monstrated, but in vain. The Pope is well aware, that as long as Rome is garrisoned by French troops he is safe from the vengeance or turbulence of his own subjects. He knows that Louis Napoleon will not withdraw his troops, however scandalously he (the Pope) may abuse the protection which their presence gives him; because if he withdrew them simply, they would be instantly replaced by Austrians, and Pio Nono would wish nothing better; if in withdrawing, he at the same time prohibited and prevented the Austrians from entering, he has been warned that a general massacre of the priests would be the immediate result; and such a catastrophe would raise a fearful and dangerous outcry against the Emperor among all the Catholics of France. In either case, too, the original object of the occupation-the maintenance of French influence in the Peninsulawould be effectually sacrificed, and the national pride and ambition would be severely mortified. The Emperor, therefore, is in a sort of cleft-stick, in a practical dilemma of the most painful character. He is nearly in the same position in which we find ourselves in Oude, the upholder of the most noxious and wretched government in the world. He cannot retire without humiliation and peril to his popularity at home; he cannot remain without seeing himself daily degraded into the real agent-because the permitting and enabling witness-of some of the lowest and silliest atrocities ever perpetrated by an ecclesiastical administration. If he were to give way to the disgust which we believe he feels, and say, "I will no longer aid or tolerate such things; I will either compel the Pope to govern well, or will leave him to the fate which he has earned," he would, indeed, relieve his conscience of a great crime and gladden the hearts of all the patriots in Europe; but he would incur the deadly enmity and the active opposition of the whole priestly party throughout France; and we doubt whether he could afford to do so.

The peculiarity which we have noticed above-the restriction, namely, of religious faith and sentiment in France principally to the lowest class-is one fraught with social mischief and peril of the saddest kind. It operates a separation between the different orders of society, which can never exist in a country without consequences of the deepest and widest significance. Not only does it divide them in their most intense and elevated sentiments; not only does it, therefore, pave the way for those jealousies and animosities of class which already exist with such fearful virulence in France; but it takes the people out of the hands of their natural chiefs, and places them under the guidance of self-chosen and artificial leaders. It severs them from the aristocracy, whether of rank, wealth, or talent, and delivers them over, easy victims, to the demagogue or the priest,-when the

priest happens to be in opposition to the government. That happy harmony, that safe political well-being, which exists where the higher ranks lead and influence the lower without being able to oppress them, is no longer possible in France. The peasants no longer look for advice, assistance, and leadership to the noble and the great, to the men of eminent ability and superior education, or to those large landed proprietors who still exist in many provinces. The popular sceptre has passed, we hope not irrevocably, into the hands of mere agitators, who will exploiter their power for their own personal objects or passions. There is nothing to wonder at in all this, though there is every thing to deplore: we note it merely as one of the bad symptoms in the social state of France; and that it arises much, if not mainly, from the cause we have assigned appears, among other indications, from this-that wherever we find instances of proprietors and nobles exercising their proper influence over the peasantry and ouvriers around them, they usually belong to families who are either hereditarily Catholic or individually pious.

To this last statement, however, we must admit one important and increasing exception, to which our attention has more than once been called by some of the most thoughtful politicians of France, and which they regard as likely largely to influence the future destinies of that country, and to influence them in a salutary direction. In former times, as is well known, the great families of France lived the chief part of the year on their estates, surrounded by their vassals, leading them during war, governing them during peace, and exercising over them an authority which, whether for good or evil, was little short of absolute, and an influence which was nearly irresistible. Sometimes their rule was benevolent and paternal, sometimes it was harsh, selfish, and extortionate; sometimes they were beloved, sometimes they were dreaded; but in all cases they were looked upon as a superior order of men, against whose sway-intellectual, moral, fashionable, or material—no one dreamed of rebelling. The same was true in a lesser degree of the smaller landed proprietors-of all, in fact, who belonged to the class of nobles or, as we should call it, of gentry. In the course of time, however, this state of society was gradually disturbed and undermined. More and more these families became attracted to the court; and once habituated to the refined luxuries and perpetual excitements of the metropolis, the dullness and coarseness of provincial life grew distasteful to them, and they lived year by year a longer time in Paris and a shorter time at their chateaux in the country. The sovereigns, bent upon humbling and superseding the vast power of the provincial nobility, encouraged this tendency by every means within their reach; residence at court was the proof of

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loyalty, and the path to honours and employment; retirement to their provincial estates was considered to indicate disaffection, and was at length inflicted as a sign of disgrace. Under Louis XIV. this silent but momentous social revolution may be considered to have been consummated. In proportion as the nobles thus deserted their vassals and lived at a distance from their territorial possessions, their personal influence necessarily declined; they were seldom seen and little known; their peasantry were left to the tender mercies of stewards, who extorted from them in order to supply the increasing demands of their absentee lords; the estates were heavily mortgaged, and sometimes passed in portions into the hands of money-lenders. At last the aristocracy, great and small, of France, took to residing entirely in Paris; the tie between them and the poorer classes of the community was either wholly broken or became one of oppression only, and their political and social influence in the provinces was gone. This state of things reached its culminating point when the first revolution broke out; and we all know what the consequences were. After that, for a long series of years, political and military interests overpowered all others: Paris was the centre and the scene of these; and every one who either was or aspired to be any thing, found Paris the only possible dwellingplace.

