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out royal license; Prévost, abbé in an age when abbés were amiable Pagans, who lived a gay life en dehors de l'Eglise; these successively are installed by M. Houssaye in the Forty-first Fauteuil. Its later occupants are Helvetius, for whom "la science de vivre est le dernier mot de toute philosophie" (as he was a fermier général at three-and-twenty he had the means of making this an applied science, and did so); Piron, a profane profligate in youth and a prosy psalm-writer in old age; Crébillon the younger; Jean-Jacques, philanthropic misanthrope; Gilbert, who, say the malicious, made his (poetical) fortune by dying in an hospital; Diderot, "the richest nature of the century," to whom Voltaire was indebted for his latest enthusiasms, Jean-Jacques for his first and life-long idea; Mably, a Spartan who was on the search for Lacedæmonia and found but Athens-that Athens too at Paris," "Mably-Phocion, who spake of Plato's communism to the feudatories of right divine;" Mirabeau, who might be called l'ami des femmes, to distinguish him from his father l'ami des hommes; Camille Desmoulins, for whom the forty-first fauteuil was a tribune, and who, instead of ensconcing himself therein, and falling asleep like a well-bred Academician, stood up on it, and spouted, objurgated, agitated; André Chénier, "a Greek born about the eighty-seventh Olympiad, and laid asleep by the Muses for some two thousand years”— "to whom Theocritus gave his box-tree flute, and who borrowed from Moschus his silver lyre, and took from the hands of Orpheus Apollo's golden bow"-who, "though born at Constantinople, was neither Mussulman nor Christian, but remained a Pagan all his life;" the Abbé Raynal, "philosophic historian of the Indies;" Beaumarchais, whose "immortal comedies are almost effaced by that comedy in a hundred diversified acts, his life"-" a Parisian Sheridan," a Mazeppa of speculation and chicane," "a Don-Quixote-Scapin," "a Petronius-Demosthenes ever intoxicated with pleasure or rage" Rivarol, "who knew everything, and called himself too ignorant to be a writer;" Napoleon, as his own historian-elected unanimously, it seems, in 1815, and pronouncing his reception-speech on the wind-beaten rocks of St. Helena, "listened to by the eagles which had visited Prometheus, and which have brought to us on their wings the all-burning shreds of this stormy eloquence;" Milleroye, who was "of all things an author of romances that were worthy of being set to music by Queen Hortense, and sung by Blangini;" Joseph de Maistre, at once apostle and diplomatist, so affectionate and simple, so haughty and subtle; in utter contrast to him, Désaugiers, singing drinking-songs in Anacreon's vein, and laughing with Rabelais and Scarron-he "sang after the Revolution the réveil of gaiety;" Paul-Louis Courier, pamphleteer and persifleur extraordinary ; Benjamin Constant, who "needed but to master himself, to become master of a faction, a ministry, a philosophic sect," who was "more of a woman than all the women who wrought out his destiny," a political Sphinx to whom not Edipus was a-wanting, but Jocasta and Antigone;" Armand Carrel, "the Bayard of liberalism,' a belated Marceau ;" Hégésippe Moreau, who "died of poetry as others die of love"-on whom Misery, a wicked fairy, laid her hand at his birth, and whom she revisited as he lay a-dying, on an hospital bed; Jouffroy, "a Manfred aspiring after the eternal consolations of nature, a Pascal fleeing from the Cross;' Stendhal, with his "dandyism of the bourgeois who wants to play the

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Lauzun"-who defined himself, over and over again, Observer of the human heart, which meant, for him, the heart of Eve, of Mary Magdalene, of La Vallière, of Solomon, of Don Juan, of Werther-and who, being a disdainful roué, and appearing to mock at women and snap his fingers at dignities, yet lived at the feet of Madame Pasta, and was for ever soliciting a consulate of the first class; Sénancourt, "a ship without sails or rudder," whose too sensitive muse confided her griefs to the solitudes of the Alps-a morbid soul, who saw the nothingness of perishable worlds without finding the way to worlds to come, and who, not believing in what he saw, would not believe in what he could not see; Frédéric Soulié, compared to a great architect who, having amassed mountains of materials, and prepared elaborate machinery, dies before he has built anything but a little house; Balzac, who, in like manner, had dreams of the gigantic, without, however, being an architect of Cyclopian times, and who, accordingly, when intending to build his Temple of Solomon, found his deficiency in marble and gold; Xavier de Maistre, the thoughtful circumnavigator of his own room; Lamennais, who “sacrificed his repose and half his glory to that incessant need of moral insurrection which was the groundwork of his nature," and who passed abruptly, as Villemain says, "from the infallibility of the Pope to the infallibility of the People;" Gérard de Nerval, beloved in literature “ a souvenir of Plato and La Fontaine," "philosopher's head and poet's heart," an unresting spirit, ever on the wing, one who "voulait loger partout, excepté chez son père, chez ses amis et chez lui-même ;" and lastly, Béranger, who was yet alive when M. Houssaye wrote this ideal History of the Forty-first Fauteuil.

