The English stage had better give over playing The School for 
Scandal,* for, indeed, the greatest school of this sort has been set up 
in Paris, in the Chamber of Deputies. The amount of scandalous 
matter collected and brought forward there during the last four or 
five weeks, is really unprecedented in the annals of parliamentary 
discussion. You recollect the inscription Mr. Duncombe once pro- 
posed for your own glorious House of Commons, “The most degrad- 
ing and infamous proceedings take place within these walls”. Well, here is 
a match for your own set of middle-class legislators; here are 
proceedings which will put British rascality to the blush. The honour 
of Old England is saved; Mr. Roebuck is outdone by M. de Girardin; 
Sir James Graham is beaten by M. Duchatel. 

I shall not undertake to give you the whole list of scandalous 
affairs brought to the light within the last few weeks; I shall not saya 
word about the several dozen of bribery cases brought before the 
juries; not a word about M. Gudin, the ordnance officer of the King, 
who, not without some degree of cleverness, made an attempt to 
introduce the habits of the swell mob into the palace of the 
Tuileries”; I shall not give you a lengthy report of the dirty affair of 
Gen. Cubiéres, peer of France, formerly Minister of War, who, 
under pretext of bribing the ministry into granting the concession of 
allowing the formation of a mining company, cheated the said 
company out of forty shares, which he coolly put into his own pocket, 
and on account of which he is now under trial before the Chamber of 

Peers. No; I shall give you only a few choice bits—a few samples 
taken from two or three sittings of the Deputies, which will enable 
you to judge of the rest. 

M. Emile de Girardin, deputy and editor of the daily paper La 
Presse, supporting in both characters the new party of Progressive 
Conservatives, and for a considerable time past one of the most violent 
opponents of the Ministry, whom until lately he had supported, is a 
man of great talent and activity, but without any principles. From the 
beginning of his public career he unhesitatingly employed any 
means to make himself an important public character. It was he who 
forced Armand Carrel, the celebrated editor of the National, to a 
duel, and shot him, thus delivering himself from a dangerous 
competitor. The support of such a man, proprietor of an influential 
paper, and member of the Chamber of Deputies, was of course very 
important to the government; but M. de Girardin sold his support 
(for he always sold it) at a very high price. There was a deal of busi- 
ness transacted between M. de Girardin and the Ministry, but not 
always to the complete satisfaction of both parties. In the meantime, 
M. de Girardin prepared himself for any turn which affairs might 
take. Foreseeing the probability of a rupture with the Guizot Mini- 
stry, he collected accounts of scandalous transactions, bribings, and 
traffickings, which he was in the best position to learn, and which 
were brought to him by his friends and agents in high places. The 
turn which party discussions took this session showed to him that the 
fall of Guizot and Duchatel was approaching. He was one of the 
principal actors in the formation of the new “Progressive Conserva- 
tive” party, and repeatedly threatened the government with the full 
weight of his wrath, if they persisted in their course. M. Guizot 
refused, in pretty scornful terms, any compromise with the new 
party. These detached themselves from the majority, and annoyed 
the government by their opposition. The financial and other 
discussions of the Chamber unveiled so much scandal, that 
MM. Guizot and Duchatel were obliged to throw several of their 
colleagues overboard in order to save themselves. The vacant places, 
however, were filled by such insignificant men, that no party was 
satisfied, and the Ministry were rather weakened than fortified. 
Then came Cubiéres’ affair, which elicited some doubts, even in 
the majority, as to the possibility to keep M. Guizot in office. Now, at 
last, when he saw the Ministry totally disorganised and weakened, 
now M. de Girardin thought the moment had arrived when he might 
bring forth his Pandora’s box of scandal, and achieve the ruin of a 
tottering government, by revelations fit to shake the faith even of the 
“belly” of the Chamber. 

He commenced by accusing the Ministry of having sold a peerage 
for 80,000 francs, but of not having kept their promise, after 
pocketing the money! The House of Peers found themselves insulted 
by this assertion made in La Presse, and asked leave from the 
Deputies to bring M. de Girardin before their bar. This demand 
occasioned a discussion in the Deputies, in the course of which M. de 
Girardin fully maintained his assertion, declaring he was in 
possession of the proofs, but refusing to give any names, as he would 
not play the part of a delator. He said, however, that three times he 
had mentioned the matter privately to M. Guizot, who never denied 
the fact, and that once he spoke about it to M. Duchatel, who 
replied—“It was done during my absence, and I afterwards 
disapproved of it; it was M. Guizot who did it.” The whole of this was 
flatly denied by M. Duchatel. “Then,” said M. de Girardin, “TI will 
give you the proof that the Ministry is quite in the habit of proposing 
such transactions”; and he read a letter from General Alexander de 
Girardin (the father, I believe, of M. Emile de Girardin; the latter is 
an illegitimate child) to the King. This letter expressed General de 
G.’s gratitude for the offer of a peerage made to him, but said at the 
same time, that M. Guizot having afterwards made it a condition of 
the grant that he (General de G.) should use his influence with M. 
Emile de G. to prevent him opposing the government, General de G. 
would be no party to such a transaction, and, therefore, declined the 
peerage. “O!” said M. Duchatel, “if this is all, we will just mention 
that M. Emile de Girardin himself offered to us to cease his 
opposition if we would make him a peer, but we declined that offer.” 
Hine illae lacrimae!* But Duchatel replied not a word to the allegation 
contained in the letter. The Chamber then voted that M. Emile de G. 
should be delivered up to the peers for trial. He was tried, sustained 
the allegation, but declared, the sold peerages not having been made 
out, he could not have attacked the Chamber of Peers, but only the 
government. The peers then acquitted him. Girardin then brought 
forward another scandalous affair. There was got up last year a large 
paper, called the Epoque, which was to support the government, to 
beat all opposition papers out of the market, and to supersede the 
costly support of M. de Girardin’s Presse. The experiment signally 
failed; partly, too, through the intrigues of M. de Girardin himself, 
who has his finger in every pie of that sort. Now, M. Duchatel had 
answered, when charged with bribing the press, that the government 
had never paid any subsidies to any paper. M. de Girardin, against 
this assertion, maintained the notorious fact, that M. Duchatel, after 

