Beacon Lights of History Volume Ix Part 6

Chateaubriand now disappears from the field of history as one of its great figures. He lived henceforth in retirement, but bitter in his opposition to the government of which he had been the virtual head, contributing largely to the "Journal des Debats," of which he was the life, and by which he was supported. In the next reign he refused the office of Minister of Public Instruction as derogatory to his dignity, but accepted the post of amba.s.sador to Rome,--a sort of honorable exile.

But he was an unhappy and disappointed man; he had taken the wrong side in politics, and probably saw his errors. His genius, if it had been directed to secure const.i.tutional liberty, would have made him a national idol, for he lived to see the dethronement of Louis Philippe in 1848; but like Castlereagh in England, he threw his superb talents in with the sinking cause of absolutism, and was after all a political failure. He lives only as a literary man,--one of the most eloquent poets of his day, one of the lights of that splendid constellation of literary geniuses that arose on the fall of Napoleon.

Soon after the retirement of Chateaubriand, Louis XVIII. himself died, at an advanced age, having contrived to preserve his throne by moderation and honesty. In his latter days he was exceedingly infirm in body, but preserved his intellectual faculties to the last. He was a lonely old man, even while surrounded by a splendid court. He wanted somebody to love, at least to cheer him in his isolation; for he had no peace in his family, deeply as he was attached to its members. He himself had discovered the virtues and disinterestedness of his minister Decazes, and when his family and ministers drove away this favorite, the king was devoted to him even in disgrace, and made him his companion.

Still later he found a subst.i.tute in Madame du Caylus,--one of those interesting and accomplished women peculiar to France. She was not ambitious of ruling the king, as her aunt, Madame de Maintenon, was of governing Louis XIV., and her virtue was unimpeachable. She wrote to the king letters twice a day, but visited him only once a week. She was the tool of a cabal, rather than the leader of a court; but her influence was healthy, enn.o.bling, and religious. Louis XVIII. was not what would be called a religious man; he performed his religious duties regularly, but in a perfunctory manner. He was not, however, a hypocrite or a pharisee, but was simply indifferent to religious dogmas, and secretly averse to the society of priests. When he was dying, it was with great difficulty that he could be made to receive extreme unction. He died without pain, recommending to his brother, who was to succeed him, to observe the charter of French liberties, yet fearing that his blind bigotry would be the ruin of the family and the throne, as events proved. The last things to which the dying king clung were pomps and ceremonies, concealing even from courtiers his failing strength, and going through the mockery of dress and court etiquette to almost the very day of his death, in 1824.

The Comte d'Artois, now Charles X., ascended the throne, with the usual promises to respect the liberties of the nation, which his brother had conscientiously maintained. Unfortunately Charles's intellect was weak and his conscience perverted; he was a narrow-minded, bigoted sovereign, ruled by priests and ultra-royalists, who magnified his prerogatives, appealed to his prejudices, and flattered his vanity. He was not cruel and blood-thirsty,--he was even kind and amiable; but he was a fool, who could not comprehend the conditions by which only he could reign in safety; who could not understand the spirit of the times, or appreciate the difficulties with which he had to contend.

What was to be expected of such a monarch but continual blunders, encroachments, and follies verging upon crimes? The nation cared nothing for his hunting-parties, his pleasures, and his attachment to mediaeval ceremonies; but it did care for its own rights and liberties, purchased so dearly and guarded so zealously; and when these were gradually attacked by a man who felt himself to be delegated from G.o.d with unlimited powers to rule, not according to laws but according to his caprices and royal will, then the ferment began,--first in the legislative a.s.semblies, then extending to journalists, who controlled public opinion, and finally to the discontented, enraged, and disappointed people. The throne was undermined, and there was no power in France to prevent the inevitable catastrophe. In Russia, Prussia, and Austria an overwhelming army, bound together by the mechanism which absolutism for centuries had perfected, could repress disorder; but in a country where the army was comparatively small, enlightened by the ideas of the Revolution and fraternizing with the people, this was not possible. A Napoleon, with devoted and disciplined troops, might have crushed his foes and reigned supreme; but a weak and foolish monarch, with a disaffected and scattered army, with ministers who provoked all the hatreds and violent pa.s.sions of legislators, editors, and people alike, was powerless to resist or overcome.

