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    October 30, 1852.] THE PLEADER. 1039 " "...

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    IS LOUIS NAPOLEON A STUPID MAN ? This is...

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    What Is Meant By "Weakening" The Establi...

    "Weaken— why the Church would not . so much h fl weakened by the holding of ten noisy convotions as it was last week by the scenes at St . Peter ' s , Eldad , where Protestant Episcopalians mobbed their bishop , and a member of the congregation of respectables so far forgot where he as as to cry out in the church , at the conclusion T a Bolemn prayer , " Encore ! " But the timid * the interested , and the stupid , all prefer a pleasing sham to a painful real conformity ; and they revel on the crust of the solid-looking abyss which will presently swallow them up . After all , then , the laity of the Church of

    Eng land do not believe in . her sufficiently to permit her to be honest and free . Their prophet , Archdeacon Law , was , it seems , wiser than he knew , when he certified that the great patient of the day , the Church of England , required " repose . " The venerable old gentleman who spoke at one of the meetings for the election of proctors , and ut tered the magical words , Quieta non mov ' ere , might be supposed to have had a prophetic insight into the mind of the Archdeacon : for the recommendations of both are radically the same . But they are onlyanunconsciousparaphrase of the whine of Dr . Watts' famous sluggard" You have waked me too

    soon—I must slumber again . " It is the peevish cry of sickness , not of health of indolence , not of activity . It may be the watchword of the Church of England , it is not the spirit of the teaching of Christ . It did not inspire the Apostles , —it did not urge on the Fathers ; the Martyrs were not dragged to the stake by acting upon it ; in the palmiest days of the Catholic Church , idleness and " laissezfaire " were not its principles . No Church , claiming a Divine mission , and believing its claim , ever proposed before to do its work by a " masterly inactivity . " _ _ ....

    But so it is now ; and what is meant by " weakening" the Establishment , is disturbing the famous Whig compromise , which provides that the Church which professes to be the servant of God shall be the slave of man . Truly such a Church , were it not for the magnitude of the national interests at stake , should call forth our pity rather than provoke our scorn .

    October 30, 1852.] The Pleader. 1039 " "...

    October 30 , 1852 . ] THE PLEADER . 1039 " " ' " . "' ' ' ' ¦ " " "" I ' ¦ " * ' ' ™ - ' . ^*^*^^*^****** f ^**^?^ f *^^**^^ M— " ¦ ' . ' ' ' . ~ . '" ' " ' ** " " . — — —— " — .. — ¦¦< — ¦ I ¦¦ I II ^^—11 I ^ ¦ _ _ ___ ^ 1 ^—

    Is Louis Napoleon A Stupid Man ? This Is...

    IS LOUIS NAPOLEON A STUPID MAN ? This is , in some respects , the question of the age . You can go nowhere , you cannot sit down to supper with a party of friends , without hearing it discussed . The capabilities of the question are such that we earnestly recommend it to all the debating societies for the winter , as far more likely to promote a lively evening than any of the old questions , " Was Mahomet an impostor P " " Was Brutus justifiable in killing Caesar P" and the like . For ourselves , we can but state the question , and throw a stray remark or two into the discussion of it .

    Louis Napoleon , say some , is a supremely stupid man , —perhaps , as far as a guess can go , the most stupid man connected with the politics of Europe . The proofs they adduce are various . In the first place , they say , the face of the man is the very ideal of a stupid face , —heavy , lumpish , pig-oyod , Dutch . Then , again , all who have had any dealings with him in the way of talk agree in declaring that they never met a man . whose stupidit y was more impressive Lawyers and lawyers ' -clorks who had occasion to see him while he was a refugee amongst oursolves , have boon noard

    to gay , that the only thing they marked , in him was an extraordinary thick-hoadodness , which jnado it impossible either to explain anything to him , or to got a word out of him related , b y any approach to clearness , to tho business on hand . Jn France , too , the general opinion of those who « ame most into contact with him before tho 2 nd <>» December was C ' cst un idiot . Then , his books , j tho opinion at least of all those who know a thought when they boo it , aro about as stupid "Peoimens of authorship as over passod through

