The Sun.
London, England, 1839-01-11 00:00:00

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WITH WHICH THE " TRUE SUN" IS NOW INCORPORATED.

LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, JANUARY 11, 1839.

CHARACTER OF M. THIERS.

(From Etudes sur les Orateurs, by Timon.)
When M. Thiers came into the world he was not cradled
on the lap of a Duchess.
As he was poor, he wanted fortune ; as he was obscure,
he wanted a name. Failing as an advocate, he turned litte-
rateur, and threw himself headlong into the midst of the
Liberal party, doing this more by necessity than conviction.
Then be began to admire Danton. and the men of the Moun-
tain, and carried to the greatest extremity his hyperbolical,
yet well-calculated, praise. Oppressed by wants, like most
people of lively imagination, he owed the first beginnings of
his wealth to Laffitte, and his reputation to his talents. How-
ever, had it not been for the revolution of 1830, M. Thiers
would not at present be an elector, nor even eligible, nor
a deputy, nor a minister ; no, nor an academician. lie
would have grown old amid the esteem of a literary coterie.
Since the revolution M. Thiers has changed his part ; he
has become a monarchist, an aristocrat, a supporter of privi-
leges, a giver and executor of merciless orders. He has irre-
parably attached his name to the besieged state of Paris, to
the mitraillades of Lyons, to the magnificent exploits of the
Rue Transnonain, to the banishments of Mont St. Michel, to
the laws agigst associations, public criers, Courts of Assize,
and new*, rs,to all that enchains liberty, shackles the
press, corrupts juries, decimates patriots—to all that has dis-
solved the National Guard, demoralized the nation, and cast
into the mire the pure and noble revolution of July.
He has quitted his friends ; he has disavowed his doctrines ;
he has served royalty by making himself an instrument fit for
anything—one of those instruments that bend but never break,
that can bring both ends together, and then suddenly spring
back into perfect straightness.
When, in a monarchy, a man without character or virtue
has received an education more literary than moral, and, car-
ried on the shoulders of fortune, mounts the steps of power,
W.s head is turned by his elevation. As he finds himself iso-
lated on the eminence which he has attained, and does not
know where to lean for support, having nothing around him,
and yet not being of sufficient consideration himself, neither
being nor wishing to be one of the people, nor being (although
he wishes to be) one of the great Lords, he casts himself at the
feet of his King, licks and kisses them, and cannot find servile
contortions, supplicatory caresses, signs of devotion, genuflec-
tions, foot kissings, sufficient to express his humility and the
depth of his adoration. Persons of this kind are like those
who are predestined to " Gehenna" and have made a com-
pact with the devil. They are marked by his claw, and if
they wish to turn their heads or break a link of their chain, the
infernal master, to whom their bodies are delivered, and their
soul is sold, cries out, " Ye are mine I"

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111. Thiers has neither figure, stature, nor elegance. His
nasal voice offends the ear. The marble of the tribune
reaches to his shoulder, and almost conceals him from his au-
ditory. Nobody believes in him, not even himself, and his
proverbial rouerie would destroy even the small moral illusion
which may be produced by hearing him. Nature has mis-
used him ; neither friends nor enemies feel confidence in
him, and thus he has everything against him • yet, notwith-
standing these drawbacks, whenever the little man mounts
the tribune, he seems so much at his ease, has so much
esprit, that, in default of everything else, it is a pleasure to
hear him.

He does not proceed by lively sallies like Dupin, nor has
he the grave discourse of Odillon Barrot, nor the cutting
sarcasm of Mauguin, nor the modulating eloquence of Sauzet,
nor the superior reason of Guizot ; he has a sort of talent of
his own, which does not in the least resemble that of any
one else.

His is no oration, but a kind of gossip (causerie)—a gossip
which is lively, brilliant, light, voluble, animated, and sprinkled
with historical traits, anecdotes, and pointed reflections; and
all this he says cuts short, breaks, binds together, looses, and
stitches up again, with an incomparable dexterity of lan-
guage. His thoughts come so rapid]) forth, one would think
they were born before they were conceived. The vast lungs
of a giant would not be sufficient to expectorate the words of
this clever dwarf. It seems that nature, always attentive and
kind in her gifts, has concentrated all his strength in the frail
organs of the larynx.
His words fly as if winged, and pierce you so swiftly, that
you are wounded without knowing whence the dart proceeds.
Sometimes he stops to answer those who interrupt him,
and he darts forth his reply with a readiness which confounds
t'iem.

