plomacy is supposed to consist. It was due mainly to Richard Cobden; a man so open, so honest, so upright in life, so devoid of all chicanery and subtlety, so pure alike in his means and ends, that when he died, his bitterest antagonists mourned the loss which England suffered; yet a inan possessed of so luminous a mind, and so persuasive a tongue, that what the tortuous course of professional diplomacy either could not have done at all, or could only have done by slow and tedious steps, he did briefly and with ease. It is hard to over-estimate the benefit both to France and to England, and indeed to the world, which resulted from the Commercial Treaty which Cobden persuaded the Emperor to conclude. Besides stimulating the trade of the two nations, and especially that of France, the announcement of that treaty heightened the estimation in which the Emperor was held by France, diminished that dislike and distrust which had hitherto embarrassed his reign, surprised and pleased the civilized nations, and seemed to confirm the famous words of Bordeaux, that the Emperor was, in truth, Peace. Nothing could be a stronger proof that Napoleon III. had committed his fortunes to the tide of public opinion-that he stood ready to yield to the demands of his generation. From the date of that Treaty, France seems to have fully entered upon a new career, less brilliant, perhaps, than she had anticipated, but far more wholesome, far more productive of happiness and content.

Could we, in trying to depict the Empire, in its salient phases, stop here, it would be a grateful ending; but, unhappily, the exigences of despotism have given the picture its darker side, and that, too, must be seen, to appreciate the whole.

To the stranger who, for pleasure or business, passes rapidly from one country to another, France wears a beautiful mask. We Americans, especially, who come from the land par excellence of railway and steamboat accidents and dusky stations, contemplate with wonder the regularity, the comfort, and the ra

pidity of the French railway system; we, who read every morning, when we are at home, of daring burglaries, of the commission of crime in a hundred forms, are struck with the perfect order of the French cities, the surprising and mysterious control of the police, and the rarity of those violations of law so common with us; we see with delight the sparkle of Parisian society, the grandeur of Parisian streets and monuments, the wealth of the Parisian world, the bright and unanxious semblance of prosperity which pervades almost every quarter of the French metropolis. Passing beyond Paris, we are yet more charmed to note everywhere the same cheerful and thrifty aspect; there are fields with their golden burdens of wheat and corn, manufacturing towns bustling with occupation, quiet, sunny little villages lying peacefully along the river-sides, where all seems content and peace, and whither the jars and miseries of man's lot seem never to have penetrated; stately cathedral towns, with their famous memories, seemingly indolent, prosperous, ignorant of want, apparently revelling in a complete sufficiency. Here, everywhere, all is order, security, peace, content. France seems, in some places, to be resting from the turmoils of the past seventy years; in other places, to have roused herself, and to be seizing the opportunity which orderly government has provided, to enrich herself and to rival the industrial progress of the Anglo-Saxon races. harbors you will find full of ships; her manufactories busy; her farms under thrifty cultivation; her vineyards, in autumn, groaning under the prolific yield of their precious fruit. You are surprised to find such apparent prosperity everywhere, such order in administration, such activity in public and private improvement! But this, for the most part, is a bright and beautiful mask, under which the sombre reality lies hid; the paint on the mask is too bright to be natural, the over-redness of the cheeks, the over-whiteness of the brow, the over-blackness of the lashes, the rigidity of the smile, the stare of the regard, reveal its want of truth. The

Her

That is

Empire has given to France at least a semblance of prosperity, and you must study her attentively to discover whether it is, or not, a veritable prosperity. Without question, it is a veritable prosperity, viewed in certain lights. Compared with the days of the Bourbons, or even those of Louis Philippe, there is a great material improvement. partly due to the feeling of security, resulting from the strength of the dynasty, and a confidence that it will hold its own; partly to the liberal progress made by reason of the adoption of treetrade principles; and partly to the great administrative vigor of the Government, which has been active in carrying out internal improvements. The truth, however, is, that there is in France at once high prosperity, and great want; prosperity among the few and the rich, want among the vast majority and the poor. At the time of writing, the misery of great masses of the French population exceeds that of any period since the foundation of the second Empire.

