cause it was a part of the aristocracy. Here are M. de Tocqueville's own words:

In the other parts of their doctrines, the philosophers of the eighteenth century attacked the church with the utmost fury: they fell foul of her clergy, her hierarchy, her institutions, her dogmas; and in order more surely to overthrow them, they endeavoured to tear up the very foundations of Christianity. But as this part of the philosophy of the eighteenth century arose out of the very abuses which the Revolution destroyed, it necessarily disappeared together with them, and was, as it were, buried beneath its own triumph. I will add but one word to make myself more fully understood, as I shall return hereafter to this important subject; it was in the character of a political institution, far more than in that of a religious doctrine, that Christianity had inspired such fierce hatreds. It was not so much because the priests assumed authority over the concerns of the next world, as because they were landholders, landlords, tithe-owners, and administrators in this world; not because the church was unable to find a place in the new society which was about to be constituted, but because she filled the strongest and most privileged place in the old state of society which was doomed to destruction.

Observe how the progress of time has made and still makes this truth more and more palpable day by day. In the same measure that the political effects of the Revolution have become more firmly established, its irreligious results have been annihilated. In the same measure that all the old political institutions which the Revolution attacked have been entirely destroyed, the powers, the influences, and the classes which were the objects of its special hostility have been irrevocably crushed, until even the hatred they inspired has begun to lose its intensity. In the same measure, finally, as the clergy has separated itself more and more from all that formerly fell with it, we have seen the power of the church gradually regain and re-establish its ascendency over the minds of men.

These are very remarkable words. Yet the fact specified will not appear to be a subject of unmixed congratulation to those who remember that of all the Romish churches in Europe, the ancient French church was the most independent, and the modern French church the most servile. Nor should it be forgotten that the most ultra high churchmen in England, of the tractarian school, are ac

customed to insist that nothing would promote their principles so much as a separation of church and state. To dispossess the clergy of their lands, and convert them into state stipendiaries, would probably have much the same effect, by stimulating the purely professional spirit, already sufficiently strong, and cutting them off from many of the duties of citizenship. We have two strong reasons, the one special and the other general, for making these observations. The first is that a disposition has been lately evinced to urge upon the English Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the propriety of transferring to themselves the entire management of the episcopal estates; merely paying the bishops a certain sum out of the revenues. What is sauce for a bishop, if we may say so without irreverence, is sauce for a vicar; and if the former were to be made a stipendiary, we have little doubt that the whole English priesthood would ere long be come the same. The select committee appointed to enquire into the question has, it is true, expressed an opinion in favour of leaving the management of their estates in the hands of the bishops; but we cannot tell what influence may be brought to bear upon the point, and we are happy to add the indirect testimony of M. de Tocqueville to the already notorious fact, that the church of France has gone over to the side of religious intolerance, since she has been deprived of political duties and territorial influence. Our second reason was for the sake of reminding our readers, that it is on this one great point that the conservative party in Great Britain must agree to differ from the great conservative statesmen and writers of France. Such is the portion of the recent admirable publication of M. de Montalembert upon England from which we are obliged to dissent. Such is the case with M. de Tocqueville. Such will probably be the case with succeeding authors.

The political situation in 1789 was, however, it seems, comprehended by Mirabeau :

:

Within a year from the Leginning of the

Revolution, Mirabeau wrote secretly to the king:Compare the new state of things with the old rule. There is the ground for comfort and hope. One part of the acts of the National Assembly, and that the more considerable part, is evidently favourable to monarchical government. Is it nothing to be without parliaments? Without the pays d'etat? Without a body of clergy? Without a privileged class? Without a nobility? The idea of forming a single class of all the citizens would have pleased Richelieu; this equality of the surface facilitates the exercise of power. Several successive reigns of an absolute monarchy would not have done as much for the royal authority as this one year of Revolution." Such was the view of the Revolution taken by a man capable of guiding it.

