The Press.
London, England, 1854-01-14 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

energy of the human character is preserved entire amidst
her ice and snows. From thence, as from the glaciers of
the Alps: the destroying but purifying streams descend
upon the plenty of the vales beneath. Russia will evi-
dently conquer Turkey, and plant her eagles on the dome
of St. Sophia ; she will do what the Crusaders failed in
doing—she will rescue the Holy Shrines from the hands of
the Infidels. But that, though an important part, is not
the whole of her destiny. Still, when the Cross is seen
triumphant over the wide expanse of the lower empire,
will her millions remain in their snowy deserts, invigorated
by necessity, hardened by suffering, panting for conquest.
She is never destined to be civilised, save for the purposes
of war ; lint she is destined to do what intellect and peace
can never do. Scythia will for ever remain what it luta
been from the earliest times—Tut: STOREHOUSE OF NATIONS,

THE SCOUSIOE OF VICIOUS CIVILISATION.
Next iu interest to the chapters from which
we have quoted are those which deal with
French politics during the first fervour of the
Restoration. Never was monarch or statesman
called to play a more difficult game than Louis
XVIII. and his advisers. They typified in the
eyes of the French nation everything that was
obsolete, absurd, humiliating to national pride,
offensive to a people which piqued itself at
once on enlightenment and love of equality.
They represented a Church in which nn man
believed, an aristocracy which no man re-
spected, theories of government which had
passed away with the Revolution of 'B9—a
dynasty forced on the people by foreign arms;
a peace founded on necessary but disgraceful
concession. They were associated in the pub-
lic mind, not with the triumph of Austerlitz,
but with the disaster of Waterloo. Resting
in great measure on priestly support, they
were thought to look with hostility on science,
and with suspicion on literature. Finally, the
material condition of France was deplorable.
War had exhausted her finances, wasted her
youth, depressed her agriculture, and caused
the quartering upon hor soil of more than a
million of armed men; while the money to be
paid as indemnity to the conquerors amounted
to sixty millions. So situated, failure would
have been no reproach to a much abler ruler
than Louis XVIII. This King, at the time of
his accession far gone in years, long an exile,
trained in reactionary and anti-national senti-
ments, not wanting in a certain kind of clever-
ness, which was chiefly displayed in trifles,
but destitute alike of a strong will, of physical
energy, and of sympathy with the high-wrought
enthusiasm of the French character, was per-
haps the most unfit man in all his dominions
to govern. Nor did it diminish his difficulties
that, from almost the hour of his accession,
the necessity was perceived of conciliating
Liberalism at the expense of the more ardent
Royalists. Of all systems of policy, that of
compromise is the most unpopular,and demands
the greatest tactical skill; for, on the part of
a statesman whose natural tendencies are held
to be despotic, concessions to the popular
cause assume the character, not of benevolence,
but of fear. " Measures, not men," may be
both a popular cry, and, under some circum-
stances, a sound principle ; but it needs little
observation to show that, with the mass of
mankind, measures are generally judged of
according to the supposed leanings of their
authors. In truth, during the whole period
from 1815 to 1830 the most consummate skill
in government could not have rendered the
Bourbons popular. They were hated as the
successors of Napoleon—as the subverters of
the Empire, not as the authors of restrictive
laws. It was of no avail that the commerce
of France revived, and that her sons were
freed from the terrible oppression of the con-
scription, while the late Emperor lived a
prisoner at St. Helena, and Paris yet retained
the marks of a hostile occupation. Historians
have not allowed sufficiently for this pre-
judice, and have thus been led to represent
the Bourbon rule as more arbitrary than
it really was. The Court was at no time
royalist enough to please its friends ; while
no possible stretch of liberality could have
appeased its enemies. The severe measures
at one moment adopted, the censorship, the
electoral law of 1820, the law authorising
arrests, were not so much causes as conse-
quences of disturbance. We have always be-
lieved that but for the murder of the Due de
Berri, and the violent reaction produced by
this act of atrocity committed for a political
purpose, the Republican or Bonapartist party
would have anticipated the three days, and
put an end, at once and for over, to Bourbon