The Monarchy of the Middle Classes. France, social, literary, political. Second series

Front matter

THE MONARCHY OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES. FRANCE, SOCIAL, LITERARY, POLITICAL, SECOND SERIES. BY HENRY LYTTON BULWER, Esq. M.P. Nature and truth are the same every where, and reason shows them every where alike. But the accidents and other causes, which give rise and growth to opinions both in speculation and practice, are of infinite variety. Bolingbroke on the true Use of Retirement and Study. Reverere conditores Deos, numina Deorum. Reverere gloriam veterem, et hanc ipsam senectutem quæ in homine venerabilis, in urbibus sacra est. Sit apud te honor antiquitati, sit ingentibus facti, sit fabulis quoque, nihil ex cujusquam dignitate, nihil ex libertate, nihil etiam ex jactatione decerpseris. Plinius Maximo Suo S. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 183si. LONDON : SCHCLZE AND CO. POLAND STREET.

ADVERTISEMENT.

. These two volumes were, for the most part, written and in the hands of the publisher some months since ; and it was only the desire to be perfectly accurate in certain details, to ascertain which a visit to Paris was necessary, that delayed their appearance. These form the necessary continuation to the two volumes published a year ago and called, " France Literary, Social and Political." The new title now added is given in consequence of the author having considered its former omission an error — which it was more essential to rectify in that part of the work which related to recent institutions, than it could have been in the preceding part which rather treated of the effects of national character and former history. VI

Chapter I

Early species of popular composition — Origin of novels — '■ Chivalric Italian — Heroic Milesian — Later schools — Le Sage — Rousseau — Walter Scott — Anomalous school displayed in melo-drama — General considerations 14

Chapter II

Neglect in promoting Community of Thought between the French and the English — A Rogue of CONTENTS. Page 49 Ability and an honest man without ability — Titled Incapacity — Principal Newspapers of Paris — The Constitutionnel — The Journal des Debats — The Gazette de France — The Quoti dienne — The National — M. Armand Carrel. . . .

Chapter III

Opera Box of the Temps Newspaper — M. Thiers — Eminent Writers in Newspapers— Different Rank held in their respective countries by the French and English Journalists — Effect of High Taxes connected with the Press — System of Governing by Wealth — Education of the Working Classes — Unjust Restriction — Its consequence — Advantages of the low price of Newspapers in France — The Daily Press in France embodies more of the Intelligence of France, than the Daily Press of England does of the Intelligence of England — Folly of a System of Persecution — Extent to which this System has been carried by the Government of Louis-Philippe 73 RELIGION

Chapter IV

Force of an Opinion propped up by a habit — Le Roi tres-chretien — State of religion in France — Chateaubriand's Genie du Christianisme 97

Chapter V

Disappearance of the Impiety of the Republic — Religion re-established by Bonaparte — Doctrine CONTENTS. IX Page of the Royalists at the Restoration — Ambition of the "parti pretre" — she Jesuits 106

Chapter VI

Opinions of a country — Mistake of Foreigners — Anecdote — State of Christianity in France at the present moment — Revenue of the French Clergy — Has Religion lost or gained by the Wealth of its Minister ? — Rural Clergy in France — Ecclesiastical Statistics — Self-denial of a French Priest — Advantages derived from a poor Priesthood — Classes of a Catholic Clergy — The Abbe de la Mennais — Les Paroles d'un Croyant 114 PROTESTISM.

Chapter VII

The French Protestants — Protestant Population — Payment of the State to the Protestant Religion — " Institution of Public Utility" — Protestant Churches — The Calvinist Church — Nomination of the Clergy — Attention to the Poor — The Lutheran Church — Mixed Marriages — Education — Protestant Dissenters — Annual Conferences — Catholic and Protestant Pastors 141 NEW PHILOSOPHIES.

