The Press.
London, England, 1858-05-01 00:00:00

416

might have been expected ; and it is to be re-
gretted that, by the use of a wrong title, Lord
Normanby led to false expectations as to the
exact nature of his work. It is not the his-
tory of the year 1848, but merely a journal
kept at Paris by the lighthearted Marquis
So also M Louis Blanc's work, as already
stated, has a singularly inexact title.
Of its so called " revelations," the most in-
teresting are those of his Majesty the Emperor
of the French, but these only run to a few
pages. We shall condense the most readable
of them They are prefaced in the following
fashion :

Louis Bonaparte is on a throne ; and I am in exile.
To me he was, to a great extent, indebted, when
banished, for his return to France ; and to him is
ascribable that state of things which keeps me from my
country.
After his attempt on Boulogne, in August ISM, I was
the only =ea who dared raise a ptotest against his being
tried by an unlawful jurisdiction ; and he, once become
the President of the Republic, suffered • most iniquitous
accusation to be brought against me, not before a jury, but
before a sham tribunal.
Whilst lingering at Ham, a poor forlorn prisoner, he
entreated me, in a pressing letter, to come and spend a
few days with him in his prison, which I did ; and when
afterwards the vicissitudes of fortune, coupled with the
baseness of men, made him an emperor and myself an
exile, my utter spoliation was consummated by his own
official servants, who were not ashamed to deprive me of
a slender sum of about six hundred pounds, which I had
earned by many years of literary labour, anti which, in-
vested in the public funds, was all my substance.
Louis Blanc had reviewed " Les [(lees Nano-
leonniennes," and, although far from adopting
its author's opinions, the reviewer did nut
insult the prisoner at Ham :

From the Chateau de Han, wherein he was imprisoned,
by seam:toe of the Chamber of Peers, he wrote to me the
letter above mentioned, in which he thanked me for not
having wantonly insulted a fallen adversary, and esoressed,
in very affecting terms, a strong desire that I might niske
it convenient to come to him and stay at Ham for a few
dage was surrounded, at that time, with the only prestige
which a true Republican may be willing to salute : he was
unfortunate. His imperial pretensions had, as it were,
vanished in the smoke of a wretched adventure. People
were looking round for his party ; and he, bowed down,
tried, condemned, denied by his partisans of that period,
railed at by his servan6s of this day, was doomed to a lonely
life in a gloomy fortress, with no other friend to whom he
could unburden his heart that his physician, Dr. Connect,
and a chemist, named Aoar. Res seers miser. With the
request of tae prisoner, not of the prince, I complied ; he
procured from the Home Minister a permission for me to
enter his prison, and I set off to Ham.

Of the entourage of the prisoner we are treated
to some glimpses, but we shall not copy all
that the author says. He arrived at the
Chateau, and whit he saw there is thus told :

I was ushered into a large, neatly furnished room, where
little seemed to be wanting of what is required for do-
mestic comfort. lat once perceived —let this be said to
the credit of Louis Philippe—that the prisoner was very
kindly treated. He sat in a bigh•b+eked armchair,
between the chimney and a table spread with books and
papers. As I entered, he rose, came forward to meet the
expected visitor, and shook han•is with me with a mingled
expression of cordiality and reserve. My impression was
that for a moment he thought of assuming a sort of stately
countenance; but he was almost icatantly sensible of the
mistake, did his best to appear easy and free, and we g.it
into conversation. I had never seen him before. Nor
was I enabled, at that time, to remark how different he
was in his features, his manners, his deportment, from all
the other members of Napoleon's family, whom I did not
know. Bat it struck me that there was nothing in him 'of
the Napoleonic type, di t be spoke with a rather foreign
accent, and that he had less command of language than
any man I hail ever conversed with.
As long as the conversation tnroel on Louis Philippe's
policy, we could not but agree. We concurred in thinking
that a system would nut last long, which was based upon
corrupt practices at home and a permanent humiliation
abroad. Rat when the question arose what the future
should be, we began to dissent.
As he professed to be a true democrat and to acknow•
ledge in full the principle of the sovereignty of the people :
" How is this principle to be carried out, in your
opinion ?" I asked.
He answered unhesitatingly: ' Through universal
suffrage."