Of late years, however, a slow but significant reaction has been taking place. Successive revolutions, and the increasing luxury and extravagant expenditure of metropolitan society, have worked their natural effects. The year 1830 saw the downfall of the ambitious projects and retrospective hopes of the legitimist nobility, many of whom retired in melancholy and disgust to such diminished estates as still remained to them. The revolution of 1848 did something of the same kind for the proprietors and politicians whose predilections were Orleanist; they found themselves ousted from their places, fallen from their high estate; and so they bowed to the storm, and went into the country to grow cabbages till the return of better days. Finally, the coup-d'état of December 1851 added yet a third class to these retiring and abdicating grandeurs. Numbers whose principles or connections would not allow them to "bow the knee to Baal," as they called it, or in any way to countenance the usurping dynasty, and to whom a Paris in which they had been somebody and were now nobody was hateful, retired in bitterness of spirit to try the fascinations of a rural life. In addition to these men, there were many families who had long been living beyond their means and were no longer in a condition to meet the expenses of a life in one of the gayest and most costly of citiesa city in which bankers, agens de change, and other nouveaux

riches, have introduced a style of gorgeous luxury which is at once distasteful and impossible to the "old families;"-and these were only too glad to take the opportunity of retiring to the country to retrench, and of ascribing to the dictates of political principle a course which was really due to pecuniary prudence or necessity. From these various sources there is gradually springing up a race of " country gentlemen" in France, somewhat analogous to our own, though at present far less educated and energetic, and from whom much ultimate good, both political and social, is anticipated. They are slowly acquiring the tastes and adopting the habits of their class; they are attending to agriculture, and introducing improvements which their poorer neighbours have neither the knowledge nor the capital to initiate; they are exchanging an exciting for a quiet life, and are acquiring by residence and intercourse that influence over the minds of their neighbourhood which their superiority in manners and education, imperfect as it is, entitles them to exercise. They are consulted, both on public and private matters, by the villagecitizens around them, and are probably thus laying the foundation for much future usefulness. An unusually large number of this class were returned as members to the two last republican assemblies, and constituted that moderate element whose strength so agreeably surprised the world. Upon these gentlemen themselves the monotonous and sober life they lead is exercising a strong and natural though unconscious conservatising influence; and in future movements it is probable that they will at once prevent the metropolis from possessing that overwhelming and arbitrary power which has often proved so mischievous to France, and while restoring to the provinces their fitting share in the councils and decisions of the nation, will impress upon those provinces an unusual temper of aversion to wild and sudden change, and a disposition to hold by the settled and the stable. They will give a hitherto unknown weight to the stationary and restraining element in French society-to the drag, the ballast, and the anchor. Such at least is the hope and faith of many profound and close observers among the French themselves.

The most influential element in the present condition of France is, beyond contradiction, the character of the remarkable man who now governs it,—a character singularly difficult to estimate aright, because no Frenchman can speak of him dispassionately, and no foreigner can speak of him with a complete knowledge of all the facts necessary for arriving at a confident opinion. Nor does it always contribute much to the elucidation of the matter to hear opposing judgments; for though enemies and detractors may be alike in error, it by no means follows that to

strike an average between their statements is the way to hit the truth. We must speak, therefore, with some misgivings; but having watched his course carefully, and had an opportunity of conversing respecting him with men of all parties in France as well as here, we think we may be able to approximate at least to a correct understanding of his nature and his views. And, in the first place, we put aside as irrelevant all consideration of his moral character. We doubt whether, in our English sense of the word, he has one. He is capable, we believe, of strong, sincere, and tenacious affections-even of warm affections, as far as warmth of any kind can be predicated of a man of his singularly reserved and phlegmatic temperament. He is usually amiable to those about him, by no means devoid of consideration for them, and is liked, if not loved, by those who have lived with him and served him. We do not suspect him of any petty or malignant passions; it would seem as if he were much less subject to these than was his uncle. But of a moral sense, of an idea of duty, of a conscientious preference of right to wrong, of a perception even of the meaning of the words, we apprehend Louis Napoleon to be wholly destitute. This destitution is not rare in France. We could name more than one of their most eminent men in whom it is as marked as in the emperor. Louis Napoleon considers whether an action will further the end he has in view; if it will, it is to him right,-if not, it is to him wrong; or rather, in the one case it will be done, and in the other avoided, without the slightest reference to its moral quality. His object has all along been to govern France-probably to govern her well. He never had any doubt that it was well for France that he should govern her, or that he could govern her well. If he had ever doubted, it probably would have made no difference in his conduct; but we do not imagine that the question ever crossed his mind. He was determined to govern her; it was written that he should. Whatever, therefore, would contribute to his elevation was to be done, whatever was its nature. Whether it was culpable or laudable, just or unjust, kind or cruel, right or wrong, no more entered into his contemplation than would have done the colour of the cup out of which he was to drink the elixir of immortality. Like the sage in Rasselas, he shaped his course, not indeed with a view to concur in the great and unchangeable scheme of universal felicity," but with a sole reference to the "fitness of things." Whether his seizure of the supreme power, and the steps by which he mounted to the throne, were a perfidious and heinous crime, as some aver, or a necessary, patriotic, beneficent, and therefore righteous course, as others hold, probably is a matter of profound indifference to his peculiar or non-existent conscience. They succeeded: voilà tout !