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    [S hic lanation of THE LEA fiER. 4ttoi>a...

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    Louis Blanc And Mazzini. {To The Editor ...

    " The cold negative , destroying work of scepticism wi obSSwSg under French influence , flourishing wll French influence , some *^^* " /^ " X T firsfc I felt that life was ' a battle and a march . ShT slS behind , still weighing like an incubus on the heart of the . nation , a gigantic corpse , aping life SS- tvervbodv in Italy knows that it is a corpse ; and fhereIt l ^ iifha state robe on his state coffin , called : a throne with a death-scroll in his hand , signed ^ Gaeta' from which no glittering of French or AustrianbayoU * can dazzle our quick Italian eye away . " To what kind of scepticism does M . Mazzini here allude ? The ^ only kind of " scepticism" the France of our times has studied to propagate , is the same which maskdethrond

    sprung from Luther , broke the papal , e men-made gods , confounded hypocrisy , extinguished the flames of the Inquisition , threw down false idols , and proclaimed / with one and the same voice , liberty of conscience and the rights of the human mind . Ah ! it will be to the everlasting honour of France to have declared herself the apostle of that scepticism ; and we may point out to M . Mazzini that the invaders of Italy , the French accomplices of the high criminals of Gaeta , poured down upon Rome , not as the representatives of that scepticism which I have just described , but , contrariwise , as the saviours of that immense empire of intolerance and superstition , of which for centuries the Pope has been the supreme head , and pontifical Rome

    the metropolis . . , But , if the scepticism , whose progress M . Mazzini attributes to French influence , is that which consists in denying all , in destroying all , in placing force above right , in holding nought sacred , in a word , in unbelief , I protest , by the open page of history , that , far from having taken upon herself the odious apostleship of such a scepticism , modern France has repudiated , and with incomparable energy stigmatized it . In what country , indeed , and m what age , has Right bsen ever more powerfully asserted than in France during the latter years of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth ? In what country and in

    what age has the dogma of the mutual responsibility ( solidarite ) of nations been preached with more enthusiasm , and the doctrine of the unity of mankind as the children of one Father , understood in a more exalted signification ? Follow out that long track of blood from-the barricades of June to the battle-fields of the first French revolution , and say if , at any point of time or of space , in the world ' s history , the religion of humanity was ever attested by more devotion , by more indomitable heroism ? We have , in behalf of France believing , of France full of faith , a whole army of martyrs , known or unknown , who would rise from the dead , if their graves could open , to protest .

    Was France alien t o the religion of humanity , or was she failing in faith , when , to defend the Rights of Man , proclaimed in an immortal declaration , she drew upon herself the fury of all the despots in coalition , and exclaimed by the lips of Isnard , " Let the kings carry war am ongst us : we will carry liberty home to them ? " Was France sceptical or selfiah , when in that December month of 1791 , the Jacobins decided that the three flags of France , England , and the United States should be suspended from the ceiling of their hall , and when they placed the bust of Price side by Bide with the bust of Jean Jacques—the bust of Sidney by the side of those of Mably and of Franklin ? Was she sceptical , when , forgetting O 6 cy , Poitiers , Azinshe

    court , and many centuries of murderous rivalry , exchanged with the envoys of the British people vows of eternal amity ; and that , too , at the very moment when Burke was launching against the young energies of the Revolution his insulting and furious pamphlets ? " But tho union ( writes Michelet ) would have appeared incomplete , if our mothers , our wivos—tho mediators of the heart—had not come to marry the nations , and to join them hand to hand . They brought a touching pledge—their own labour . They had , themselves and their daughters , embroidered for the Englishmen three flags , tho cap of liberty , the tri-colour cockade . All these omblems were linked together in an arch of allianco , with the Constitution , the new map of Franco , tho fruits of the land of Franco , ears of corn ! Holy

    trustfulness of our forefathers !" Shall it bo said that tho bouI of Franco is sadly changed ? What ? Even in tho reign of Louis Philippe , when tho government was exhausting its powers in detestable oilbrtn to stifle under tho weight of industrialism all exalted faith and every noblo aspiration , I romembor to have noon ono of those spectacles of which a heart strongly movud preserves tho imago for ovor . Ono day , at Paris , tho boulevards , tho stroots , tho public " places were crowded with pooplo .

    Thousands of men were thoro , wearing' bldolc crapo upon thbir arms , as a sign of mourning ; consternation was painted on every countenance ; thoro woro many in that crowd who wopt . What , thon , hiwl happened ? What national calamity had stricken us'I In n , distant country , very far away , Right had fmcoumbod to Might—tho tidings of tho fall of Warsaw had just come ! Ih this a nation paralyzed with scepticism , to bo oapablo of that lofty solicitude , of those anxieties , of that majestic sorrow t