What is the price which France pays for her security? What does the Empire cost her how does absolute despotism sustain itself? Several months ago there appeared in Paris a pamphlet, which was written either by the Imperial hand or under Imperial inspiration, triumphantly calling attention to the "Titles of the Napoleonic dynasty." We were told in it how Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was elected President of the Republic in 1848, by five and a half millions of votes against two millions; how he was elected, in 1851, President for ten years, by seven and a half out of eight millions; how the Empire was reëstablished in his person in 1852, by 7,800,000 out of 8,140,000. And these were "the titles of the dynasty," on the principle of Vox Populi, vox Dei, which was, indeed, the motto of the pamphlet. But a title to power, even founded on universal suffrage, is nowadays far less important than the manner in which that power is exercised. There is, therefore, a perfect answer to the Imperial pamphlet. How have you used your power? What has it cost, and has it, balancing cost against

benefit, paid? An able French statistician, turning the other side of the shield, has undertaken to show. Between 1851 and 1857 the sum-total of the expenses of the Government amounted to 31,000,000,000 of francs; between 1857 and 1867 that sum was far more than doubled. Dividing up the present rates of taxation, it is found that the quota due from every family in France is 240 francs, the mean income of each family being 1,000 francs; that is to say, the State takes from each family a quarter of its annual income! And what a story does that tell! Do you wonder that, if you turn aside from the brilliant thoroughfares of the cities (where the police are careful to keep mendicancy out of sight), the streets swarm with beggars, whose air and manner of asking show them to be tyros in the most humiliating of earthly arts? Is it strange that there are strikes, and here and there a riot, and suicides, and emigrations by the thousand? You see nothing of it on the surface, where all is fair. But leave the Rue de Rivoli behind in Paris, and work your way up those dark and repulsive labyrinths of which Faubourg St. Antoine is a complicated network, and sights will present themselves which are galling and dramatic satires on this proud Empire, which rests on soldiers who are supported by a quarter of the incomes of France! Yet, with this crushing taxation, so appalling to the mind of one of the ablest writers in France that he recently exclaimed, "France is ruining herself, without reason or profit!" with this enormous income derived from the people, the debt has increased to nearly three thousand millions; there have been no less than six loans between 1854 and 1867, which together have amounted to 2,700 millions.

Statistics are called dry; and yet, sometimes, they have a touching and romantic interest. I cannot but think those quoted above tell a mournful and sadly interesting tale. Let me refer to them just a moment longer; let us compare America with France. The populations of the two countries are not far

from equal. The expenses of the French Government amount to considerably over fifteen millions of francs-or, three millions of dollars-a day; while during our great Rebellion, when we had to sustain the most gigantic war of modern times, and at the same time to carry on our internal administration and our foreign service, our total expenses did not amount to more than two thirds of that sum. That is, France has to sustain, in time of peace, a burden one third greater than we sustained in the midst of the Rebellion! Do not figures speak? and is not security an unwonted luxury in France? One more statistical fact, not unallied with historic significance, and we have done. What was the keynote of the first French Revolution-what was its grim watchword? "Breadgive us BREAD!" The want of bread, quite as much as the want of liberty, brought that sweeping, gaunt human torrent, out of the squalid depths of St. Antoine down upon the Tuileries. Well, bread is to-day in France worth five sous (cents) a pound-loaf. Your workman, who earns two francs a day, and has a family, must give nearly half his day's earning for bread to fill his and their mouths between sun-up and sun-down. As for meat, it is quite beyond his means; 'tis a hard struggle even to get bread. The ominous discontent of old revolution times is abroad once more; its watchword, as of old, is "bread; its rallying cry is the law-tabooed Marseillaise. So that security for the support of which Monsieur is mulcted a quarter of his income, is not so reliable a thing, after all. Beggary is frightfully on the increase; the number of starved, and of dead from exposure, last winter, was appalling. And affairs grow no better as the months pass on. For the security which despotism offers, France groans with taxes, is crowded with beggars, and becomes again volcanic.