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In a supplementary section the historian gives the names of those Academicians (in fact, not fiction) who have occupied the forty chairs, seriatim. Here you have, quoth he, what two centuries of Academy have transmitted to posterity. But how many names have not arrived at their address! On the other hand, he adds, all those of the Fortyfirst Fauteuil will keep the eternal freshness of their renown. Rather a hazardous prophecy, considering some of the names. But Time will try the meaning of the prophet's Eternity; and with Time we leave it.

Will the day come when M. Houssaye himself will take his seat among the Forty? Or is he destined to the ideal honour of No. 41? This too we are content to leave with Time.

Not every one, however, is content so to leave it. M. Edmond About has indited a record of a Reception at the Academy, dated the 30th September, 1863,-the member elect being none other than M. Arsène Houssaye, whose discourse, we are told, sparkled like a display of fireworks, and made the walls of the Institut avow that never had they heard anything less academical. The author of "Tolla" also informs us, in this paulo-prospective article, that the first to vote for the new Academician were MM. de Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Théophile Gautier, Jules Janin, and Alfred de Vigny; that MM. Ponsard and Augier came afterwards; and that he had not the voice of M. Saint-Marc Girardin.—The supposed speech of the orator commissioned to answer his discours, is in effect a smart and not unfair critique on the " Histoire du 41me Fauteuil de l'Académie Française."

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THE PRESIDENCY OF LOUIS NAPOLEON.

THE Constitution was unworkable. This is the key to the justification of Louis Napoleon the President. It is true we have to reconcile his oath to abide by the constitution with his coup d'état which destroyed it, but when everything is taken into consideration the reconciliation is not difficult. Let us at once state that we do not intend to argue the question on schoolboy notions of right and wrong, but under the much more complex considerations by which the actions of statesmen must be judged. But we think we hear some indignant moralist exclaiming, "What, do you pretend to justify the means by the end? That is the principle of Jesuitism, which has long been repudiated by Englishmen !" We admit the repudiation, but we think it has been carried too far; for it is not difficult to conceive cases in which the strictest moralist will admit that the means questionable or even bad, when considered abstractly, become a duty when viewed in connexion with the consequences which would otherwise follow. I meet a murderer who is in search of me, but as yet he is ignorant of my identity. He asks my name; silence or confession of the truth are the same. Am I not justified in giving a false name? But if self-preservation justifies deceit, is it less excusable when employed to save another? Shall I not indicate the wrong direction to the murderer or robber, and thus save the victim of whom he is in pursuit? All these, it will be said, are extreme cases, which do not trench upon the general rule; and this, again, we admit, for all we ask for the justification of Louis Napoleon the President is, that the abstract rule should be permitted to bend to circumstances much more urgent than those we have feigned, for it is not merely self-preservation, nor yet the preservation of one or two individuals, which can be alleged as the justifying cause of Napoleon's breach of his oath, but the salvation of France itself.

This is the plea he stands by, and it is of course one which his enemies deny, but in this essay we think we shall establish the matter-of-fact on which the plea rests, namely, that but for the coup d'état France would have relapsed into anarchy.

But there is another principle on which the coup d'état may be justified, which, being not so general and sweeping in its nature, may, perhaps, not so much offend political purists. A constitution of any kind supposes acceptance, tacit or otherwise. In the case of an old and time-honoured constitution this acceptance is implied, as to the generality, by birth, and in the case of the public functionaries, by the formal taking of oaths, which, practically, have only a formal meaning. But in the case of a new constitution the thing is different; there must be the exhibition of assent in a distinct form to the new order of things; the nation directly, or through its representatives, must give an intelligent answer to the question of allegiance, and the public functionaries must swear to an oath, which they actually read and understand. So much, at least, is involved in any constitution which professes to be popular-an arbitrary constitution may dispense with such forms, and substitute the terror of military power in place of the fragile sanction of an imposed oath. But the question is, does the oath, in whatever terms it is conceived, imply a maintenance of the constitution for ever? From the

nature of the case it must say so in its terms, for it is of the essence of a constitution to profess to provide for futurity, and to build up a lasting organisation; but is it understood that the parties who accede to it-who take the oath-come under the promise involved in its literal terms, in a sense admitting of no relaxation? This cannot be implied, for such a theory would negative all reforms; or if it be answered that the constitution itself may provide means by which changes may be introduced, these means themselves may be found insurmountable obstacles to necessary reforms, and may be the very provisions which most imperatively call for modification. It may also be the case that the constitution may declare that some of its provisions are fundamental and unalterable. All constitutions do so, but these fundamental and unalterable provisions are in general those against which subsequent opinion is most pronounced; and in all cases hitherto these are the very provisions which, with or without a coup d'état, suffer modification. Is, then, a constitution nothing? Yes. An old traditional constitution is the very existence of a nation, but a new constitution can be nothing else than a formulising of public opinion-an attempt, and generally a crude one, to express by laws, and formulæ, and fiscal arrangements, what at the time are supposed to be the wants, necessities, and wishes of the nation. Any other meaning given to a new constitution implies that it is more or less an unpopular arrangement; that is to say, more or less arbitrary-more or less a constitution of force and not of opinion.

