the apparent stability of her republican government,--which ensued after the collapse of the Second Empire. She has been steady, persevering, and even patient for a hundred years in her struggles for political freedom, whatever mistakes she has made and crimes she has committed to secure this highest boon which modern civilization confers. A great hero may fall, a great nation may be enslaved ”

“ CHAPTER X BRUMAIRE Rarely has France been in a more distracted state than in the summer of 1799. Royalist revolts in the west and south rent the national life. The religious schism was unhealed; education was at a standstill; commerce had been swept from the seas by the British fleets; and trade with Italy and Germany was cut off by the war of the Second Coalition. ”

“ Powerful and great is the French Empire. Greater still is our moderation. We have in a manner conquered Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Germany. But, in the midst of such unparalleled success, we have listened only to the counsels of moderation. Of so many conquered provinces, we have retained only the one which was necessary to maintain France in the rank among the nations which she has always enjoyed. The partition of Poland, the provinces torn from Turkey, the conquest of India, and of almost all the European colonies, have turned the balance against us. ”

“ For long years France must play a secondary political part, which of itself will be a bitter thing, we may hope a wholesome thing; and when with long care{613} and nursing of resources she recovers, she cannot be so strong relatively again, while the German empire holds together. ”

“ The world there was at the same time, by an odd extension or intensification, the local present fact, to my small imagination, of the Second Empire, which was (for my notified consciousness) new and queer and perhaps even wrong, but on the spot so amply radiant and elegant that it took to itself, took under its protection with a splendour of insolence, the state and ancientry of the whole scene, profiting thus, to one's dim historic vision, confusedly though it might be, by the unparalleled luxury and variety of its heritage. ”

“ It is not to the present alone that sovereigns must accommodate their policy; the future must also be the object of their consideration. What is at this moment the situation of Europe? On one side, England, who possesses, by her sole exertions, a dominion to which the whole world has been hitherto compelled to submit. On the other side, the French Empire and the Continental States, which, strengthened by the union of their powers, cannot acquiesce in this supremacy exercised by England. ”

“ England in conscious superiority smiles at a nation which has had seven political revolutions in a hundred years. Republic, then Empire, then a return to the Bourbons, then a limited Monarchy under Louis Philippe, then Republic, followed by Empire again, and now for the third time a Republic!
But France, complex, mobile, changeful as the sea, in riotous enjoyment of her newfound liberties, casts off a form of government as she would an ill-fitting garment. She knows the value of tranquillity — she had it for one thousand years! ”

“ When the nineteenth century opened France was no longer a monarchy, but a republic; and her armies were to occupy in turn every European capital, from Madrid to Moscow. In order to understand the marvelous transformations produced by the French Revolution and the wars of Napoleon, we must consider somewhat carefully the conditions in France which led to a great reform of her institutions in 1789, and to the founding of a republic four years later. ”

“ I do not believe that the Revolution has produced any thing more comprehensive and energetic on the governments of the last twenty-five years in France, namely, the Republic, the Consulate, and the Empire. ”

“ France had not won the leadership of European civilization.
In the coming reign, new forces, new conditions, were to widen the field of national ambitions. And it was the nation across the channel which would grasp these forces and distance her rivals in an advance along the untried paths of commerce and a world-wide expansion.
With a strange apathy France had seen herself mistress of a large part of the American Continent, won for her by adventurous Frenchmen and Catholic missionaries. She did practically nothing to develop this magnificent colonial empire. ”

“ The death-knell of the Second Empire has already sounded at Paris. It will end, as it began, by a parody. But let us not forget that it is the governments and the ruling classes of Europe who enabled Louis Napoleon to play during eighteen years the ferocious farce of the Restored Empire. ”

“ SURROUNDING REPUBLICS CHANGED INTO KINGDOMS.—Thus was the First French Republic metamorphosed into an unveiled empire. We may be sure that the cluster of republics which during the Revolution sprang up around the great original, will speedily undergo a like transformation; for Napoleon was right when he said that a revolution in France is sure to be followed by a revolution throughout Europe. As France, a republic, would make all states republics, so France, a monarchy, would make all nations monarchies. ”

“ Within the Empire itself the Code Napoléon, conferring upon the subjects of France the benefits which the French had already won for themselves, had superseded a society resting on class-privilege, on feudal service, and on the despotism of custom, by a society resting on equality before the law, on freedom of contract, and on the unshackled ownership and enjoyment of land, whether the holder possessed an acre or a league. ”

“ The French revolution exploding like a volcano in the heart of Europe, followed by a republic whose foundation stones were laid in the proudest blood of France—the extinction of the Bourbon dynasty, and the loud declaration of rights which startled every despot from the Archangel to the Mediterranean like a peal of thunder, had covered the continent with hostile armies. ”

“ It seems designed as a lesson for the human race in the transitory nature of power applied from without.
The vast fabric passed with himself; was gone like a shadow when he was gone. The unity of the Empire was buried in the grave of its founder. In twenty-nine years (by the treaty of Verdun) three kingdoms emerged from the crumbling mass. France, Italy, Germany, already separated by race repulsions, had taken up each a distinct national existence, the Imperial crown remaining with Germany. ”

