is. Half of them were already there, in time
to be consulted both by Louis Blanc and Tocqueville. Croker's
collection of manuscript papers on the same period was sold for L50 at
his death, and went to what was once the famous library of Middle
Hill.

Louis Blanc was thus able to continue in England the work he had begun
at home, and he completed it in twelve volumes. It contains much
subsidiary detail and many literary references, and this makes it a
useful book to consult. The ponderous mass of material, and the power
of the pen, do not compensate for the weary obtrusion of the author's
doctrine and design.

An eminent personage once said to me that the parliament of his
country was intent on suppressing educational freedom. When I asked
what made them illiberal, he answered, "It is because they are
liberal." Louis Blanc partook of that mixture. He is the expounder of
Revolution in its compulsory and illiberal aspect. He desires
government to be so constituted that it may do everything for the
people, not so restricted that it can do no injury to minorities. The
masses have more to suffer from abuse of wealth than from abuse of
power, and need protection by the State, not against it. Power, in the
proper hands, acting for the whole, must not be restrained in the
interest of a part. Therefore Louis Blanc is the admirer and advocate
of Robespierre; and the tone of his pleading appears at the September
massacres, when he bids us remember St. Bartholomew.

Michelet undertook to vindicate the Revolution at the same time as
Louis Blanc, without his frigid passion, his ostentatious research,
his attention to particulars, but with deeper insight and a stronger
pinion. His position at the archives gave him an advantage over every
rival; and when he lost his place, he settled in the west of France
and made a study of La Vendee. He is regardless of proof, and rejects
as rubbish mere facts that contribute nothing to his argument or his
picture. Because Arras was a clerical town, he calls Robespierre a
priest. Because there are Punic tombs at Ajaccio, he calls Napoleon a
countryman of Hannibal. For him the function of history is judgment,
not narrative. If we submit ourselves to the event, if we think more
of the accomplished deed than of the suggested problem, we become
servile accomplices of success and force. History is resurrection. The
historian is called to revise trials and to reverse sentences, as the
people, who are th