e civilised world. France, throughout the
year, was rent by the violence of party. Three royal factions, the
Buonapartists, the Orleanists, and the Bourbons, _par excellence_,
were sowing broadcast the seeds of social dissension. The two
great-republican parties--that of the socialists (or "reds"), and
that of a philosophic and rational republicanism, led by Cavaignac and
Lamartine--were ardent in their appeals for popular support. The party
of the church watched all the others, ready to exert its influence
wherever it could serve itself, by preventing any political sect
from settling into power, except under such conditions as, in its own
interest, the church should prescribe. The party of the president (the
Buonapartists) gradually and steadily gained over all the others; the
soldiery and the peasantry were Napoleonist; the church saw this, and
threw its weight into the presidential scale. The union of peasant
proprietary, the army, the church, the Buonapartists proper, and the
friends of order, who believed in the oath of the prince-president,
constituted the will of France;--the policy of Napoleon was accepted
by many because it was his: it was his, because he knew it would be
acceptable to many as the only safeguard against anarchy, and the only
form of absolutism that could be substituted for liberty, or impose upon
its friends.

While revolution raged everywhere, Rome was in arms, the pope was a
fugitive, and a provisional government ruled the estates of Romagna,
Bologna, and Ferrara, in the name of freedom. The Romans conducted
themselves justly and heroically, but the Austrian government, whose
successes in Italy and Hungary, as well as in the duchy of Austria,
gave her confidence, was anxious to restore the pope and enforce
his government by the bayonet. This was not acceptable to either the
governments of England or France. The latter resolved to interfere, and
the question arose and was anxiously mooted in England, what, under such
circumstances, was the true policy of Britain? Lord Palmerston, who
was strongly opposed to Austrian ascendancy in Italy, was favourable to
French intervention; and there were persons who asserted that the
idea itself originated not at the Tuileries, but in the English
Foreignoffice. At all events, no opposition was offered, and a French
expedition to Rome resulted. The Romans fought in a way worthy of
Romans, but, borne down by the superior power of France, their proud
city yiel