CHAPTER XXXIV.

CENTRALIZATION.-INFLUENCE OF CAPITAL CITIES.

We have seen in how great a degree French centralism has produced an incapacity for self-rule, according to one of the most distinguished statesmen of France herself. This centralism, in conjunction with imperatorial sovereignty, has produced some peculiar effects upon a nation so intelligent, ardent, and wedded to system as the French are. Before I conclude this treatise, therefore, I beg leave to offer a few remarks, which naturally suggest themselves, in connection with centralism and imperatorial sovereignty; both so prominent at this moment in France.

Centralism has given to Paris an importance which no capi. tal possesses in any other country. The French themselves often say Paris is France; foreigners always say so; and to them as well as to those French people who desire to enjoy, at one round, as much as possible of all that French civilization produces, this is, doubtless, very agreeable and instructive. Paris is brilliant, as centralism frequently is; Paris naturally flatters the vanity of the French; Paris stands with many people for France, because they see nothing of France but Paris. Centralization appears most imposing in Paris-in the buildings, in demonstrations, in rapidity of execution, and in an æsthetical point of view. Upon a close examination of history, however, we shall find that it has been not only a natural effect of centralism, but an object of all absolute rulers over intelligent races, to beautify the capital and raise its activity to the highest point. The effect is remarkable. The government of King Jerome, of Westphalia-now again prince of France-was one of the most ruinous that has ever existed, and yet long after the downfall of that ephemeral kingdom,

every disapproval of it was answered by a reference to the embellishment of Cassel, the capital.1

There are psychological processes which indicate suspicious intentions-the adoption of a new and scientifically sounding term for an old and common offence, as Repudiation for declining to pay what is due; and of mystifying, highsounding abstractions in statesmanship. The latter is carried to a degree, in the following address of Napoleon, which is rare even in France. Louis XIV., according to the present emperor of the French, the great representative of French unity and glory, when he had ruined France by the building of Versailles, warned, on his death-bed, his successor to beware of wars and of building. There are so many points of French politics tersely put in the speech of Napoleon III., when in September of 1857 he opened the Louvre, that its record may be considered a historical document. We give it therefore entire.

The ceremony of opening the Louvre was simple but imposing. The minis. ters, marshals and generals, the senators and great functionaries, assembled in the hall of the Louvre. The emperor and empress arrived at two o'clock with a vast retinue. The business began by the presentation of an address to the emperor from M. Fould, briefly describing the origin and completion of a work which, begun in 1852 and finished in 1857, unites the Louvre and the Tuileries. The emperor next distributed the legion of honor to the professional men who have distinguished themselves during the erection of the building; making some commanders, some simple knights. Having distributed all the honors, the emperor delivered the following address:

"Gentlemen-I congratulate myself, with you, on the completion of the Louvre. I congratulate myself especially upon the causes which have rendered it possible. In fact, it is order, restored stability, and the ever-increasing prosperity of the country, which have enabled me to complete this national work. I call it so because the governments which have succeeded each other have made it a point to do something towards the completion of the royal dwelling commenced by Francis I. and embellished by Henry II.

"Whence this perseverance, and even this popularity, in the building of a palace? It is because the character of a people is reflected in its institutions as in its customs, in the events that excite its enthusiasm as well as in the monuments which become the object of its chief interest. Now France, monarchical for so many centuries, which always beheld in the central power the representa. tive of her grandeur and of her nationality, wished that the dwelling of the sov ereign should be worthy of the country; and the best means of responding to that sentiment was to adorn that dwelling with the different masterpieces of human intelligence.

"In the middle ages, the king dwelt in a fortress, bristling with defensive works; but soon the progress of civilization superseded battlements, and the produce of letters, of the arts and sciences, took the place of weapons of war. Thus the history of monuments has also its philosophy as well as the history of

events.

"In like manner as it is remarkable that at the time of the first revolution, the

Capital cities and residences of kings, and even of petty princes, have in this respect the same effect which single large fortunes or single busy places have on the minds of the superficial, in point of political economy. They are palpable, and strike the mind, yet they prove nothing of themselves. There is not a war, however ruinous, that does not produce gigantic gains for some bankers, contractors, and able speculators. They are often pointed out to prove that a certain war has not been fatal to general prosperity. There have never existed greater fortunes than those of some princely Roman senators, with their latifundia, in the very worst periods of the Roman empire, amidst universal ruin, and when the country was fast declining to that state in which the tillers of the soil abandoned their farms, because unable to pay the taxes, and in which Italy, with the utmost exertion of the government, was not able to raise an army against invading hordes.