The short reign of Charles X. was not marked by a single event of historical importance, except the conquest of Algiers; and that was undertaken by the government to gain military _eclat_,--in other words, popularity,--and this at the very time it was imposing restrictions on the Press. There were during this reign no reforms, no public improvements, no measures of relief for the poor, no stimulus to new industries, no public encouragement of art or literature, no triumphs of architectural skill; nothing to record but the strife of political parties, and a systematic encroachment by the government on electoral rights, on legislative freedom, on the liberty of the Press. There was a senseless return to mediaeval superst.i.tions and cruelties, all to please the most narrow and intolerant cla.s.s of men who ever traded on the exploded traditions of the past. The Jesuits returned to promulgate their sophistries and to impose their despotic yoke; the halls of justice were presided over by the tools of arbitrary power; great offices were given to the most obsequious slaves of royalty, without regard to abilities or fitness. There was not indeed the tyranny of Spain or Naples or Austria; but everything indicated a movement toward it. Those six years which comprised the reign of Charles X. were a period of reaction,--a return to the Middle Ages in both State and Church, a withering blast on all n.o.ble aspirations. Even the prime minister Villele, a legitimatist and an ultra-royalist, was too liberal for the king; and he was dismissed to make room for Martignac, and he again for Polignac, who had neither foresight nor prudence nor ability.

The generals of the republic and of the empire were removed from active service. An indemnity of a thousand millions was given by an obsequious legislature to the men who had emigrated during the Revolution,--a generous thing to do, but a premium on cowardice and want of patriotism.

A base concession was made to the sacerdotal party, by making it a capital offence to profane the sacred vessels of the churches or the consecrated wafer; thus putting the power of life and death into the hands of the clergy, not for crimes against society but for an insult to the religion of the Middle Ages.

But the laws pa.s.sed against the Press were the most irritating of all.

The Press had become a power which it was dangerous to trifle with,--the one thing in modern times which affords the greatest protection to liberty, which is most hated by despots and valued by enlightened minds.

A universal clamor was raised against this return to barbarism, this extinction of light in favor of darkness, this discarding of the national reason. Royalists and liberals alike denounced this culminating act of high treason against the majesty of the human mind, this death-blow to civilization. Chateaubriand, Royer-Collard, Dupont (de l'Eure), even Labourdonnais, predicted its fatal consequences; and their impa.s.sioned eloquence from the tribune became in a few days the public opinion of the nation, and the king in his infatuation saw no remedy for his increasing unpopularity but in dissolving the Chamber of Deputies and ordering a new election,--the blindest thing he could possibly do.

It was now seen that he was determined to rule in utter defiance of the charter he had sworn to defend, and on the principles of undisguised absolutism. All parties now coalesced against the king and his ministers. The king then began to tamper with the military in order to establish by violence the old regime. It was found difficult to fill ministerial appointments, as everybody felt that the ship of State was drifting upon the rocks. The king even determined to dissolve the new Chamber of Deputies before it met, the elections having p.r.o.nounced emphatically against his government.

At last the pa.s.sions of the people became excited, and daily increased in violence. Then came resistance to the officers of the law; then riots, then barricades, then the occupation of the Tuileries, then ineffectual attempts of the military to preserve order and restrain the violence of the people. Marshal Marmont, with only twelve thousand troops, was powerless against a great city in arms. The king thinking it was only an _emeute,_ to be easily put down, withdrew to St. Cloud; and there he spent his time in playing whist, as Nero fiddled over burning Rome, until at last aroused by the vengeance of the whole nation, he made his escape to England, to rust in the old palace of the kings of Scotland, and to meditate over his kingly follies, as Napoleon meditated over his mistakes in the island of St. Helena.

Thus closed the third act in the mighty drama which France played for one hundred years: the first act revealing the pa.s.sions of the Revolution; the second, the abominations of military despotism; the third, the reaction toward the absolutism of the old regime and its final downfall. Two more acts are to be presented,--the perfidy and selfishness of Louis Philippe, and the usurpation of Louis Napoleon; but these must be deferred until in our course of lectures we have considered the reaction of liberal sentiments in England during the ministries of Castlereagh, Canning, and Lord Liverpool, when the Tories resigned, as Metternich did in Vienna.