They then entered on a political dialogue.
for which we cannot find room, but we cannot
help observing that the general purport of it
shows that from first to last the present Em-
peror of the French has been perfectly con-
sistent in his views. For example, in one place
Louis Blanc thus interrogated the imprisoned
Prince :

" Well then, it is not enough for von to acknowledge
the sovereignty of the people, and to bow passively to
universal sultrige. You must have, as a %timber of the
whole, a doer notion of your intended initiative ; you
Oast hens ba4 you worobip of uotrtfloi 111frep,
Patlol4

THE PRESS, MAY 1, 1858.

Louis Bonaparte looked a little embarrassed ; but after
a moment's silence : " My creed," said he, " is the Em-
pire. Was it not the Empire that raised the French
nation to the summit of greatness and glory ? I am con •
vinced that the destiny of the Empire rests on the national
will."
" But the Empire involves, I suppose, the hereditary
principle?"
We are surprised that Louis Blanc does not
perceive that these " reveiations " attest the
fact that the Emperor made then no conceal•
ment of his ulterior aims. He further says:—
One afternoon, he was telling me the particulars of his
failure at Boulogne, when on a sudden his voice seemed
to falter ; he stopped, struggled a moment to repress a
sob, and burst into tears.
The next day, we went out to take a walk over the
narrow rampart assigned to his melancholy promenade,
which was watched, of course, on all sides by sentinels.
Methinks I see him still, his head reclining, walking with
slow steps, and speaking in a low voice, as if fearful lest
the wind should bear every word he uttered to the gaoler.
The conversation now was about the " History of the
Roman Emperors," as written in a book which Louis
Bonaparte admired very much, on account of the partiality
shown by the author for those tyrants whom Tacitus
branded with everlasting infamy. In Louis Bonaparte's
opinion, Tacitus was in the wrong and the modern author
in the right. I had not read the book so warmly praised,
but I was not at a loss to guess the secret reason why Louis
Bonaparte praised it. So I took the opposite aide of the
question, in a somewhat excited manner, which called forth
on his part a recommendation I little anticipated. " Pray,
speak low," he whispered, and turning round, he pointed
to a man, who, wrapt up in a cloak, followed at a short
distance, without losing sight of us. Louis Bonaparte
does not remember now certainly, but I do, that he availed
himself of the opportunity to expatiate on the wretchedness
of that policy which needs a dark army of spies, takes
root in the filthiest recesses of human nature, and glories
in the very degradation of its agents.

The political conversers met again in the
following way

However, he hail not yet availed himself of the decree
which entitled him to g 3 and take his seat in the National
Assembly, when, ostracised myself after having done my
best to save from ostracism both the Bonaparte and the
Orleans families, I came over to London, where I arrived
in the beginning of September.
Louis Bonaparte was still living in England.
Scarcely had I put up at the Brunswick Hotel, Jerrnyn-
street, when a visitor was announced. It was Louis
Bonaparte. He came to me in the most friendly manner,
expressing how indignant he felt at the iniquitous treat-
ment I had experienced from men, whom I remember he
spoke of with anything but kindness.
This considerably embarrassed me. I could not repel
the civilities he loaded me with, unless determined to set
all propriety at defiance; and on the other hand, there
were public grounds which pr3mpted me to avoid having
any connection with him. That he detected this feeling,
which I took no greater pains to conceal than was strictly
requisite to keep within the hounds of good breeding, I
have every reason to suppose, for he showed himself very
anxious to impress me with the idea that he had no other
ambition than to serve the Republic ; that he was heartily
devoted to the cause of the people ; and that, on social
questions especially, his opinions were, to a great extent,
in accordance with my own.
These are the most interesting bits in the
volume, which is by no means equal in read-
ability to the " History• of Ten years" The
dissertations on Socialism, and on the author's
peculiar views of the construction of society,
we decline to criticize; and we cannot give the
circulation of our columns to passages in this
work in which the harshest imputations are
made on the Emperor of the French. We
have dealt with the volume from its literary
aspect. We have seen it stated that its author
has learned English since his arrival in Eng-
land, and that it is exclusively composed by
himself. His mastery of our tongue does him
great credit, but however objectionable and
revolutionary may be M. Louis Blanc's opinions,
there never was any doubt about his high
literary powers.