Is it nothing to be without an hereditary peerage? Is it nothing to be without provincial activity? Is it nothing to be without a landed hierarchy ? Is it nothing to be without independent county magistrates? Vide the liberal press, passim. How like is the language of despotism to that of democracy! We wonder if the demagogues know it. The effect of the Revolution upon the general condition of Europe our author hints rather than describes, as follows:

It was this simple, regular, and imposing form of power, which Mirabeau perceived through the dust and rubbish of ancient, half demolished institutions. This object, in spite of its greatness, was still invisible to the eyes of the many; but time has gradually unveiled it to all eyes. At the present moment it especially attracts the attention of rulers; it is looked upon with admiration and envy, not only by those whom the Revolution has created, but by those who are the most alien and the most hostile to it; each endeavours within his own dominions to destroy immunities and to abolish privileges. They confound ranks, they equalise classes, they supersede the aristocracy by public functionaries, local franchises by uniform enactments, and the diversities of authority by the unity of a central government. They labor at this revolutionary task with unwearied industry; and when they meet with occasional obstacles, they do not scruple to copy the measures as well as the maxims of the Revolution. They have even stirred up the poor against the rich, the middle classes against the nobility, the peasants against their feudal lords. The French Revolution has been at once their curse and their instructor.

Do these remarks throw any light upon the recent deplorable occurrences

in Prussia? Is it possible that those acts of violence were tokens of illregulated resentment at the systematic depression of an order? Prussia is a country in which we are compelled to take great interest just now, whether we will or no, and we should like these questions to be answered. In every wealthy and populous country there is a tendency towards centralization. The rich grow luxurious, and the poor grow ambitious. Under judicious management the former may soon be induced to give less and less attention to public affairs; the latter, from which the malcontent class springs, is salaried, silent, and satisfied. Such is the process. How it was that in France that process produced the Revolution, it is the object of M. De Tocqueville's second book to explain.

The first portion of the Second Book is a full and interesting account of the machinery of the ancient regime. And the leading feature in its character is this, that while the seignorial rights of the aristocracy remained in full force, they no longer took the very slightest share in the government of the country. A series of extracts will elucidate and confirm. this remark.

In the eighteenth century, all the affairs of the parish were managed by a certain number of parochial officers, who were no longer the agents of the manor or domain, and whom the lord no longer selected. Some of these persons were nominated by the intendant of the province, others were elected by the peasants themselves. The duty of these authorities was to assess the taxes, to repair the church, to build schools, to convoke and preside over the vestry or parochial meeting. They attended to the property of the parish, and determined the application of it. They sued, and were sued in its name. Not only the lord of the domain no longer conducted the administration of these small local affairs, but he did not even superintend it. All the parish officers were under the government or the control of the central power, as we shall shew in a subsequent chapter. Nay more, the seigneur had almost ceased to act as the representative of the crown in the parish, or as the channel of communication between the king and his subjects. He was no longer expected to apply in the parish the gener 1 laws of the realm, to call out the militia, to collect the taxes, to promulgate the mandates of the sovereign, or distribute the bounty of the crown. All these duties and all these rights belonged to others. The seigneur was in fact no longer anything but an inhabitant

The

of the parish, separated by his own privileges and immunities from all other inhabitants. His rank was different, not his power. seigneur is only the principal inhabitant, was the instruction constantly given by the provincial intendants to their sub-delegates.

After explaining that he is about to use the term "feudal rights" of such rights as were of a beneficial or pecuniary nature, and after observing that many of a similar kind existed in England as well as in other parts of Europe, M. De Tocqueville proceeds :

How comes it then that these same feudal rights excited in the hearts of the people of France so intense a hatred, that this passion has survived its object, and seems therefore to be unextinguishable? The cause of this phenomenon is that, on the one hand, the French peasant had become an owner of the soil, and that on the other he had entirely escaped from the government of the great landlords. Many other causes might doubtless be indicated, but I believe these two to be the most important. If the peasant had not been an owner of the soil, he would have been insensible to many of the burdens which the feudal system had cast upon landed property. What matters tithe to the tenant farmer? He deducts it from his rent. What matters a rent-charge to a man who is not the owner of the ground? What matter even the impediments to free cultivation to a man who cultivates for another.*

On the other hand, if the French peasant had still lived under the administration of his landlord, these feudal rights would have appeared far less insupportable, because he would have regarded them as a natural consequence of the constitution of the country.