Yet the reign of the Bourbons, while undistinguished by great events, was not fruitless in great men. On the fall of Napoleon, a crowd of authors, editors, orators, and statesmen issued from their retreats, and attracted notice by the brilliancy of their writings and speeches.

Crushed or banished by the iron despotism of Napoleon, who hated literary genius, they now became a new power in France,--not to propagate infidel sentiments and revolutionary theories, but to awaken the nation to a sense of intellectual dignity and to maturer views of government; to give a new impulse to literature, art, and science, and to show how impossible it is to extinguish the fires of liberty when once kindled in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of patriots, or to put a stop to the progress of the human mind among an excitable, intelligent, though fickle people, craving with pa.s.sionate earnestness both popular rights and const.i.tutional government in accordance with those laws of progress which form the basis of true civilization.

There was Count Joseph de Maistre,--a royalist indeed, but who propounded great truths mixed with great paradoxes; believing all he said, seeking to restore the authority of divine revelation in a world distracted by scepticism, grand and eloquent in style, and astonishing the infidels as much as he charmed the religious.

a.s.sociated with him in friendship and in letters was the Abbe de Lamennais, a young priest of Brittany, brought up amid its wilds in silent reverence and awe, yet with the pa.s.sions of a revolutionary orator, logical as Bossuet, invoking young men, not to the worship of mediaeval dogmas, but to the shrine of reason allied with faith.

Of another school was Cousin, the modern Plato, combating the materialism of the eighteenth century with mystic eloquence, and drawing around him, in his chair of philosophy at the Sorbonne, a crowd of enthusiastic young men, which reminded one of Abelard among his pupils in the infant university of Paris. Cousin elevated the soul while he intoxicated the mind, and created a spirit of inquiry which was felt wherever philosophy was recognized as one of the most enn.o.bling studies that can dignify the human intellect.

In history, both Guizot and Thiers had already become distinguished before they were engrossed in politics. Augustin Thierry described, with romantic fascination, the exploits of the Normans; Michaud brought out his Crusades, Barante his Chronicles, Sismondi his Italian Republics, Michelet his lively conception of France in the Middle Ages, Capefigue the Life of Louis XIV., and Lamartine his poetical paintings of the Girondists. All these masterpieces gave a new interest to historical studies, infusing into history life and originality,--not as a barren collection of annals and names, in which pedantry pa.s.ses for learning, and uninteresting details for accuracy and scholarship. In that inglorious period more first-cla.s.s histories were produced in France than have appeared in England during the long reign of Queen Victoria, where only three or four historians have reached the level of any one of those I have mentioned, in genius or eloquence.

Another set of men created journalism as the expression of public opinion, and as a lever to overturn an obstinate despotism built up on the superst.i.tions and dogmas of the Middle Ages. A few young men, almost unknown to fame, with remorseless logic and fiery eloquence overturned a throne, and established the Press as a power that proved irresistible, driving the priests of absolutism back into the shadows of eternal night, and making reason the guide and glory of mankind. Among these were the disappointed and embittered Chateaubriand, who almost redeemed his devotion to the royal cause by those elegant essays which recalled the eloquence of his early life. Villemain wrote for the "Moniteur,"

Royer--Collard and Guizot for the "Courier," with all the haughtiness and disdain which marked the Doctrinaire or Const.i.tutional school; Etienne and Pages for the "Const.i.tutionel," ridiculing the excesses of the ultra-royalists, the pretensions of the clergy, and the follies of the court; De Genoude for the "Gazette de France," and Thiers for the "National."

In the realm of science Arago explored the wonders of the heavens, and Cuvier penetrated the secrets of the earth. In poetry only two names are prominent,--Delille and Beranger; but the French are not a poetical nation. Most of the great writers of France wrote in prose, and for style they have never been surpa.s.sed. If the poets were few after the Restoration, the novelists were many, with transcendent excellences and transcendent faults, reaching the heart by their pathos, insulting the reason by their exaggerations, captivating the imagination while shocking the moral sense; painting manners and dissecting pa.s.sions with powerful, acute, and vivid touch. Such were Victor Hugo, Eugene Sue, and Alexandre Dumas, whose creations interested all cla.s.ses alike, not merely in France, but throughout the world.