Chapter VIII

The Trial of Enfantin— The Creed of the St. Simonians — Picturesque Apostle — Life and Doc- CONTENTS. X Page trine of St Simon himself — Comparison between St. Simon and his followers — Enfantin's departure for the East 157

Chapter IX

The sea turned into lemonade— Mr. C Fourrier's system of the Four movements — The Fourrieristes' system of Education — Those who have not found, and yet seek a religion 180

BOOK IV. DIVISION OF PROPERTY.

Chapter X

Difference between France under Napoleon and England under Cromwell — The most important question in France, the division of its property — Mr. Cobbett Junr's. ride through that country 195

CHAPTER XL

Mr. Maculloch on the effects of the division of property in France — His arguments : First, " A sense of their inferiority in younger children will excite them to make extraordinary exertions after wealth ;" Secondly, " That the bias in the heads of great families to provide for younger children out of the public establishments is very faint". . CONTENTS. XI

Chapter XII

Page Mr. Macculloch's contradictions — Assertions — Authorities 221

Chapter XIII

How far Property is likely to go on Dividing — What the Law respecting the Division of Property in France is — Table of Properties subjected to the Land-tax — Checks to Division 238

Chapter XIV

It is the present state of France that we have to consider without fears for the future, in respect to this question— Folly of comparisons between France and England, and France and Ireland — A small Lessee different from a small Proprietor A bad system of agriculture made, by energy, a good one — More persons occupied on Land by its Divisions than there need be — Population made more agricultural — Manufacturing Populations considered — Difference between the course to be pursued in England, and advice to be given to France 254

Chapter XV

Though the example of France may not be a wise one for aU countries to imitate, it appears a wise CONTENTS. Page one for her to have adopted — The Law of Primo geniture not sanctioned by private right, though it may by public advantage — Real results arising from it — Past conduct defective — Fate of Aristocracy in England 290 Appendix ' ." 301 ERRATA TO VOL. I. Page 9, line 13, for imbrued read imbued. " to " Ib ??* P0?"1^ read populeui. " fw " o, ' ■'or g00d rmd ere3t- :: . : :%:jJVztrT^c%^dLaario^- " f' " 3,/°r^trinwL8s4WaS)''eadWhich <>" ™ *• " 22fi' " 3£OTdeterrimar«^teterrima. .. 1*. „ 20, for does his frieud read does to his friend. DEDICATION TO J. E. H OVEN DEN, Esq. To whom can a writer more properly address his thoughts upon another country, than to one with whose name he has long since been fa miliar in studying the institutions of his own ?

I dedicate then these volumes to you, my dear Sir, and allow me to add, that I do so with every sentiment of private friendship, that can add to public esteem. Any author who now takes up his pen, does so at an eventful moment. There is a season when every seed we scatter upon the breeze, however carelessly, will produce and bear ; the soil is quick with an invisible being ; thus, an in terest may possibly attach to these pages, even though so hastily composed. That interest, however, will be owing as VOL. I. B DEDICATION. much to the situation of our own country, as to the situation of the country which I more especially undertake to describe. Let me then, before proceeding to France, carry your attention, and that of any who now honour me by casting their eyes upon this page, to England !

By many, the spirit of change which now ruffles the public mind, is accounted as one of those chance winds, of which no man knoweth whence they come or whither they go — sudden and accidental in their visitation, and as suddenly and accidentally passing away. Is this so ? The links which bound our people to an old aristocracy have long been dropping off one by one from the ancient chain, in which, at the revolution of 1688, society was still bound. Already on the demise of Anne, the commercial fortunes which then began to spring up from that spirit of commerce, to which the spirit of chivalry under the prudent Elizabeth had turned, counterbalanced the power of the great provincial gentry — the main support of those, who in this country, have more exclusively been called the nobility of the land.