Cathedri Petri. A Political History of the
Great Latin Patriarchate. By Thomas
Greenwood, M.A., Barrister-at-Law. Books
I. and 11. London : Stewart, 1836. The
Same. Books 111., IV., and V. London :
Stewart, 1838

THIR is a remarkable hook. It is learned,
laborious. impartial, and well written. In
patient industry the author reminds us of
the divines of the middle ages, and of the seven-
teenth century. Here are two goodly volumes,
of nearly 1,200 pages taken together, and the
author states that he has the material for
three more already prepared ! We Can hardly
call to mind a similar instance of literary
labour in our own day. And it is the more
eurprislog, wbe4 we reoolleet Shit the author

could not have indulged any very confident
hope of gaining many readers.

The predominant thought, however, which
pervades our mind is that of wonder that atty
student should have been able to devote him.
self to such a work, knowing, as he must have
known, that the whole is but a learned Inves-
tigation of a fiction and a fraud. If the facts
of the case were really as people half a cen-
tury ago supposed them to be—if the Pope
were really the successor of St. Peter, the first
Bishop of Rome—then there might be some
show of reason in investigating the history of
that ecclesiastical sovereignty. But when
people have been gradually awakening to the
fact that the whole idea of " the Chair of St.
Peter" is one which never passed through
any one's brain until the days of Buse-
bins—i.e., until three hundred years after the
supposed circumstances had taken place—it
does seem strange to find a man, at this time
of day, calmly discussing the question as it
was supposed to stand some thirty or forty
years ago.

Mr. Greenwood correctly states that " no visit
" of the Apostle Peter to the West is asserted
" in direct and positive terms by any extant
" Christian writer of the first three centuries."
There is no doubt whatever that the whole
story of the Apostle's visit to Rome, his
bishopric of Rome, and his martyrdom at
Rome, was concocted in the third and fourth
centuries, when the Roman See began to exalt
itself, and when it found that to derive rank
and power from " the first of the Apostles"
would greatly aid its pretensions. The
Apostle himself, in his own epistles, plainly
tells us that, when forced to leave Jerusalem,
it was to the East, and not to the West, that he
turned. His first epistle is addressed "to the
" strangers scattered throughout Pontus,
" Galatia, Cappadocia, • Asia, aild Bithynia,',
and it is dated from Babylon. His second is
addressed to the same parties, and he wrote
it, he tells us, not long before his death. The
earliest writer that we possess, alter the apos-
tolic age, is Clement, the third Bishop of
Rome. He speaks of both Paul and Peter,
but he makes one very important distinction
between them. Paul, he says, was " the
" herald of the Gospel both in the East and
"in the West . . . lie taught righteousness
" throughout the world, and having reached
" to the utmost verge of the West, he passed
" out of the world and entered the abodes of
" the blessed." Thus, speaking of
.both the
Apostles, he distinguishes one of them as
having travelled to the West as well as to the
East. Clearly it is here implied that of Peter
he had no such facts to record.

But, in truth, any earnest student of early
Church history will easily satisfy himself cf
this—that of Petet's visit to Rome, or bishopric
of Rome, there is no evidence in any early
writer. The whole story was fabricated about
the time of Eusebius, when the Roman See
began to feel the want of some such basis to
support its lofty pretensions ; and, once con-
coated, there was no difficulty in finding fresh
maintainers of the fiction, age after age—its
suitability to the wants of the case being so
evident and so complete.
And this is, in fact, the turning-point of the
whole controversy. All else depends upon it.
Peter, say the Romanists, was made by our
Lord the rock on which His church was built,
and the Prince of the Apostles. Now Pro-
testants and Papists may wrangle for days and
weeks upon the text, " Thou art Peter, and
" upon this rook will I build my church,"—
and may fail in convincing
each other. But
it is as well that both Protestants and Papists
should be reminded, that the real question
does not turn upon the interpretation of these
words. The Papist may ho wholly right, and
the Protestant utterly wrong, in their respez•
tive views of this passage, without the Papal
Supremacy being either established or over-
thrown by that controversy. Let the advocate
of the Papacy remark, and lay it well to heart,
that however triumphant he may be, in es-
tablishing his view of the words in Matt. xvi•
18, he will only, by that victory, have advanced
one step in the argument ; and it is quite clear,
that, unless he oau prove something more thsti
this, the Papal Supremacy will be 1O( witiout
a ba4iii.