The dignity of intellect amid political degradation was never more strikingly displayed than by those orators who arose during the reign of the Bourbons. The intrepid Manuel uttering his protests against royal encroachments, in a chamber of Royalists all heated by pa.s.sions and prejudices; Laine and De Serres, pathetic and patriotic; Guizot, De Broglie, and De St. Aulaire, learned and profound; Royer-Collard, religious, disdainful, majestic; General Foy, disinterested and incorruptible; Lafitte, the banker; Benjamin Constant, the philosopher; Berryer, the lawyer; Chateaubriand, the poet, most eloquent of all,--these and a host of others (some liberal, some conservative, all able) showed that genius was not extinguished amid all the attempts of absolutism to suppress it. It is true that none of these orators arose to supreme power, and that they were not equal to Mirabeau and other great lights in the Revolutionary period. They were comparatively inexperienced in parliamentary business, and were watched and fettered by a hostile government, and could not give full scope to their indignant eloquence without personal peril. Nor did momentous questions of reform come before them for debate, as was the case in England during the agitation on the Reform Bill. They did little more than show the spirit that was in them, which under more favorable circ.u.mstances would arouse the nation.

There was one more power which should be mentioned in connection with that period of torpor and reaction, and that was the influence of the _salons_. To these all the bright intellects of Paris resorted, and gave full vent to their opinions,--artists, scholars, statesmen, journalists, men of science, and brilliant women, in short, whoever was distinguished in any particular sphere; and these composed what is called society, a tremendous lever in fashionable life. In the _salons_ of Madame de Stael, of the d.u.c.h.esse de Duras, of the d.u.c.h.esse de Broglie, of Madame de St. Aulaire, and of Madame de Montcalm, all parties were represented, and all subjects were freely discussed. Here Sainte-Beuve discoursed with those whom he was afterward to criticise; here Talleyrand uttered his concise and emphatic sentences; here Lafayette won hearts by his courteous manners and amiable disposition; here Guizot prepared himself for the tribune and the Press; here Villemain, with proud indifference, broached his careless scepticism; here Montlosier blended aristocratical paradoxes with democratic theories. All these great men, and a host of others,--Beranger, Constant, Etienne, Lamartine, Pasquier, Mounier, Mole, De Neuville, Laine, Barante, Cousin, Sismondi,--freely exchanged opinions, and rested from their labors; a group of geniuses worth more than armies in the great contests between Liberty and Absolutism.

And here it may be said that these kings and queens of society represented not material interests,--not commerce, not manufactures, not stocks, not capital, not railways, not trade, not industrial exhibitions, not armies and navies, but ideas, those invisible agencies which shake thrones and make revolutions, and lift the soul above that which is transient to that which is permanent,--to religion, to philosophy, to art, to poetry, to the glories of home, to the cert.i.tudes of friendship, to the benedictions of heaven; which may exist in all their benign beauty and power whatever be the form of government or the inequality of condition, in cottage or palace, in plenty or in want, among foes or friends,--creating that sublime rest where men may prepare themselves for a future and imperishable existence.

Such was the other side of France during the reign of the Bourbons,--the lights which burst through the gloomy shades of tyranny and superst.i.tion, to alleviate sorrows and disappointed hopes,--the resurrection of intellect from the grave of despair.

AUTHORITIES.

The History of the Restoration by Lamartine is the most interesting work I have read on the subject; but he is not regarded as a high authority.

Talleyrand's Memoirs, Memoires de Chateaubriand; Lacretelle, Capefigue, Alison; Biographie Universelle, Memoires de Louis XVIII., Fyffe, Mackenzie's History of the Nineteenth Century,--all are interesting, and worthy of perusal.

GEORGE IV.

1762-1830.

TORYISM.

