KINGS AND THEIR CAPITALS.
THE dislike of Kings for their capitals, and of their capitals for them, is a historical fact of some interest for which it is difficult to find a satisfactory explanation. The capital is almost always Imperialist in sentiment, exult- ing in the spread of the King's dominion, and conscious of a Certain separate claim to grandeur as the centre of national life, and the point from which all authority rays out, yet it rarely delights in the Sovereign or his Court. The Sovereign, Oil the other hand, is usually proud of his chief city, invests it with all manner of privileges, and beautifies it at the cost of all other cities, yet manifests towards it a certain degree at once of fear and of distaste. The double feeling was, we fancy, manifested very early. Rome must always have been full of libels about the Emperors, and certainly never defended them when attacked ; while the Emperors, as time went on, gradually made a habit of absenting themselves, though to the end they never forgot that they were great and absolute because in them Rome, with her claim to dominion over earth, was in some way incarnate. The Eastern Emperors, it is true, always resided in New Rome, and ex- pended vast sums in beautifying and amusing it; but they always regarded it as a sort of wolf held by the ears ; while of all their cities it was the most riotous, and the one which most needed military control. In modern times the Bourbons so disliked Paris that for a hundred years they gave up the habit of living there, while the people slowly accu- mulated the hatred and contempt for Royalty which burst forth at last in the Revolution. The Popes made modern Rome so completely that the popular proverb ran: "Rome is dying with the Popes, but without them is dead." Yet throughout history Rome and its nobles were the most pressing of Papal troubles, and Rome never reverenced its Popes as did the remainder of the Catholic world. The greatest of Russian Sovereigns moved his capital from Moscow to the Baltic, and to this day the Czars have never returned thither, and Moscow has remained the most "difficult" of their cities, the centre of a kind of opposition. Vienna seems to be an exception, the Hofburg having always been the centre of its life, and Kaiser and Viennese having maintained a curious sort of familiar friendship, most strongly marked both under Maria Theresa and Francis ; but in 1848 Vienna was full of revolutionary feeling. Berlin has always had a tone which was not that of its Kings, who for years did not live there, and to-day is described by the Court as the most censorious of cities, and kept under a severe control, which it justifies by the sort of temper which has this year induced the capital twice to elect a "Second Burgomaster" whom the King will not have, and who is elected and re-elected mainly out of a sort of spite. London, though decidedly Hanoverian in sentiment, was for genera- tions a plague to the Hanoverian Kings, and though devotedly loyal to Queen Victoria, and during her reign becoming dis- tinctly Conservative, she never liked it, or voluntarily resided within it. The facts, which might be expanded into a volume, are very curious, and one wonders whether they owe their origin to the sort of Republican life which grows up in capitals, or only to that close watchfulness and minute know- ledge which is so hostile to the spirit of reverence.
The distaste of Sovereigns for their capitals is not difficult to understand. There is in it a trace of contempt and also a trace of fear. They see that the men who rule the great city are inferior to the statesmen around themselves, they dislike in them the vein of vulgarity seldom absent from bourgeois who have attained civic authority, and they do not understand clearly how far their instinctive independ- ence will carry them. They think civic opinion uncertain, and entertain that vague horror of " mobs " which is natural to men whose lives are so far secluded that they choose their own associates, and are accustomed to per- manent deference, even in trifles, from all with whom they come in contact. They feel safer, in short, at a distance from the one mass of men which impresses them at once by its immense physical weight and its possible unruliness. The spirit of revolt seems to them ever lurking in those unknown myriads, the only myriads whom they ever see gathered together, undrilled, and unguided by visible and responsible officials. We suspect, too, that the greatness of capitals arouses in Kings a certain jealousy, as of a force competing with that of the State, a force difficult to control and still more difficult to persuade. This feeling has always been marked in France, and has led to precautions. singular in a Republican State, against municipal independence; and we should not assert that it was wholly wanting in this country, where statesman after statesman of both parties has hesitated to unify London, and so create a power which might on occa- sion rival that of the State. Add that all Kings seek privacy as a kind of protection, and that it is difficult to feel private with a million or two of eyes always regarding you with interest,
and the want of cordiality between Kings and their capitals may be readily understood.
The converse sentiment is, however, more difficult to explain. One would have said that the capital city of a Monarchy, or for that matter, of a Republic, must always be the most loyal city. It is always the one which derives the most prosperity from the prosperity, of the State, the most advantage from the expenditure of its rulers, the most grandeur from the grandeur of the Kings. It is not always so, however. No Radicalism has been so Radical as that of great capitals, no criticism on Sovereigns so severe as theirs, no rioting so wanting in instinctive respect. No King in Europe would consent to live in his capital without military protection, visible or unseen. Is the .true explana- tion to be found in the proverb that "no man is a hero to his valet," or that great powers never live side by side without growing jealous of each other—you see that proved in every State in the constant bickerings of the great Departments—or that great capitals, which naturally draw 'to themselves the thirsty, the ambitious, and the fear- less, gradually breed a race of citizens in whom the quality of reverence is deficient ? That is said to be the dis- tinctive mark. of the lower population of Paris, London, Berlin, Rome, and even Vienna; and if the analysis is correct it serves to explain much, and especially the contrast observed between that loyalty to the State at large, which is usually marked in capitals, and the loyalty to the rulers of the day, which is often wanting. We cannot clearly answer the question, for it is only recently that great cities have become so tremendous a factor in European life, drawing towards themselves the very pith and life-blood of the nations. Eager and keen-sighted eyes are watching everywhere the effect of that great change upon physical development, and able men are telling us all that we have to fear if the process should last for centuries; but the mental effects of aggrega- tion have not been carefully studied. Nevertheless, they must be very great and produce very great results, both upon the organisation and the aspirations of European communities. We do not feel altogether pessimistic about it, recognising some special capacities which great cities develop as well as special weaknesses ; but that there will be, for one thing, a decay of deference, an upgrowth of a kind of realism not favourable to authority, seems to us almost past a doubt.
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