But is this all that the Empire costs the nation? Think of our glorious Northern army, in Rebellion days: how enormous we thought it, how large a proportion of our stalwart arms and sinews, how many of the friends and

relatives of every one of us, it drew away to the Southern field. It was never, at any one time, so large as that army which the French Government created as its permanent army last winter. How hard it is to imagine a permanent army of a million and a half of men! Our army was for a purpose; its end gained, it would dissolve; its organization was but for a time, its withdrawal of tillers from their fields, of merchants from their desks, of carpenters from their shops, was but temporary, and it would soon yield the greater part of them back to the generative arts of peace. But France lies weak under the continual drain; there, the subtraction of strong hands from industry is constant and enormous. Who will calculate what these thousands of strong hands, forced from the plough and the anvil to make sure her security, are worth to France? Is not there in this, a fine yet more oppressive than even the direct financial one? But the Empire must be sustained, even if the women alone are left to garner the harvests and shoe the horses; even if the obstacles to marriage do become so great that the population will deteriorate in numbers and capacity; even if bread be dear, and poor devils sing the Marseillaise, and beggars multiply, and gaunt want stares you in the face everywhere -for where else can you find security? The "titles of the Napoleonic dynasty," founded on votes taken, not entirely without violence, when the French, wearied with long disorder, were rather "drummed" than invited to the polls, -are they such, or not, as to give an excuse to what may be called this military extravagance, which yet does not yield any fruit of conquest, or even of greater respect compelled from other nations? The very appearance of this Imperial pamphlet, which is seen to be clearly an electioneering document, addressed to the people on the eve of an election, having a similar mission to that of those little congressional brochures which "my constituents" receive from the Hon. So-and-so at Washington, indicates a distrust on the part of Napoleon, a fear lest his popularity has

vanished-under grievous taxation and relentless conscription. The necessity of such a pamphlet would seem to prove that the Empire is having constantly increasing demands upon its strength, and diminished powers of satisfying them; and when a Government has reached that point, it is vain to point to its "titles."

But are burdensome taxation, and remorseless conscription—the constant drain upon those two sinews of internal prosperity, money and men-all that the Empire has cost France? Even now, when the edifice is declared to be crowned, there is seen to be one great and vital loss which France has sustained-one terribly usurious price she has had to pay for her security. Verily, she gave up her liberty for a mess of pottage—and the mess of pottage having turned out to be less savory and less healthful than she had thought, she wants her liberty back again-too late. The Empire has cost France her liberty. Its chief is an irresponsible, absolute, irremovable Executive. Pretending to rule by means of a representative legislature, he really rules by the simple exercise of his own will. If the Chamber adopts the proposals of his ministerial instruments, well and good; if not, neither he nor his Ministers are effected, but go on in spite of the Chambers. There is neither religious, political, legislative, press, nor verbal freedom in France. Let me adduce some instances of each, personally known to ine. It is well known that it is permitted to a Frenchman to work or play on Sunday, if he desires it; and it is a fact that a very large proportion of the population do both. But to work on a Romish saint's day is a grave offence. A farmer near Bordeaux, a Protestant, who therefore did not observe saints' days, had some hay cut, and, on the morning of a fete, being apprehensive of rain, proceeded to gather it into his barn. The cure of his village gave information to the police, the farmer was arrested, and suffered a month's imprisonment. Had he gathered his Had he gathered his hay on a Sunday, no notice would have