Where an intelligent and cultivated though superficial traveller to recount his impressions of England in 1815, when the Prince of Wales was regent of the kingdom and Lord Liverpool was prime minister, he probably would note his having been struck with the splendid life of the n.o.bility (all great landed proprietors) in their palaces at London, and in their still more magnificent residences on their princ.i.p.al estates. He would have seen a lavish if not an unbounded expenditure, emblazoned and costly equipages, liveried servants without number, and all that wealth could purchase in the adornment of their homes. He would have seen a perpetual round of banquets, b.a.l.l.s, concerts, receptions, and garden parties, to which only the _elite_ of society were invited, all dressed in the extreme of fashion, blazing with jewels, and radiant with the smiles of prosperity. Among the lions of this gorgeous society he would have seen the most distinguished statesmen of the day, chiefly peers of the realm, with the blue ribbon across their shoulders, the diamond garter below their knees, and the heraldic star upon their b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Perhaps he might have met some rising orator, like Canning or Perceval, whose speeches were in every mouth,--men destined to the highest political honors, pets of highborn ladies for the brilliancy of their genius, the silvery tones of their voices, and the courtly elegance of their manners; Tories in their politics, and aristocrats in their sympathies.

The traveller, if admitted as a stranger to these grand a.s.semblages, would have seen but few lawyers, except of the very highest distinction, perhaps here and there a bishop or a dean with the paraphernalia of clerical rank, but no physician, no artist, no man of science, no millionaire banker, no poet, no scholar, unless his fame had gone out to all the world. The brilliancy of the spectacle would have dazzled him, and he would unhesitatingly have p.r.o.nounced those t.i.tled men and women to be the most fortunate, the most favored, and perhaps the most happy of all people on the face of the globe, since, added to the distinctions of rank and the pride of power, they had the means of purchasing all the pleasures known to civilization, and--more than all--held a secure social position, which no slander could reach and no hatred could affect.

Or if he followed these magnates to their country estates after the "season" had closed and Parliament was prorogued, he would have seen the palaces of these lordly proprietors of innumerable acres filled with a retinue of servants that would have called out the admiration of Cicero or Cra.s.sus,--all in imposing liveries, but with cringing manners,--and a crowd of aristocratic visitors, filling perhaps a hundred apartments, spending their time according to their individual inclinations; some in the magnificent library of the palace, some riding in the park, others fox-hunting with the hounds or shooting hares and partridges, others again flirting with ennuied ladies in the walks or boudoirs or gilded drawing-rooms,--but all meeting at dinner, in full dress, in the carved and decorated banqueting-hall, the sideboards of which groaned under the load of gold and silver plate of the rarest patterns and most expensive workmanship. Everywhere the eye would have rested on priceless pictures, rare tapestries, bronze and marble ornaments, sumptuous sofas and lounges, mirrors of Venetian gla.s.s, chandeliers, antique vases, _bric-a-brac_ of every description brought from every corner of the world. The conversation of these t.i.tled aristocrats,--most of them educated at Oxford and Cambridge, cultivated by foreign travel, and versed in the literature of the day,--though full of prejudices, was generally interesting; while their manners, though cold and haughty, were easy, polished, courteous, and dignified. It is true, most of them would swear, and get drunk at their banquets; but their profanity was conventional rather than blasphemous, and they seldom got drunk till late in the evening, and then on wines older than their children, from the most famous vineyards of Europe. During the day they were able to attend to business, if they had any, and seldom drank anything stronger than ale and beer. Their breakfasts were light and their lunches simple.

Living much in the open air, and fond of the pleasures of the chase, they were generally healthy and robust. The prevailing disease which crippled them was gout; but this was owing to champagne and burgundy rather than to brandy and turtle-soups, for at that time no Englishman of rank dreamed that he could dine without wine. William Pitt, it is said, found less than three bottles insufficient for his dinner, when he had been working hard.

Among them all there was great outward reverence for the Church, and few missed its services on Sundays, or failed to attend family prayers in their private chapels as conducted by their chaplains, among whom probably not a Dissenter could be found in the whole realm. Both Catholics and Dissenters were alike held in scornful contempt or indifference, and had inferior social rank. On the whole, these aristocrats were a decorous cla.s.s of men, though narrow, bigoted, reserved, and proud, devoted to pleasure, idle, extravagant, and callous to the wrongs and miseries of the poor. They did not insult the people by arrogance or contumely, like the old Roman n.o.bles; but they were not united to them by any other ties than such as a master would feel for his slaves; and as slaves are obsequious to their masters, and sometimes loyal, so the humbler cla.s.ses (especially in the country) worshipped the ground on which these magnates walked. "How courteous the n.o.bles are!"

said a wealthy plebeian manufacturer to me once, at Manchester. "I was to show my mill to Lord Ducie, and as my carriage drove up I was about to mount the box with the coachman, but my lord most kindly told me to jump in."