But the constitution promulgated by the Constituent Assembly professed to be a popular constitution, and that very profession necessarily involved the possibility of popular modification. Even the members of the Constituent Assembly were fallible, and the constitution they drew up, even admitting that it did not, according to the Duc de Broglie, surpass what were hitherto considered the limits of human stupidity, was not perfect. It might therefore be altered without impiety. Emanating from the will of the nation, was it not to be altered if the will of the nation changed? Were all the functionaries which it called into existence the President, the Assembly, and the staff of government-to combine in maintaining a constitution which the people no longer wished to be maintained? Was it their duty to employ the organised force with which universal suffrage had invested them, to impose upon the nation rules and conditions which universal suffrage, if consulted, would at once have altered?

Those who will not allow any excuse to Louis Napoleon for violating the constitutional oath, must answer in the affirmative to these questions. According to them the constitution must be maintained by the military force, and by all the energy of the executive, irrespective of the will of the people.

Such a conclusion is so evidently absurd, that of itself it demonstrates the opposite doctrine; namely, that it was the duty of official France, executive as well as legislative, to override the letter of the constitution, in order to give effect to its spirit, which was simply the national will. If it appeared that the country had altered its opinion, or, what was really the fact, if it was plain that the Constituent Assembly had altogether mistaken the opinion of the country, then it was a duty to appeal to the principle of universal suffrage, on which the constitution professed to be based.

No doubt this is a dangerous doctrine. All doctrines which discuss the limits of obedience and the rules and conditions of political morality are dangerous. It is difficult to say when public opinion has judged a constitution to be impracticable-difficult to say when the existing state of things is to be put in question. It is always dangerous to alter anything that is established, and those who try to do so must rest their justification on the point that they have correctly guessed the national wish which they profess to consult. If they have been mistaken, they are disturbers of the peace, and must abide the punishment of rebels; if they are right, then the community at least have no title to censure their conduct. And here it may be remarked, that it is the fate of revolutionary states to be continually canvassing these difficult questions, for this amongst other reasons, that the constitutions which from time to time come out of the political fermentation are almost invariably the expression of the opinions of a minority.

But to return to our immediate subject. The opponents of Louis Napoleon allege that the honest course for him, admitting that the constitution was unworkable, was to resign. But on their own principles this course, above all others, was shut to him; for, so far from his resignation preserving the constitution, it is certain his resignation would have destroyed it, nothing being clearer than that, whatever régime triumphed, the Republican régime-that of the constitution-had no chance. But the circumstances of the case warrant us to go further. The chances were in favour of anarchy, and the certainty was a series of inveterate contests between the Legitimist, Orleanist, and Republican factions. Shall France, therefore, be convulsed merely that one man might say, I have kept a promise I made you, even although you did not wish me to keep it-even although my keeping it subjected you to the greatest calamities?

On any of these grounds we think that the coup d'état admits of an ample justification, and it is thought that the narrative which follows will leave no doubt on the subject in any candid mind.

Perhaps in the whole history of human vicissitude there is no career more extraordinary than that of Louis Napoleon. In 1847, Louis Philippe was in the zenith of his power, and Louis Napoleon a poor refugee in London, known only to the public by his expeditions to Strasburg and Boulogne, which seemed the enterprises of a madman. Who could have prophesied that before another year closed these two would have changed places-Louis Philippe the exile, Louis Napoleon the constitutional head of France, soon to be its emperor, with a power as despotic as that of Napoleon I.? And yet there were data obtainable which suggested that such a revolution was neither impossible nor improbable. The monarchy of Louis Philippe was rotten at the core, while there can be no doubt now that in 1847 the masses in France were in favour of the heir of Napoleon. Louis Philippe was old, and had lost much of his former energy; whereas Louis Napoleon, in the prime of life, had given proofs not only of the most fearless courage, but, what was less known, of great mental power; for his works, and especially the " Idée Napoléonienne," indicate a mind of a very peculiar but yet of a very high order. His intimate friends, moreover, were the most original-minded men of the time. Disraeli was his chosen associate, Walter Savage Landor was nearly on as intimate terms, and always entertained a high opinion both of his moral and

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