When an aristocracy possesses not only privileges but powers, when it governs and administers the country, its private rights may be at once more extensive and less perceptible. In the feudal times the nobility were regarded pretty much as the government is regarded in our own; the burdens they imposed were endured in consideration of the security they afforded. The nobles had many irksome privileges; they possessed many onerous rights; but they maintained public order, they administered justice, they caused the law to be executed, they came to the relief of the weak, they conducted the business of the community. In proportion as the nobility ceased to do these things, the burden of their privileges appeared more oppressive, and their existence became an anomaly.

The reader will of course notice

that we have throughout assumed the present state of things in England, where they have not yet ceased to do these things, notwithstanding Crimean misfortunes, chancery delays, and parliamentary inaction-to be better on the whole than continental centralization. If he wishes to see this proved, he must go elsewhere. But to proceed. After a lively picture of the curiously vexatious and ruinous character of these feudal imposts, M. de Tocqueville gives us a complete account of the whole system of domestic administration, graduating from the king and his council down to the lowest parochial syndics, some of whom could neither read nor write. At the head of the whole system was the council. At once a supreme court of justice and a superior tribunal, with the possession at the same time of legislative powers, "Everything finally came home to it; from that centre was derived the movement which set everything in motion." It was generally not composed of men of family, but of persons taken from the middle classes, and those who had had some experience in the business of administration. Under the council came the Comptroller-General, the officer who virtually governed France. He united in his own person the duties of our Home Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Poor Law Board, Board of Trade, and other individuals and bodies too numerous to mention. The Council and the Comptroller-General formed the central authority. Then came the Intendants of Provinces.

This Intendant was a man of humble extraction, always a stranger to the province, and a young man who had his fortune to make. He never exercised his functions by any right of election, birth, or purchase of office he was chosen by the government among the inferior members of the Council of State, and was always subject to dismissal. He corresponded with all the ministers, and in the province was the sole agent of all the measures of government.

Here is evidently the man for the administrative reformers. This is the system of appointments by merit. A young man of humble extraction, with his fortune to make! In other

words, without money or connexion. A most pliable tool! For the only thing which influences nine-tenths of mankind is the opinion of their associates. But your professional placeman has no associates but those of his own class, who are influenced by similar sentiments. Once, then, create a profession into which clever poverty is the only key of admission, and can any man of common sense doubt the result?-a network of government officials all over the country bent upon making things pleasant to the central authority, and gradually extinguishing that spirit of personal independence, and strangers to those feelings of local attachment which are among the surest guarantees of liberty. Can Englishmen imagine a state of things in which every overseer and churchwarden, every mayor, high bailiff, constable, town clerk, or town crier was a paid servant of the government? Yet every argument which has been adduced in favor of such a bill as the Borough Police Bill tells equally in favor of the above. People, however, look abroad and see the result there: they read books like the present, and exclaim, how true! Yet when they turn to their own country a cloud seems to swim before their eyes. They are blind to illustration and deaf to reason. Certain causes have produced certain effects everywhere else. Why not then in England? No. They cannot see it. They have said in their heart, there is no danger. And so they go on, voting for the inauguration of an exactly similar state of things at home; pointing to our prosperity and greatness as so many sureties for the future, "Soul, thou hast much riches," and forgetful that the reign of Louis the Sixteenth was, as M. de Tocqueville points out, the most prosperous era which the French had ever enjoyed. We are almost tempted to exclaim to such dangerous drivellers, "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee !"

But we have digressed. Next to the Intendant came the Sub-delegate.

In each canton was placed below him an officer, nominated by himself, and removable at will, called the Sub-delegate. The Intendant was very frequently a newly created noble; the Sub-delegate was always a plebeian. He nevertheless represented the entire government in the small circumscribed

place assigned to him, as much as the Intendant did in the whole; and he was amenable to the Intendant as the Intendant was to the Minister.