    *»« hands of a printer , tho most famous of them e ° -Idfaa JNapoleoniennen—boing a moro jumble ° * opaque rubbish , tho perusal of which in Hades jmist have driven his * undo mad . In fact , try Ilr , they say , by any tost by which the inteloct of a man oan jjo reveft ] e j in ordinary un * udod . intercourse with his fellows , and the conclusion must be , not only that Louis Napoleon is j * « ry stupid man , but that positively you do-« "ribo him best when you sum up his wholo chain m < lie ono wor ( l—stupidity . All very well , my others j but whafc do you

    make of the 2 nd of December and a few other such facts P Is it only in books or in talk with lawyers ' -clerks and literary gentlemen that a man can show ability ; and does a deep astute brain never lodge behind pig ' s eyes and a lumpish visage P Can that be a stupid man who planned the coup-d'Stat , outwitted France and her ablest generals , seated himself in the dictator ' s chair , and is now , after occupying it steadil y for nearly a year , about to have himself declared Emperor P Louis Napoleon may not be what is called a

    bright or brilliant intellect ; he could not keep a teible in a roar by his humour , nor electrify a public audience by bis eloquence , nor solve a biquadratic equation , nor wxjte an article in the Times , nor experiment on th £ Cobra de Capello , nor enlighten you and me ' and a select company of other clever fellows with original and wise sayings on those profound subjects which men agitate when they smoke cigars . At the play of genius and intellectual repartee , Douglas J errold would double him up in two minutes , or use him from the first as a permanent butt ; and

    in talk with Herbert Spencer ipn , the philosophy of society , he would seem a most deplorable blockhead . All this is very true , ) fettt doing what he has done , and being where h © 4 s by such means as have brought him there , can he be a stupid manP Give him his own way of showing talent , and would he not show it P If , starting from one position in society , where he should seem but a blockhead beside such men as Douglas Jerrold and Herbert Spencer , he could in a few years , by his own scheming and perseverance , arrive at another position in society where he might take his revenge by having Douglas Jerrold shot and Herbert Spencer incarcerated by

    course of recognised law , must there not have been an expenditure of intellect—call it low cunning , or what you will 4-in the process by which he had thus pushed op wriggled himself along from the one position to the other P In short , must not Louis Napoleon be regarded , not as a stupid man , but as one of those mysterious , silent , blockhead- looMng men , who are very far from being blockheads , and who , peeping out upon the world with small heavy eyes , and quite incapable of putting ; brain into their words , contrive , on fitting occasion , to put a good deal of brain into their deeds P General Monk was a

    man who , when any one asked him a question , did not make a highly intellectual reply , but only turned the quid over in his mouth , mumbled a word or two as he looked at his questioner , and then ended the colloquy with a squirt of tobaccoi " uice . Yet Monk was an able man . May not jouis Napoleon bo such another P May not his life anterior to 1848 have been but something analogous to the idiotcy of Brutus , while that subsequently-respected Roman was known only as a hanger-on about tho stables of Tarquinius Superhus , with his hair uncombed , his hands listless in his toga-pockets , and a piece of straw in his idiotic mouth P

    M . Victor Hugo , who is certainly no friend to Louis Napoleon , rather inclines to tho second supposition . He does not , indeed , rate Louis Napoleon as a very able man ; but ho thinks ifc is not by any means accurate to call him a stupid man . " Ilia brain is a muddled one , " lie says ; " it is a brain with gaps in it ; but horo and thoro thoughts tolerably connected may he discovered in it . It , is a book with some of the leaves torn

    out . Louis Napoleon baa a fixed idea ; but a fixed idea is not idiotov . He knows what he wants , and he goes at it ;—athwart justice , athwart law , athwart reason , athwart honour , athwart humanity—all true ; still , 11 . 0 goes at it . Ho is no fool , tie in a man of a different timo from ours . He appears absurd and stupid because ho is not neon along with persons a \ a like spocios . " This iH Victor Hugo's estimate of the man whom ho hates , and of whom ho has had opportunities to know Homothing .