So much for the highest cla.s.s of all in England, about the year 1815.

Suppose the attention of the traveller were now turned to the legislative halls, in which public affairs were discussed, particularly to the House of Commons, supposed to represent the nation. He would have seen five or six hundred men, in plain attire, with their hats on, listless and inattentive, except when one of their leaders was making a telling speech against some measure proposed by the opposite party,--and nearly all measures were party measures. Who were these favored representatives? Nearly all of them were the sons or brothers or cousins or political friends of the cla.s.s to which I have just alluded, with here and there a baronet or powerful county squire or eminent lawyer or wealthy manufacturer or princely banker, but all with aristocratic sympathies,--nearly all conservative, with a preponderance of Tories; scarcely a man without independent means, indifferent to all questions except such as affected party interests, and generally opposed to all movements which had in view the welfare of the middle cla.s.ses, to which they could not be said to belong. They did not represent manufacturing towns nor the shopkeepers, still less the people in their rugged toils,--ignorant even when they could read and write. They represented the great landed interests of the country for the most part, and legislated for the interests of landlords and the gentry, the Established Church and the aristocratic universities,--indeed, for the wealthy and the great, not for the nation as a whole, except when great public dangers were imminent.

At that time, however, the traveller would have heard the most magnificent bursts of eloquence ever heard in Parliament,--speeches which are immortal, cla.s.sical, beautiful, and electrifying. On the front benches was Canning, scarcely inferior to Pitt or Fox as an orator; stately, sarcastic, witty, rhetorical, musical, as full of genius as an egg is full of meat. There was Castlereagh,--not eloquent, but gifted, the honored plenipotentiary and negotiator at the Congress of Vienna; the friend of Metternich and the Czar Alexander; at that time perhaps the most influential of the ministers of state, the incarnation of aristocratic manners and ultra conservative principles. There was Peel, just rising to fame and power; wealthy, proud, and aristocratic, as conservative as Wellington himself, a Tory of the Tories. There were Perceval, the future prime minister, great both as lawyer and statesman; and Lord Palmerston, secretary of state for war. On the opposite benches sat Lord John Russell, timidly maturing schemes for parliamentary reform, lucid of thought, and in utterance clear as a bell. There, too, sat Henry Brougham, not yet famous, but a giant in debate, and overwhelming in his impetuous invectives. There were Romilly, the law reformer, and Tierney, Plunkett, and Huskisson (all great orators), and other eminent men whose names were on every tongue. The traveller, entranced by the power and eloquence of these leaders, could scarcely have failed to feel that the House of Commons was the most glorious a.s.sembly on earth, the incarnation of the highest political wisdom, the theatre and school of the n.o.blest energies, worthy to instruct and guide the English nation, or any other nation in the world.

