and perhaps more than
the usual talents of the Parisian journalist--with all, and more than
the usual faults of one--has undertaken to write the history of his
country, during and since the revolution of 1830. What can we expect to
be the result of such an undertaking? What can we expect from a man who
sits down to a task of this description, animated with all the party
virulence which gives zest to a democratic newspaper? It is not a
history, but a scandal, that he will write. M. Louis Blanc has distilled
the bile of journalism; he has paused over the hasty sarcasm which
political animosity deals forth, not to correct, or moderate, or abate,
but merely to point and envenom it. His appreciation of men, their
character, their talents, their designs--all bear the hue of the
atrabilious journalist. There is this difference only between his
history and the daily portion of envy and malignity which a democratic
newspaper pours forth, that the dye is more deeply engrained. In the
mind of the author, the stain of his party has become ineffaceable.
Those who are pleased--and the number is not few--with having high names
and established reputations laid at their feet, soiled, trod upon, will
meet here with ample gratification. To be sure they will be occasionally
required, in lieu of such as they have thrown down, to set up the bust
of some democratic celebrity, whose greatness, or whose genius, they
were not previously aware of. But, not to say that the justice of party
requires this substitution, it is a penalty which writers of this
description will invariably impose upon them. It is the common trick of
the envious, and the mock magnanimity with which they seek to conceal
their true nature--to exalt the lowly, while they debase the exalted.
Since some idol there must be, let it be one of their raising. Even
while helping to raise it, they enjoy, too, the secret consciousness
that it is of brittle metal.

But in the composition of a history, the spirit of party, however eager
it may be, cannot always guide the pen. The mere interest of the
narrative, the strangeness and peculiarity of circumstances, will claim
their share of the author's mind. The politician must sometimes be
absorbed in the chronicler; and so it happens with M. Louis Blanc. His
narrative often interests by its details; and if it has the partiality,
it has also the vivacious colouring, of a contemporary. It possesses,
also, a richness of anecdote--the fruit,