Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 | Page 7

and has proved a powerful disturbing cause on several
occasions. One of these occasions has fallen under the observation of
the existing generation, and some remarks on it may not be out of
place.
The French Revolution of 1848 was followed by an alarm on the part
of men of property, or of those whose profits depended on the integrity
of property being respected, which produced grave effects, the end
whereof is not yet. That revolution was the consequence of a movement
as purely political as the world ever saw. There was discontent with the
government of M. Guizot, which extended to the royal family, and in
which the bourgeoisie largely shared, the very class upon the support of
which the House of Orleans was accustomed to rely. Had the
government yielded a little on some political points, and made some

changes in the administration, Louis Philippe might have been living at
the Tuileries at this very moment, or sleeping at St. Denis. But,
insanely obstinate, under dominion of the venerable delusion that
obstinacy is firmness, the King fell, and with him fell, not merely his
own dynasty, but the whole system of government which France had
known for a generation, and under which she was, painfully and slowly,
yet with apparent sureness, becoming a constitutional state. A warm
political contest was converted into a revolution scarcely less complete
than that of 1789, and far more sweeping than that of 1830. Perhaps
there would have been little to regret in this, had it not been, that,
instead of devoting their talents to the establishing of a stable
republican government, several distinguished Frenchmen, whom we
never can think capable of believing the nonsense they uttered, began
to labor to bring about a sort of social Arcadia, in which all men were
to be made happy, and which was to be based on contempt for political
economy and defiance of common sense. Property, with its usual
sensitiveness, took the alarm, and the Parisians soon had one another
by the throat. How well founded was this alarm, it would be difficult to
say. Most likely it was grossly exaggerated, and had no facts of
importance to go upon. That among the disciples of M. Louis Blanc
there were gentlemen who had no respect for other men's property,
because they had no property of their own, it is quite safe to believe;
but that they had any fixed ideas about seizing property, or of providing
labor at high wages for workmen, it would be impossible to believe,
even if Albert, _ouvrier_, that most mythical of revolutionists, were to
make solemn affidavit of it on the works of Aurora Dudevant. Some
vague ideas about relieving the wants of the poor, Louis Blanc and his
associates had, just as all men have them who have heads to see and
hearts to feel the existence of social evils. Had they obtained possession
of the French government, immediately after Louis Philippe, to use his
own words, had played the part of Charles X., they would have failed
utterly, as Lamartine and his friends failed, and much sooner too.
Lamartine failed as a statesman,--he lacked that power to govern which
far less able men than he have exhibited under circumstances even
more trying than those into which he so unguardedly plunged,--and
Louis Blanc would have been no more successful than the poet. The
failure of the "Reds" would have been the more complete, if they had

had an opportunity to attempt the realization of the Socialistic theories
attributed to them, but which few of their number could ever have
entertained. They sought political power for the usual purposes; but as
they stood in the way of several other parties, those parties united to
crush them, which was done in "the Days of June." It is easy to give a
fallen enemy a bad name, and the conquered party on that occasion
were stigmatized as the enemies of everything that men hold dear,
particular emphasis being laid on their enmity to property, which men
hold dearer than all other things combined. The belief seems to have
been all but universal throughout Europe, and to have been shared by
many Americans, that the party which was conquered in the streets of
Paris by Cavaignac was really an organization against property, which
it meant to steal, and so afford a lively illustration of the doctrine
attributed to it, that property is theft. To this belief, absurd as it was,
must we look for the whole course of European history during the last
ten years. The restoration of the Napoleonic dynasty in France, the
restoration of the Papacy by French soldiers, the reëstablishment of
Austrian ascendency over Italy, and the invasion of Hungary by the
Russians,--these and other important events that have happened under
our