From the legislature we follow our traveller to the Church,--the Established Church of course, for non-conformist ministers, whatever their learning and oratorical gifts, ranked scarcely above shopkeepers and farmers, and were viewed by the aristocracy as leaders of sedition rather than preachers of righteousness. The higher dignitaries of the only church recognized by fashion and rank were peers of the realm, presidents of colleges, dons in the universities, bishops with an income of 10,000 a year or more, deans of cathedrals, prebendaries and archdeacons, who wore a distinctive dress from the other clergy. I need not say that they were the most aristocratic, cynical, bigoted, and intolerant of all the upper ranks in the social scale, though it must be confessed that they were generally men of learning and respectability, more versed, however, in the cla.s.sics of Greece and Rome than in Saint Paul's epistles, and with greater sympathy for the rich than for the poor, to whom the gospel was originally preached. The unt.i.tled clergy of the Church in their rural homes,--for the country and not the city was the paradise of rectors and curates, as of squires and men of leisure,--were also for the most part cla.s.sical scholars and gentlemen, though some thought more of hunting and fishing than of the sermons they were to preach on Sundays. Nothing to the eye of a cultivated traveller was more fascinating than the homes of these country clergymen, rectories and parsonages as they were called,--concealed amid shrubberies, groves, and gardens, where flowers bloomed by the side of the ivy and myrtle, ever green and flourishing. They were not large but comfortable, abodes of plenty if not of luxury, freeholds which could not be taken away, suggestive of rest and repose; for the favored occupant of such a holding, supported by t.i.thes, could neither be ejected nor turned out of his "living," which he held for life, whether he preached well or poorly, whether he visited his flock or buried himself amid his books, whether he dined out with the squire or went up to town for amus.e.m.e.nt, whether he played lawn tennis in the afternoon with aristocratic ladies, or cards in the evening with gentlemen none too sober. He had an average stipend of 200 a year, equal to 400 in these times,--moderate, but sufficient for his own wants, if not for those of his wife and daughters, who pined of course for a more exciting life, and for richer dresses than he could afford to give them. His sermons, it must be confessed, were not very instructive, suggestive, or eloquent,--were, in fact, without point, delivered in a drawling monotone; but then his hearers were not used to oratorical displays or learned treatises in the pulpit, and were quite satisfied with the glorious liturgy, if well intoned, and pious chants from surpliced boys, if it happened to be a church rich and venerable in which they worshipped.

Not less imposing and impressive than the Church would the traveller have found the courts of law. The House of Lords was indeed, in a general sense, a legislative a.s.sembly, where the peers deliberated on the same subjects that occupied the attention of the Commons; but it was also the supreme judicial tribunal of the realm,--a great court of appeals of which only the law lords, ex-chancellors and judges, who were peers, were the real members, presided over by the lord chancellor, who also held court alone for the final decision of important equity questions. The other courts of justice were held by twenty-four judges, in different departments of the law, who presided in their scarlet robes in Westminster Hall, and who also held a.s.sizes in the different counties for the trial of criminals,--all men of great learning and personal dignity, who were held in awe, since they were the representatives of the king himself to decree judgments and punish offenders against the law. Even those barristers who pleaded at these tribunals quailed before the searching glance of these judges, who were the picked men of their great profession, whom no sophistry could deceive and no rhetoric could win,--men held in supreme honor for their exalted station as well as for their force of character and acknowledged abilities. In no other country were judges so well paid, so independent, so much feared, and so deserving of honors and dignities. And in no other country were judges armed with more power, nor were they more bland and courteous in their manners and more just in their decisions. It was something to be a judge in England.

Turning now from peers, legislators, judges, and bishops,--the men who composed the governing cla.s.s,--all equally aristocratic and exclusive, let us with our traveller survey the middle cla.s.s, who were neither rich nor poor, living by trade, chiefly shopkeepers, with a sprinkling of dissenting ministers, solicitors, surgeons, and manufacturers. Among these, the observer is captivated by the richness and splendor of their shops, over which were dark and dingy chambers used as residences by their plebeian occupants, except such as were rented as lodgings to visitors and men of means. These people of business were rarely ambitious of social distinction, for that was beyond their reach; but they lived comfortably, dined on roast beef and Yorkshire pudding on Sunday, with tolerable sherry or port to wash it down, went to church or chapel regularly in silk or broadcloth, were good citizens, had a horror of bailiffs, could converse on what was going on in trade and even in politics to a limited extent, and generally advocated progressive and liberal sentiments,--unless some of their relatives were employed in some way or other in n.o.ble houses, in which case their loyalty to the crown and admiration of rank were excessive and amusing. They read good books when they read at all, educated their children, some of whom became governesses, travelled a little in the summer, were hospitable to their limited circle of friends, were kind and obliging, put on no airs, and were on the whole useful and worthy people, if we can not call them "respectable members of society." They were, perhaps, the happiest and most contented of all the various cla.s.ses, since they were virtuous, frugal, industrious, and thought more of duties than they did of pleasures. These were the people who were soon to discuss rights rather than duties, and whom the reform movement was to turn into political enthusiasts.

Such was the bright side of the picture which a favored traveller would have seen at the close of the Napoleonic wars,--on the whole, one of external prosperity and grandeur, compared with most Continental countries; an envied civilization, the boast of liberty, for there was no regal despotism. The monarch could send no one to jail, or exile him, or cut off his head, except in accordance with law; and the laws could deprive no one of personal liberty without sufficient cause, determined by judicial tribunals.

