reach Capel Court by double entry after all. The workings of the company popularly known as the “Crédit Mobilier,” may give some clue to the fashion of the Imperial thought upon such subjects. Credit, if we mistake not, is to be the keystone of the system, without those precautionary reserves which the late Sir Robert Peel would have deemed indispensable for the success of his financial operations. This matter should be regarded seriously. The announcement of it is the most important event of Last Week. Europe may have somewhat to dread from France gorged with prosperity—but still more from desperate and bankrupt France.
Pounds, shillings, and pence—or rather francs and centimes—apart, what has Louis Napoleon been about for the last seven days? He has been endeavouring to restore harmony between himself and the Parisian workmen irritated with the high price of lodgings and the dearness of tobacco. He has been marking his definitive rupture with the parti prêtre which has served his turn, and may now be cast aside, or at least reduced to obedience. The fag-ends of cigars, and the broken fragments of pipes, which have been cast by the workmen on the path where he takes his usual walk, have produced more effect upon the mind of Louis Napoleon than the headless arrows of the Ultramontane clergy.
To the workmen the Emperor deigns to explain his tobacco policy, and there is little doubt that if the explanation does not suffice to conjure away the storm of cigar-ends and broken pipes, Louis Napoleon will give way. He is too wise a ruler to drive men desperate by putting out their pipes. Obstinate old George III. lost his North American provinces for a pound of tea; Louis Napoleon will not put his crown in danger for an ounce of tobacco. For the priests he has a different word. Cromwell could not have taken a higher tone with a High-Church bishop of his day than the French Emperor now does with his recalcitrant clergy. They must follow as he leads, or—! The English Protector gave the Irish malcontents in his time the choice between emigration to Connaught, or to a point which lay still further south—and this is much the tone adopted last week by Louis Napoleon with his protesting bishops. The day of genuflexions and pilgrimages in company with the graceful Eugénie to the shrines of the Breton peasant is at an end. Louis Napoleon now leaves the Holy Father exposed to the full force of circumstances, and what he calls the inevitable logic of facts. Well, just now the “inevitable logic” means the occupation of the late Papal territory—save the patrimony of St. Peter—by the national troops. It means the presence of an overwhelming French force in Rome and the patrimony of St. Peter itself. It means a bankrupt exchequer, and the benefit of the act—or worse—for Pio Nono ere the coming winter is at an end.
So far of Joseph Garibaldi and Louis Napoleon: let us not lose sight of our own First Minister, and his doings, during the Last Week. Lord Palmerston is as much the expression of the aspirations and wishes of English society, at the latter end of the nineteenth century, as Garibaldi is of struggling—and now well-nigh triumphant—Italy, or Louis Napoleon of France, weary of revolutions and loving glory well, but money still more. Time was when these islands were ruled by the great revolution families or the Whig connection. Then George III. and the younger Pitt, with their batches of new peers, had it all their own way. Then the Radicals and Reformers practically ruled over us for a term of years, and great lords and great statesmen, and all who aimed at the peer’s coronet, and the seals of office, were compelled to pay court to the populace. These were the palmy days for political adventurers. There has come, at last, a time when Englishmen are weary of these things, or, more properly speaking, are content with what has been gained, and do not care for revolution principles or quintessence of Whiggery, or great Tory Peers, or High Prerogative Attorney-Generals, or Demagogues, or the Five Points of the Charter. See, last session, what a failure resulted from the attempt to galvanise the dead movement of 1831-32 into fresh life. Times are changed. It is idle to look in July for last winter’s snow, or to water apple-trees in December with hot water, after the fashion of Triptolemus Yellowly, in search of a second crop. Lord Palmerston is the man who has had the wisdom to discern how English society is to be ruled during the current decennial period.
In the absence of all strong political passions and feelings, the statesman who is a good-humoured embodiment of the public opinion of his country is our appropriate chief. When we are not running crazy about a war, or engaged in mad speculation, the characteristic of English society is common sense. Lord Palmerston is common sense personified. He knows how to deal with men, and therefore men like to deal with him. He is neither a fanatic nor a sceptic in religion; he will hold his own against the Court, when need is, and yet maintain the authority of the Crown; he is touchy, and perhaps a trifle too well inclined to parade the British Lion in his dealings with foreign powers—in our very hearts we are all inclined to give that noble animal an airing now and then. He is not too great an orator. In the year 1860 we would no more consent to be ruled by a great orator, than by an eminent tragedian. Although he every now and then falls into the mistake of treating a political adversary with something very much like contempt in the House of Commons,—as a set-off, when addressing himself to the country—he has all the exquisite tact of Scarlett when “going to a jury.” Nobody knows better than Lord Palmerston the value of a sandwich composed of two commonplaces and a bad joke. This style of oratory is not great, but it suits us just now. Then there is the genial humour of the man when out of harness. Despite of his seventy and odd years—and what dull people call the cares of State—the English Premier is as ready for an afternoon’s rabbit-shooting as a great schoolboy. With all this he is in very truth a statesman of great experience—of close discernment—of high administrative ability—and a lover of his country. Lord Palmerston’s Yorkshire progress, with a cheerful word, and a cordial grasp of the hand for all who came across him, may fairly be reckoned amongst the events of Last Week.