a deal of begging on the part of the editors of the Epoque, had told 
them: “Well, gold and silver I have none; but what I have that will I 
give unto you”; and had given them the privilege for a third 
opera-house for Paris, which privilege the “gents” of the Epoque sold 
for 100,000 f., of which sum 60,000 f. were spent in support of the 
paper, and the remaining 40,000 f. went nobody knows where to. 
This, too, was flatly denied by M. Duchatel; but the fact is notorious. 

There were, besides, some similar transactions brought forward by 
M. de Girardin, but these samples will be quite sufficient. 

Yesterday, in the Chamber of Deputies, M. de Girardin again got 
up and read some letters, from which it appeared that M. Duchatel 
has caused the discussion in the above peerage affair to be printed at 
the public expense, and sent it to all town councils in the country; but 
that in this ministerial report neither M. de Girardin’s nor M. 
Duchatel’s speeches were correctly reported; but, on the contrary, 
both of them were arranged so as to make M. de Girardin appear as a 
ridiculous calumniator, and M. Duchatel in the light of the purest 
and most virtuous of men. As to the matter itself, he repeated all his 
assertions, and defied the government either to have them disproved 
by a parliamentary committee, or to bring him before a jury as a 
slanderer. In both cases, he said, he should be bound to give the 
names of the parties and all particulars, and thus be enabled to prove 
his accusations without placing himself in the position of a common 
informer. This excited a general storm in the Chamber. M. Duchatel 
denied; M. de Girardin re-asserted; M. Duchatel re-denied; M. de 
Girardin re-reasserted, and so on, the whole accompanied by the 
shouts and counter-shouts of the “choruses” of the Chamber. Other 
opposition members again defied the Ministry to have the matter 
looked into either by parliamentary inquiry, or by a trial. At last M. 
Duchatel said,— 

“A Parliamentary inquiry, gentlemen, would presuppose a doubt in the 
integrity of the government on the part of the majority; and, therefore, the day this 
inquiry should be granted our places would be occupied by others than us; if you have 
any doubt tell us so plainly, and we shall resign immediately.” 

“Then,” said M. de Girardin, “there remains nothing but a trial. I am ready to 
undergo it; place me before a jury, if you dare.” 

“No,” said M. Hébert, Minister of Justice, “we shall not, because the majority of 
the Chamber will judge.” 

“But,” said M. Odilon Barrot, “this is not a political question; it is a legal one, and 
such a question is not within our competence, but of that of the public courts of law. If 
M. de Girardin has calumniated the government in his paper, why do you not have 
him tried for it?” 

“We won't!” 

“Well, but there is a plain allegation against other parties, too, of trafficking in 
peerages; why not bring them up? And this affair with the Epoque and the opera 

privilege—if you are no parties to that, as you say, why do you not bring up those who 
are parties to such villainous traffic? Here are plain incriminations, and even partial 
proofs of crimes said to have been committed; why do not the lawyers of the Crown. 
prosecute the alleged perpetrators of these crimes, as is their duty?” 

“We do not get up a prosecution,” replied M. Hébert. “because the character of 
the allegations, and the character of those who bring them forward, is not such as to 
make the truth of these allegations anything like probable to the legal advisers of the 
Crown!” 

All this was every moment interrupted by groaning, shouting, 
knocking and all sorts of noises in general. This incomparable sitting, 
which has shaken the Guizot Ministry to its very foundation, was 
concluded by a vote, which proves, that if the faith of the majority 
may be shaken, their system of voting is not! 

“The Chamber, after having heard the explanations of the Ministry, and found 
them satisfactory, passes to the order of the day!” 

