other country of Europe, who can wonder if the votes of Irish members? - Fraser's Mngawe suspect them of sacrificing liberty, honor, zine. and humanity, to the necessity of commanding FRANCE. THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE TWO PARTIES. The Restoration once firmly seated, the reaction in favor of Democracy was natural; and as soon as the savage terrorism of the early days of Louis XVIII. were over, the Republicans set to work. In France there was still a lingering love for the great Convention which did such wonders, but which fell from intestine war. During Louis XVIII.'s reign, the Republicans wrote, conspired, and re-popularized themselves. Under Charles the Tenth, they became powerful, and when the mad schemes of that monarch and his friends raised the storm of July, 1830, would have triumphed, but for the able intriguer who had purchased several of their chiefs, and who won to him the middle classes, still connecting the names of Marat and Danton with the Republic. Louis Philippe on the throne, they again set to work, and, as every one knows, after an unceasing struggle never for a moment giving cessation—of 18 years, have succeeded. The month of April has been an eventful | suaded that, had she been a Republic, and every month in the history of the European revolu- man fighting pro aris et focis, instead of deserttionary movement, that, like the sirocco, sweeps ing the cause of a usurper, of whom all were over the whole surface of this quarter of the weary, we should have never seen Paris. globe. To any one who has studied the progress of the human mind, the events which are now occurring, and which, from their complexity, vastness, and novelty, will long occupy our attention, cannot be unexpected. From the hour when printing abolished the monopoly of knowledge, and when the Reformation gave full flight to the reason of man, the struggle commenced between brute force and power against truth, justice, and the true principles of Democratic Christianity. As long as the kings, princes, potentates and powers kept the people in ignorance as long as the pen and the book were merely the tools with which a few rare and patient students worked for the benefit of future millions as long as man remained in the trammels of a mere ceremonial, dignified with the name of religion-despotism was not only possible, but inevitable. But the man-child once awake-printing at work-reform penetrating the convent, the monastery and the palace-Protestantism alive-philosophy laboring-economists calculating the result soon was, that the information, knowledge and thought which thence arose descended among the people. The masses once instructed, the very shadow of any divine right of kings and aristocrats to rule became exploded. The pen hourly increased in force. In England, Cromwell against Charles was the first dawn of liberty against the holiness of kings; then came the American Revolt, and finally the French Revolution. The French Revolution failed. Why? Because it was violent, sudden, and effected by a people yet immersed in the ignorance and barbarism which monarchy had left them as a legacy. Besides, all Europe was against France, because the peaceable termination of the revolution would have shaken every throne. Thence arose war and the sword, and a mighty man, who crushed liberty under the iron heel of odious glory, and who paved the way for reaction and counter revolution. The French were conquered, and Paris occupied by the allies, because France was weary of fighting for a man. With all my nationality, I feel per The struggle between the moderates and ultras - the disturbed provinces, the Socialist conspiracies, the split in the Cabinet, the ideas of the parties are all matters which have come prominently out in the present month, to say nothing of the elections. The principal event of the month is, THE STRUGgle betweEN THE TWO PARTIES. When the Government of Louis Philippe was overthrown, the Provisional Government which was formed in its place was formed of two distinct parties, the Republicans and the Socialists. The Republicans—the statesmen, the men who wished to organize a great commonwealth on the old basis of society-preserving all which was good, but reforming, amending, substituting for egotistical laws those of equality and fraternity, and providing, in as far as human legislation can, for the poor-were Lamartine, Arago, Cremieux, Marrast, Garnier Pages, Marie: the Socialists, the promisers of Utopia to the poor the men who wished totally to disorganize the society of ages-to substitute a square and angular society of their own for it whose war was not against bad institutions and bad laws, but against society, the family religion - these were Louis Blanc, Flocon, Ledru Rollin, and Albert. But their presence in the Provisional Government was necessary at first. Lamartine, representing the great Democratic principle as taught by Christ, loving peace, hating discord, wishing to create something great, noble, sublime, having a statesman's acumen, a poet's enthusiasm, and love of the beautiful and the good, though supported by the unselfish of all classes, wanted at first the support of the mere mob against the anti-democratic tendency of the bourgeoise. Besides, the poor, half ignorant, and suffering