The protracted contest for the crown, in which the House of Hanover was ultimately DEDICATION. 3 successful, but in which the great bulk of the old families inclined for the House of Stuart, carried on with that civil genius for which we are remarkable, in a series of election contests, accounted for, if it did not justify the corrup tions of Sir Robert Walpole, and ruined the great majority of the patriarchal possessor's of the soil. A new race of persons with names unknown, got possession of those chesnut avenued seats, which for centuries preceding had belonged to one Une of masters. It was then that the peasant and the small proprietor felt a shock in feelings they had long been ac customed to cherish. They met the new squire in the parish church, but they passed fondly by the tombs of his predecessors.

The very asso ciations which had hitherto made them respect the possessor of 'The Place,' now rose up against its purchaser. He was disliked as the new man, more than he was respected as the rich one. First, wealth lost its prestige because it was unaccompanied by birth, and then birth lost its prestige because it was unaccompanied by wealth. In this manner, that habit of unthinking respect for superior rank, which had almost seemed an instinct, was effaced by degrees, now here, now there. At the same time too, the increasing b DEDICATION. business and luxuries of a capital, and the in creasing facilities for visiting it, drew a large class of persons yearly to the metropolis, as a matter of course, who formerly only sought it on some extraordinary occasion of business, curiosity, or adventure.

This habit, did not — perhaps could not — exist long without a Lon don existence rising more and more into im portance, as compared with a rural one ; until at last, a large portion of the great nobility and wealthy squirearchy began to look upon their provincial neighbours, less as useful friends and adherents to be cultivated in the country, than as vulgar alliances and acquaintances to be avoided in town. Hence that silly principle of exclusion, which ending in the overthrow of its inventors, has made a condemned and ex cluded body of that aristocracy, who entrench ed amidst their solitary boroughs and venal corporations, thought they might despise and defy the nation, without which they contrived to rule. Monstrous delusion ! When we altered the form of our constitution in 1 832, what made that alteration so enor mous, was — that the nobility which governed, had no hold on power, save by that form.

They had been acquiring a strength where the people were not, and they had been losing their in- DEDICATION. 5 fluence where the people were. They had been extending their authority over the small and de cayed villages in Schedules A and B ; but from the great towns in their neighbourhood, their domination had been gradually passing away. And now, while the country was thus slowly and almost invisibly changing its ideas, it was also changing its habits and pursuits. Not many years ago, two thirds of the population in England were an agricultural popu lation, depending mainly on the large posses sors of the soil : at the time I write, up wards of two thirds of the population are a manufacturing population, deriving their support, rather from the lower and the middle, than from the upper classes of society.

In the meantime great cities, which may be called empires, have been rising into existence ; and during these events, knowledge has been ra pidly and widely diffusing itself; and with knowledge, that desire for action and that pas sion for power, which are its necessary con comitants. It is impossible for these causes to exist without their effects. It is impossible for the whole frame of society to have been shifting from under our feet without a great shock taking place in our institutions. DEDICATION. The first sign of this — was in the Reform Bill which would have been carried earlier, but for the French revolution of 1789, and which was doubtless hastened by the French revolution of 1830* The second sign of this — has been in the Corporation Bill. In 1832 we gave the people the power to make laws ; in 1835 the people have carried a law which will create popular manners.!

These two measures passed — who can doubt as to which way is flowing the tide of future events ? Nor have we here been following a course at variance with the nations around us during the period to which I have referred, or in discord- * One of many proofs, that the destinies of two countries so nearly allied by nature, cannot be wholly separate from each other. t If the Lords had altered the qualification of the town council, and succeeded in appointing the town clerk for life, they would have done something, but they would have done much less than they imagined. They would have confined corporate power in certain hands ; but they would have left the origin of that power in the community. It would still have been not to those above, but to those below them, that the ambitious among the town's people would have had to look for power ; and this would have done what I have said the law as it stands must more effectually do, viz : create popular manners.