    What Victor Hugo nays is very good , but for our present purpose it in not satisfactory . Ih Louib Napoleon a stupid man or not P For our part , as far as our present evidence goes , wo are inclined to say that lie is . We Hay so provisionally , and till wo have bettor evidence to the contrary . For , in tlio first place , wo have no faith in that current distinction between speech and action , which would make it out that a man may aet liko an angel , and talk like poor Poll . A man who acts ably cannot apeak like a blockhead ; and a man who speaks really well , in tho deepest sense of tho word well , hay the faculty for acting well

    precisely in the same proportion . Get * mvhow you can a collection of a celebrated man s sayings , spoken or written : they may be few and far between , so that they may be held in a duodecimo , or multitudinous and dense so as to fill five folios ; but many or few , dense or rare , good grammar or bad grammar , they are precisely equal to , and representative of the ( entire stuff and material that was in the man . Cromwell ' s speeches are as good as his actions ; Wellington ' s despatches and speeches fall

    precisely as far short of Napoleon ' s proclamations , conversations , and dictations , as Wellington on the whole fell short of Napoleon on the whole ; and what Monk mumbled was exactly as clever , if you only heard it , as what he intrigued and did . If , then , Louis Napoleon has ability , it is to be discovered , not only in his coup d ' etat and the like , but also in whatever can be authentically certified to have proceeded from his mouth , or his pen . As to what has proceeded from his mouth , we can judge but at second-hand , but we consider the lawyers' and the lawyers' clerks' to be not bad evidence ; and this evidence certainly

    goes to prove that , had lie offered himself for any situation on the strength of nothing more than his immediate intellectual recommendations , he would have been dismissed as incompetent . Of his writings , or what are reputed to oe his writings , we can judge more directly . We read them pretty well through , about the time of his election , to the Presidency : and then at least we agreed very decidedly with , the opinion that they were foor rubbish . Still , we are open to conviction . f any one authentic speech of Louis Napoleon ' s , or any one saying in any such , speech , is presented

    to us , exhibiting the least approach to intellectual insight , we will pro tanto admit his talent . If , for example , the saying reported to have been used by him on a recent occasion , " The history of humanity is the history of armies , " be really his , we will admit that , muddled though his brain may be , yet , as Victor Hugo says , there are points of lucidity in it . Until that or something

    equivalent is proved , however , Louis Napoleon , President of France , and author of the coup d ' e ' tat as he is , nay , even should he be Emperor of France , and have Michel Chevalier and a hundred other intellectual notorieties to kiss his boot , will be nothing more to us than the writer of the Idies Napoleoniennes ; and that is , a man with a most hazy , most stupid , most impervious , most muzzy , most uneducated head .

    We do not fear the difficulty in which such an opinion will lead us . If hitherto our notion has been that worldly success , the achievement of a prominent historical position , is only possible with intellectual superiority , then , if we do not find more reason than we yet have to call Louis Napoleon an intellectually superior man , we must just improve our philosophy of human nature by striking that notion out of our creed . In that case , the right conclusion will be , not that Louia Napoleon ia a man of intellect after all , but only that we have not yet sufficiently appreciated tho social function of stupidity working under certain conditions .

    Louis Napoleon's reputation for political ability rests on two things—liifl retaining his place so firmly prior to the coup d ' e ' tat , and the coup d ' etat itself . The one was a kind of negative feat , tho ability displayed in which consisted , if in anything , in the ability not to be turned out ; tho other was a positive foat , consisting in the instantaneous and successful creation of a new nek of circumstances in Paris , by arrests , sabres , money , and musket-shots . Now , in either case , it appears to us , it is too much to suppose that

    the result was brought about by the intellectual ¦*¦ . ¦ vigour of the man most conspicuously interested . — that man being ono of whom wo bad no reason otherwise to think that he possessed intellectual vigour . What do we know about that complexity of causes which kept Louis . Napoleon nailed to the President ' s chair till December , 1 H 51 ? and how can we assign tboir duo proportions in this effect to the causes which we do recognise as

    independent of the man himself— the recollection , of tho vote of tho pooplo , the fatigue and reaction of the bounftioisiti , the ' activity of tho politicians who foundVeason to support him , and the mutual antipathies of the politicians who wished to turn him out P And ho with tho coup d'Mat . What do we know of the multiplicity of the things and forces that converged in that act , in that curious moment P How take that compound lliing , I ho coup d'Mat , in our lmndn , and tear it into its ori-

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 30, 1852, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_30101852/page/11/