which exist in
the English. That France has had, a reputation for restlessness, love of
change, and tumult, can only be explained by stating that until the
present time for the last two centuries, with the exception of Louis the
Eighteenth, she has been most unfortunate in her rulers, who have been
supporting a state of extravagant splendour which could alone be
sustained by being wrung from the middle and the lower classes; hence
the revolution in 1789, which might be considered as the ripened fruit
which the preceding reigns had been nurturing. Of the affair of the
three days in 1830, few I believe will deny the intensity of the
provocation, but then it will be said how do you account for their
having been so turbulent and discontented during the present reign? To
which I should answer in the same manner as an officer, who, defending
the character of his regiment, observed that it was composed of a
thousand men, of which nine hundred and fifty were peaceable and quiet
subjects, but the other fifty being very noisy they were constantly
heard of, and his corps had obtained the appellation of the noisy
regiment, as no one bestowed a thought upon the 'nine hundred and fifty
men who were orderly' because no one ever heard of them: thus it may be
said of France, the population may be estimated at about thirty-five
millions, of which perhaps one million may be discontented, and amongst
them are many persons connected with the press, who not only contrive by
that means to extend their war-whoop to every corner of France, but as
newspapers are conveyed to all the civilised parts of the world, and the
only medium by which a country is judged by those who have not an
opportunity of visiting it and making their own observations by a
residence amongst the people, it naturally is inferred in England and in
other nations that the French are a most dissatisfied and refractory
people. But a case in point may be cited, which proves that the
dissatisfaction is not general, nor has ever been during the present
reign. From the time that Louis-Philippe accepted the throne in 1830,
until June the 6th, 1832, a number of young men in the different
colleges at Paris occupied themselves constantly with the affairs of the
state, each forming a sort of political utopia, and however different
were their various theories, they all united in one object, and that was
to overthrow the existing government, and secretly took measures for
arming themselve