Milan without its cathedral, or Amsterdam without its windmills; and the citizens-if by such a name the wild people of that time could be called-grumbled and threatened resistance.

An exception will awaken one to a consciousness of the nature of the prevailing law of æsthetics here. Between the bridges, a monument dedicated to the late Emperor Francis may be repeatedly passed by the stranger unobserved; when he does notice it, however, he finds it to be a considerable thing, in the prim angular Gothic of the modern German school. It has been compared to Scott's Monument in Edinburgh, but so depressed is it in the presence of its wild herd of companions, that it looks like something one would try to put on a drawing-table.

Prague is orderly for the time being, but not with that deep-centred orderliness that appears in Berlin. The mark of the pressure is visible. There is specially conspicuous one of the Continental characteristics most offensive to inhabitants of Britain-the eternal soldier. I never saw him any where else so rife and ubiquitous. And not only had he the practice, unusual elsewhere, of marching on the pavement, but I have seen there the whole street, from wall to wall, swept by heavy columns. I wonder now, were a British subject swept off the pavement in this manner, would it be a case for redress? The preliminary step to the settlement of so interesting a constitutional question is too disagreeable, however, to be undertaken. It does not commend them to one's tolerance to remember that their flag is very deficient in the grand victorious traditions which give lustre to others such as that of France, of Prussia, and even of Russia; and that any awe and deference they receive is earned by their adaptability to home use. Those azure gallooned spindles of theirs seem indeed somehow to have a fugitive volatility about them

better suiting them for the retreat than the advance; and there is a working-day, hard, dull tone imparted to all their movements from the absence of music-nothing to guide their march but the tin-kettle rat-tat, so common in Germany. I found out, by the way, why the German troops do not, like ours, march through the towns to the performance of a band: the passion of the Germans for music is so powerful that it would be impossible to get through the mob brought together by such a performance. I made the discovery thus: One morning, at five o'clock, I was awakened in the Victoria in Dresden by very lively music. It was a military band, marching along, not followed by the rank and file, but having in front, in rear, and on either flank, a compact body of civilians, well dressed in dark clothes, who marched in line, and kept step with perfect precision. Every one has remarked how, when troops march along the streets with us, the extreme rabble march with them as if on solemn duty, their countenances and general bearing imparting defiance, and the announcement that "Britons never, never shall be slaves!" Many of the well-dressed classes perhaps feel the attraction, but are ashamed to give way to it. These, however, formed the bulk of the Saxon procession, insomuch that, while with us a regiment changing quarters is like a red shawl with a ragged fringe, here the resemblance was to a black pall with a patch of blue let into its centre.

Is it, by the way, a relish for music, or the reverse, that so addicts the Bohemians to hand-organs that the whole country is strewed with them? Pickets of grinders are posted round every town and village. One grinds on continuously, another waits till a passer-by comes nearly opposite, and then opens his orchestra. The wretch expects to be paid, totally oblivious of how powerful is the restraint which the poor, frail, human creature must

place on himself who abstains from smashing his infernal machine into lucifer - matches. So completely are the very winds tainted with this organism, that I thought I could feel a faint suspicion of it even in the breezes that swept the summits of the Bohemian mountains.

But I am getting into disagreeable topics, and had better stop. One word to the reader before

parting. I found that the innkeepers this year expected a deficiency in the touring harvest owing to that northern meteor, the London Exhibition. To those wise persons to whom a word is sufficient, this will indicate the present as decidedly a suitable season for a Continental ramble; and I hope all who take it may find it a pleasant one.

TEN YEARS

WISDOM crying in the streets in the person of a flaneur, is a novel spectacle. It is in the quiet closet. of the student that we look for a Montesquieu or a De Tocqueville; but here comes a lounger of Paris, an habitué of the cafés, an aimless stroller on the boulevards, to instruct us in one of the most interesting, and not least momentous, epochs of modern times. The period is only ten years, it is true -and they refer only to France. The Flaneur does not lift his regards to Europe. He does not seek to explain or discuss the foreign policy of Napoleon III. He - tells us nothing that affects the now moot question of our fortifications, iron fleets, and Armstrong guns. It is Imperialism at home that forms the subject of his musings. The Emperor in relation to the Army, to Paris, to Socialism, to Commerce-such is his subject: and when he speaks of the Imperial policy abroad, he contents himself with viewing it from within, and estimates it only by its influence upon the public mind of France. His tableau of Napoleonic Imperialism, therefore, shows us but half the subject; as regards Europe, by far the less important half; but as regards France, the delineation is tolerably complete, although there are some ugly minor points which

the author prefers to pass over rather than to discuss.