DEDICATION. 7 ance with that longer portion of human action, which is what we call the history of the world. From the laying of the first stone of the pyra mids of Egypt, to the abolition of slavery in the West Indies, the great masses of mankind have been gradually advancing in condition : and the sacred law which we obey, preached with a divine prescience nearly two thousand years ago, only proclaimed an equality, which passing through two systems — that of chivalry and the church — and aided by a series of almost miraculous discoveries — has been daily advancing from that hour to this. I look upon it as certain then, that in this country, we shall also see a monarchy of the middle classes, at no distant date ; — whether we approach it gradually, slowly, safely, as I be lieve we shall ; or whether we are hurried to it on the blast of some political tempest, which we cannot now foresee, but which the air — charged with electricity — is at any moment liable to produce.

It cannot, therefore, be without interest to observe — that the same year which has ad vanced us by a new step, and a gigantic step towards such a monarchy ; — has shown it, shaking and trembling to its foundations in the country of which I am writing. DEDICATION. Thus our attention is naturally awakened to France ; and we anxiously enquire whether the dangers that menace her, are such as we shall have in our turn to experience. Let us then see whether that nation, which pos sesses more popular ideas, and in some res pects, more popular institutions than ours, does not also still possess some trappings of a galling and tinselled tyranny, such as we never saw. In its manners are the traces of former ser vitude yet visible ? Over its laws do those manners yet exercise some influence ? In its progress do we remark those abrupt stoppages and rapid movements which shew that it has pursued — not the safe, and even course ?

On the other hand ; — is it not true, that the improvements we are looking forward to, will come as the necessary result of others that have preceded them ? Is it not true that the equality we anticipate will have been preceded by a freedom we have long enjoyed ; and that the democracy attaining power will have been educated by an aris tocracy that has long possessed it ? Is it not true, that a government of the mid dle classes in this country would be the government — not of a few of those classes admitted with fear and caution into the gestion of pub- DEDICATION. 9 lie affairs — but of the great bulk of the people long accustomed to the management of their local concerns ? Is it not true that a government of the mid dle classes in England would be a government well suited to the serious and commercial character of the English, as a government of the middle classes in France is hostile to the vain and military character of the French ?

Neither would such a government be productive, in both countries, of all the same results. I have to notice a licentious literature, an irreligious people, a philosophy imbrued with that spirit of association natural to the state of things amidst which it appears, but covered, at the same time, with the taudry tatters of a depraved licentiousness, the baleful heritage of times gone by. Nobody will believe — whatever mischief might arise therefrom — that the advancing influence of the middling and lower orders of society with us would be accompanied by such consequences. The evils to dread would indeed be of a directly contrary description ; — an over fanatic zeal in religion, an extravagant severity of manners, and a temporary absence of those charms of literature and society, which add to the happiness, and ought not to corrupt the manners, of mankind b DEDICATION.

To prepare the change that is inevitable, to infuse into the democracy that is advancing to power, what was great and graceful in the best days of the aristocracy that has long possessed it ; — to ingraft on the manly and solid character of the English people, the lofty daring and the cultivated intelligence which in times not re mote from these were remarkable in the Eng lish nobility ; — to join to the popular virtues of economy and industry, the no less necessary qualities (in those who are to guide an empire) of justice, honour, and courage ; — to moderate the popular zeal in politics and religion, by a learned toleration for the feelings and opinions of all opponents; — such, it appears to me, should be the desire of a writer who hopes, my dear Sir, for your friendship, and aspires above the mere party aims and politics of the hour.

Some, I know, imagine that every period of civilization is to have the same results. They quarrel with the times gone by, on ac count of the class which ruled then, as others quarrel with the present, because the power from that class is passing — has in fact passed away. This, I feel sure, is not the judgment of your liberal and enlightened mind. To an independent and respectable nobility, we owe much. DEDICATION. 11 It has enriched our merchants and our tradesmen with the spirit and intelligence of a senate; and preserved the morality of our gentry from the enervating corruptions of a court. Let us not disdain, then, but embody, our past history in our future progress ! This is the way that a great people march on easily and naturally in the road to greatness. Of old, the seer who sought in vain one of those mysterious luminaries he was accustomed to admire — said, " the star is not lost to mankind ; but, attracted to some mightier orb, enriches with the effulgence that I miss — the splendours of a more glorious world : — " and so, on this pigmy earth— the institutions of one generation, when they apparently disappear, do but pass on to the pext ; and the great system of society is perpetually brightened by the systems it perpetually ab sorbs.

