“If the proletarians suffer the suffrage to be taken from them, 
they submit to the undoing of the Revolution of February, as far as they are 
concerned, For them the republic will no longer exist. They will be 
shut out from it. Will they allow this? 

“The law certainly will pass. Not a tittle of it will be weakened. The 
will of the majority, upon this point, has already shown itself 
clearly.*8 And as matters stand to-day, no one can tell what will 
follow, whether the people will rise and hurl down the government 
and Assembly, or whether they will wait until another occasion. Paris 
seems quiet; there is no direct sign of an approaching revolution; but 
a spark will suffice to call forth a tremendous explosion. 

“That explosion would have taken place before now but for the 
treacherous conduct of the popular chiefs, who have been doing 
nothing but preaching ‘peace’, ‘tranquillity’, and ‘majestic calm’.? 
This, however, cannot last long. The situation of France is eminently 
revolutionary. The Ordermongers cannot stand where they are. 
They must advance a step every day in order to maintain themselves. 
If this law should pass without provoking a revolution, they will come 
out with fresh, more violent, and’ more direct attacks on the 
constitution and the Republic. They want an émeute, and they will 
have a revolution, and have it soon, too. For it must be borne in mind 
that this is a question of weeks, perhaps days, not of years.” 

Vil 

Paris, June 22nd, 1850 

The Electoral “Reform” Law has passed, and the people of Paris 
have not moved. Universal Suffrage has been destroyed, without the 
slightest attempt at disturbance or demonstration, and the working 
people of France are again what they were under Louis Philippe: 
political Pariahs, without recognised rights, without votes, without 
muskets. | 

It really is a curious fact, that Universal Suffrage in France, won 
easily in 1848, has been annihilated far more easily in 1850. Such ups 
and downs, however, correspond much with the French character, 
and occur very often in French history. In England such a thing 
would be impossible. Universal Suffrage, once established there, 
would be won for ever. No government would dare to touch it. Only 
think of the minister who should be foolish enough to consider 
seriously re-establishing the Corn Laws. The immense laughter of 
the whole nation would hurl him down. 

The people of Paris have, undoubtedly, committed a serious 
mistake, in not profiting of the occasion for insurrection given by the 
destruction of Universal Suffrage. The army was well disposed, the 
small trading class was forced to go with the people, and the 
Mountain,°° nay, even the party of Cavaignac knew that in case of a 
defeated insurrection they would inevitably be made to suffer for it, 
whether they stood with the people or not. Thus, at least, the moral 
support of the small trading class and of its parliamentary organs, 
the Mountain, was sure this time, aS soon as the insurrection had 
broken out; and with that the resistance of a large portion of the 
army would be broken. But the occasion has been missed, partly 
from the cowardice of the parliamentary chiefs and the press, partly 
from the peculiar state of mind the people of Paris are in at present. 

The working people of the capital are at present in a state of 
transition. The different socialist systems which, up to this time, have 
been discussed amongst them, no longer suffice to them; and it must 
be confessed, take all French systematic Socialism together, and 
there is not much in it of a very revolutionary nature. On the other 
hand the people, so many times deceived by their chiefs, have such a 
deep distrust towards all men who ever have acted as their 
leaders—not excepting even Barbés or Blanqui5!—that they are 
resolved not to make any movement in order to bring any of these 
leaders into office. Thus the whole working-class movement is about 
to take a different, far more revolutionary aspect. The people, once 
thinking for themselves, freed from the old socialist tradition, 
will soon find socialist and revolutionary formulas which shall 
express their wants and interests far more clearly than anything 
invented for them, by authors of systems and by declaiming leaders. 
And then, arrived thus at maturity, the people will again be enabled 
to avail themselves of whatever talent and courage may be found 
among the old leaders, without becoming the tail of any of them. 
And this state of the popular mind in Paris accounts for the 
indifference displayed by the people, at the destruction of Universal 
Suffrage. The great struggle is postponed for the day in which one 
or both of the two rival powers of the state, the President or the 
Assembly, will try to overthrow the Republic. 