And yet this splendid exterior was deceptive. The traveller saw only the rich or favored or well-to-do cla.s.ses; there were toiling and suffering millions whom he did not see. Although the laws were made to favor the agricultural interests, yet there was distress among agricultural laborers; and the dearer the price of corn,--that is, the worse the harvests,--the more the landlords were enriched, and the more wretched were those who raised the crops. In times of scarcity, when harvests were poor, the quartern loaf sold sometimes for two shillings, when the laborer could earn on an average only six or seven shillings a week. Think of a family compelled to live on seven shillings a week, with what the wife and children could additionally earn! There was rent to pay, and coals and clothing to buy, to say nothing of a proper and varied food supply; yet all that the family could possibly earn would not pay for bread alone. And the condition of the laboring cla.s.ses in the mines and the mills was still worse; for not half of them could get work at all, even at a shilling a day. The disbanding of half a million of soldiers, without any settled occupation, filled every village and hamlet with vagrants and vagabonds demoralized by war. During the war with France there had been a demand for every sort of manufactures; but the peace cut off this demand, and the factories were either closed or were running on half-time. Then there was the dreadful burden of taxation, direct and indirect, to pay the interest of a national debt swelled to the enormous amount of 800,000,000, and to meet the current expenses of the government, which were excessive and frequently unnecessary,--such as sinecures, pensions, and grants to the royal family. This debt pressed upon all cla.s.ses alike, and prevented the use of all those luxuries which we now regard as necessities,--like sugar, tea, coffee, and even meat. There were import duties, almost prohibitory, on many articles which few could do without, and worst of all, on corn and all cereals. Without these it was possible for the laboring cla.s.s to live, even when they earned only a shilling a day; but when these were retained to swell the income of that upper cla.s.s whose glories and luxuries I have already mentioned, there was inevitable starvation.

To any kind of popular sorrow and misery, however, the government seemed indifferent; and this was followed of course by discontent and crime, riots and incendiary conflagrations, murders and highway robberies,--an incipient pandemonium, disgusting to see and horrible to think of. At the best, what dens of misery and filth and disease were the quarters of the poor, in city and country alike, especially in the coal districts and in manufacturing towns. And when these pallid, half-starved miners and operatives, begrimed with smoke and dirt, issued from their infernal hovels and gathered in crowds, threatening all sorts of violence, and dispersed only at the point of the bayonet, there was something to call out fear as well as compa.s.sion from those who lived upon their toils.

At last, good men became aroused at the injustice and wretchedness which filled every corner of the land, and sent up their pet.i.tions to Parliament for reform,--not for the mere alleviation of miseries, but for a reform in representation, so that men might be sent as legislators who would take some interest in the condition of the poor and oppressed.

Yet even to these pet.i.tions the aristocratic Commons paid but little heed. The sigh of the mourner was unheard, and the tear of anguish was unnoticed by those who lived in their lordly palaces. What was desperate suffering and agitation for relief they called agrarian discontent and revolutionary excess, to be put down by the most vigorous measures the government could devise. _O tempora! O mores!_ the Roman orator exclaimed in view of social evils which would bear no comparison with those that afflicted a large majority of the human beings who struggled for a miserable existence in the most lauded country in Europe. In their despair, well might they exclaim, "Who shall deliver us from the body of this death?"

I often wonder that the people of England were as patient and orderly as they were, under such aggravated misfortunes. In France the oppressed would probably have arisen in a burst of frenzy and wrath, and perhaps have unseated the monarch on his throne. But the English mobs erected no barricades, and used no other weapons than groans and expostulations.

They did not demand rights, but bread; they were not agitators, but sufferers. Promises of relief disarmed them, and they sadly returned to their wretched homes to see no radical improvement in their condition.

Their only remedy was patience, and patience without much hope. Nothing could really relieve them but returning prosperity, and that depended more on events which could not be foreseen than on legislation itself.

Such was the condition, in general terms, of high and low, rich and poor, in England in the year 1815, and I have now to show what occupied the attention of the government for the next fifteen years, during the reign of George IV. as regent and as king. But first let us take a brief review of the men prominent in the government.