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• Prefatory Notice.
• Historical Notice of the Life and Works of M. De Sismondi. By M. Mignet. a
• Notes Consisting of Extracts From an Unpublished Article Entitiled: “vie Et Travaux De Charles De Sismondi.”
• Interview With Napoleon.
• Preliminary Essay.
• Preface to New Principles of Political Economy, and the Light Which They May Cast On the Crisis Which England Is At This Time Experiencing a .
• Introduction to Inquiries Into Political Economy.
• On Landed Property. a
• Notes to Essay On Landed Property.
• On the Condition of the Work People In Manufactories a
• On the National Income, Or the Income of the Community. a
• The Colonies of the Ancients, Compared With Those of the Moderns, As Regards Their Influence On the Happiness of Mankind . a
• On Universal Suffrage. a
• On the Prince, Or, Executive Power In Free Countries a .
• On the Prince, Or, Executive Power In Free Countries a Part II.
• On the Aristocratic Element In Free Countries a
• On Constitutional Monarchy a
• Extracts From the Private Journal and Letters of M. De Sismondi.
• List of M. De Sismondi's Works..

Surprised, without doubt, that lips Perfectly pure, a mind as liberal as it was enlightened, should have undertaken his defence. Napoleon wished to see Sismondi a .

The marshal came out soon after, and told me to wait some minutes. I had put on a sword with a plain coat; he advised me to lay it down. In half an hour the door opened; I was called. The emperor was in the hall, with several generals and aides-de-camp, among whom I recognised M. de Flahaut, and Labedoyère; he immediately went into the next room, where he called me to him. “Your name is Italian,”he said to me, “M. de Sismondi; you are, however, I believe, from Geneva? “I explained to him my origin. “I have read your writings with much pleasure,”said he, “and particularly what you have just written on the Constitution.” “I am happy, Sire, that this paper has obtained your approbation, but it frankly expresses my thoughts; and in fact, I look upon this Constitution as the best of all that have been given to France.” “Let us go into the garden,”said he, and he made me put on my hat, and he led me into a large alley of hornbeam, where we walked about for three quarters of an hour alone, tête-à-tête. “I see with much sorrow,”added I, “that this truly liberal constitution has been received with so much ill humour, and with such senseless clamour.” “But I hope that that will become less,”he said, “and my decree on the municipalities, and the presidents of the electoral colleges or assemblies a , will do good; besides, look at this nation, it is not yet ripe for such ideas. They contest my right to dissolve the assemblies, and if afterwards I were to dismiss them by means of bayonets, they would think that quite natural.” “What afflicts me,”answered I, “is that they cannot see that the system of your Majesty is necessarily changed; henceforward you are become the representative of the Revolution, the associate of liberal ideas. You have so cruelly experienced during the last year the feebleness of royal alliances, the bad faith, and the secret hatred of all those whom you had sought and protected, that you can no longer have any doubt that the party of liberty is here, and throughout Europe, your only faithful ally.” “It is indubitably so,”answered he, “I feel it perfectly, and I shall never depart from it. The people have felt that very well, and this it is that makes them favourable to me, because, in fact, I have never deviated in my administration from the system of the revolution, not principles as men like you understood them, (vous autres). I had then other views, great projects to which I was tending, but I have applied it, as for example, in me equality of justice, of the taxes, the eligibility to all places. These are the things which the peasantry remained in enjoyment of, and it is on that account that I am popular among them; hut the French, when it regards principles, are extreme in every thing; they judge them with la furia Français; they are distrustful suspicious. The English have much more reflection; their ideas are more matured on all these subjects; there is a justness of thought found in almost all of them. I saw much of them in the Isle of Elba; many were awkward, had a bad carriage, did not know how to come into my salon; but when once entered into conversation with them, one found baneath this rough exterior a mature man, ideas just, profound, and moderate.”

