TEN YEARS OF IMPERIALISM IN FRANCE.*

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1742, 15 November 1862, Page 5

TEN YEARS OF IMPERIALISM IN FRANCE.*

[From the “Times.’’]

There has not been published for many a day a more remarkable book on France than this, which professes to be only tire impressions of a flaneur. It is so good, indeed, that w:i cannot think of the author as in any true sense what he pretends to be. No doubt, he thoroughly understands the flaneur’s love of amusement, and he has all that freshness of power which freedom from pre-occupation gives to the same happy being. But a flaneur would scarcely propose to himself a subject so definite as that which we find marked out in the present title-page, nor would he discuss it with sustained vigour and with undeviating purpose through a dozen admirable chapters. Here is a great theme proposed—What has Napoleon done with France ? What, after 10 years, lias been the result of Imperial rule ? In no work that we know of has the great theme been so thoroughly) so fairly, and so pleasantly handled as in this book which goes forth to the world as that of a mere flaneur. It has all the

liveliness and sparkle of a work written only for amusement; it has all the solidity and weight of a State paper ; and we expect for it not a little political influence as a fair, full, and masterly statement of the Imperial policy—the first and only good account that has been given to Europe of the Napoleonic system as now in force. The author, who takes, on the whole, a favourable view of French Imperialism, is never betrayed into partisanship, does not wink at the iniquities for which the Second Empire is responsible, meets the difficulties of the discussion in full front, and altogether forbears from dogmatizing, though it may be that the wonderful vivacity of his illustrations and his good forcible English may lead some readers to imagine that he is more favourable to the Empire than lie really is. The French Empire hitherto has been extremely successfi.il, and since its establishment there is no doubt that France has been unusally prosperous. It would be ungenerous to deny to the Imperial Government its share of credit for this prosperity, but it is a fallacy to give to it the lion’s share. This the author does not consciously do, but the reader of his work will be apt to over-rate the influence of the French Government. Much the greater part of French prosperity is due to causes which are quite independent of Governments. There is a similar fallacy in this country. Since the commercial disasters of 1817 we have had enormous successesin our trade —a prodigious increase of wealth. As in France there are people who attribute the prosperity of the country to the Empire, so in England there are men of one idea, who ascribe all our gains to free trade. We have as little desire to depreciate the Empire as to decry free trade, —the former may be as valuable as we know the latter to be. But it is folly to forget what both countries owe to railways, to steam navigation extended even across the ocean, to the telegraph, and to the discovery of gold in California and in Australia. These powerful influences have without Imperialism doubled the prosperity of England, as without free trade they have doubled that of France. France wanted but rest and wealth was in her grasp. Thar rest, that security, Napoleon gave her, but it is in no other sense that he can be said to have created the prosperity of the country. Perhaps this point might have been put more strongly by the author, who attaches more importance to the doings of the Imperial Government than we can; but whether in this he is right or wrong, he brings forward in the course of Ids work a large number of facts which show that long before the establishment of the Empire the relations of trade and manufacture throughout the country had begun to improve in a very marked manner, and that thus the Imperial Government had the good fortune to reap what it had not sowm. It must be confessed that history does not take much note of the difference between luck and merit in princes. In our own history, we think of the reign of Elizabeth as a sort of golden age, in happy contrast to the reigns of Mary, of Edward, and the latter years of Henry, forgetting how little of this was due to Elizabeth or her Ministers, and how much of it to social causes over which they had no control. If Elizabeth gets all the benefit of renown from a prosperity which site did not

