WHEN 188 the great war which Napoleon waged against Europe came to an end by his defeat and ruin, France was once more handed over to the Bourbons, and Europe, as we have already seen, fell into the arms of reaction and sheer absolutism. The Holy Alliance, or union of reactionary monarchs, undertook the enterprise of crushing out all popular feeling, or even anything that could be supposed to represent it in the person of the bourgeois.
But the French Revolution had shaken absolutism too sorely for this enterprise to have more than a very partial success 189 even on the surface. The power of absolutism was undermined by various revolutionary societies, mostly (so-called) secret, which attracted to them a great body of sympathy, and in consequence seemed far more numerous and immediately dangerous than they really were. Still there was a great mass of discontent, mostly political in character, and by no means confined to the poorer classes.
This discontent went on gathering head, till in 1830, and again in 1848, it exploded into open revolt against autocracy all over Europe. This revolt, we must repeat, was in the main a mere counter-stroke to the reaction that was diligently striving to restore the aristocratic privilege which the French Revolution had abolished, and to maintain what of it had escaped its attack. In 1830 the revolt was purely bourgeois in character, and was in no sense social, but, as above said, political. In 1848 it had in some places a strong infusion of the proletarian element, which, however, was dominated by middle-class patriotism and ideas which led to the assertion and consolidation 190 of nationalities. This has gone on ever since, and the feeling still exists and in some cases is even rampant. Poland, Hungary, Italy, Servia, Ireland, and France, as represented by her Chauvinists, have all once and again contributed their quotas to this nuisance of “Patriotism,” which has so often in these latter days dragged the red herring over the path of the Revolution.
But a new element was present in these latter revolutionary movements, though at first it did not seem to influence their action much. This was the first appearance in politics of modern or scientific Socialism, in the shape of the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels, first published in 1847. The rise and development of this phase will be dealt with in detail further on; at present we can do no more than call attention to the steady and continuous influence of this last-born Socialism, compared with the rapid extinction of Baboeuf’s propaganda, although he had a numerous body of adherents; for this fact marks a very great advance since the end of the eighteenth century.
The general effect, however, at least 191 as seen openly, of these insurrections was little more than the shaking of absolutism and the supplanting of it in various degrees by middle-class constitutionalism; and also, as aforesaid, an added impulse toward the consolidation of nationalities, which later on produced the unification of Italy and of Germany, and the assertion of the independence of the Hungarian state.
In France the outward effects of the insurrection were most obvious and lasted the longest; but the bourgeois institution that took the place of Louis Philippe’s corrupt monarchy asserted itself tyrannically enough against the proletariat, and in consequence had no strength left to meet the political adventurer Louis Napoleon, whose plot against the republic received just as much resistance as gave him an excuse for the massacre of 4th December 1851, by means of which he terrorised France for many years. Notwithstanding, as to numbers it was quite insignificant compared with the slaughter which followed the taking of Paris by the bourgeois 192 troops at the time of the fall of the Commune 1n 1871.
This successful stroke had really no relation to any foregoing reactionary dictatorship. It even professed to be founded on democratic feeling, though as a matter of fact it was the expression of the non-political side of bourgeois life—the social and commercial side—the ideal of the shopkeeper grown weary of revolutions and anxious to be let alone to make money and enjoy himself vulgarly. Accordingly France settled down into a period of “law and order,” characterised by the most shameless corruption and repulsive shoddy splendour. She got at last into full swing of the rule of successful stock-jobbery, already established in England, and carried it on with less hypocrisy than ourselves, and consequently with more open blackguardism.
To sustain this regime various showy military enterprises were undertaken, some of which it was attempted to invest with a kind of democratic sentiment. It was also of some importance to make at least a show of giving employment to 193 the working classes of France. This principally took the form of the rebuilding of Paris and the restoration, or vulgarisation, of the mediæval cathedrals and public buildings, in which France is richer than any other country; so that this apotheosis of middle-class vulgarity has left abiding tokens of its presence in a loss that can never be repaired. Yet in spite of this militarism and the attempt to gain the support of the proletarians by gifts of “bread and pageants,” discontent of various kind sprang up and steadily increased. Moreover, the new birth of Socialism was beginning to bear fruit; the Communistic propaganda got firm hold of the city proletariat of France. Socialism was steadily preached in Paris at La Villette and Belleville, the latter, originally laid out and built upon as an elegant suburb for rich bourgeois, having proved a failure, and become a purely workman’s quarter in consequence.
While all this was going on as it were underground, the Cæsarism of the stock-exchange was also beginning to get the worst of it in the game of statecraft, until at last the results of the 104 consolidation of nationalities, which was the chief aim of the bourgeois revolt of 1848, became obvious in the revival of the old animosities between Germany and France. Bismarck, who had become the attorney-dictator of Germany, had got to know the weakness of the showy empire of Louis Napoleon, and had a well warranted confidence in that carefully elaborated machine, the Prussian army. He laid a trap for the French Cæsar, who fell into it, perhaps not blindly, but rather driven by a kind of gambler’s last hope, akin to despair.
A great race war followed, the natural and inevitable outcome of which was the hopeless defeat of the French army, led as it was by self-seekers and corrupt scoundrels of the worst kind, most of whom lacked even that lowest form of honour which makes a Dugald Dalgetty faithful to the colours under which he marches. The Second Empire was swept away. The new Republic proclaimed after the collapse of Sedan still kept up a hopeless resistance to the unbroken strength of Germany—hopeless, since the corruption of the Empire still lived on in 195 the bourgeois republic, as typified in the person of the political gamester, Gambetta. Paris was invested, and taken after a long resistance that reflected infinite credit on the general population, who bore the misery of the siege with prodigious patience and courage, but no less disgrace on those who pretended to organise its defence, but who were really far more inclined to hand over the city to the Germans than allow it to gain a victory under the auspices of the proletariat.
All this must be looked upon by Socialists as merely the prelude to the great drama of the Commune, whose aims and influence will form the subject of another chapter.