If a theory has many sides, some false and others true, be
groupes them, jumbles them, makes them play and radiate
before you, and that with such a dexterous hand, that you
have not time to catch a sophism in its course. Ido not
know whether the disorder of his improvisations, the incohe-
herent crowding of so many heterogeneous propositions, the
bizarre mixture of all sorts of ideas and tones, be the effect of
art ; but certain it is, that of all orators he is the most easy to
refute when read, and the most difficult when heard. Of all
our political roues he is the most amusing, of all our sophists
the most subtle, of all our jugglers the hardest to detect. He
is the Bcsco of the tribune.

Sometimes he grows tender upon himself, and no one knows
better how to play the victim. Sometimes he takes the tone
of an honest man, sends forth deep sighs from his breast at the
perversities of opinion. Marvellously well does he play the
tender, yet at the very moment you think he will caress you,
he claws you—the little traitor
He loves to keep in power, not for the sake of power itself,
but of the good things which are its concomitants. M.
Guizot has pride—M. Thiers sensuality. The reason is, that
for two-thirds of his life be has been kept from the enjoy-
ments of fortune, and now he gorges them with all the greedi•
ness and selfishness of a starved man.

M. Thiers is a demon of esprit. I verily think he has it at
the corners of his lips, and the tip of his nails. His organisa-
tion resembles that of Voltaire ; it is fragile, nervous, rapid,
sensitive. He has the caprices of a refractory child, and yet
pretends to the gravity of a philosopher.
He is more a man of letters than a statesman, and more an
artiste than a man of letters. He will feel a violent passion
for an Etruscan vase, but a very slight one for liberty.
His former enthusiasm for our great revolutionists was but
that of a young man and a scholar, mingled, though he was un-
conscious of it, with a spite at being nothing then, and a
vague hope of becoming somebody. Consequently the abuse
of monarchical enjoyments soon rendered his temperament ef-
feminate, and he has descended from the garret to the salon,
and placed himself on fine gold-fringed sofas, just as if he had
never sat on the straw. He is a great lord by instinct, just as
others are by birth and habit.
From very carelessness he is a sceptic in morals, in religion,
in politics, in literature—nearly in everything, and hence there
are no truths which touch him deeply; there is no thorough
devotion to the cause of the people which does not awaken his
laughter. Ile is a glittering stuff which reflects all sorts of
colours in the sun, without having any hue of its own, and the
light texture of which allows the day to be seen through.
Do not ask him for convictions—he doubts ; nor for proofs
of virility—his temperament refuses them. You wish not for
his raillery, but still that all may to Lim seem comical. You
wish him not to laugh at you, but then how well he can laugh
at himself