    ^ M rife * W * ¦ 'M * A t V ft J * ta _ ta And , sinco tho namo of Louis PhHippo falls undor my pen , I must noedB reoal tho true cruhoh of his disastrous ond . That Prince was giftod with incontestable

    qualities : his domestic virtues were of a nature tQ command respect ; . he was not wanting in enlightened perceptions ; he was humane . ; liberty , under his reign had not after all , received mortal wounds , and the bourgeoisie was indebted to him for . the repose it so dearly prized . How was it , then , that , in 1848 > npta man rose upto defend him I Whence comes it that he was overthrown in a few minutes , with a gesture and a shout ? . If is that he had consumed eight years

    in struggling against all that there was of chivalrous , against all that , in the highest acceptation of the word , inay be called religious , in the genius of France . He was not a believer in the religion of humanity : he was a sceptic . That was his crime , in the eyes of France , and that is why his power fell , so to speak , without having been overthrown , almost like rotten fruit dropping loose from a branch without a breath of wind to stir the leaves ! No ! it is not true that the cold ,

    negational , destructive work of scepticism has been completed under French influence , under the influence of a country which , within the space of half-a-century has engendered that band of lofty minds , gained at once , or soon won over to the religion which M . Mazzini worships . From whom , then , springs that work of scepticism , cold , negational , destructive , " due to French influence ? " Would you impute it , peradventure , to the two Cheniers , to Chateaubriand , to Jouffroy , to Lamennais , to Miehelet , to Edgar Quinet , to Felix Pyat , to Lamartine , or to Victor Hugo , to Eugene Sue , or to George Sand ? Would you makeit the crime of Socialism ?—of Socialism , Imean , studied , not in

    the disgraceful libels of the Rue de Poitiers , or in the an ti socialist works of Proudhon , but in Pierre Leroux , its philosopher , Pierre Dupont , its poet , Lachambeaudie , its fabulist ? Accuse them , if you will , but quote them . What , however , does M . Mazzini say concerning the productions which , withoutdoubt , he holds tohave exercised that injurious influence which he has just denounced ? He expresses himself thus :- — " All those reactionary , short-sighted , impotent conceptions , which have cancelled in France all bond of moral unity , all power of self-sacrifice , and have , through intellectual anarchy and selfish terror , led to the cowardly acceptance of the most degrading despotism that ever was . " I know

    that there are many , in these last days , strongly disposed to judge of France , as she is , by the facility with which Louis Napoleon accomplished his abominable purpose . Paris was the victim of an- 'ambuscade , a masterpiece of perfidy , cruelty , and audacity '; ' and since , thanks to our fatal system of administrative centralization , Avho holds Paris , holds France , France is a nation without courage , sceptical , materialist , degraded , henceforward incapable of devotion , and unworthy of liberty . Thus do these people reason . Not so fast , gentlemen J Do not be in such haste to compose the funeral oration of a country like France . Be assured , she is destined to give to the world far other surprises than this last !

    It is now some years since I wrote at the conclusion of my History of Ten Years , the following lines" God forbid , nevertheless , that we should despair of our country ! There are peoples , stiff and inflexible , as it were , who may not inaptly be compared to the heavy cavaliers of the middle ages , cased all in iron ; those men were hard to wound through their thick armour , but once brought to the ground , they could not rise again . Different is France , whose strength is

    combined with marvellous suppleness , and which seems ever young . What unexahipled , indescribable fatigues has it not resisted I From 1789 to 1815 , it has gone through fits of intestine wrath , endured suffer ings ,, and accomplished labours sufficient to exhaust the most vigorous nation . It did not die for all that ; and in 1830 , after fifteen years of apparent lassitude , its blood was found to have been renovated . Yea , Franco is made to live many lives . She bears within her wherewith to astonish mon undor various and unforeseen

    aspects . Never had people ( to use Montaigne ' s expression , speaking of Alexandor ) a beauty" illustrious undor so many visages ? Has not France proved herself adequate to parts the most diverse and the most brilliant ? Has she not been , successively , the Revolution and tho Empire ? " Why should wo bo discouraged ? Tho evil comes of an error which it is ho easy to ropair ! Who can boliovo that tho bourgeoisie will obstinately porsiHt in its infatuation ? Itself , tho natural guardian of tho peoplo , can it possibly porscvore in distrusting it aa an onerny ? Thoso who urge tho bourgeoisie to this courso , docoivo it , and arc preparing to enslave it ; by dint of making it afraid of the peoplo , it has boon blinded to tho sonno of its own dangers . They aro not so inucl ^ at its foot as above-its head and around it . Lot it look to this !"

    Theso woi'dw contamod two prophecies , tho ono of happy , tho other of Minister import , and both of thorn havo boon accomplished . In tho first plaoo , tho Revolution of 1848 camo , to provo how much of lifo and energy thoro still remained in Franco . And , again , tho success of Louis Napoleon ' s last orhno has but too cruelly demonstrated tho reality ofthoso pnrilH to which tho bourgwhiohati cniwtnutly oxponod itself whenever , blinded by imbecile torrovH which its own anuniiog asHiduously sproad boforo it , it him separated ite causo from that of tho Pooplo . It is in this , and not in tho absence of " all power of Helf-ancrifico , " that wg ahull

