necessary to the salvation of the State are those that produce the most frightful disaster. The State dies, the parts suffer complete disintegration, but a new life arises that develops naturally and healthily. Every improvement that now takes place is a real step in advance. Liberty is now the genius of the country. The government is now the servant of the people, not the instrument of a privileged order. The liberty of Commerce has now triumphed over the repression of Conquest.

France has made enormous progress since the Revolution. At that period the people had to bear the burden of the country's defence against foreign foes, and that defence was converted into triumphant and overwhelining attack. It was only unfortunate that the general, through his insatiable ambition, weakened the resources of the country by an unnecessary extension of his military operations. Notwithstanding, however, this excess, the cultivators generally, having become, upon the expulsion of the privileged orders, the proprietors of the soil, occupied the most advantageous position, and bore easily the heaviest burdens. But the taxes were light in comparison with what they had been. Formerly, the taxation amounted from twothirds to eleven-twelfths of the produce, when in England it was reckoned to be only one-fourth. It was calculated that the condition of the labouring poor in France was such that the necessaries of life which they could procure were only one-fourth of that of the corresponding class in England. The soil was in many places lying uncultivated, for the ruinous and unequal taxation wrenched the fruits of toil from the grasp of the labourer. When, however, the Revolution changed all this, the hope of retaining the fruits of labour stimulated everyone to unwonted exertions. The greater part of the produce was now the property of the cultivator. The result was a general improvement. The produce of France was doubled in twenty

CH. II.

IMPROVEMENT IN FRANCE.

49

years. From a condition of unlettered ignorance, when not one in fifty of the peasantry could read, they rapidly improved. The influence of a wide distribution of property has continued to produce the same results, so that now the agricultural produce of France has again nearly doubled. The commerce of the country has also taken enormous strides, and there are now few restrictions to the national and individual increase of wealth and prosperity.

Russia has not yet commenced this course of progress. She must first give birth, it may be with much pain and labour, to the new life that is within her, which now is constantly extinguished as it begins to breathe; and, in order to attain this, the present system of absolutism, and all the blind veneration it inspires, must pass away, and give place to another system by which the well-being of the whole people will be secure to evolve naturally from the unrestricted, and unaided, and self-regulating exertions of each and all.

E

CHAPTER III.

POPULAR MOVEMENTS TOWARDS THE

ATTAINMENT OF THE

POLITICAL CONDITIONS OF SOCIAL WELL-BEING.

EUROPE since the period of the first French Revolution has been for the most part in a condition of political as well as of social transition.

The ideas of the French philosophical writers, originally derived from the democratic thought of England and the republican action of America, spread rapidly abroad throughout the Continent. The effect of their views, thus widely disseminated at a time when the various States were struggling against the power of the French arms, was great. They were spread abroad everywhere in secret. Secret societies were organised to assist in their promulgation. These consisted of members pledged to each other to exert themselves to the utmost in the cause of freedom.

One of the most extensive of these societies, named the Tugendbund of Germany, was originated by Stein, the Prime Minister of Prussia. He conceived the possibility of inspiring the whole of Germany with the idea of parliamentary institutions, free speech, and a free press, holding these forward as a proposed reward for the delivery of their country from the French yoke. The League spread rapidly, and soon numbered amongst its members the principal inhabitants of North Germany. Later on, in

1 A considerable proportion of the information contained in the first half of this chapter has been derived from Mr. Thomas Frost's work The Secret Societies of the European Revolution, 1776-1876, 1876.'

CH. III.

POPULAR UNION IN GERMANY.

51

1808, the whole length and breadth of Germany was inspired by the idea, and the utmost exertions were ready to be made when the first opportunity for contesting the possession of the country should present itself. This moment at length arrived. The early and exceptionally severe winter which met the army of Napoleon in the centre of Russia suddenly reduced the strength which the imperial arms had heretofore possessed. That disastrous campaign, therefore, became the first signal for the coming struggle. The unity and concert which had been ensured induced the King of Prussia, mean and timorous though he was, to join Alexander of Russia in declaring war against Napoleon. The secret organisation of the Tugendbund was now the means by which numerous corps of volunteers were at once forthcoming, as well as sums of money for their maintenance in the field. The result of the combined operations was, therefore, that in the space of eight months the last of the French armies had crossed the Rhine.

The people, however, did not receive the expected reward of their patriotism, for the kings and princes of Germany, as soon as re-established, forgot or denied the rights of their people to political freedom.

In Spain, again, a constitution had been established by the Cortes in 1812. Ten years thereafter that body was elected with a strong democratic majority. The nation desired still more liberty, and the Communeros, a secret society which fostered the idea of popular sovereignty, had largely influenced the elections. The ministry found themselves in a decided minority, and the king, possessing strong tendencies towards absolutism, was inflexible. At this juncture Austria and Russia proposed to land a joint army on the shores of Spain, but the remonstrances of Britain prevented that means of solving the difficulty being carried out. Ultimately a French army poured

through the passes of the Pyrenees and in less than three months overran Spain, and established Ferdinand in the full possession of an absolute sovereignty. On the one side of this struggle we find the first men in Spain, headed by Riego, the president of the Cortes; on the other the king and the ecclesiastical leaders, the former being a mere puppet in the hands of the latter.

In Italy, again, Maghella, the Neapolitan Minister of Police under Murat, entertained the idea of inspiring his countrymen with the prospect of national independence and constitutional government. With this object he introduced the secret system of the Carbonari, which early embraced in its list of members the names of the first families of the country. It spread through all classes of society, and in some of the southern towns of Italy it reckoned all the adult male population as members. Soon afterwards, in 1817, the Guelphs and the Roman Carbonari, two other secret societies, were instituted with views somewhat similar, particularly directing their attacks against the temporal power of the Pope, whose government had always been of the most despotic character. Other societies existed here and there throughout the peninsula, some consisting of desperate characters whom the misgovernment of Naples and other States had partly the credit of creating. By the year 1820 lodges of the Carbonari were established throughout all the principal States of Italy. These contributed in uniting the greater part of the inhabitants together in the same ideas of freedom and unity. In the summer of 1820 the standard of revolt was raised, and Naples declared for the constitution. Ferdinand, however, had pledged himself to Austria to maintain the despotic character of his rule, and he therefore abdicated in favour of his son, who accepted the constitution. This success, however, exasperated the Austrian emperor, who, like the Pope, denounced Car