Whenever we shall have executed our railway to the Pacific, nothing of it will be seen at one moment and by the physical eye, that differs from the rails of any other road, and the vulgar will be struck far more by a palace at Versailles, or a

committee of public welfare should have continued, without being aware of it, the work of Louis XI., of Richelieu, of Louis XIV., giving the last blow to the feudal system, and carrying out the system of unity and centralization, the constant aim of monarchy-in like manner is there not a great lesson to learn in beholding the idea of Henry IV., of Louis XIII., of Louis XIV., of Louis XV., of Louis XVI., of Napoleon, as regards the Louvre, adopted by the ephemeral power of 1848? One of the first acts, in fact, of the provisional government, was to decree the completion of the palace of our kings. So true is it that a nation draws from its antecedents, as an individual derives from his education, ideas which the passions of a moment do not succeed in destroying. When a moral impulse is the consequence of the social condition of a country, it is handed down through centuries, and through different forms of government, until the object in view is attained.

"Thus the completion of the Louvre, towards which I thank you for your cooperation, given with so much zeal and skill, is not the caprice of a moment, but is the realization of a plan conceived for the glory and kept alive by the instinct of the country for more than three hundred years."

In the evening some hundreds of persons engaged in the work—workingmen, artists, men of letters, journalists-were entertained at dinner by the minister of state in a gallery of the Louvre. Of course the speaking was ultra-loyal.

column of Trajan; unless, indeed, a pointing hand were hewn in granite, at San Francisco, with the words, To the Atlantic, and another at some Atlantic city, with the words, To the Pacific; and even then the grandeur of the road would not be perceived by the physical eye.1

We live in an age which has justly been called the age of large cities. Populous cities are indispensable to civilization, and even to liberty, though I own that one of the problems we have yet to solve is, how to unite in large cities the highest degree of individual liberty and order.

But absorbing cities, cities on which monarchs are allowed to lavish millions of the national wealth, always belong to a low state of general national life, often to effete empires. The vast cities of Asia, Byzantium, imperial Rome, and many other cities prove it. On the other hand, it is an unfortunate state of things in which one city rules supreme, either by an overwhelming population, as Naples, or by concentration, as Paris. Constant changes of governments seem almost inevitable, whether they are produced by the people, as in the case of Paris, or by foreigners, as was formerly the case in Naples.

A comparison between Paris and London, in this respect, is instructive. London, far more populous, has far less influence than Paris; and London, incomparably richer, is far less brilliant than Paris. Monarchical absolutism and centralism strike the eye and strive to do so; liberty is brilliant indeed, but it is brilliant in history, and must be studied in her institutions,3

No one will charge the author, he trusts, with political iconoclasm, that has read his chapter on monuments in his Political Ethics.

2 The Age of Great Cities, or Modern Society viewed in its Relation to Intelligence, Morals and Religion, by Robert Vaughn, D.D., London, 1843.

3 This manifests itself in all spheres. Paris leads in fashion, art, science, language, etc. England has her Oxford and Cambridge.

The title of Walker's Critical Pronouncing Dictionary has these words: "Likewise Rules to be observed by the Natives of Scotland, Ireland and London, for avoiding their respective Peculiarities," as indicating part of the contents. This is strikingly English. The pronunciation and “peculiarities" of the Parisians,

Great as the influence of Paris has been ever since the reign of the Valois, it has steadily increased, and those who strove for liberty were by no means behind the others in their worship of the capital. This singular idolatry was actually acknowledged by several resolutions of the representatives of the people, during the late republic.

The intense influence of Paris, together with the wide-spread system of government, every single thread of which centres in Paris, is such that, in 1848, the republic was literally telegraphed to the departments, and adopted without any resistance from any quarter, civil or military, which cannot be explained by the often-avowed horror of the French at shedding French blood, since blood was readily shed to elevate Louis Napoleon. The same causes made it possible for the republic, so readily and unanimously adopted, to be with equal readiness changed by eight millions of votes into a monarchy.

It has already been admitted that centralism, by the very fact that it concentrates great power, can produce many striking results which it is not in the power of governments on a different principle to exhibit. These effects please and often popularize a government; but there is another fact to be taken into consideration. Symmetry is one of the elements of humanity; systematizing is one of man's constant actions. It captivates and becomes dangerous, if other elements and activities equally important are neglected, or if it is carried into spheres in which it ought not to prevail. The regularity and consistent symmetry, together with the principle of unity, which pervade the whole French government, charm many a beholder, and afford pleasure not unlike that which many persons derive from looking at a plan of a mathematically regular city, or upon gardens architectonically trimmed.

even as they change from time to time, are the very standard of French pronunciation.

Similar remarks may be made regarding the courts. The court of Versailles dictated in every sphere at the time when Horace Walpole, the whig, wrote that the English court was not fashionable, and was considered little better than a number of Germans kept there for some useful practical end.