it to be carried to the Mint, it was found to have been

opened and plundered.

General Oudinot having surrounded the city, sent a proclamation to Roselli on the 12th of June, in which he announced to the Romans that if they did not open their gates he would proceed to extremities. To which the Assembly answered, on the following day, that the articles agreed on with M. Lesseps could not be violated without violating the rights of nations. Rome would hold them sacred, until the Government of the French Republic should pronounce definitely upon them, in accordance with the terms of one of the articles; Rome would defend herself against all who dishonoured them, were it only for the honour of France. The Triumvirs added, that they would keep the promise they had made to defend the standard of the Republic, the honour of the country, and the sanctity of the capital of the Christian world.

The obstinacy of Mazzini was not supported (though fanaticism will go great lengths) by any confidence that he felt of being able to conquer the French, and scatter the armies of the Catholic crusade; but by the firm persuasion which he entertained that the Parisian Government would soon be overturned by an insurrection. For Mazzini, who, filled as he is with overweening pride, fancies he is the only man who can restore Rome and Italy, does not view the state of Rome and Italy by the light of national genius and modern civilisation, but evokes the phantasm of a Latin Rome, clothes it with Gallic rags, and moulds a Gallico-Latin system of

universal brotherhood, which, according to him, ought to take the place of the Imperial and Pontifical empires. And this is that hotch-potch which he calls the Rome of the people, the Italy of the future; a hotchpotch which, cleared of fantastic extravagances, signifies and leads to nothing more than that Rome and Italy, not being able to play the principal part in the foundation of this new brotherhood, on account of the misery in which they are plunged, must follow in the track of that Latin nation whose strength is greatest, in whom the popular spirit is most alive, and which is most inured to running the gauntlet of social revolutions. From which it follows, that Mazzini has no right to complain when others propose, first to unite the Latin races, and then proceed to the restoration of Rome and of Italy, and to the emancipation of the West, if not indeed of all Europe; for these men are at least more consistent and logical than he is, and whilst they make profession of doctrines similar to his own, devise means for bringing them into effect, less strange, and, I was going to say, less ridiculous than his, if his did not make one weep. Moreover, the famous idea of Mazzini generates naturally the theory of other innovators, who argue, that, reduced to the straits in which she is, Italy can do nothing of herself, and therefore ought to bow to the dictatorship of French prætorians, and these men are not, in fact, such dreamers as he, though perhaps they may blaspheme a little more; their dream, too, is much less removed from the probable and the possible, than are the Mazzinian castles in the air, as the commencement of this century

has proved. Now, if all these designs, dreams, delirious fancies, or whatever they may be called, are Italian, let any one say who has a drop, not of Latin blood, for we have none of us much of that, but of Italian blood in his veins.

I was saying, then, that Mazzini was reckoning on the prospect of a speedy Parisian insurrection. But the insurrection which had taken place in June, 1848, had been overcome by Cavaignac, and the revolution subdued, more perhaps than he and his friends wished or expected. Now it is not possible that a people, however impetuous and warlike they may be (and as the Parisians are), can recover in a year's time, after they have been beaten and drained of their hottest blood, and gain strength sufficient for a fresh and desperate struggle. On the contrary, history, and the history of France itself, which is in fact the school of revolutions, proves that between one revolution and another, there intervenes at least as much time as is necessary for the growth of new generations and the nurture of new ideas, which may resuscitate old passions. So that speculators on the periodical revolutions of France ought, at all events, to fix on more distant periods for their recurrence, and to count up the dead, the wounded, the imprisoned, the proscribed, the deluded, the worn out, and the corrupted, before they count up the millions of French who, they say, are ready to resist the constituted form of Government. To which, in our case, it may be added, that if a dynasty or a monarchy had inflicted on the Parisian insurrectionists those bloody defeats of June, 1848, it would

perhaps have incurred hatred sufficient to foment a fresh and not distant explosion. But the repression being effected in the name of the Republic, and not having identified hatred with one particular man or family, the living object was wanting, which it seems the people require, in order to feel either hatred or love to any very lively degree. The Republicans could not undermine the edifice they themselves had raised by rebelling against universal suffrage, which having placed the sovereignty in the people, and understood it in the sense which it commonly conveys, ought to command a blind obedience from those who preach it up, and inaugurate the worship of it. Hence, the conscience of the innovators themselves, or at least of the people educated in that worship, could not be greatly edified by the anticipated violence. But whatever may be thought as to that, certain it is, that if a nation had blood, and vigour, and conscience enough to impel it to the barricades every year, it would only be for the sake of its own peculiar rights, or passions, or wants, or follies, not for the sake of passions borrowed from foreigners; it would run risks on its own account, not in the service or at the pleasure of another people. To picture this universal brotherhood of hate, madness, and desperation, is in fact, one of the most fantastic of absurdities, or the most extravagant of impostures. Certain ideas, certain generous and amiable feelings, respecting the rights of nations, for example, are never universal in a people; on the contrary, even amongst the most civilised nations they are the prerogative of the most cultivated and refined portion of

the population, that portion, namely, which thinks and reasons most, but fights least; which hatches many plots, utters many harangues, and fights many newspaper battles, but which does not relish the smell of powder. Go, then, and say to the Parisian people, they ought every year to have their limbs torn with cannon, that their brethren in Rome may have a Republic, and found your designs on these pretences. They will fight for their own; they will fight (not just yet) for their own liberty, or to gratify their own hatred; and if they fight and conquer, he will be the most arrant of fools who shall fancy that they have conquered in order to liberate Italy. I do not know if the day of universal brotherhood will ever dawn on this earth, but I do know that, at present, brethren inclosed within the same walls cut each other's throats; so, before we arrive at brotherhood with the Hottentots, we shall have enough time to devise new systems of politics, and new modes of governing States.

The Rulers of Rome, however, being the slaves of Mazzini, did not rely on history, on reason, and experience, but on the leaders of French factions, who were champing the bit, and trying to break the reins. By turns they inflamed, and perhaps deceived each other. It is said that the least rabid among the Parisians were averse to violence, yet some were making preparations for it, whilst others were satisfied with calling a public meeting to proclaim the Constitution, the fifth article of which had been violated beneath the walls of Rome. Demonstrations such as these, when Governments are on the inclined plane of repression, only push them