been taken of it; but he had desecrated the natal day of a Romish saint, and hence must pay the penalty. Here is another case, showing the absence of religious freedom. A young student of medicine recently passed his examination, and received his diploma as a doctor. It is necessary for all candidates for the doctorate of medicine in France, to write a medical thesis and present it to his professor. By some means or other, the thesis of the young man referred to, reached the eyes of the Bishop of Orleans. That worthy prelate found some expressions in the paper which he did not regard as 66 orthodox." He protested against it, and the result was that a ministerial decree was issued, by which the new doctor was suspended from practice, until the obnoxious thesis was re-written, and the "heresies" erased. It is, perhaps, notorious to American readers that no Protestant church can be established in France without especial permission from the Government, which is rarely given, and when given, is so hampered by degrading and discouraging conditions, as to deprive the project of its utility. Could I pause to consider this topic more in detail, it could easily be shown that not only is there very little religious freedom in France, but that, in some parts of the Empire, the persecutions which all those who dissent from Romanism undergo, are suggestive of the age of Louis XIV. and Charles IX. Political, or electoral freedom, is much circumscribed in France. The extent of official manipulation in the rural elections can never be known; but that it is extensive, is certain. The police are known to be active on election-days, drumming up ignorant farmers and ouvriers, thrusting votes into their hands, and leading them to the polls. . The right of canvassing is confined to the government agents; the Opposition attempts it at its peril. I have heard of a case of a farmer, who being sick on election-day, and having been requested by the mayor of the village to go and vote, sent his wife thither to excuse his absence; whereupon the mayor naïvely remarked

that she could vote in place of her husband, and thrusting a government ballot in her hand, pointed out the ballot box. It is not needful to give further illustrations; suffice it to say that the Government, with its vast official machinery and patronage, its troops and gendarmes, its protection by law, has every facility to influence the Vor Populi, and to intone it to grateful exaltations of the Empire; while the Opposition is so cramped and fettered by the law, that it is, as an active political agent, almost powerless. You ask, why such things are not generally known, and, being known, why they do not produce a great reaction against the Empire? The answer is simple. It is because the press dare not publish such things. Thus, you see, one despotic law aids another. Were a paper to publish such facts, it would deliberately commit suicide. The official power may do such things with impunity, because there is no fear of publicity; they are done in the rural districts, and the rumor of them, unaided by wide-informing type, will not go far. And this brings us to the state of the French press, of which we can only speak with great brevity. Perfect liberty of the press, I do not believe to be a thing desirable for France. French passions are too violent, French ideas are too visionary, the French love of agitation is too overpowering. Were there complete liberty of the press, there would be a chronic state of revolution. It is almost impossible for a French journalist, unless severely restrained, to discuss political and religious subjects with calmness. Liberty of the press would mean war of the press forever and ever. But this is, only to a certain limit, a justification of restraints put upon the press. Taking advantage of the dangers of a perfectly free press in France, the Empire, for its own ends, has gone to the furtherest, and a most lamentable, extreme; and the new bill on the press, passed last winter, makes but a trifling improvement. The stamp-duty on daily political papers is six centimes (1 cents). That is a first and very material draw

back, and effectually prohibits that greater educator of the lower classes-a cheap press. But that is the least of its restraints. The main alleviation which the bill of last winter effects, is that, under its provisions, newspapers are no longer under the direct control of the Minister of the Interior. Ilis authority is transferred to the judges of the tribunals of correctional police. The stringent laws against the press remain in all their ancient force; the change is one simply of jurisdiction; the power to punish is judicial, where it was before ministerial. The judges being, as well as the ministers, creatures of and dependent on the Emperor, and being, moreover, notoriously devoted to the dynasty and severe upon its opponents, the gain to the press even in this respect does not seem to be a very great one. Compare the offences of the press with the punishments awarded to them, and you will see, at a glance, how unduly the press is restricted in France. Papers are prosecuted for false news, for abridged reports of the debates in the Chambers, for "exciting to hatred and contempt of the Government "—and under this head, almost every imaginable expression distasteful to the authorities may be punished-for defamation of private character (as is proper), for threatening articles, for articles tending to disturb the public peace, and many other kindred causes. If a paper states that the Pope is dangerously ill, and it turns out to be not true, that paper is liable to prosecution. If it states that the Emperor's health is poorly, and creates misgiving, and this is simply the truth,—the paper may and probably will be prosecuted for publishing news which "tends to disturb the public peace." In fact, a paper can hardly say any thing at all on a political subject, in a sense in the slightest degree adverse to the Government, which will not render it amenable, under one or other of these heads, to punishment. The customary punishments, for offences of lesser gravity, are fine and imprisonment; the fines ranging from 100 to 10,000 francs, the imprisonments from a fortnight to two