Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/538

 530 over the Court and the army, people talked of the inauguration of a fresh Reign of Terror. We were to have Danton, Marat, Robespierre over again, and Fouquier-Tinville, and the death-cart, and the guillotine, and the insane chorus of revolutionary tricoteuses, singing their ça-ira, ça-ira song, with dry lips, and eyes greedy of blood. Very wise old gentlemen in the clubs of St. James’s Street prophesied that what had been would be again, and that the “fell demon of revolution” once aroused, would run his course. Not much came of it. In place of the Committee of Public Safety and the Directory, and what not, we had that luxurious monarchy of July which began with one job and ended with another. Belgium followed the example of France, and certainly Europe has little cause to complain of troubles which have their origin in Brussels, save in so far as the circumspect and constitutional widower acts as the over-zealous tool of the German Courts in their negotiations with Great Britain. Unconsciously, King Leopold, hackneyed as he is in the ways of courts and diplomatists, may very possibly have been helping forward a great calamity. He has ruled his own little kingdom to admiration, but out of Belgium he has been the dynastic agent of the German sovereigns. Were it not that even now the German nations have but a scant idea of political liberty, we might contrast their conduct in 1848-49, very unfavourably with that of the Italians in the years 1859-60. The Italians have proved that they are more ready to make sacrifices of life and property than the Germans were twelve years ago, and yet the Germans affect to look down upon them as an inferior race. Italy will yet be a nation, and will occupy a grand place at the council table of Europe, before Germany has arrived at the conclusion that a union of despotism and pedantry is not the best possible form of government. But even in Germany what a change since 1830; and since 1815! From the-Baltic to the Alps, and from the Rhine to the Russian borders it is no longer possible that men can be ruled upon the old system. In those lands the thinkers are a patient, metaphysical race enough, but even they can scarcely be stirred again to do battle for the old war-cries. They have been tricked and derided by their rulers too often; matchless as their forbearance is, it is worn thread-bare. It is not possible that they could be induced to make any fresh sacrifices for the perpetuation of principles which, however sacred in the eyes of their rulers, can scarcely be said to affect their own interests in any other than an injurious sense.

The other day the Emperor of Austria met his brother of Russia, and his brother of Prussia, at Warsaw; but what was the story which he had to tell? Of the two fairest provinces of his empire, one had just been torn from him by the fortune of war; the other was all but in open revolt. Such was the end of the policy of Metternich and Felix Schwarzenberg, and of the good old principles of “Thorough,” as applied to Austrian affairs. Even the sturdy mountaineers of the Tyrol, who had been a bye word in Europe for their blind attachment to the House of Hapsburgh, have at last given way. The discontent is universal—the finances of the empire well-nigh exhausted—the fresh conscriptions more and more intolerable from day to day. It is clear that Francis Joseph of Austria could not bring much strength to the confederacy. Then for the young Russian, the military might of his empire was exhausted in the Crimea, and in the weary death-marches of his regiments from one extremity of the Russian dominions to the other. Above all, the prestige of what our journalists used to call the Russian Colossus was quite overthrown. One of the most important—perhaps the most important result of the Crimean war—was to dispel all illusions upon that point. We can now tell accurately enough what force the Russians would be able to bring into the field beyond their own frontiers—what would be their resources for transport—how they would be armed—and how nourished—and, above all, upon what financial basis their operations must repose. Prussia, no doubt, remains intact, but she has suffered most grievously in character since her refusal to share in the honours and perils of the great European war of 1854—561854-56 [sic]. We cannot refuse to take into serious account the action of a Government which can bring so many disciplined troops into the field; but it may be said with perfect truth that, beyond the borders of that disjointed kingdom, not a single pulse in Europe throbs quicker, or harder, at the mention of the Prussian name. They have stood alone—so let them stand; if they are to fall alone, so let them fall. They would not stretch out a finger, nor risk a thaler, to help us in the hour of our need, so that henceforward in our dealings with them we shall only be guided by that prudent regard to our own interests, which, after all, is perhaps the basis of all wise action in human affairs. The Prussians have done much of late to make their name odious in the ears of Englishmen. One word upon this.

It is impossible to speak in terms of very high admiration of the conduct of many of our countrymen when they are taking their pleasure on the continent of Europe. Had it pleased any foreign gentleman—had it pleased the police of any foreign country to seize a peccant Briton who had been misconducting himself in any way during his European travels—Englishmen at home would have been the first to say, “By all means! The fellow is rightly served.”

Let our own countrymen, however, bear their fair share of blame; or rather, let others bear their burdens as well as they. But the insolence of your French or German tourist travelling upon the continent of Europe is to the full upon a par with that of the Englishman. He is as ^ aggressive upon the steamer or railway—as noisy and selfish at the hotel—more prying, more punctilious than your regular John Bull, with his plaid shooting-coat, and felt hat. However, to accuse others is not to free our own people from blame. If an English traveller had really misconducted himself in a railway carriage, we should have rejoiced to have seen him duly punished, even although all the French and German travellers of the same season had set him the example. But what was the truth of this wretched affair at Bonn, the other day? A railway train stops at the Bonn station; an