“ INTRODUCTION. CHARACTER OF THE REVOLUTION.—The French Revolution was a tremendous upheaval of society, which brought with it the abolition of feudalism and monarchy, and the securing of an equality of political rights. Its immediate result in France was the establishment of a democratic republic, followed by an empire resting on military power. Its conquests, and the predominance of France, provoked an uprising of the other European peoples in behalf of national independence. This overthrew the French empire, and produced a temporary restoration of the old dynasty. ”

“ These facts, and the harmony with which the inexperienced multitude took this first great step toward national regeneration, excited throughout aristocratic Europe amazement and alarm. Kings and nobles alike trembled. All the states of Europe, like France, were oppressed by feudal despotism. All the people of Europe might, like the French, demand reform. ”

“ And what could patriotism mean, when the French fatherland meant the land of Louis Napoleon, Morny, Maupas, Persigny, and their unspeakable underlings? The new Empire gave France what is called a strong government, by which commercially she throve. Tradesmen, seeing business improve and their hoards grow, chafed less at the loss of political freedom. The working classes were propitiated by public works—the favorite nostrum of socialists and tyrants—organized on a vast scale. ”

“ ERA OF LOUIS XIV England now turned her attention to the third European Power, whose expansion and prosperity caused ever-growing anxiety to the Chosen People: namely France. Under her Kings the latter country had developed into a homogeneous, centralised state. By means of a clever and unscrupulous foreign policy, in conjunction with the energy of an essentially progressive population, France had been able to profit immensely by the weakness and lack of unity of the German Empire. ”

“ Caught in the midst of prosperity undreamed of, the Napoleonic Dynasty fell of its own accord into an abyss of blood and shame, dragging France down with it. That wonderful military star which arose at Areola and Rivoli and shone on the fields of Marengo and Austerlitz to set at Sedan; that great nation, as the French dearly loved to be called, defeated, disgraced, disarmed in six months; that French army, oft victorious, even when hampered by the carelessness and incapacity of its Officers ”

“ Thus we triumph over military despotism, that bloody negation of the rights of man. The First Empire placed the collar of servitude about our necks—it began and ended in carnage—and left us a legacy of a Second Empire, which was finally to end in the disgrace of Sedan. ”

“ The English Empire, both at its best and worse estate, could boast of nothing better than a feeble imitation of the antique, while the French Empire was at least an expression of the conquests and successes of one man. ”

“ The civilisation of Europe, he held, was most intelligibly exhibited in that of France, where, more than in other countries, intellectual and social development have moved hand in hand, where general ideas and doctrines have always accompanied great events and public revolutions. The key to the meaning of French history he found in the tendency towards national and political unity. From the tenth to the fourteenth century four great forces met in co-operation or in conflict—royalty, the feudal system, the communes, the Church. Feudalism fell; a great monarchy arose upon its ruins. ”

“ Considering what France was under her Kings, what she now is, and how many troubles she has had to endure at the hands of intriguers, the conclusion in its substance, in its nudity, in its complete entirety, accepted by all men able to read French History, is surely that France always was, is at heart, and should remain what Great Britain is, and rightly wishes to remain, i.e., a Constitutional Monarchy. ”

“ A strong organization of the centre will be necessary as a precautionary measure, lest Russia or France should one day, in order to extend their power, attempt to gain the supremacy in Europe. The French Empire is now 23in the enjoyment of the full energy of her existence: if she does not, at this moment, complete the political constitution of Europe, to-morrow she may lose the advantages of her situation, and fail in her enterprises. ”

“ The great French Empire, as under Napoleon, with his military despotic power, where is it? The great Mogul Empire, with its despotic grinding power, where is it? They none of them [584] trusted or looked to the strong arm of the Great I AM. We would point out that our glorious empire is larger, stronger, and better than them all. Larger in area, and with a population exceeding three hundred millions; stronger, in doing battle for the right; for when Britain draws the sword in a just cause, woe be to the enemy. ”

“ Throughout the long struggle nothing had been done to strengthen the government of France, or to develop constitutional life. The monarchy came out of the war bankrupt, and the government the prey of rival factions—factions which, if they did not cause the religious wars, most certainly prolonged them and France, torn by civil and religious strife, had to wait till the reign of Henry IV. before she could take that part in European affairs to which her central position, the ability of her people, and her magnificent natural resources entitled her. ”

“ The allied sovereigns desire that France should be great, strong, and happy, since its greatness and power is one of the foundations of the social edifice. They desire that France should be happy, that French commerce should revive, that the arts, those blessings of peace, should flourish, because a great people are tranquil only when satisfied. ”

“ In other countries nobles and people, united in their sentiments and aspirations, developed in peaceful and harmonious progress to the accomplishment of their destinies;15 whilst in France the deplorable separation that began in the fourteenth century caused the frightful excesses of the Jacquerie, and having produced the Reign of Terror in the days of our great-20grandfathers and the Commune in our own, is still so fatal an injury to the power, stability, and prestige of the French nation. ”

“ Meanwhile, however, the national unity of both Germany and Italy had been sacrificed, and before long the primacy passed to the great national States, like France and Spain and England, that had been consolidating themselves outside the bounds of the Empire. From one point of view the history of Europe ever since the downfall of the Empire may be regarded as one great revolutionary movement, one prolonged carnival of destruction. ”