    find the philosophic explanation of what it ! was th t gave Louis Bonaparte the hardihood of assured imr ! nity . Taken in the snare of atrocious caluuinie " against Socialism , the bourgeoisie has been afraid of th People ; it has had the folly to see nothing in iof £ but the era of pillage and murder ; it has thrown it self desperately into the most positive realities of despotism , to escape from a vain phantom of anarchv that has been dressed up before its-very eyes . And for its part , the people , insulted every day by the official saviours of the bourgeoisie , robbed of universal suffrage , and treated as " the vile multitude /? hesitated to choose between the victory of General Changarnier and that of Louis Bonaparte , as one would hesitate between two scourges equally to be dreaded . History

    will say , moreover , that the coup-d' 4 fat was an infamous surprise ; that , twenty times disavowed with hypocritical solemnity by him who meditated it , it had almost ceased to be expeoted ; that it was announced by a proclamation , in terms which , alas were well calculated to deceive the people ; that the chiefs had been arrested in the night , and that on the morrow Paris awoke surrounded , her streets filled with cannons ; that the communications were everywhere cut off , and consultation , rendered impossible that for a long time the Faubourgs had been disarmed ' completely disarmed , and that the people had only

    their naked limba to oppose to the artillery and the loaded muskets of 120 , 000 soldiers , possessed by the fury of intoxication ; that > in spite of this , barricades were constructed , and that , with the sole object of protesting with their blood against the Napoleonic crime , some of the Republicans rushed to death , knowing that they could not conquer . Is this the act of a people degenerate , debased , sunk in the abyss of materialism and scepticism ? Ah , it has soon been forgotten that , scarcely three years have passed since that same people of Paris , to whom has been denied " all power of self-sacrifice , " roused itself in a burst of

    the most intrepid enthusiasm , and gave to the world the spectacle of a battle , the causes and results of which indeed may be deplored , but of which no one can at least deny the funereal grandeur . Surely it was not a merely materialist interest- which armed the people in June , 1848 . I myself saw in-the vestibule of the National Assembly , by the side of flags on which were traced the terrible words " Bread or lead" [ Dit , pain qu du plomb ] , other flags raised on the barricades , which , bore the most touching devices . On the doors of the closed shops the people had written , " Respect for property : " and many of these . ( inscriptions might still have been read on the ruins of the Faubourg St .

    Antoine after the insurrection . " Du pain on du plomb , " "To live by labour , or 1 o ( die , fighting" jTwrtf en travaillant ou mourirencombattant]—such , I acknowledge , were the prevailing ideas among the insurgents . But wha $ then ? Is there , forsooth , in the right of speech , or iu the right of written thought , something more sound , more sacred , than in that right to live , which involves all others ? Besides , let us remember how n > any of them fought on that occasion—not in tho name of their own sufferings , but in the name of tho sufferingsof their brothers , and in virtue of that " power of self-sacrifice , " which M . Mazzini reproaches us with having lost .

    What history will say , then , will bo this , that if m June , 1848 , the people of Paris showed all the courage that can bo brought to a field of battle , they had also , threu mpnths before , in February , , 1848 , shown all the moderation that can be displayed after a victory . For there is one incident that never can be eftiiced from tho memory of man—it was by a hundred thousand famished men , armed to the teeth , . that , at that period , not

    the Paris of the rich wfts guarded . There was a soldier , thero wan not a sergent-de-ville left m tl » o capital ; men in rags stood as sentinels at the gates oi their calumniators . Was there , ftt that period , » single threat ?—was a single cry of vengeance mingle " with tho outcries of the people ? When tho punienmont of death was abolished , waa there a single protestation ? If such are tho effects of the cold , negative , dostructivo socialistic doctriuca attributed to lirencu

    influence , it must bo granted that wo effects were oym nioro Htrnngo ; and if M . Miw / Mu regards this as un proof that " evory bond of moral unity" » ftS he f . necossity broken for ever in Franco by the proRcinnt , of Socialism , thon words havo another sense tor mi than for uh . , 1 T j H " But tho monstrous vote that has consecrated ho \ i Bonaparte ' s outrage ? " I deny that vote ; and 1 ««' thoro has boon any possibility in Franco of l ) r . " fc ovon of usNortlngthattheroturna produowl wore " liiiNuriirmlniiM of'fnlHulinmlfl . At the timo that tn «

    fraudulent votuniH woro impudently paraded rtj >() UC ' .. , i could havo dared togivo . them the ho , oven cQ »" douU " ¦ £ Iu a private letter , when tho Hooiosy of lattcrH openly violated , and whon tho throat of doportutioii w suspended ovor every man ' s head ? Just now tho u ^ is beginning to appear ; facta and proofs have coin light , and all oonour in establishing , beyond a < u > » that falsehood , roduood to a Hystom , has from tno ' formed ono half of that plan of Louis Bonapftrto j ^ which violonco is tho fitting comp lomont . jvi ignorant thafc , in tl » o i \ vnt diiya of tho oottp-t * * ' «?> t had the hiconuoivublo aifxontory to place on w »« ' . luti adborouttt won whom , at tljut very pioi »««*;

    [S Hic Lanation Of The Lea Fier. 4ttoi>A...

    THE LEA fiER . [ S 4 ttoi > ay

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 21, 1852, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_21021852/page/8/