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or of Palmerston, the inevitable Mr. Gladstone always emerged out of the wreck, just a little more Liberal than the day before, ready to take the first pick of places in the new Cabinet, all well and good. But the fact was that his arrival always was a convenience, for, no matter how the sections differed among themselves, the rallying round Mr. Gladstone as a further seceder from Toryism was a proceeding in which they could all join, and it gave them, again and again, an appearance of unanimity and cohesion. This was, in fact, his great function, and in it he has been very valuable to the party. Besides, though so late and seemingly slow in politics, he had from the first been great, and at the outset even precocious, in finance; and, further, he was a wonderful orator, even quicker in debating than Mr. Bright. Such a personage, so largely prudent and so highly gifted, was sure to succeed, and to do so for a long time; but he was also certain to fail in the end, and that completely.

His temperament made that nearly certain. He was always too busy making speeches, or writing for the press, or answering letters, to be any power in social life. A strange kind of semi-recluse, but combining with bookworm habits a passion for speechifying and for using the penny post, was not likely to conciliate London, and he never did. By-and-by he was railing at the Clubs, because they did not agree with him; and then he had next to appeal from the metropolitan journals to the superior politicians and brighter wits who preside over the provincial newspapers. All this prognosticated failure. Even his special gifts and the kind of successes which fell to him turned into the means of helping it. His turn for figures not unnaturally made immediate economy his great object, forgetful of the larger connection in such a land as ours between an imperial position in the world and the preservation of our commerce, and overlooking also the costliness of reasserting our position when a crisis came; while his ready eloquence, having no longer open to it the old patriotic themes, had to expend itself in the adornment of British abuegation, and the excited applause given to his rhetoric was mistaken by him for assent to his views, till he was amazed to find himself suddenly quite out of accord with the nation, and falling, he knew not why, headlong from power.

Even to this hour he seems never to have had the least mis

giving that the man who could speak with such complacency of the trading supremacy of the world passing to America (see his article on "Kin Beyond the Sea"), and who could urge as a reason for our not caring to interfere in Egypt that it would be the egg of a North African empire (see his article on "Aggression on Egypt and Freedom in the East"), was not the man to be England's Minister. But the country had found it out even before he wrote those articles: his threatening his countrymen with the calamity of finding another cmpire on their hauds, in the only part of the world yet remaining

to be explored and civilized, has only proved that they were right, and will not terrify Englishmen.

But a fluent orator has always left to him a kind of gambler's hope of retrieving everything by talking. Mr. Gladstone is going to alter everything by making a dozen or two of speeches in Scotland. Are these Midlothian harangues to be longer than that made at Greenwich, or more numerous than those uttered in Lancashire? They may be as fine as they will for anything it signifies to Conservatives, if the result is only again the same as on the other occasions, and it is hardly likely that he will persuade Englishmen now amidst their returning renown to despair of the future of England.

A CONSERVATIVE.

THE

ANCIEN REGIME
REGIME AND
REVOLUTION IN FRANCE.

THE

Histoire de l'Ancien Régime, par HENRI TAINE. Paris.
Histoire de la Revolution française, par HENRI TAINE.
Paris.

W

HEN De Tocqueville, in his celebrated work upon the Ancien Régime and the Revolution, had described the downfall of the Bourbon monarchy, he ended with these words:"I have now reached the threshold of the great Revolution; on this occasion I shall not cross it, but perhaps I may soon be in a position to do so, and then I shall no longer consider its causes, but its nature, and shall finally venture to pass judgment on the society that has proceeded from it."

Death prevented this admirable inquirer from accomplishing his purpose, a loss to the historical literature of Europe for ever to be regretted, and certainly not least by the author who has now undertaken to fill up the blank, and complete De Tocqueville's projected task-the description, namely, of modern France as the outcome of the immense transformation which the Revolution brought upon the Old French State. The fundamental principles which appear so clearly and sharply in Tocqueville's development are prominent in Taine's; the activity of the earlier author prepared the ground for the later to build on. But we must admit that Taine's work is preeminently independent, and his descriptions more striking, broad, and richly coloured than those of his precursor, while the material contents of his work are often different. But what, in spite of this, constitutes the resemblance between the two men is, their having for basis a common conception both of the State and what it presupposes, and of the historian and his task. It is the very opposite of the manner of thinking entertained in the eighteenth century which, without any heed to the peculiar character of the necessities of a given people, was bent on constructing, according to simple rules of reason and natural law, the best State for all time. Taine, in a very striking manner, declares himself free from such an error. "In 1849," he observes,

