The Sun.
London, England, 1851-10-08 00:00:00

latter. We might say the same of sovereigns, and
ask where has been the difference between the elder
Bourbons, the Orleans ditto, and the lesser Bonansrte?
Are they not all one and the same, except, perhaps,
that some one prince may have bad a little mere fa-
tuity, and another somewhat more cunning ? But all
run the same career, to reach the same end—viz., the
unpopularity and universal contempt under which
king and dynasty sick, to rise no more. Is it not
clear as the noon-day that Louis Napoleon is going
the way of all French princes, and by precisely the
same road which they all took ? And we see the con-
sequence. At this moment the political class, those
who have influence and hope for place--these people
are in the fiercest agitation and commotion, some score
for the Bonapartist, some dozen for the Orleacist, and
as many for the Legitimatist. But look away from
some hundreds of these professional politicians to the
country at large, and there will he found a uni-
versal indifference and contempt for every one of
the candidates, not one of whom either inspires hope
or commands respect. Yet all hope to be elected,
nay, to convert the elective chair into an hereditary
throne. Tney are building a pedestal of hatred and
contempt; they are anxious to get up upon this pe-
destal, and they hope to support themselves on such a
basis. Verily, kingship is the most unpromising of
professions, followed by the most fatuitous of men.
But what is the cause of princes being such puppets,
and of liberal stetesmeu proving the contrary of what
they themselves promised and all their friends ex-
pected ? The reason lies in the terrible and vast cen-
tralization of French government, in the number,
'sewer, hierarchy and traditional spirit of that bureau-
cratic, which, wherever it reaches firm establishment,
soon absorbs everything else, prince, ministers, states-
men, and even public opinion itself. This immense ma-
chine is the only mode by which a minister can govern.
Yet all he can do is to set it in motion, and be satisfied
with what it produces; for regulate or stop its move-
ments he cannot. A home minister may be shocked
by those freaks of power which his subordinates com-
mit, such as the breaking in upon convivial meetings
in the provinces, threatening deputies with arrest for
opening their mouths, or issuing an ukase that libe-
rals shall not be supplied at any hotel with dinner.
The prosecution and condemnation of young Hugo
for denouncing the punishment of death as cruel,
whilst such men as Thiers and Changarnier talk and
do treason aloud every hour in the day, may shock
the sense and good feeling of a minister of justice.
But what can he do ? The home minister can no
more restrain his myrmidons of police and prefecture
than the justice minister can check his procureurs
and substituts. And it is the same in foreign policy.
A French agent at Athens or Alexandria will get
into rivalry, and quarrel with his English colleague
for some trifle or another, and the Minister at
home can do nothing but sanction and abet. In fact,
it is a bureaucratic that governs France, that has
governed, and will govern it, under Louis Napoleon,
aye, and under Cavaignac
as he is, but infeodated as he
order. The French bureaucratic is
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of course monarchic, which is very ungrateful of it,
for it enjoys greater power, and exercises greater
tyranny at present than it did in the days of any
monarch. But then it fears that the golden reign
may not last. An official aristocracy cannot well
stand based on universal suffrage, and yet universal
suffrage has rendered the French bureaucratic more
powerful and numerous in the republican Assembly
than ever it was before. But, as they say, this is not
solid; and they would sacrifice the freedom and the
greatness of France to-morrow to any king of any
race, or of any principle, that would secure them
this monopoly. It is the same thing in Prussia, ex-
cept that the Prussian bureaucratic will not tolerate
even constitutionalism, which it considers hostile
to it; whereas French officials would at
least have the form of representative go-
vernment, although with so little of either
the reality or the advantages, that but for the
appearance of the thing they might invoke absolutism
at once. The struggle in France and in Prassia is
now much the same. It lies between the bureau-
cracies and the people, the former supported by the
army, of which the officers form a class and hierarchy
of placemen, with interests similar to the civilian
servants of the state. The people of both countries
have the satisfaction of seeing that they pay largely to
support these classes for tyrannising over them. An
aristocracy weighs over both countries, not an aristo-
cracy of either birth, wealth, or talent, but an aris-
tocracy of placemen. It is the system of centraliza-
tion which supports them. And it is for the people to
devise how they can get rid of these incubi, and go-
vern themselves constitutionally and monarchically if
they will, but without an official multitude to prey
upon them and tyrannise over them. This is-far more
important than to decide whether a Legitimatist, a
quasi-Legitimatist, or a Republican chief shall be the
head man—the great chef de bureau of the bureau-
cracy.