LOUIS PHILIPPE ON GOVERNMENT.
EVERYTHING is true in its essence ; falsehood lies in our imper- fect knowledge. Louis Philippe's self-defence, as published in the Ordre, may be adulterated by error in the report, by self-decep- tion on the King's part, or by the endeavour to give facts a twist in his own favour : still it is instructive ; for much of it is too probable to permit entire disbelief; and, by whomsoever put into words, the reflections are sound. Taking it as we find it, the moral which we draw from it is, that the want of openness and directness, which was commended as a source of power in compa- ratively barbarous times, has ceased to be so, and now really de- rogates from the strength of political rulers. This conclusion is suggested, whether we put implicit trust in the colloquy or not. The King avers that he governed "constitutionally,"—that is, by the advice of his Ministers, and not according to his own indi- vidual will ; but the very arguments which he adduces to prove it show that he was much more active in council than an English Sovereign is understood to be. He intimates, that he, with the rest, submitted to "the majority" in council, but that he urged his own views with extreme energy and pertinacity. Thus, he wished an authoritative contradiction to the tradition of 1830, that some programme offered to him by Lafayette at the Hotel de Ville received his assent : there was, he insists, no such docu- ment; and he drew up a denial, under the signature of " Un Bourgeois de Paris," which he wanted to publish in the papers. Imagine Queen Victoria sending to the Times her version of the Bedchamber affair, and offering to the right honourable gentle- men in Council an autograph letter signed "A Westminster Elector "! But Louis Philippe's "article" was never published : the cajoling Ministers put him off with assurances that the con- tradiction should be made, and Casimir Perier put the manu- script in his pocket. How one realizes the whole scene l—the Ministers trying to rub on without any decisive declaration, and thinking more of some business immediately in hand ; the alert, pursy, clever old gentleman, with his eopia verborum, and his letter of "Un Bourgeois de Paris," always thinking of his own reputation—the Silk Buckingham of royal life—the inextinguish- able "Mr. Smith." An exquisitely indiscreet manuscript it was, no doubt ; painfully true, transparently intelligible, and astound- ingly candid. But, says the naive Ulysses, "my opinions were always opposed, and freely opposed, by those of my Ministers who did not participate in them ; and I was consequently, wizen in the minority, obliged to yield." "This happened very frequently," not only on large questions submitted to the royal decision as coming within the direct exercise of the royal functions, but on "minor points." How much does all this imply !—how busy a contest, how importunate and bustling a combatant, how diligent a canvasaing of votes ! It is clear that Louis Philippe's Council was like &Board of Guardians or a Common Council, and that Mr. Smith was busy as a borough magnate. Only it did un- luckily happen, that "whenever he was on a jury, it was with eleven obstinate men."
In spite of all the possible fussiness and impracticability, there is something respectable in this wish to register an appeal to facts and this desire for openness ; and the royal ingenuousness contrasts favourably with the official shuffling. The King was exposed to calumnious attacks, and demanded an open explana- tion. The Ministers, perhaps, could not indorse the explanation ; but then, they should have said so, and have ceased to be Minis- ters under so unconstitutional a Monarch. On the other hand, if the King's view was the true one, there was no reason for shirk- ing a direct and faithful exposition of it. At all events, the per- petual cajolery, procrastination, and evasion, expose a miserably low sense of the Ministerial position. And was there, then, no "programme of the Hotel de Ville," nor any equivalent for it? Either the assertion is wrong, in which case the King should have been called to account for making an unfounded statement, and therefore governing on a Wrong tenure; or the fact is so, and not only was the enthrone- ment of 1830 managed in the most slovenly- manner, but the whole subsequent reign was conducted on a false and defective basis. Either the report of the colloquy makes Louis Philippe tell an untruth, or that very important element of stability, a clear understanding, was altogether wanting between him, his official servants, and his people. All had different ideas, and were acting on different notions of rights and mutual relations. The people thought there was, actually or virtually, a programme;
Louis Philippe denied its existence ; and the Ministers suffered their policy to rest on those two bases, false and incompatible— the popular credulity, and the unuttered disclaimer ; trimming between delusion and repudiation. To play these sleight-of-hand feats with the truth has been accounted a proper art of statecraft; but surely the revolutions of this century, in great part due to misconceptions, and owing their worst features to ignorance or to the exasperation which attends the awaking from delusion, should teach statesmen that evasion and prevarication are not half such trustworthy reliances as plain truth and substantial fact.
There is a great deal of force in the ground on which Louis Philippe acquits the French people of blame: "For eighteen years they had been taught to despise, to detest the personification of authority, that safeguard of the people " ; be- cause, we may add, the authority was disguised to them by the equivocations of statesmen, and by the equivocal demands for "dotations." Louis Philippe avers that he was not mercenary and grasping : perhaps ; but while his conduct was so misrepre- sented as he declares it to have been by his Ministers, he should have held that he was precluded from asking for money. He complains that he was undefended, and there is something verjr disgusting in the utter lack of chivalry which the silence of his servants and professed friends implies : but why did he consent to act with such men ? why did he suffer delicate demands to be made under circumstances so deceptive '? why seem a trader when he was a patriot? Possibly there is something more than self- deception in this retrospective assertion ; but at all events, it ex- poses the extent of weakness which was entailed upon the Mo- narchy by the want of openness and substantial truth as its basis.
It does appear to be true that part of the French rage against the Monarchy was provoked by a hatred of effective authority—. a common error of "Republicans." They are trying to do with- out it now, and have a tyranny—King Log and King Stork in one—a log that bites—a crowned police-officer who is accounted harmless because he is called " President," and signs the ukase which is handed up to him by despots underneath the throne. Louis Philippe admits that he did agree to one point at the Hotel de Ville : although he disclaimed being " the best of Re- publics,"—not on any score of modesty, but because "the best of Republics is good for nothing,"—he consented to be "a Monarchy surrounded by Republican institutions." What does that mean? Assuredly, whatever ideas may have been attached to the epi- grammatic paradox, no one ever developed it in an authoritative exposition.
And that epigrammatic paradox was all the Charter of the French nation!
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