It is, my dear Sir, with a sincere friendship, that I subscribe myself, Yours most faithfully, HENRY LYTTON BULWER, 8, James Street, Buckingham Falace, October 1835. VOL. 1. B si

Preface

. A salutation to all of you, friends and ene mies, whom I have had as judges, and before whose tribunal I am once more to appear? Thanks to you who have seen any merit, more thanks to you who have seen any utility in the pages I have, with a deep humility, previously offered to the public. You will agree with me, I have little doubt, as to the imperfect manner in which my task has been fulfilled. You will agree with me also, I venture to trust, in ac knowledging there was some difficulty attending its fulfilment. To paint a country which, visiting every year, every person imagines that he knows — yet which, for the very reason perhaps that it is at their door, few persons have attentively examined — to be met first by the idea that you can say nothing new; and then by the prejudice against all you do say which is not old — to enter last into competition with deservedly distinguished writers, who have wielded the weapons of controversy with a grace and a tact which betray — what their judgment might have concealed — the sex they belonged to ;* this was no easy labour to have accomplished with or- * See Lady Morgan's France, and Miss Berry's State of Society in France and England.

PREFACE.

. 13 dinary success ; and most grateful am I for that which has been accorded me. There is something indeed in the nature of a work like the present, which furnishes in itself an excuse for its imperfections. On the one hand, the author is called upon to devote much industry and time to the collection of his materials; and this gives his efforts the effect of preparation and research. On the other hand, he is called upon to throw those materials into form with as much rapidityas possible, and this tarnishes his labours with the defects of negligence and haste. Oh ! reader, who is to be! — did you chance to hear that not long since, a small island suddenly appeared on the coast of Sicily ; instantly we planted our flag there, so thank God ! it is ours. But it as suddenly disappeared — yes ; it is ours— but under the ocean ; the sounding sea rolls over it again ; and if we had delayed a moment, it would never have been added to our empire, no, never.

Such, in some sort, is the shifting scene of life and politics before us, the condition and the fortune of states and of men. We must plant our standard quickly — at the moment — on that fleeting shore;— a minute, and it will be covered by the ever mounting sea, which has already risen over 5000 years.

Chapter I

Early species of popular composition — Origin of novels — Chivalric Italian — Heroic Milesian — Later schools — Le Sage — Rousseau — Walter Scott — Anomalous school displayed in melo-drama — General considerations. In some degree I regret that my volumes open with the subject I am now commencing. — But this work must be considered as the con tinuation of one published a year ago ; and which, concluding with history and the drama, left me about to enter on the lighter productions of French literature. Still, such productions are not altogether unworthy of consideration : they have generally been thought to pourtray, more faithfully than any other, the manners of their time ; and although this is not universally correct, it is sufficiently so to engage and deserve our at tention. The earliest species of popular composition was, as we know, heroic poetry ; for the art of transcription being rare, and that of read ing very confined, to render any composition popular, it was necessary that, grateful to the ear, it should be easily remembered and re peated ; nor was there any method of diffusing it but itinerant recitation.

As great towns arose and spread themselves, however, the poet naturally suited himself to larger audiences, and his muse adopting the drama, attained most that we at present know of theatrical art. But civilization does not arrive so far as this point without the existence of a large class who, wealthy, indolent, and refined, require some unfatiguing, intellectual amusement, which, if the stage supplied in any way to those re sident in cities, it left it still wanting to all who found themselves in the solitude of a country life. That such a want should first display itself in the east, seems, from the habits of the people, natural ; and we may therefore easily fall into the common belief that it was through the colony of Miletus that prose novels or romances first reached Italy and Greece.

