CHAPTER XXXIII.

IMPERATORIAL SOVEREIGNTY CONTINUED. ITS ORIGIN AND CHARACTER EXAMINED.

It has been said in the preceding pages, that imperatorial sovereignty must be always the most stringent absolutism, especially when it rests theoretically on the election of the whole, and that the transition from an uninstitutional popular absolutism to the imperatorial sovereignty is easy and natural. In the time of the so-called French republic of 1848, it was a common way of expressing the idea then prevailing to call the people le peuple-roi (the king-people), and an advocate, defending certain persons before the high court of justiciary sitting at Versailles in 1849, for having invaded the chamber of representatives, and consequently having violated the constitution, used this remarkable expression, "the people" (confounding of course a set of people, a gathering of a part of the inhabitants of a single city, with the people) never violates the constitution."

Where such ideas prevail, the question is not about a change of ideas, but simply about the lodgement of power. The minds and souls are already thoroughly familiarized with the idea of absolutism, and destitute of the idea of selfgovernment. This is also one of the reasons why there is

1 M. Michel, on the 10th of November. I quote from the French papers, which gave detailed reports. M. Michel, to judge from his own speech, seems to have been the oldest of the defending advocates.

so much similarity between monarchical absolutism, such for instance as we see in Russia, and communism, as it was preached in France; and it explains why absolutism having made rapid strides under the Bourbons before the first revolution, has ended every successive revolution with a still more compressive absolutism and centralism, except indeed the revolution of 1830. This revolution was undertaken to defend parliamentary government, and may be justly called a counter-revolution, on the part of the people, against a revolution attempted and partially carried by the government. It explains farther how Louis Napoleon after the second of December, and later when he desired to place the crown of uncompromising absolutism on his head, could appeal to the universal suffrage of all France-he that had previously curtailed it, with the assistance of the chamber of representatives. This phenomenon, however, must be explained also by the system of centralism which prevails in France. I shall offer a few remarks on this subject, after having treated of some more details appertaining to the subject immediately in hand.

This idea of the peuple-roi (it would perhaps have been more correct to say peuple-czar) also tends to explain the otherwise inconceivable hatred against the bourgeoisie, by which the French understand the aggregate of those citizens who inhabit towns, and live upon a small amount of property or by traffic. The communists and the French so-called democrats breathed a real hatred against the bourgeoisie; the proclamations, occasionally issued by them, openly avowed it; and the government, when it desired to establish unconditional absolutism in form as well as principle, fanned this hatred. Yet no nation can exist without this essential element of society. In reading the details of French history of the year 1848 and

the next succeeding years, the idea is forced upon our mind that a vast multitude of the French were bent on establishing a real and unconditional aristocracy of the ouvrier-the workman.2

If the imperatorial sovereignty is founded upon an actual process of election, whether this consist in a mere form or not, it bears down all opposition, nay all dissent, however lawful it may be, by a reference to the source of its power. It says: "I am the people, and whoever

2 This error broke forth into full blaze at the indicated time, but it had of course been smouldering a long time before, and, as is customary, had found some fuel even in our country. In the year 1841, during the presidential canvass, a gentleman—who has since become the editor of a catholic periodical, and has probably changed his views-published a pamphlet in which he attacked individual property, and fell into the same error which is spoken of in the text above.

The author of the pamphlet, which was very widely distributed, found it of course impossible to draw the line between the workmen and those who are not, and I recollect that he did not even allow the superintendent of a factory to be a workman. I have treated of these subjects in detail in my Essays on Labour and Property, and believe that a Humboldt is a harder working "working man," not indeed than the poor weaver who allows himself but five hours rest in the whole twenty-four, but certainly a far harder working man than any of those physically employed persons who want to make their class a privileged order. The fact is simply this, that there is no toiling man, however laboriously employed in a physical way, that does not guide his efforts by some exertion of the brain, and no mentally employed man that is not obliged to accompany his labour by some, frequently by a great deal of physical exertion. To draw an exact line between the two, for political purposes, is impossible. All attempts at doing so are mischievous. The hands and the brain rule the world. All labour is manual and cerebral, but the proportion in which the elements combine is infinite. So soon as no cerebral labour is necessary, we substitute the animal or the machine. In reading some socialist works, one would almost suppose that men had returned to some worship of the animal element, raising pure physical exertion above all other human endeavours. Humanity does not present itself more respectably than in the industrious and intelligent artisan; but every artisan justly strives to reach that position in which he works more by the intellect than by physical exertion. He strives to be an employer. The type of a self-dependent and striving American artisan is a really noble type. The author hopes he will count many an American operative among his readers; and if he be not deceived in this hope, he takes this opportunity to declare that he believes he too has a very fair title to be called a hard-working man, without claiming any peculiar civil privileges on that account.

dissents from me is an enemy to the people. Vox Populi vox Dei. My divine right is the voice of God, which spake in the voice of the people. The government is the true representative of the people."

the same.

The eight millions of votes, more or less, which elevated the present French emperor, first to the decennial presidency and then to the imperial throne, are a ready answer to all objections. If private property is confiscated by a decree; if persons are deported without trial; if the jury trial is shorn of its guarantees, the answer is always The emperor is the unlimited central force of the French democracy; thus the theory goes. He is the incarnation of the popular power, and if any of the political bodies into which the imperatorial power may have subdivided itself, like a Hindoo god, should happen to indicate an opinion of its own, it is readily given to understand that the government is in fact the people. Such bodies cannot, of course, be called institutions; for they are devoid of independence and every element of self-government. The present president of the French legislative corps found it necessary, on the opening of a late session, to assure his colleagues, in an official address, that their body was by no means without some importance in the political system, as many seemed to

suppose.

The source of imperatorial power, however, is hardly ever what it is pretended to be, because, if the people have any power left, it is not likely that they will absolutely denude themselves of it, surely not in any modern and advanced nation. The question in these cases is not even whether they love liberty, but simply whether they love power-and every one loves power. On the one hand, we have to observe that no case exists in history in which the question, whether imperatorial power shall be

conferred upon an individual, is put to the people, except after a successful conspiracy against the existing powers or institutions, or a coup-d'état, if the term be preferred, on the part of the imperatorial candidate; and on the other hand, a state of things in which so great a question is actually left to the people is wholly unimaginable. There may be a so-called interregnum during the conclave, when the cardinals elect a pope, but a country cannot be imagined in a state of perfect interregnum while the question is deciding whether a hereditary emperor shall be made. It is useless to pretend even such a thing, most especially so where the question is to be decided not by representatives, but by universal suffrage, and that, too, in a country where the executive is spread over every inch of the territory, and characterized by the most consistent centralism. The two last elections of Louis Napoleon prove the fact. Ministers, prefects, bishops, were openly and officially influencing the elections; not to speak of the fact that large elections on persons in power, which allow to vote only yes or no, have no meaning, as the history of France abundantly proves. But how elections at present are managed in France, even when the question is not so comprehensive, may be seen from a circular addressed by the minister, M. de Morny, to the prefects, previous to the elections for the first legislative corps. It is an official paper, strikingly characteristic, and I shall give a place to a translation of it in the Appendix. We ought to bear in mind that one of

3 See the Paper on Elections, in the Appendix.

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4 M. de Morny is the frère adultérin of Louis Bonaparte, on the mother's side, queen Hortensia. He aided his half brother very actively in the overthrow of the republic, and the establishment of the empire. M. de Morny lost the ministry at the time when Louis Bonaparte despoiled the Orleans family of their lawful property, and, it was believed, because the minister could not in his conscience sanction an act at once so unlawful and ungrateful.