create, save only as she held her hand from war, French Imperialists may argue that we need not grudge to Napoleon the glory of having saved his country and doubled its wealth, especially since we never fail to remember against him that in doing so he has gone far to double the national debt. What is the most marked characteristic of the Imperial system is its enormous activity. Much of the activity leads to valuable results, all of it is shrewdly devised, and we are grateful to the author, who has taken the trouble to analyze-it in detail, to collect most valuable inf irmation for us on many important points, and to set it all before us in chapters well digessed and brilliantly written. Most people are pretty well acquainted with the foreign policy of France, and whether they like it or not, can pay the homage of their respect to a course of conduct which has placed the French Emperor at the head of European politics. But thegreat mass of Englishmenarenotsowellacquainted with the Emperor’s home policy. Here they will find it most clearly displayed. The writer does not leave out of consideration the coup d'clal and the curse which it entailed upon the Imperial system. Indeed, his argument is that the Imperial system is not itself, because it is warped by the original sin, which has since compelled restriction, repression, and suspicion. It is this curse and it consequences of restraint and repression that Englishmen have chiefly studied, and the author is anxious that we should not look at the matter in another light. The Government, he says, is trying to work itself free from the consequences of that first fatal step, and can only do so gradually; in the meantime let us look at its real work; and accordingly in a series of brilliant chapters he explains to the English public what that work has been. In the first place Paris has been almost rebuilt, and the author devotes three chapters to describing what old Paris was, what new Paris is, what has been the course of the change, and what are its collateral results in society, in commerce, and in polities. These chapters are all exceedingly interesting, nothing can be more lively than the descriptions, and the general conclusions of the author appeared to hold good. The Emperor has written his name for ever upon Paris; he has given employment to vast numbers of people, and the revenues of Paris have been equal to the work. Everybody has been to Paris, however, and knows more or less about the rebuilding of the French capital. The ground is more unknown when in the next chapter the author treats of tire French army. We have endeavoured from time to time in this journal to give our readers some idea of the changes which have been effected in the French army —changes of equipment, of manoeuvre, of regimental structure, and of general organization. Strik. ing as all these changes have been, there is none so radical as that which has transformed the army from being a conscript to be in great measure a volunteer army Upon this our author principally dwells, and in reading the very vivid chapter in which the change is described, one is most impressed with the cleverness of the Imperial policy. So we are led on to discuss other subjects—the influence of the Government on railways and public works, on commerce, on the freedom ot trade, or the rage for speculation, on the relation of workmen and employer, on literature and the press. All these subjects are admirably treated, with a fullness of information that leaves nothing to be desired. The general result of the facts which are hear brought into a focus with rare literary ability will bo to raise considerably the public estimate of the Imperial Government—it may be to silence for a time its more violent detractors. Upon one point especially it is supposed that the Imperial system is opened to attack, and especial attantion should be given to our author’s defence of it. Literature in France is well nigh dead, and this is always mentioned as the last and crowning proof of the ruin which Imperialism has wrought in France. It has struck at the heart of the country; it has killed the mind. Let us be just to the Empire. As we do not think that it deserves all the credit which it claims for the material prosperity of France, so neither do we think that it deserves the discredit which its enemies cast upon it for its literary inanition. Our author shows this very clearly from an examination of the recent literature of France, and it may be well to observe that ten years before the French Empire was established, one of the most sober critics in France, M. St. Marc Girardin, following precisely the same argument as we have here, declared that at least the imaginative literature of the country had no root in the heart of the people, and must perish utterly. It is unnecessary to point out the importance of the relation between imaginative and other literature. If the one perishes, the other dwindles. The destruction which Girardin calmly predicted in 1842, our author calmly surveys in 1862, and rightly attributes to causes at work within French literature itself.

After all it is the forign policy of France that, to.nas foreigners, is the subject of most solicit Englishmen will be glad to see that in his homely, tlte Emperor is doing so much for the good country. Butin foreign policy, what may be glory of France may prove disastrous to all f.’cn. the world. We may admire the French arnciman reguarded from a military or from a polit’ view; but, as Englishmen, we have s* criticize French armaments. We are f . dwell upon the point, and our only to it is that the author generalizes por ono are prepared to do on the NapoE J nce from sovereignty of the people, and ; d ] dlis paper nationalities, We do not muc 1 ' u “ r r ' when stated in general terms. acred foi 77777 ~ “TTnately alp Celebrated Ten } ears of Imperials to hand a flaneur. Edinburgh, Wj. D, IJ,

well when it is successful, but Englishmen are illogical enough to dislike putting their sympathy with this or that revolution into a general formula. Because we rejoice to see a Kingdom of Italy we need not shout the championship of nationalities ; and because we admire a work of extraordinary cleverness on what Napoleonism has done for France, we need not huzza for the sovereignty of the peoples and universal suffrage.