working under the smooth surface of French society, was the element
which accomplished the destruction of this discredited Government.

The outbreak in France acted like a spark in a powder magazine; ere
long great part of Europe was shaken by the second great
revolutionary upheaval, when potentates seemed falling and ancient
dynasties crumbling on all sides--a period of eager hope to many,
followed by despair when the reaction set in, accompanied in too many
places by repressive measures of pitiless severity. The contemptuous
feeling with which many Englishmen were wont to view such Continental
troubles is well embodied in the lines which Tennyson put into the
mouth of one of his characters, speaking of France:

   "Yonder, whiff! there comes a sudden heat,
   The gravest citizen seems to lose his head,
   The king is scared, the soldier will not fight.
   The little boys begin to shoot and stab,
   A kingdom topples over with a shriek
   Like an old woman, and down rolls the world
   In mock-heroics--
   Revolts, republics, revolutions, most
   No graver than a schoolboy's barring out;
   Too comic for the solemn things they are,
   Too solemn for the comic touches in them."

In this wild year 1848, which saw Revolution running riot on the
Continent, England too had its share of troubles not less painfully
ridiculous; the insurrection headed by Smith O'Brien, a chief of the
"Young Ireland" party, coming to an inglorious end in the affray
that took place at "the widow McCormick's cabbage-garden,
Ballingarry," in the month of July; the greatly dreaded Chartist
demonstration at Kennington Common on April 10th by its conspicuous
failure having done much to damp the hopes and spirits of the party
of disorder generally.

It would be easy now to laugh at the frustrated designs of the
Chartist leaders and at the sort of panic they aroused in London: the
vast procession, which was to have marched in military order to
overawe Parliament, resolving itself into a confused rabble easily
dispersed by the police, and the monster petition, that should  have
numbered six million signatures, transported piecemeal to the House,
and there found to have but two million names appended, many
fictitious; the Chartist leader, completely cowed, thanking the Home
Office for its lenient treatment; or, on the other hand, London and
its peaceful inhabitants, distracted with wild rumours of combat and
bloodshed, apprehending a repetition of Parisian madnesses, and
unaware how thoroughly the Duke of Wellington, entrusted with the
defence of the capital and its important buildings, had carried out
all needful arrangements. The two hundred thousand special constables
sworn in to aid in maintaining law and order on that day were visible
enough, and had their utility in conveying a certain impression of
safety; the troops whom the veteran commander held in readiness were
kept out of sight till wanted. These rebellious spirits imagining
themselves formidable and free, when caught in an invisible iron
network--these terrified citizens, protected all unconsciously to
themselves against the impotent foe whom they dreaded--might furnish
food for mirth if we did not remember the real, deep, and widespread
misery which found inarticulate but piteous expression in the
movement now coming to confusion under the firm assertion of
necessary authority. The disturbances must needs be quieted; but
hitherto it has been the glory of our Victorian statesmen to have
understood that the grievances which caused them must also be dealt
with. Now that all which could be deemed wise and good in Chartist
demands has been conceded, orderly and quietly, the name "Chartism"
has utterly lost its dread significance.

[Illustration: Napoleon III.]

No cruelly vindictive measures of reprisal followed the collapse of
the agitation; none indeed were needed. The revolutionary epidemic,
which had spread hitherward from France, found our body politic in
too sound a condition, and could not fasten on it; and the subsequent
convulsions which shook our great neighbour hardly called forth an
answering thrill in England. The strange transactions of December
1851, by means of which Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Prince-President of
the new French republic, succeeded in overthrowing that republic and
replacing it by an empire of which he was the head, did indeed excite
displeasure and distrust in many minds; and though it was believed
that his high-handed proceedings had averted much disorder, the
English Government was not prepared at once to accept all the
proffered explanations of French diplomacy; but the then foreign
Secretary, Lord Palmerston, by the rash proclamation of his
individual approval, committed the Ministry of which he was one to a
recognition of the _de facto_ Monarch of France. This step was but
the last of many instances in which Palmerston had acted without due
reference to the premier's or the Sovereign's opinion--a course of
conduct which had justly displeased the Queen, and had drawn from her
grave and pointed remonstrances. The final transgression led to his
resignation; but its effects on our relations with France remained.

Meanwhile the Emperor's consistent and probably sincere display of
goodwill towards England, the apparent complacency with which the
French nation acquiesced in his rule, and the outward prosperity
accompanying it, did their natural work in conciliating approval, and
in making men willing to forget the obscure and tortuous steps by
which he had climbed to power. One day he and France were to pay for
these things; but meanwhile he was a popular ruler, accepted and
approved by the nation he governed, anxious for its prosperity, and
earnest in keeping it friendly with Great Britain, which he had found
a hospitable home in the days of his obscurity, which was again to