As might have been expected, they treated chiefly of licentious love, and of the martial he roismof the middle ages. This species of composition (whether such alteration were Gothic or Arabian in its origin, or merely the natural birth of the existing state of mankind) received a new colouring ; and in tales of chivalry and enterprize the spirit of the day was at once represented and excited. The wanderings of Palmerin and Amadis, however, did not extend to the voluptuous Italy, where the Decameron, similar in its kind to other Italian productions that had preceded it, resembled in some sort the ancient Milesian stories. The pastoral romance was a reaction from the chivalric and heroic, at the head of which Madame Scuderi maybe placed — a kind of prolix medley of the two— owing its success in France partly to real personages being concealed under a fictitious genii, partly to the character of the French nobility themselves, who, until their independence was destroyed in the court of Louis XIV, had a warlike and enterprizing frame of mind which the adventures of Polyanor the ' Great Cyrus' might very well in terest and please.

But the two species of modern novels* most in vogue, until another of late years appeared, were those descriptive of living manners — at the head of which Le Sage, transporting comedy from the stage to the boudoir, took his place ; and those more analytically descriptive of sentiment, of which we must again accord a foreigner, writing in French, J. J. Rousseau, to be the chief. The one was still a comedian while a novelist ; the other always a moralist. Le Sage wrote for Paris and the audience he had been accustomed to at his theatre : he painted the life of an adventurer to a large city, where every one was struggling to make his fortune — not quite a honest man, yet not a rogue — with few scruples that could prevent his getting on in life : with no crimes that could justly condemn him to the gallies. * What I say of light literature is almost entirely confined to novels, as the most popular branch of it.

The only poets out of the drama of any note, are Beranger and Lamartine, and these are already so well known, and have been so often criticized, that it would hardly be worth while to interrupt the course of these observations by repeating what has frequently been better said of their style and merits. What he describes is the level of life in large communities such as he resided in : there is no heroic passion, — no enthusiasm of any kind in his story — for the bye-ways of am bition are not romantic. Still the tale of Gil- Bias had great success, for it described, not merely what was passing round the author, but what was passing round most men pur suing the hackneyed existence of what in their separate countries was called — the world. As Le Sage was essentially the man of the city, Rousseau was as essentially the man of solitude.

All that he knew of mankind was what he knew of Rousseau. The only mode he had of describing human nature, was that of describing the workings of his own breast ; — he was the creature of sentiment and emo tion — so was his book. Indeed, it is easier at a first glance to see why Rousseau should have written the Nouvelle Heloise, than it is at a first glance to see, why the Heloise, appearing amidst the worldly, the polished, the voluptuous, and selfish society of Louis XV, should have had such success. But there are in most men two natures— that nature which they acquire in action and from custom, which makes them do to-day as they did yesterday, and as they see others doing, without reflection or passion, but from habitual impulse — and that other nature — which we only find when we seek for it, but which is in the depths of all our souls ; which we find alone, and when we are called upon to think ; a nature of higher and nobler energies, such as from the very elevation at which it aims, can rarely be carried into action save by men of great powers.

I speak of that source of sublimity within us from which all religions flow ; of that source of superiority and strength which we discover in sickness, in suffering, and oftimes in great perils ; raising us above what we have been accustomed to consider ourselves; coming not from stoicism, not from superstition — but simply from solitude and self-commune ; — for it was said wisely and profoundly by the philosopher, " Enter your selves — there you will find the Gods !" Rousseau and Byron, both different in action from what they were in thought, yet living much in solitude, addressed our more lonely and thinking side of the heart : they spoke to man at the time when he momentarily withdraws himself from the world, not at the time when he is mechanically moving in the world; and this is why they produced a deeper impression upon the mind of their age, and a less impression upon its manners, than others of their cotemporaries.