Intrust him, if you will, with the marine, or the war, or the
interior, or judiciary, or the diplomatic department; but do
not leave millions at his disposal, far less hundreds of millions,
for they will slip through his fingers like water through a sieve.
To the facility with which he spends money he adds a certain
method of rendering accounts which is not that adopted by
everybody, and this he wittily calls the art of grouping figures,
I like vastly this natural speaker, who is so lively, and has
such a free gait. He converses with me and does not de-
claim ; he is not always chanting in the same tone like the
other preachers of the doctrine. True, he ends in the long
run by stunning me with his babble, but still his lively chat-
tering is a great relief after the usual oratorical monotony,
that eternal bore, the greatest for a hearer, for a Parliamen-
tary martyr, who is condemned to endure it from noon till a
o'clock in the evening.
At every step of his road M. Thiers stumbles on flowers,
rubies, pearls, and diamonds. He has only to stoop, and at
the same moment he collects them, groups them, and takes
them up in his hands in the shape of a garland; a clasp, a ring,
a
girdle,can or ale
dini
tahtiesmi diadem—therelia is so Melt riches, fruitfulness,
and
He brilliancy
meditate
without effort, and produce without ea=
liaustion ; he marches without fatigue, and is the most rapid
traveller among ideas that I know,
Times pass before him
in their pr
hicoper or
d sought b v others, er and according to their own shape, and
nature, ~ otu comes to him without
awaiting his call, clothed in all her majesty and with all the
graces of her smile. When in a steam-boat hare you ever
wh is
noticed the watery mirror in which the banks are reflected ?
There you may see beautiful villages,
churches with light
spires, verdant meadows, bushy mountains, the trembling
sails of the ships, the white ears of the standing corn, the
flocks of the valley, the clouds of heaven, the cattle and the
people. Such a scene exactly resereblee M. Thiers ; he is a
sort of Parliamentary mirror, reflecting the passions of others,
and
tear
beingina his
s himself without passion. He can weep without a
,All is a mere stage-play ;—but
then, what a play, and Wililt an actor I What nature I What
flexibility I What flights of imitation I What sudden infiee,
dons of tone! What light—what transparency in the style I
draw
oneeyedrop
not ;
What a negligent grace in his words I \ou deceive me, actor
your design. You play
but e ais part. I know this, and
ftseeiVdseuctions to lead Ine along, and
the influence of your spells, and
t)).:,hioeauitrti pyur
nevertheless
aa dr
entirely.!
1,. i 1
arala
intidi
way
in, tyooy:endrtde e r
truth farm the
lips of another.
sfrinoln your lips than
the idea of a beardless woman, a
t?
wwe;lll.4.eTrldubtehicaertrsedboeaftanerdnCgruri9viterty woman, who does not stand but sits
at the tribune, and who prates ahcut a thousand subjects with
the most nimble grace, while her lips are ever in motion with-
out in the least betraying the workings of her mind.
lkio spring of steel, however fine, is so flexible as he. He
bends Pn d unbends, rises and lowers himself with his subject.
In a spiral curve be runs round every subject, so es to moeut
from the bottom to the top. He climbs up, hg descends, he
climbs up again, he hams on the branches, squats himaelf

PRICE sd.

among the leaves, appears, disappears, and plays a thousar d
tricks with the agility of a squirrel.
I do not know it, not the least in the world; but I would
affirm it nevertheless, that M. Thiers could discourse for three
hours en architecture, poetry, law, navigation, and military
tactics, though he is neither architect, poet, lawyer, sailor, nor
soldier, provided he first had an apres-diner of preparation.
He astonishes the oldest chefs de division when he talks about
administration. To hear him talk of curves, assizes, abate-
ments, and hydraulic mortars, you would swear he was a mason
at least, if not an architect. Ile would dispute a chemical
point with Gay Lussac, and teach EArrago Low to point his
telescope at Venus or Jupiter.
Ido not exaggerate. Let him treat of what subject be
will, he is never at a loss. The fine arts, canals, roads, finances,
trade, history, the press, transcendent politics, street-business,
theatres, war, literature, religion, municipal affairs, ethics, mat-
ters of pleasures, what does it matter? He is ready at them
all, and this, because is ready at—nothing. He does not speak
like other orators, because lie speaks like the world at large.
Other orators prepare themselves more or less ; he speaks ex
ternpore. Other orators have perorations, but he talks away
' at mace, and can guard against another prater such as you or
I might he, better than anybody. Other orators allow a bit
of the buskin to peep from the wing, and the reflection of the
mirror shows the waving plumes of their crest. But M. Thiers
—you catch hold of him as he leaves his bed, and you say,
" Come, conic, make haste; all is ready—thepublic are impa-
tient and await you. Take up your mask and play a minister,
a general, an artist, a puritan, whatever you will ; only
do play something." M. Thiers will not even take time to
wipe his forehead and drink a glass of eau sucree. He walks
on the stage at once, dresses himself, and performs before the
spectators ; draws his characters off-hand, spins his dialogue,
unravels his plot, and learns his part while acting it. Some-
times he plays two parts, turns on his heel, throws off one
mask, claps on another, and though always the same, he is
always different; is always in his place, is always an accom-
plished actor.