population, not the thorough artisans, were the men who had won the victory, and their choice was sacred. Thus, Ledru Rollin became Minister of the Interior, because, had he not, his opposition might have been dangerous; and Louis Blanc, the theorist and dreamer, without experience, without any practical knowledge whatever, was placed with Albert at the head of a commission of labor, where, above all, should have been men of stern patriotism, impartiality, and vigor. But not so. Louis Blanc, not a judge, but an advocate, had to decide between the masters and workmen, the former of whom he considered thieves, the latter as victims. A man who paints all the rich as miserable wretches, fighting duels, committing suicide, and hunting dangerous wild beasts to kill ennui — who describes competition as tyranny, and the enemy of commerce, as well as the exterminator of the people who tells us that every rich trader is seeking to ruin his neighbour who believes that laws can be made to fix wages and force consumption—who abuses society, because she has instituted laws against theft who conceives property itself a robbery who describes every workman out of employ as dying of hunger-who joins the insensate cry against machinery-who looks upon railways as a calamity, facilitating the movement of agricultural populations to towns, hideous lazars themselves, and causing a dearth of hands in the places where they are wanted, while they abound where they are not-who is blind to the vast employment they open up - who declares that one in nine of the population are on the verge of starvation, and all the result of competition -this man was placed where a wiser and less egotistical person would have feared to tread. But behind him were the Socialists, the anarchists, all the enemies of religion in the family, every thing sacred and human which exists; and the Government was at first forced to bear with him. Let us do Louis Blanc the justice to say, that his sympathies are with the poor - that he sees the evils of bad laws; but while his mind is fully capable of painting what is wrong in things that are, he is utterly incompetent, theo retic and Utopian, when he comes to apply the remedy. He neither understands the cause nor the remedy. But it was not these ideas alone that made this party dangerous. Lamartine and his friends, loving their country, and wishing to rule well and nobly until the Assembly took the labor out of their hands, wished not only to hurry the elections, but to leave the country to decide freely and honestly, whether for Monarchy, Regency, or a Republic. Lamartine sincerely desires a Republic, but would not cram the best possible government on an unwilling people. Not so Ledru Rollin and Louis Blanc, the Danton and Camille Desmoulins of the new revolution. They were Republican Socialists, and everybody else must be Republican Socialists also. They very soon found, however, that the country was against them. How the Communists were treated in the provinces will shortly be seen; but in the meantime we may mention, that every day the Minister of the Interior received assurances that moderate men alone had any chance in the provinces; that if ultra-democrats of the old revolutionary school were put forward, Conservatives would be elected. Louis Blanc, meanwhile, found that he had against him not only the masters, whom his theories seek to deprive of their hard earnings, but the better class of workmen, who were disgusted at the prospect of equality of salaries for the good, bad, and indifferent. Perhaps his diatribes against the industrious who put money in savings' banks tended somewhat to this. He thus speaks of this admirable institution : "Blind and authorised receiver of a crowd of illegitimate profits, it receives, after ignorantly encouraging them, all those who present themselves, from the servant who robs his master, to the courtesan who sells her beauty." The fact is, Louis Blanc is against every one who has any thing, and against every institution which creates property. The one-sided views of this apostle may be judged of from this:-"Saving, let it be well remarked, combined with individualism saving engenders selfishness, competes with alms, dries up imperceptibly in the best natures the sources of charity, replaces by a selfish gratification the holy sentiments of doing good. Combined with association, on the contrary, saving becomes respectable — becomes of sacred importance. To save but for one'sself is to show want of confidence in our fellow-creatures, and in the future; but to save for others as well as for one'sself is to make use of great prudence — it is giving to wisdom the proportions of devotion." It is incredible, that in a country where there is some common-sense, such nonsense and mis-statement should be swallowed, with the hint that money spent in the wine-cup is better spent | V.; now, as wishing to proclaim the Regency; than in that which is in purchasing some little interest in the national stock. Besides, who ever saves for himself? Young men save to furnish houses for their wives, to commence business; fathers to provide for their children, or for old age. But such is the man who, with Rollin, Cabet, Considerant, and others, is to disorganise, to reorganise society. It is for this reason