"I was an elector, and had to take part in the naming of a large number of Deputies. Therefore it was necessary not only to decide as to persons, but as to theories as well; I was required to be Royalist or Republican, Democrat or Conservative, Socialist or Bonapartist, and I was nothing of the kind-nay, I was nothing at all, and envied those who had the luck to be something. These worthy men built a constitution as they would a house, on the most ornamental, most new, or most simple plan; a row of models stood ready for choice, a baronial castle, a burgher's house, a workshop, a barrack, a phalanstery, a cottage, and each said of his favourite model: That is the only proper dwelling, the only one a rational man would inhabit.' To me this seemed an utter mistake. A people, as I thought, may indeed be able to say what house they admire, but some experience is needed to teach them what house they need, whether it be commodious and lasting, stands the weather well, and harmonizes with the customs, occupations, and fancy of its occupant. We here in France have never been content with our political erections; in the course of eighty years we have pulled them down and rebuilt them thirteen times. Other nations have acted differently, and found their advantage in so doing. They have preserved an old, substantial building, enlarged, built around, and beautified it according to their needs, but never attempted to build an ideal house at one stroke, according to the rules of pure reason. It would therefore appear that the sudden invention of an entirely new, and at the same time suitable and durable constitution is an undertaking that transcends human capacity. The political and social form which a people permanently assumes is no matter of choice, but fixed by its character and its past. It must be suited to its idiosyncrasy, even in the minutest points, or it will crack and fall. Therefore we must know ourselves before we can discover what the proper constitution for us is. We must invert the accustomed method, and first form to ourselves a picture of the nation before we sketch a constitution. At the same time this is a far harder and wider task than the one hitherto in favour. What inquiries into past and present, what labour in all domains of thought and action, are needed to understand with precision and completeness the nature and growth of a great people through centuries! But it is the only way to avoid putting out first empty discussions and then incoherent constructions; and, as regards myself, I shall not think of a political opinion until I have learnt to know France."

From this rejection of the rationalistic State theory, it follows, of course, that the author declines the style of historical writing that corresponds with it. We all know how parties who contended in the course of the Revolution have gone on attempting to justify their historical representation of it-Emigrants and Feuillans, Girondists and Montagnards, Bonapartists and Communists. They all knew exactly at the beginning of their historical labours what the conclusions arrived at

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would be. Their own party had the ideal of the only healthy State ent and dry, and hence the sentence upon companions, allies, and enemies was pronounced beforehand. The desirable aspects of the Revolution were owing to the activity of that party, the undesirable to the worthlessness of its adversaries. The study of isolated facts only awoke real interest in so far as it sharpened the perception of the main point-our party is right, all others are wrong. To this disposition of mind more than to any other hindrances we may attribute the small advance made, up to the middle of our century, in the knowledge of facts, in the history of the Revolution; this is what explains the else inexplicable phenomenon that, spite of the large interest felt in the period, no history of Louis XVI. drawn from authentic documents has as yet been written. For that even the books of De Tocqueville and Taine, spite of the strength of their authors' intellect and the wealth of their material, have not afforded us this, we shall soon convincingly see.

Both these works, however, are invaluable preparations for the writing of such a history. With firm and decided political principles of their own, both authors have determined to serve no party, but knowledge only. Both desire to know men and circumstances before they judge of the political experiments made. Both are full of the spirit of the old saying: "Human affairs are neither to be wept over nor laughed at, but to be understood," It is only when we know the soil and the seed from which the Revolution sprang that we can understand its nature and working, and only from the understanding of the whole can we pronounce upon the details with which factions have hitherto concerned themselves in endless and unprofitable debate. We will illustrate our meaning by a contrary procedure. I have not unfrequently heard the question: "How can Taine, whose first volume reveals more fully than any previous work the utter corruption of the Ancien Régime, place the Revolution in his second in an equally unfavourable light? If the old state were so completely good for nothing, the French were perfectly right in utterly destroying it." Accordingly, there has been no want of critics who, after the appearance of the first volume, declared the author to be a thorough Liberal, and, after the second, in deep disappointment, proclaimed him a thoroughly reactionary politician. There are, indeed, certain passages that might lead to such a conclusion, certain inconsistencies do appear, but on the whole it is self-evident, from an historical standpoint, that out of so evil a condition as the first volume paints the dark pictures of the second must needs grow. Rather should we have had cause to wonder if from a discased root there had sprung a healthy tree. The men of the Revolution had grown up on no other soil and in no other atmosphere than that of the Ancien Régime; it was under it that their notions had arisen, their passions been fostered, and their ideal formed; it was there that their nature had received its stamp and their strivings their direction; and if all relations were dislocated, political feeling perverted, all portions of the people filled with

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