o
serious, that there is no longer room for hesitation. France is "hourly
declining, engulfed like an Atalantis." Five minutes afterwards, "the
idea of our ruin is absurd, ridiculous. For who has a literature? Who
still sways the mind of Europe? We, weak as we are. Who has an army? We
alone." What is the conclusion which any unprejudiced reader would draw
from the painful details which M. Michelet has deemed it his paramount
duty to bring before the notice of mankind, and especially to the
consciences of the French nation itself? Simply this--that France,
disabled and diseased, is weak, and feebler than many other nations of
the world. The conclusion of M. Michelet is the very opposite one. "Let
France be united for an instant, she is strong as the world. England and
Russia, two feeble bloated giants, impose an illusion on Europe. Great
empires, weak people!" So it is throughout. M. Michelet leaves far
behind him the butcher, who would not suffer any man to call his dog an
ugly name but himself. You must not only utter no syllable of
condemnation against his glorious country, but you must be prepared to
regard the abuse of the author as so much panegyric.

The means of enfranchisement suggested by the poetic historian are as
fanciful as the bondage itself appears to be. Freedom for every class is
to be gained by LOVE. Love for the native country: in other words,
Frenchmen of every class are to believe that there never existed, that
there never will exist, a country so great as their own; and then, as if
by a charm, all their troubles will cease, their sorrow will be turned
into joy--their imprisonment to liberty, such as mankind have never yet
witnessed, such as no children of the great human family are capable of
enjoying, but the darlings and favourites of God--beloved France. In the
nursery, we do not correct the young by flattery and cajolery. The
surgeon does not hesitate to cut to the marrow, if the safety of the
patient depend upon the bold employment of the knife; but neither
monitor nor doctor in France may approach the faults and corruptions of
her people without doing homage to the one, and viciously tampering with
the other. What but insult is the following balderdash offered to a
great people as a remedy for physical suffering--cruelty--oppression--want?

"Say not, I beseech you, that it is nothing at all to be born in the
country surrounded by the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Rhine, and the ocean.
Take the poo