S uppose all that the Papist claims, in this
firer controversy, to be quite true: suppose,
for aigument's sake, that our Lord did give to
Peter a primacy over the other Apostles, and
did mean, that the Church should be built
upon him . What does all this do towards
making the Bishop of Rome the visible head of
the Church? Clearly, nothing at all. For,—
what if Peter lived all his latter years, and
ended his days, in the East? What if he
never even visited Rome ; never communicated
in any special way with its Church ; never
directed any epistle to the Roman Christians,
or sent to them any commands ? Why, then,
it will follow, that Peter stood towards Rome
in no other relation than that in which he
stood towards Alexandria and Antioch. Con-
sequently, the Bishops of Rome have no
peculiar title to assume to be " the successors
of St. Peter." And, finally, their claim to be
regarded as something higher than the Bishops
of Antioch and Alexandria, is seen to be the
merest presumption and usurpation. Let St.
Peter have what primacy he may, their claim,
the claim of the Bishops of Rome, to inherit
this primacy, is as unfounded a pretension as
ever was set up. We deny their title : we call
for proof. No proof has been, or can be, ad-
duced. Yet, without such proof, the Papacy
becomes an open, palpable, undeniable, usur
ration and imposture !

The Rise of the Dutch Republic. A History.

By John Lothrop Motley. In Three Vols.

London : Routledge.
THIS is a new issue of a most able historical
work, which has not yet received adequate
notice from the general public. It was first
issued about two years ago, and, on its ap-
pearance, this Journal cordially recognised the
abilities and extensive reading of its author
(Pans, ante Vol. IV., p. 184). It is now
brought out by another publisher, and on a
second examination of its style and contents,
it appears to us to merit fully the high degree
of praise already accorded to it in literary cir-
cles. The work displays immense reading,
and deals with a vast amount of matter. Its
author is an American, and partakes of much
of the vehemence of spirit common to trans-
atlantic authors. His narrative has sustained
energy and much graphic power. He is less
calm and measured in his tone than Bancroft,
while he is far more fervid than Prescott.. He
writes with much more purity and correctness
than Sir Archibald Alison, while he possesses
nearly as much skill in linking facts together
in a consecutive form. He is not a deep
thinker or a profound philosopher, and his
mode of composition tends to the biographical
school of history. He is more at home when
dealing with the dramatis persona of his nar-
rative than when describing society at the era
of which he treats. He is admirablyi suited
for producing a series of historical chronicles,
and we think that a work called " Memoirs of
the House of Orange" would from his pen be
a most valuable and attractive volume. In
Point of fact, this " Rise of the Dutch Re-
public" reads like " An Expanded Biography
of the Career of William the Silent," and it is
possible that, if Mr. Motley continues his work,
he would obtain even more marked success.
As this publication has already been noticed
St length in our columns, there is no necessity
for our again entering upon a critical analysis.
The great knowledge of the author, his fami-
liarity with the Spanish, German, and Dutch
authorities for his stihject, are merits of the
highest kind, while his text is always ani-
mated and fluent. He is c;rtainly, as was re-
marked in this Journal before, " substantially
" just, but too apt to needlessly assert his piin-
" eipies and inveigh against tyranny." But his
rroweness to eloquent indignation is balanced
bfills real and solid knowledge. Though he is
sometimes too fierce in his moral wrath, he
cannot be called flatulent; and human feeling
.
requisite in an historian who has to recount
he viceroyalty of Alva, the hideous atrocities
c the Inquisition and of the Council of Blood,
and the sanguinary excesses of the Spaniards
la the Netherlands. As some of our readers
re not familiar with this work,
b . we shall place
efore
thcf*— SOW spetimeog of ito 4Pys
sqle,
-•-.-