ess and by freely chosen representatives, should control and
direct the conduct of her governor--the Parliamentarians would eagerly
rally round him. On the same conditions they would support with equal
readiness Henri V. or the Comte de Paris, a president elected by the
people, or a president nominated by an Assembly. They are the friends of
liberty, whatever be the form in which she may present herself.'

* * * * *

'Although our author visits the Provinces, his work contains no report of
their political feelings. The explanation probably is, that he found no
expression of it The despotism under which France is now suffering is
little felt in the capital. It shows itself principally in the subdued
tone of the debates, if debates they can be called, of the Corps
Legislatif, and the inanity of the newspapers. Conversation is as free in
Paris as it was under the Republic. Public opinion would not support the
Government in an attempt to silence the salons of Paris. But Paris
possesses a public opinion, because it possesses one or two thousand
highly educated men whose great amusement, we might say whose great
business, is to converse, to criticise the acts of their rulers, and to
pronounce decisions which float from circle to circle, till they reach
the workshop, and even the barrack. In the provinces there are no such
centres of intelligence and discussion, and, therefore, on political
subjects, there is no public opinion. The consequence is, that the action
of the Government is there really despotic; and it employs its
irresistible power in tearing from the departmental and communal
authorities all the local franchises and local self-government which they
had extorted from the central power in a struggle of forty years.

'Centralisation, though it is generally disclaimed by every party that is
in opposition, is so powerful an instrument that every Monarchical
Government which has ruled France since 1789 has maintained, and even
tried to extend it.

'The Restoration, and the Government of July, were as absolute
centralisers as Napoleon himself. The local power which they were forced
to surrender they made over to the narrow _pays legal_, the privileged
ten-pounders, who were then attempting to govern France. The Republic
gave the election of the _Conseils generaux_ to the people, and thus
dethroned the notaries who governed those assemblies when they
represented only the _bourgeoisie_. Th