alone that I allude to his theories. The project of this party was to keep the army from Paris- to send violent commissaries to the departments-to have Socialists and sans-culottes elected-to have a majority of working men, the minority, and large minority, of the nation—and, when the country showed signs of rejecting them, to adjourn indefinitely the elections. Of course, it was necessary for this purpose to decry the majority of the Government — firm, decided, and patriotic. To work they went, the Presse, reactionary paper, and the Populaire and Ami du Peuple, ultra-Socialist organs. They whispered there was treason in the camp, and, as much as possible, directed their arms against Lamartine. While the latter would perhaps have not been sorry to see many of the able men who were always combatting at his side in his struggles against despotism, the latter party were curious in their appreciation of the merits of the new legislators. To please the party of Ledru Rollin and Blanc, it was necessary either to have fought at a barricade, have been imprisoned by Louis Philippe, have been a conspirator, a poor suffering man, a declared Republican, or a Socialist. Most of these qualities had their merits, but none of them of necessity promised to give good republican legislators to the country. They were, however, the only ones received by the Reforme, and that party who treated all newcomers as intruders. The whole of France was, in their ideas, a kind of park for the fighters of the Republic, and we heard every day all men who dare invade their domain pitilessly denounced. On the other hand, the National and its party brought forward its men, stern and true Republicans, men earnest, sincere, and full of patriotic sentiments, loving their kind, wishing to raise the poor, but never entering into vaporing abuse of those, by the better administration of whose property the poor will be the greatest gainers - I mean the rich. But at once they were libelled in the Communists clubs, in the anarchical Mountain, in the club of Cabet, of Blanqui, of Raspail; while Rollin and Louis Blanc were lauded to the skies as very good Socialists and Communists, Lamartine was brutally attacked, denounced as counter-revolutionary; and now, as conspiring to bring in Henry now, as favoring the claims of the Prince de Joinville to the presidence of the Republic. Every hour, too, the provinces were denounced in a lump, and with justice, for the violence of the Paris ultra clubs frightened them, and the circulars of Ledru Rollin raised feelings of hatred and resistance. It was said that in the departments there were chatelains and hoberaux barbed with armorial bearings and illustrious in escutcheons, who kept the peasants in servitude and misery. Democracy frightened them, and Socialism made them shudder, and no wonder. Democrat as I am, republican as I avow myself, I conceive the despotism of Russia more tolerable than that of men who would deprive man of every liberty, take from him the impulse of industry, destroy home and the family, replace religion by reason, and make of man a mere machine of the state, to do the will of a committee ruling every thing social and political. But the violent were either laughed at, or hissed in most of the clubs, while the Mountain saw its president taken up as a felon. The fact is, while the true Republicans labored on honestly, zealously, with sincerity and good faith, a band of spies, of anarchists, of schemers, who wished to trade in politics, took the lead in the demagogue clubs, and by mere force of noise succeeded in getting notoriety. Among the most turbulent of the clubs was one of which L. A. Blanqui was the leading member. An exalté, one of the conspirators who had opposed the Government of Louis Philippe from the very commencement who had fought, and conspired for nearly twenty years he was now as inimical to the Government of the Republic as he had been to the monarchy. He was ever denouncing the majority of the cabinet as reactionary, monarchial, aristocratical, anti-social, and, in fact, was a kind of jackal for Messrs. Ledru Rollin and Louis Blanc. On the first of April, however, there appeared in a periodical * a report, which created a storm in the club. It was an anonymous report on the affair of the 12th May, 1839, made by a member of the Secret Society to the then Minister of the Interior. It denounced all the secrets of the société des Familles, and was at once put on the shoulders of Blanqui, whose credit at once failed him, while his club almost fell to pieces. However, after a certain interval, he published a defence, the gist of which was, that Taschereau, and the editor of the Revue, had between them forged the document to put down an incorruptible republican. But his defence is so curious, and attaches itself so much to subsequent events, that a brief *Revue Retrospective, ou Archives Secretes du Dernier Gouvernement. pieces in its hands, and he can crush at any time those who would sap at the same time the social order which rules us to substitute therefor a bloody chaos under the name of fraternity. It will be disdainful and magnanimous until the day when it shall be forced to use reprisals." But the most curious part of the defence of Blanqui is that which proves, that while Lamartine