socialism and society was fought out, for three fearful days did victory tremble undecided in the balance. If we had seen such a fight in our metropolis, and won so doubtful a conquest, how long would the recollection have made us tolerant of even the whims and the blunders of a dictatorship?

The feature in the Emperor's course, however, upon which it is impossible to look without suspicion and disapproval is this, that it presents no sign of regarding its arbitrary sternness as exceptional and transient, no appearance of approaching enlargement or mitigation. The municipal element in the provinces has not been encouraged nor set free,—on the contrary, it has been snubbed and crushed; the abrupt interfer. ences of centralisation have not been diminished or abandoned ; the forms of constitutionalism contained in the new system have not yet been endowed with real life; the action of the corps législatif has not been emancipated; books, indeed, are published without nominal control, but the severe restrictions originally established on public discussion in the higher organs of the press have not been relaxed. This absence of any incipient moves in a right direction looks ill: it makes the defence of Louis Napoleon difficult to his English admirers; it will prevent the more sober lovers of liberty in France from rallying round his government. It keeps up the conviction in the minds of patriots that so hard a dynasty ought not to last, and in the minds of politicians that it cannot last ;-both therefore stand aloof, and reserve themselves for more genial and hopeful days.

The sentiments of the French people in reference to the war it is not easy to discover with certainty, where the utterance of extreme differences is so rigidly repressed. But it seems neither popular with, nor interesting to any large or influential class. The army has never been very enthusiastic for it, because, though much glory has been won, the bloodshed has been terrible and the hardships excessive. There has been much suffering and little fun; and vast numbers both of men and officers, while lying in the trenches before Sebastopol in the inclemency of last winter, were sighing audibly for the amusements and luxuries of Paris. A large part of the army, moreover, was Orleanist in its sympathies, and murmured at the absence of its favourite and famous generals. The commercial and moneyed classes naturally looked with uneasiness on a contest involving such an enormous expenditure, threatening monetary difficulties, and promising an increase of taxation in the distance. The peasantry felt the conscription severely; in many districts it operated as a most opvressive and inconvenient drain: the nature and objects of the war were little understood, and its victories only faintly echoed in the provinces. The whole features, too, of the contest per

plexed their untrained minds,-ignorant of the present, and filled with traditions of the past. A war against England or Prussia, a war for Belgium or the Rhine, a war on their own frontier, they would have comprehended and been interested in; but a war 3000 miles off, a war to preserve Turkey, and above all, a war with the English as allies and comrades, presented an ensemble utterly bewildering to their understanding;-they could make nothing of it, and they saw their children go to swell the number of its victims without enthusiasm and without hope. The success of the LOANS was no indication whatever of the popularity of the war, though it has often been represented in that light. Every one who had any little hoard to lend hastened to offer it to the Emperor, not in the least because he approved of the purposes to which it was to be applied, not even because he had any decided confidence in the stability of his dynasty,—but simply because a liberal interest was offered, because in France it is singularly difficult to find lucrative investment for small sums-the high price of land yielding scarce any interest at all; and because it was held for certain that no future government would ever dream of repudiating a debt deliberately and formally contracted by its predecessor, or tampering with the national credit. We entertain no doubt that the Comte de Chambord or the Comte de Paris, if either succeeded to the throne to-morrow, might borrow fifty millions in the same way and on the same terms;-if, indeed, the loans already contracted have not, as some begin to suspect, exhausted the hoardings and spare capital of France.

We confess that our wish is for the present continuance, at least, of the actual régime in France; and that wish would be still stronger did we see in the head of the government any indications for the disposition to which we at one time gave him credit to abate of the narrow sternness of his rule as he felt his country more settled and his seat more secure, and to admit into his constitution that expansion and life of which it is susceptible. Had he kept his despotic proceedings within the limits of the indispensable, and manifested an anxiety or a willingness to give even small, gradual, and tentative powers of self-government to the people as they seemed likely to use them wisely and with moderation, we should have had better hopes and warmer wishes for his permanence than we can now profess. We will not be rash enough to venture on any thing like a prediction. On one account we desire the duration of Louis Napoleon's reign: we incline to think that it affords the best security for the maintenance of the Anglo-French alliance, and we bold that alliance to be the surest guarantee for progress, peace,

and civilisation. It may seem strange that a cordial friendship between the two nations should be most safe and most firmly cemented under the heir of France's most warlike monarch and England's most unrelenting enemy; but such we believe to be the case. We have had ample experience how precarious was that alliance under other dynasties; we can well understand that ministries and governments dependent on popular favour must be easily swayed to war and evil by the gusts of popular jealousy and passion, and that only a strong government can afford to be wise and conscientious; we conceive Louis Napoleon to be far too sagacious not to perceive that his own interests and those of France equally dictate the most faithful and resolute adherence to a union which has already done so much for both; we think that his views have grown far soberer and wider since he had to deal with the grand realities of empire; and we are satisfied that he values the political character and moral rank he has attained by his honourable and straightforward conduct towards this country, and by the brilliant reception which it won for him last spring, far too much to risk it by any deviation from his recent course. As to one thing the testimony of every British statesman is consentaneous and unhesitating that the diplomatic intercourse of the Emperor has throughout been frank and loyal in the extreme, and that they cannot say as much for any minister who ever previously managed the foreign policy of France.