And this day must soon arrive. You recollect what was boasted in 
all the reactionary papers, about the cordial understanding between 
the President and the majority. Now, this cordial understanding has 
just resolved itself into the most deadly struggle between the two 
rivals. The President has been promised, as the price for his 
adhesion to the Electoral Law, an annual addition to his salary of 
3,000,000 fr. (£120,000), which additional pay was most awfully 
wanted by the debt-ridden Louis Napoleon, besides being consid- 
ered as the preliminary step to the prolongation of his presidency 
for ten years. The Electoral Law was hardly passed, when the 
ministers stepped in and asked for the three millions a year. But all 
at once the majority got frightened. ‘They, who no longer consider 
the imbecile Louis Napoleon as a serious pretender, far from being 
ready to consent to the prolongation of his presidency, on the 
contrary want to get rid of him as soon as possible. They name a 
select committee to report on the Bill, and that committee reports 
against its adoption. Great consternation at the Elysée-National. 
Napoleon threatens abdication. A most serious collision between the 
two powers of the state is imminent. The ministry, a lot of bankers, a 
number of other “friends of order” interpose, with no result. Several 

“transactions” are proposed; in vain. At last an amendment is come 
to, which seems to satisfy all parties more or less. The majority, not 
quite sure as to the consequences of a rupture with the President, 
and having, as yet, not quite concluded the compact which is to unite 
the Legitimists and Orleanists into one party, seems to recoil a little, 
and to be ready to grant the money in another shape. The discussion 
is to come off on Monday; what the result will be no one can say. 
However, a serious rupture with Napoleon is, I think, not yet in the 
line of policy of the royalist majority. 

The compact which is to unite the Orleanists and Legitimists, the 
younger and the elder branch of the house of Bourbon, 1s, at 
present, more than ever spoken of. It is a fact that most active 
negotiations are carried on with regard to this subject. The journey 
of Messrs. Thiers, Guizot, and others to the death-bed of Louis 
‘Philippe, at St. Leonards, had no other object than this. I shall not 
repeat to you the various versions as to the state of this affair, and the 
results obtained by the journey above mentioned. The daily papers 
have said more than enough about that. A fact, however, it is, that 
the Orleanist and Legitimist parties are in France pretty much 
agreed as to the conditions, and that the only difficulty is to have 
these conditions adopted by the two rival branches. Henry, Duke of 
Bordeaux,’ is to be made king, and as he has no children, the 
adoption of the Count of Paris, grandson of Louis Philippe, and heir 
to the throne by regular succession, is a matter almost of course, and 
offering no difficulties. The tricolour flag, besides, is to be 
maintained. The expected death of old Louis Philippe would 
facilitate this solution. He seems to have submitted to it, and the 
Duke of Bordeaux, too, appears to have accepted the agreement. 
The Duchess of Orleans, mother of the Count of Paris, and her 
brother-in-law, Joinville, are said to be the only obstacles in the way 
of a settlement. Louis Napoleon is to be paid off with ten millions of 
hard cash. 

There is no doubt but this, or a similar settlement, will finally be 
come to; and as soon as this is done, the direct attack upon the 
Republic will follow. In the meantime, a preliminary engagement is 
to be commenced by the councils-general of the departments. They 
have been just called together before their regular time of meeting, 
and are expected to call upon the National Assembly to revise the 
constitution. The same thing was considered last year, but thought 
premature by the councils themselves. There is no doubt they will 
show considerably more pluck this time, particularly after the 

successful blow at the Suffrage. And then the occasion will come for 
the people to show that if they abstained from showing their power 
for a time, they are not willing to be thrust back to the most infamous 
epoch of the Restoration. 

P.S.—I have just read a small pamphlet sold at three sous 
(halfpence) and given out gratis with the République. This pamphlet 
contains the most astounding disclosures as to the plots and 
conspiracies of the royalists, as far back as the spring of 1848. It is by 
one Borme,” a witness examined in the trial of Barbés and Blanqui, 
at Bourges.°? He confesses himself a paid royalist agent, who at that 
trial committed gross perjury. He contends that the whole move- 
ment of the 15th of May, 1848, originated with the royalists, and 
many other things of a most curious character. There is something, 
too, which regards The Times. Borme gives name and address. He 
lives in Paris. The pamphlet is one which must call forth more 
disclosures still. I call your most earnest attention to it. 

VIll 

Paris, July 23, 1850 

As I anticipated in my last, the dotation to Louis Bonaparte 
finally passed the Assembly —in substance allowing him the sum he 
wanted, in form humiliating him deeply before the eyes of all 
France.** The Assembly then resumed its work of repression —tak- 
ing up the press law. Atrocious as this law was when produced from 
the hand of its originator, M. Baroche, it was innocent and harmless 
compared with what the spite of the majority has made it. The 
majority, in its furious and yet impotent hatred against the press, has 
dealt out its blows almost blindfolded, not caring whether it hits the 
“good” or the “bad” press. Thus the “law of hatred” has been 
enacted. The caution money is raised. The stamp is re-established on 
newspapers. An extra stamp is put upon the “roman-feuilleton”, 
that part of the newspaper which is dedicated to the publication of 
novels—a measure which would be quite incomprehensible if it was 
not a reply to the election of Eugene Sue, the effect of whose socialist 
novels has not yet been forgotten by the majority. All works 
published in weekly numbers or monthly parts of less than a certain 
size, are subjected to the stamp in the same manner as newspapers. 
And lastly, every paragraph appearing in a newspaper must be 
provided with the signature of the author. 