and all the statesman of the Cabinet treated him with contempt, Ledru Rollin and his party were plotting with him. Messages passed, Blanqui was puffed and flattered, until the day when Tascherau cludes by addressing the following words to Lamartine and his friends:-"Re-actors of the Hotel de Ville, you are cowards! There are royalists among you, but I forgive them." But Blanqui, despite his big words, did not clear himself, and the accusation still hangs over him. Why the Communists, Socialists, Labor-organ Republic, the only man of genius, save Arago, amongst the Cabinet-why Lamartine was accused in clubs and society of conspiring to restore the regency, is a question not difficult to understand. His genius and popularity alone were sufficient to pain and anger the envious mediocrities whom accident had placed alongside him; the universal demand of France to see him president of the Republic galled the ambitious, who knew that Lamartine would accept the post, not from ambition, but devotion ; but beyond this his eloquence, his reasoning powers, militated against all the insane theories of the socialists. analysis of it is necessary. He denies, first, its authenticity, and boldly charges the forgery on the National, which at once makes his defence suspicious; this journal not only being incapable of such an act, but it being not worth their while. The whole of several pages is taken up with showing how the revelation could not be his; he denies the style, writing, &c., and asks how, after thus betraying his colleagues, he was condemned with them? Having done this, he seeks to fasten on the Provisional Government the odium of a forgery, and makes his defence a vehicle to rouse the mob against the new Repub-published the fatal document. Blanqui conlic. He pretends, that ever since the 12th May, 1839, all those republicans who did not turn out on that day had vowed his destruction, especially the National. He asserts, that on the 24th February, when in the midst of his joy, he arrived amongst the victors full of enthusiasm, he was treated with coolness. Very likely; for the political victors of that day knew him as anisers, attacked with such virulence the pillar of the obstinate and ultra-Socialist, capable of spoiling all by his insane theories. He confesses that he was at once suspected of conspiring against the Provisional Government, and almost allows that he was suspected with good reason. He says"the struggle now began; the Société Republicaine Centrale attacked with energy the retrograde acts of power. The preservation of the stamp on newspapers, the non-destitution of the old magistrates, the bad choice of commissaries, the disastrous decrees on the alienation of the State lands, the pre-payment of the quarter's interest on the debt- were measures prepared by me." He then informs us that the great demonstration of the 17th March was got up by Meanwhile the menacing threats against the him, to induce the Government to adjourn the Chamber not yet elected continued. Encouragelections, and adds "The day of the 17th ed by the circulars of Ledru Rollin and his hotstruck with terror the majority of the Provis-headed bulletins, dated Ministry of the Interior, ional Government; it thought that it had escaped a great danger by a miracle. Absurd reports, perhaps the consciousness of its faults, persuaded him of the existence of projects of renversement and armed violence." He says, "that suspicions fell on him who had always demanded the adjournment of the elections, and that the Government made efforts to come to an understanding with them. These failing, they forged and published the piece in question." He grounds this accusation on the fact that the following note gave him warning on the 24th. It was a paragraph which appeared in some well-informed country papers, and which Auguste Blanqui accused the National of being too cowardly to publish in its own columns. "We could name the president of a club, who, fiery democrat, has been unfortunate enough to have betrayed the secrets of his political friends in order to save his life. The Provisional Government has many the clubs discussed the question as to what should be done if the Assembly were composed of an anti-Parisian majority. In the moderate clubs the question was adjourned, in the ultra ones it was decided that such an Assembly should be driven out at the point of the bayonet. Encouraged by these facts, and secretly aware of the willingness of certain gouvernans to aid them, the Socialists set to work. The Communists, headed by Cabet, contented themselves with discussing their theories and abusing the Government; but the Fourierists, a seet which wraps community of property, community of children, and legal prostitution in fine words, determined to go farther. Their schemes are correctly stated by the correspondent of a daily journal : "There is a party in France, represented by the Democratie Pacifique, who speak a language understood only by themselves, and who are called Fourierists, Phalansterians, &c. Of this party I knew little, and cared less, until lately; where the National Guard were commanded by but I have taken the trouble to get at them, and moderate men- by Republicans of the old from their own mouths to get at their ideas. On school—the ultra-clubs, the