It may be expected that we should say something as to the prospects of duration of the imperial dynasty in France. Even if we had any decided opinions on the matter, however, we should hesitate to express them; for to speak positively of the probable course of events is rarely seemly, and would be especially rash in the case of any foreign country; how much more in the case of a land where the "chapter of accidents" is always so rich as it is in France! All we can venture to do is to state a few of the considerations pro and con, gathered from the much we have heard, and the little we have been able to observe. On the one hand, people still repeat, as they have done for four years, que cela ne durera pas; but they repeat it with a less air of conviction, and more as if it were a wish than a belief. Then some

symptoms of opposition have begun to appear from time to time, in the Corps Législatif, in the Académie, and in the Collège, as during the lectures of Saint Beuve; though they have not come to any serious demonstrations. Still, as we heard remarked by one observer, though few distinct facts can be alleged to indicate that the house is in danger of falling, the chinks are wider and more perceptible. Then, again, the dread of the Rouges, which

was for long one of the greatest sources of his power, is dying away, more in consequence of the length of time which has elapsed without any fresh indication of their activity, than from any rational ground for believing that they have ceased to be dangerous. Three causes especially have increased the alienation of the upper classes from Louis Napoleon, and go far to warrant the deep hatred felt towards him by the educated and self-respecting of all the old parties. One is the minute and omnipresent interference by which he has reduced to insignificance men and families who formerly had much local and provincial influence. A second is his alleged meddling with the regular course of both civil and criminal justice; an allegation which we fear cannot be wholly denied, and to which the dependence of the judges upon his good pleasure gives a primâ facie support. But what has most of all roused against his government the bitter animosity both of the haute société and of the real respectability and integrity of France, is the affluent display of the parvenus about the court, coupled with the notoriety of the low arts by which their wealth has been acquired. Scarcely any of the ministers, or men connected with the Emperor, are free from the reproach of stock-jobbing; their fortunes have been made, either by gross favouritism, or by speculations in the funds, which, in men placed as they are, and with sinister and secret means of information, is little short of swindling; and the riches thus questionably won are spent in a style of lavish and somewhat vulgar luxury, peculiarly offensive both to the taste and the poverty of the cultivated and the noble.

The character and conduct of his cousin and heir-presumptive are also a source of considerable embarrassment and of some danger to the Emperor. Plon-Plon, as he is usually called, is a man of low tastes and dangerous tendencies; clever enough, but utterly without principle or reputation; and he is so universally hated and despised (except by the republicans, who hope to use him), that the idea of his succeeding to the imperial throne is absolutely insupportable. He heads, moreover, a sort of subterranean and intriguing opposition to Louis Napoleon, who dare not leave him behind him in Paris, and yet cannot succeed in removing him for any time. Add to these causes for an unfavourable prognostication the uneasiness excited by the enormous expenditure of the Emperor's government, and the chances of disasters, or an inglorious termination to the war (which might at once be fatal); and we have elements enough to form a gloomy and uncertain future.

On the other hand, a succession of brilliant victories, crowned by a profitable and honourable peace, would do much to consolidate the Emperor's power, by gratifying both the army and

the nation. Indeed, many among that section of politicians in France who approve of the war-policy of Louis Napoleon almost dread his success for this very reason. Then, again, habit is gradually accustoming the people to his rule: the neck is fitting to the yoke. The bourgeoisie fancy that, war once ended, his strong repressive arm, by insuring order and tranquillity, will promote that material prosperity which is the very god of their idolatry; the peasantry are still his adherents, as much from ignorance as from enthusiasm; the ouvriers will be on his side. as long as he can manage to find them constant and lucrative employment; and the priests will stand zealously by him as long as they can secure his support to their order. These are powerful allies; and the numbers of his agents, tools, and adherents scattered through the country will fight vigorously and labour hard to avert a catastrophe which they would share. But his principal reliance must ever be, as it ever has been, on his own character and talents. These have never been justly estimated: it was the fashion to underrate him formerly; it is the fashion to overrate him now. Personally we have had no means of judging, though we have gazed with intensest scrutiny on that hard, mean, sinister, impassive countenance, without one noble lineament or one genial expression; but we have had opportunities of ascertaining the judgments of several who have known him intimately and watched him long; and their opinions are neither doubtful nor discrepant. His forte lies in meditative habits and a strong volition. He has no genius; his education has been imperfect, and his knowledge is not great. His views are usually narrow, but sometimes singularly sagacious; and when he is on the right tack, his courage, coolness, deliberation, and unscrupulous resolution, give him enormous advantages. He seldom sees more than one thing at a time, and he never sees both sides of a question; but often gets hold of the right one, and then clings to it with bull-dog tenacity. Here, however, we must note a singularity which seems inconsistent with this feature in his character. He is tenacious, resolute, and vehemently imperious in carrying out the purpose of the hour, but this purpose often changes. One project or fancy succeeds another with strange and almost infantine rapidity. Hence, though any thing but vacillating, he is very changeable. He learns little from others; for he rarely listens to reasoning or exposition, though he is silent with an appearance of attention, while in reality he is thinking, not hearing; but whatever he can get at by reflection continuous and profound, whatever he can think out for himself by the patient elaboration of his own mind, that he will arrive at and make his own. In one point he is singularly at fault. He has slight insight into cha