Of course the author is not a flaneur. We are thankful to say he does not give us any more "photographs of Paris life," such as the genius of a flaneur might perhaps, in his most industrious mood, aspire to sketch. The author's forte is not photography, but reflection. It is not the facts of the hour, as they image themselves on the sensorium of the lounger-it is not the clever phrase and shrewd-witted observation of the man about town

that occupy the pages of this volume. We have here the work of an able, painstaking, and vigorous thinker, who evidently has hunted carefully for facts and figures, but who saves the reader all labour by arranging his thricesifted materials in masterly order, and setting them forth with no small amount of literary skill.

The bonds of international relationship in Europe have become so close that some of the old stock phrases of cosmopolitan philanthropy now assume the form of very solid facts. That when one part of the European commonwealth suffers, all suffer with it, is a truth which comes home to us with a force which it had not in the days of our forefathers. France has been long in trouble, and very

Impressions of a Flaneur.' William

heartily do we wish her out of it. We should do so out of sympathy for a great and gallant people, whose history, though it has sometimes been full of horror and misery, has never long ceased to be glorious. We do so not less because her troubles have been, and still are, very costly to ourselves and to Europe. We know there are many who take a desponding view of the future of France. They regard her terrific convulsions during the last seventy years as the spasmodic efforts of a maniac, whose life wastes away with each new objectless outburst, and for whom there is no issue but death or the impotence of chronic paralysis. France seems to them a nation running to seed. We entertain an opposite view; a happier, and we think a truer one. A nation of forty millions, the most homogeneous too in Europe, never dies. In due time it regenerates itself. There are indeed many features of the past which seem to justify a desponding view. The most diverse means have been tried, the most consummate genius displayed, by some of the recent rulers of France -the most brilliant energy has been put forth by the people, yet the unvarying result has been failure and disappointment. Republican institutions, supported by a Reign of Terror, were tried and failed; military conquest, led by the greatest Emperor of modern times, was tried and failed; Reaction and the old dynasty failed; Constitutionalism and a policy of peace failed; again a Republic was tried and failed; and now once more we have an Emperor. Why should not the cycle still revolve? Why should not this imperial regime fall in its turn, and a Bourbon or an Orleanist, or first one and then the other, again appear on the scene?

Such an issue is not improbable. We do not presume to fix a term for the troubles of France. We do not presume to fix a time when the weary cycle will cease to revolve.

Yet of this we feel assured, that whether or not Napoleon III. will see it out, the cycle of revolution is nearing its close. However perplexing each successive phase of recent French history appears when taken by itself, we are now enabled to view the stream of events over so long a period, that we begin clearly to perceive the nexus of events, and the true character of the position. The malady under which France is labouring is seen to be a rare but well-known form of national disease, only of a more aggravated kind than has yet been witnessed in modern Europe. It is a fever which, commencing with a period of furious delirium, after the first burst is over, takes the intermittent form, of alternate action and reaction, till, each access of the fever becoming more distant and less severe, the equilibrium of health is restored. We rate very highly the influence of great men upon their times, but they cannot contend successfully against the circumstances of their age. In truth they never seek to do so. Generally by an instinct, rather than as a matter of calculation, they keep in harmony with the spirit of the hour-they are by nature en rapport with their countrymen. They act only by means of the forces already existing; and however the triumph may be theirs, the means existed independently of them. It is easy to be wise after the event, and to condemn as blunders the various monarchs and chiefs who have ruled France since 1792. It is easy to assert that Napoleon I. ruined himself by his wars and ambitious foreign policy; but it would be difficult to show that he would have been more successful if he had been more peaceful. It is the great lesson of history-it is the first principle of imperial statesmanship, that the best means of calming a country that has been torn by the conflict of contending factions, is to divert its attention to foreign affairs, and to unite all classes by appeal

ing to them in support of the honour and common interests of the country. Napoleon I., a great military genius, and a man of intense action, applied this counterirritant to revolutionary France; and though he fell at last, and gave place to the old dynasty, we doubt whether any other course would have enabled him to die on the throne, or to prevent the return of the Bourbons. The Restoration, again, has been blamed for its reactionary spirit; but what other course was open to it? And had not Louis XVIII. to make more than one coup d'état against the Chambers, by changes in the electoral law, for the very purpose of preventing the Royalist reaction in the country becoming still more overwhelming? Then as to the peace policy and bourgeois spirit of the Orleanist regime: had not Louis Philippe seen the failure of a warlike policy even when directed by Napoleon the Great? And were not the bourgeois habits of the Sovereign apparently well adapted to propitiate the passion for equality, or envy of distinction, which had contributed to produce the fall of the aristocratic regime of the Restoration? The Revolution of the Barricades was entirely the work of the middle classes; and if Louis Philippe rested his power upon them and the National Guards, they were, to all appearance, his safest and most natural supports.

