Cologne, October 21. The English-French mediation in Italy has been 
given up. The death’s head of diplomacy grins after every revolution 
and particularly after the reactions which follow every revolution. 
Diplomacy hides itself in its perfumed charnel-house as often as the 
thunder of a new revolution rumbles. The Viennese revolution has 
blown away French-English diplomacy. 

Palmerston has admitted his impotence and so has Bastide. The 
Viennese revolution, as they explain, has put an end to the boring 
correspondence of these gentlemen. Bastide has officially notified of 
this fact Marquis Ricci, the Sardinian envoy. 

When the latter asked “whether France would under certain 
circumstances take up arms in favour of Sardinia’* the farouche 
republican Bastide (of the National) made a curtsy once, twice, thrice 
and sang: 

Put trust in me and help yourselves 
Then God will help you, brothers.” 

France, he said, abides by the principle of non-intervention, that 
same principle which was fought by Bastide and the other gentlemen 
of the National for years during Guizot’s times. 

The “respectable” French Republic would have made a deadly fool 
of itself in regard to this Italian question were it not above all 
disgrace since the portentous June. 

Rien pour la gloire!* say the friends of business in all circumstances. 
Rien pour la gloire! is the motto of the virtuous, the moderate, the 

2 “Question italienne. Derniére phase de la médiation anglo-fran¢aise (Communication)”, La Presse No. 4499, October 19, 1848.— Ed. 

> Heinrich Heine, Deutschland. Ein Wintermdrchen, Caput XII.— Ed. 
© Mere honour is worth nothing.— Fd. 

decent, the sedate, the respectable, in a word, the bourgeois republic. 
Rien pour la gloire! 

Lamartine was the imaginary picture which the bourgeois republic 
had of itself, the exuberant, fantastic, visionary conception which it 
had formed of itself, the dream of its own splendour. It is quite 
remarkable what one can imagine! As Aeolus unleashed all the winds 
from his bag, so Lamartine set free all spirits of the air, all the 
phrases of the bourgeois republic, and he blew them towards the east 
and the west, empty words of the fraternity of all nations, of the 
impending emancipation of all the nations by France and of France’s 
sacrifice for all the nations. 

He did—nothing. 

It was Cavaignac who undertook to supply the deeds corresponding to Lamartine’s phrases and Bastide, his outward turned organ. 

They calmly allowed the shocking scenes in Naples, the shocking 
scenes in Messina and the shocking scenes in the Milan region to take 
place before their very eyes.*” 

And so that not the least bit of doubt should remain as to the fact 
that the same class as well as the same foreign policy prevail in the 
“respectable” republic as under the constitutional monarchy, under 
Cavaignac as well as under Louis Philippe, in case of strife between 
nations, one has recourse to the old and eternally new means, the 
entente cordiale with England,”” with the England of Palmerston and 
with the England of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie. 

History could not, however, omit the climax, the point. Bastide, an 
editor of the National, had to grasp England’s hand frantically. And 
the entente cordiale has been the main trump which the poor 
Anglophobe National played off against Guizot all life long. 

On the gravestone of the “respectable” republic; will be inscribed: 
Bastide- Palmerston. 

But even Guizot’s entente cordiale has been surpassed by the 
“respectable” republicans. The officers of the French fleet let 
themselves be treated to a banquet by the Neapolitan officers and 
cheered the health of the King of Naples, the idiotic tiger Ferdinand, 
on the still smoking ruins of Messina. Above their heads, however, 
the phrases of Lamartine were evaporating.