What do you think of that? Which do you prefer, the ministry or 
the majority, the Deputies of France or your own Commons? M. 
Duchatel or Sir James Graham? I dare say you will find the choice a 
difficult one. There is, however, one difference betwixt them. The 
English middle classes have, up to this day, to struggle against an 
aristocracy, which, although in a state of dissolution and decomposi- 
tion, is not yet removed. The aristocracy of England always found 
some support in one fraction or the other of the middle classes 
themselves, and it was this division of the middle classes that saved 
the aristocracy from total ruin. At this moment the aristocracy is 
supported by the fund-holders, bankers, and owners of fixed 
incomes, and by a large part of the shipping trade against the 
manufacturers. The whole agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws 
proves this. The advanced fraction of the English middle classes, 
therefore (I mean the manufacturers) will yet be able to carry out 
some progressive political measures which will more and more 
decompose the aristocracy. They will even be obliged to do so; they 
must extend their markets, which they cannot do without reducing 
their prices, which reduction must be preceded by a reduced cost of 
production, which reduced cost of production is mainly obtained by 
reduced wages, for reducing which there is no safer means than 
reduced price of the necessaries of life; and, to obtain this, they have 
no other means but reducing the taxes. This is the logical chain 
which ties the manufacturers of England to the necessity of 
destroying the Established Church, and reducing, or “equitably 
adjusting”, the National Debt. Both these measures, and others in 
the same spirit, they will be forced to carry out as soon as they find, 
which they must, the market of the world insufficient to continually 

and regularly buy up their produce. Thus the English middle classes 
are, as yet, in a progressive direction; they have an aristocracy and a 
privileged clergy to overthrow; there. are certain progressive 
measures which they will be forced to carry, and which they are the 
fit and proper persons to carry. But the French middle classes are in 
a different position. There is no aristocracy of birth, nor a landed 
aristocracy, in that country. The revolution has swept it entirely 
away. Neither is there a privileged or Established Church; but on the 
contrary, both Catholic and Protestant clergy receive their salaries 
from the government, and are upon a footing of perfect equality. 
There is no important struggle possible in France between the 
fund-holders, bankers, shippers, and manufacturers, because, of all 
fractions of the middle classes the fund-holders and bankers (who, at 
the same time, are the principal shareholders in the railway, mining, 
and other companies) are decidedly the strongest fraction, and have, 
with a few interruptions only, ever since 1830, held the reins of 
government. The manufacturers, kept down by foreign competition 
in the foreign market, and threatened in their own, have no chance 
of growing to such a degree of power, that they successfully might 
struggle against the bankers and fund-holders. On the contrary, 
their chance decreases every year; their party in the Deputies, 
formerly one-half, is now not more than a third part of the Chamber. 
It results from all this that neither a single fraction, nor the whole of 
the ruling middle classes, are in a position to carry out anything like 
“progress”; that the government of the bourgeoisie is so fully 
established in France since the revolution of 1830, that the ruling 
class could do nothing but wear themselves out. This they have done. 
Instead of progressing, they were obliged to go backwards, to 
restrain the liberty of the press; to take away the right of free 
association and meeting; to make all sorts of exceptional laws in 
order to keep down the working people. And the scandalous affairs 
brought forward within the last few weeks are the evident proof that 
the ruling bourgeoisie of France are entirely worn out, totally ‘used 
up”. 

Indeed, the high bourgeoisie are in an awkward position. They had 
found, at last, in Guizot and Duchatel, the men to govern them. They 
kept them in office seven years, and sent them at every election 
larger and larger majorities. And now, when all opposing fractions 
had been reduced to the utmost impotency in the Chamber,—now 
when Guizot and Duchatel’s days of glory seemed to have arrived, at 
that very moment a mass of scandal is discovered in the doings of the 
Ministry, that makes it impossible for them to remain in office, even 
if supported unanimously by the Chambers. There can be no doubt 

that Guizot and Duchatel will, with their colleagues, resign very 
shortly; they may drag on their ministerial existence a few weeks 
longer, but their end is drawing nigh—very nigh. And who is to 
govern after them? God knows! They may say, as Louis XV, “after 
me the deluge, ruin, and confusion”. Thiers is unable to bring 
together a majority. Molé is an old, worn-out, and insignificant man, 
who will meet all sorts of difficulties, and who, in order to secure the 
support of the majority, must commit similar scandalous actions, and 
therefore, end in the same way as Guizot. This is the principal 
difficulty. The present electors will always elect a majority like that 
now sitting; the present majority will always require a ministry like 
that of Guizot and Duchatel, committing all sorts of scandal; any 
ministry doing so will be overthrown by the mere weight of public 
opinion. This is the vicious circle in which the present system moves. 
But to go on as heretofore is impossible. What, then, is to be done? 
There is no other course but to leave this circle, to pass a measure of 
Electoral Reform; and Electoral Reform means admission of the 
smaller tradesmen to the Suffrage, and this means, in France, “the 
beginning of the end”. Rothschild and Louis Philippe know very 
well, both of them, that admission of the smaller “bourgeoisie” to the 
Suffrage means nothing but “LA REPUBLIQUE!” 

Paris, June 26th, 1847 

No. 506, July 3, 1847