He could not appeal either to the army or to the masses by adopting a vigorous foreign policy: the moment he tried it, as in the Eastern question, he found himself isolated and help less. It may be said, indeed, that he ought to have made alliances, and played off the Great Powers against one another, like the present Emperor; but the excesses and aggressions of the first Revolution were then so fresh in the memory of Europe, that the march of the Gallic eagles to the frontier would have been the signal for a general coalition. In truth, without imputing infallibility to Napoleon I.,

and while admitting the mediocre capacity of his three immediate successors, we do not believe that any amount of sagacity on their part would have sufficed to close "the gulf of the Revolution," and to reconsolidate the monarchy and political institutions of France.

The gulf of the Revolution, which his uncle aspired to close, still yawns under the feet of Napoleon III. But the danger is passing by-the storm has almost spent itself in a quarter of a century more there will be the old calm. The national health is regaining its stability; the violent reactions from heat to cold which have marked the progress of the fever are subsiding; and in the lifetime of the present generation, the cycle of revolution will have completed itself, and the national mind be again in stable equilibrium. This is the chief reason why we attach more importance to the success of Napoleon III. than to that of his predecessors. They were doomed to fail. In their time no medicine however strong, no treatment however sagacious, could have stopped the recurrence of the ague-fits. Now the case is different; and although the odds still are against Napoleon III. establishing his dynasty and quietly handing down his crown to his son, success on his part has become almost entirely a question of time. Let him reign for twenty more years as successfully as he has reigned during the last ten, and the problem will be solved; France will have reconsolidated herself; and again the crown will become settled on one family. The only question is, Will that family be Napoleon's, or another?

Prolonged life is indispensable to his success: every other requisite he appears to possess. He has made France respected and feared abroad. He has covered her arms with glory. He has made Paris, as it were, the capital of Europe, the meeting-place of Congresses, and the abode of Kings. He reigns like an Emperor; everything he

does in person is generous or magnificent. He will not yield an inch to force; but he anticipates the pressure of public opinion, and yields on the instant when he sees the circumstances of the time require concession. It is the arm of iron in the glove of velvet. He can yield gracefully, for he is known to be strong hence every concession of his is prized by the nation as a gift, rather than accepted as a right. But he is a great administrator, as well as a strong ruler and a mighty politician. It is well to make a country glorious-it is still better to make it prosperous. Every one who enters France must be struck with the extraordinary changes and improvements which have been effected during the last ten years. The hand of the Emperor has been everywhere. Every department of the national wellbeing appears to have been passed in review by him, and success has gone with him as yet in all that he has attempted.

Englishmen, very naturally, have misgivings as to the wisdom of a policy which assigns the initiative in industrial enterprise to the Government. Our whole notions and habits of business are opposed to such a system. We seldom hesitate to pronounce it off-hand rotten and bad. It would be so in this country, but it is different in France. There, there can be no dispute about the principle. The French people have long sanctioned the interference of the Government in the private relations of the people for the general good. They not only sanction-they expect it. It is indeed a remarkable spectacle which France presents in this respect. "Every one," as the pseudoFlaneur observes, "hopes and trusts in Government initiative, Government employ, Government patronage, Government encouragement, Government subvention, and Government monopoly. The rivers are periodically flooding their banks; swamps and marshes wait to be

reclaimed; railways are to be constructed; roads are wanted; ports require improvements; agriculture demands draining, irrigation, and a better breed of animals; storms, hail, and drought injure the crops; fire consumes buildings; boats and nets are lost in fishing; manufactures and commerce are suffering from a crisis; the people have neither work nor bread; and the Government is expected to remedy all these evils and shortcomings, besides thousands of others. It is to act the part of universal Providence, charged to help, to encourage, and to do the work of everybody-an impersonation of the god Vishnu, with numberless eyes, hands, and feet-or a revival of Figaro, the renowned barber of Seville." It is a mistake to suppose that this interference and assistance of the Government in works of public utility, and in industrial and commercial enterprise, date from the commencement of the Imperial regime. It took place under the Restoration-under Louis Philippe -and during the short-lived Republic of 1848. There is not a year since 1820, in which extraordinary works do not figure in the Budget, with sums varying in amount from one to seven millions sterling, which were employed in the construction of canals, roads, and railways, the improvement of rivers and ports, erection of lighthouses, and other works. In fact, the last years of the Government of Louis Philippe, when the first impulse was given to railways, and to the fortifications of Paris, show sums voted by the State for extraordinary works which have never been equalled under Napoleon III. The rage has never been against the pretensions of the Government to act the part of Providence, but against the manner in which it has discharged this duty.

Special reasons existed for the continuance and more elaborate development of this system by the Imperial Government. If you take