In the hands of these various officers were placed the regulation and collection of the majority of the taxes, and the management of the militia, which were all heavy burdens on the peasantry. The seigneurs, we conclude, never interfered to protect them from injustice, as they would do in England, and their own immunities were consequently not recommended to the people by a single gracious or generous attribute. Whatever was done was done by the government. And we may fairly suppose that its agents bore most of the blame of its unpopular acts, while itself reaped all the eulogies of such as were acceptable. Hence, as we have before observed, there was at the time of the Revolution little real hostility towards the supreme power of the state. The people were already prepared to welcome the spectacle of centralised despotism. The thing was complete, though the name was as yet unknown. To show its extensive and minute organization, M. de Tocqueville says:

It was necessary to obtain a minute of council to repair the damage caused by the wind to the church steeple, or to rebuild the falling gables of the parsonage. The rural parishes most remote from Paris were just as much subject to this rule as those nearest to the capital. I have found records of parochial memorials to the council for leave to spend twenty-five livres.

The history of the towns and municipal corporations is but a repetition of similar facts.

I meet with the following passage in a circular instruction addressed about the middle of last century by a Comptroller-General to all the Intendants of the kingdom :-"You will pay particular attention to all that takes place in the municipal assemblies. You will take care to have a most exact report of everything done there, and of all the resolutions taken, in order to transmit them to me forthwith, accompanied with your own opinion on the subject." The government was always consulted-the government had always a decided opinion on every point. It even regulated the public festivities.

On one occasion I observe that a member of the burgher guard was fined twenty livres for absenting himself from a Te Deum

Such was the preparation of the middle classes for government, and of the people for liberty.

M. de Tocqueville concludes this portion of his book with this observa

tion

That when a people has destroyed aristocracy in its social constitution, that people is sliding by its own weight into centraliza

tion;

and, we add, will have deadened one of its vital organs, and violated one of the fundamental principles of political philosophy.

In the whole of the above chapters, the true nature and perils of centralization are pointed out with singular clearness and force. The system destroyed the power of combining and the habit of independent action, and when liberty came, the people were wholly unfit either to use or to enjoy it. Like the old men who had been a prisoner for forty years, after a brief glimpse of the daylight, they voluntarily returned to captivity. Self government, be it remembered, does not consist in the right of the people to meet together once in seven years and choose their representatives. A self-governed people is one which transacts its own affairs, and, through practical experience of the difficulty,

to be tolerant towards the errors of its rulers, and patient of the delays and obstacles which attend upon improvement. They know well enough that good government cannot "rise like an exhalation," to the sound of military music, or the songs of poissardes and cut-throats. They do not endure abuses from apathy or blindness, but because they know that evil is a necessary concomitant of our state upon earth, and that although by incessant vigilance, forbearance, and candour we may, so to speak, keep it down, yet that any idea of throwing it off by one great effort is chimerical and ridiculous. This is the price we pay for good, and a good article is never dear. Certain systems of government may engender great abuses; but the question is, are they not worth the price? The history of France is our answer.

Before we pass on to the concluding portion of M. De Tocqueville's work, it will be expedient to glance at the

condition of parties in our own country, and at the possibility of bureaucratic centralization ever holding ourselves in its soporific embrace. The most dangerous element in this system is the ease with which it assumes the mask of common sense and enlightenment. Unpaid officials* never do their work well, it is said, and therefore the services of stipendiary magistrates should be substituted for the ancient regime of the country gentlemen. Bishops should be relieved from the trouble of looking after their estates, which interferes with their spiritual duties, and which a Royal Commission can do much better than ecclesiastics. The distribution of government appointments, and of military and naval commissions to the sons of the wealthy and noble excludes the best men from the public service, those whose industry and talents have been sharpened by the necessity of making their own fortunes. The existing rule, that every member of the House of Lords must be an hereditary peer of the realm, either prevents us from recruiting that assembly by the introduction of able men without fortune, or entails upon the country the unpleasing spectacle of indigent nobles. that very large class of persons who are so fond of declaring that as for them they take the common sense view of the question," these arguments appear irresistible; for they look neither beyond nor beneath themin which omission the vulgar idea of "common sense" would appear to be embraced. But what in reality we have to consider is this-whether the general system and spirit of English government and society merit our approval. If so, we must be prepared to accept also the pillars upon which it rests. We cannot have at the same time the benefits of despotism or democracy

Το

-it little matters which, for the tyranny is equal in both--and those of constitutional monarchy, with its loyal and generous traditions. Which shall we choose? There are many persons, as above stated, who do not see that this is the question at all. But there are some who do, and have made up