This law, as the blind fury of the majority has made it, falls heavily, 
not only upon the socialist and republican press, but on the 
counter-revolutionary press: and perhaps far more heavily upon this 
than upon the opposition press. The names of the republican writers 
are pretty well known, and it matters little whether they sign their 
paragraphs or not; but let the Journal des Débats, the Assemblée 
nationale, the Pouvoir, the Constitutionnel, &c., be obliged to come out 
with the names of their contributors, and their leaders will 

immediately lose all influence even upon their class of readers. The 
name of a great daily paper, particularly an old-established one, is, to 
respectable people, always a respectable firm; but let these firms, 
Bertin and Co., Véron and Co., Delamarre and Co., once be 
dissolved into their literary components, let that mysterious “Co.” 
once decompose into venal “‘penny-a-liners” of old standing, who, 
for hard cash, have defended all possible causes, such as Granier de 
Cassagnac, or into foolish old women calling themselves statesmen, 
such as Capefigue, let all the little men who raise loud voices and 
spout big articles once creep out into daylight under the new law, 
and you will see what a sad figure the respectable press will make.’ 

It is true that, under the new law, by the enhanced price of 
newspapers a very numerous class of readers will be excluded from 
this mode of getting information. Both newspapers, cheap periodi- 
cals, and other popular publications will be above the reach of 
numerous working-men, and particularly of the majority of the 
country-people. But the press was always an auxiliary means merely 
to agitate the peasantry; this class being far more sensible to their 
own material sufferings and to the increase of taxation than to the 
declamations of the press; and as long as the present bourgeois 
government cannot find out the means—which it never can—to 
alleviate the weight of usury and taxation upon the peasantry, as 
long will there be discontent and “revolutionary tendencies”, 
manifested amongst this newly-roused class. As to the working-men 
in the towns, they cannot be entirely excluded from seeing the 
newspapers, and if cheap periodical publications are stopped, they 
will make up for that by increasing secret societies, secret debating- 
clubs, &c. But if the government, with respect to diminishing the 
number of revolutionary tracts and periodicals, have obtained some 
result, they have obtained it at the cost of ruining the whole of the 
publishing and bookselling trades; for it is impossible that these 
trades can subsist under the restrictions imposed by the new law. 
And thus this is very likely to contribute much to breaking up the 
party of order both in and out of the Assembly. 

As soon as the law on the press was voted, the Assembly proceeded 
to give Louis Napoleon another broad hint that he was not to exceed 
the limits the constitution had placed him in. The Bonapartist 
paper, Le Pouvoir, had an article commenting in not very favourable 
terms upon the Assembly. An old law of the Restoration was dug up, 
and the publisher of the Pouvoir, arraigned at the bar for breach of 

privilege, and sentenced to 5,000fr. (£200) * fine, which fine was, of 
course, immediately paid.** The penalty was not very severe, but the 
act of the Assembly was sufficiently significant. “We strike low but we 
mean to hit higher,” said a member, and was loudly applauded. 

The Assembly then resolved to suspend its sitting for three 
months, from the 11th of August next. As provided by the 
constitution, it had to elect a commission of twenty-five members, 
which is to remain at Paris during the adjournment, and to watch the 
executive power.°© The chiefs of the majority, believing Louis 
Napoleon to be sufficiently humiliated, drew up a list of these 
candidates, including none but members of the majority, Orleanists, 
Moderate Legitimists, some Bonapartists, no Republicans nor 
ultra-Legitimists. But in the vote all the Bonapartists have been 
thrown out, and in their stead some Moderate Republicans and 
several ultra-Legitimists have been elected, thus again showing the 
disposition of the Assembly to have none of the coup d’état which 
Louis Napoleon is always dreaming of.° 

I do not expect that there will be anything serious until the 
experiment is made to upset the Republic; be it by the President, or 
be it by one of the royalist factions. This would, no doubt, rouse the 
people from their torpor; and this is an event which must take place 
between now and May 1852, but at what precise epoch it is 
impossible to predict.*”