anarchists, to whom paper, their schemes are dreamy, vapid, and absurd; their actual wishes are wicked, despot-cal, continued their schemes. The most violent republican government is as hateful as monarchiic, and insane. The Phalansterians are at present engaged in forcing themselves on the Government, in cramming their theories down their throats. They desire, first, that, by a decree, the executive should take the Bank of France into their hands, without any regard to the interests of the shareholders. They then insist that, next week, by a decree, the Government should sequestrate all the property, houses, lands, &c., &c., of every individual in France, and, having committed this act of robbery, should carry it on for the benefit of society in general. Nothing more The fact is, with all their fine words, the Phalansterians are a set of social disorganisers, utterly without principle Utopists, who care for nothing so their plans be accepted.... The Democratie Pacifique cries every day, "Bankruptcy, ruin," in order to produce it. Can anything be conceived more infamous? The desolation of families, the misery of the poor, stagnated trade, suffering, famine, death, so that they may try their insensate and absurd principles. But they must be exposed. Let the world know that they are the blind tools of some secret high personage, who finds, and has found them, money for years, and they are lost. Yes! The Phalansterians and their gang are serving the selfish ends of some one man, unknown, rich, powerful; but who is a mystery kept too close for me to pierce. measures were brought forward, discussed, and sent up to the Government with menacing hints. The seizure of the Bank of France, of the railways, of all companies of life and fire assurance, were insisted on. The Fourierists demanded immediate sequestration of property, while all equality of salary men, Socialists, Communists -united in abusing the Government majority and the National The Government resisted; the National was pitiless in its exposures of the more violent of the leaders, and it got wind that troops would soon be brought into Paris. Indeed, two regiments entered the capital after a short parley with the mob. This party, ready to subvert, but never willing to construct, took alarm. Plots, conspiracies, were spoken of, and the most extraordinary rumors were afloat. The Hotel de Ville, Tuileries, and all the Government offices, were guarded with extreme care every night. The first had nearly a thousand men under arms, day and night, while cannon was posted at every issue. At length the moment appeared to have come. Blanqui's defence appeared on Thursday, the 13th. The same evening it was read at the club of which he was the chief amid perfect silence. "Cabet, the communist, shows more sense Once concluded, it appeared satisfactory to his than these men. He asks a slice of waste land friends, who carried him in triumph through the to carry out his plans on. But the Utopias of Cabet, Considerant, and Louis Blanc, will find streets, and along the Boulevards, crying "Down their level before discussion. Already the work- with the Provisional Government!" "Down with men of talent and industry are crying out against the National!" The more hot-headed of the equality of salaries; and they are right. The Fourierist party also thought the moment opportheories of Louis Blanc are for the benefit of tune; and it was finally determined on the Satthe idle, the profligate, the ignorant, the drunk-urday to overthrow the Provisional Government. ard; but they are utterly subversive of the man of talent and industry." This party, which before the Assembly will find its level, had discovered that their theories were daily and hourly received with less good grace. The generous and sincere Republicans, who would found the reign of a great and sublime democracy, scouted these theorists, and they found that terrorism was their only hope. Mighty, wonderful, awful, in the hands of Danton, Robespierre, Couthon, Carnot, terrorism became farcical in the hands of the Fourierists. But they deluded themselves into the belief, that because their paper, pamphlet, and books sold, they had an irresistible force in the country, and nothing would persuade them any other. They actually talked of carrying all the National Guard elections. But despite the clear manifestation of the population of Paris, despite the fact that every The majority were to be expelled — the minority, whom they knew would offer no resistance, were to be preserved. It was agreed that a Committee of Public Safety should be chosen; and it was. It was composed of the minority of the Provisional Government, of Blanqui, Raspail, Cabet, Sobrier, and other extreme demagogues. Time will fully explain the matter, but I believe that a correct idea of the day of the 16th April may even now be given. Messrs. Louis Blanc and Albert called together for the Sunday a vast assemblage of workmen in the Champ de Mars, to elect fourteen staff-officers of the National Guard; another workingmen's assemblage was to take place in the Hippodrome. The materials for insurrection were thus got together. It remained for those who had the courage to come forward to induce this assemblage to act with them. All Saturday night, the acting members of |