He spoke to me afterwards of Italy. “They are also a fine people,”said he; “there is stuff there to make a nation of; I had done much for them; I had given them the military spirit which they wanted, and national feeling. They were going on very well, and now they are very unhappy.” “In fact, Sire, you have made very good soldiers of them, I believe.” “Oh, they were quite as brave as the French; they had the same ardour under fire, and the same steadiness.” “I was in Italy last year, when Murat declared himself against you.” “Ah, how he conducted himself then! What bad faith!” “Sire, it must be said in his praise, that he saved the persons and property of twenty thousand Frenchmen, who would have been massacred if he had not very actively protected them.” “Ah, that is the only thing that can be said in his favour.” “I think that there is another still, Sire; seeing the steps he took, and his hesitation, I did not doubt that he was secretly friendly to you, and was only waiting events.” “Oh, not at all; even now he has committed another folly by those unseasonable great preparations.” “He has, then, been beaten?” No, he has even had some advantage at Cisene, but he was not the less obliged to draw back. He ought to have kept on his frontier, with his army well disciplined, on the defensive: his exact force could not have been estimated, and there would have been some hesitation in attacking him, whilst by advancing, he has immediately made the extent of his power known.” “There is, then, no rising in his favour?” “There has been a little, but he has no means of arming them; he has laid up no store of arms; it would not have been very difficult during a year of peace, especially as he had free trade with England, to buy a hundred thousand muskets, but as they are at present, the Italians can do nothing. They have made me many proposals, and were continually sending me solicitations to Elba, but I always answered them—Be quiet at present, there is nothing for you to do. In fact, in France, it was sufficient to gain the army and the people, and all the depôts of artillery, all the arsenals, all strong places were immediately in my hands. But, however much Italy might have been in my favour, Alexandria, Mantua, with all their arsenals, would not the less have remained in the hands of the Austrians. Besides, all those who have most consideration in the nation, who were most able to put themselves at its head, are arrested.” “How is that?” “There has been presented to them a conspiracy in the name of the Duc de Berri, as if he were on the point of entering Italy, to put himself at the head of the French party; it was not true, he knew nothing about it, but they fell into the snare, and those who had scduced them have given their names to the General Bellegarde, who has caused them to be arrested.”I told him that I thought Tuscany was less disposed to a revolution than the rest of Italy. “It was so from the beginning,”said he, “but now they begin to regret the French tribunals, and to complain of the disorder into which they have been thrown by the abolition of the Code. The other day they followed the Grand Duke to Pisa, saying to him, Ma non eta bene, Altezza Reale, tulta quella mutazione: non vogliamo più quelle leggi antiche, ne que' “dicelli, ne tante stravaganze.”∗ He spoke Italian very well, and with a very good accent. I spoke to him afterwards of Switzerland, and said how important her neutrality appeared to me. I related that I had sent an article to the Moniteur, which had not been inserted; he promised to look at it, and to cause it to appear. I said to him, that if Switzerland wished to maintain her neutrality, it would not be violated. He asked me what I thought of the disposition of the Cantons. I said that the new Cantons were favourable to France; that in the aristocratic Cantons the government was very much opposed to him, but that the people saw with much sorrow the changes of the last year; that the small Cantons were his enemies. “Taking it altogether,”said he, “the mass of the population regrets the act of mediation, and I could, with this act, cause a revolution in Switzerland as I have done in France.”He asked me how we were pleased with our constitution at Geneva. I told him that the theory of it was very bad, but that it did not act badly, and that we were very much attached to our independence. “The Genevese,”said he, “have the spirit of wisdom, and the habit of liberty, but is it then an hereditary aristocracy which has been established there? ”

LIST
of
M. DE SISMONDI's WORKS..

1796. I began, the year after my arrival in Tuscany, my Recherches sur les Constitutions des Peuples libra, inquiries into the constitutions of free nations. This work, which has never been finished nor published, occupied me five years.

In the two first books were contained the exposition of my principles on liberty and government, in the third the analysis of the British constitution, the fourth that of the French republic, fifth on the ancient constitutions of Spain, sixth that of the Italian republics; the four following, on Sweden, Poland, the Hanseatic towns, and the United States of America, were scarcely sketched out.

1798. My inquiries into the constitutions of the Italian republics obliged me to study their history, and from this period are dated my endeavours to become master of it, and my resolution to write it.

1800. At the end of my abode in Tuscany, I wrote my Tableau de l Agriculture Toscane, which I published at Geneva, in 1 vol. 8vo., 1801.

1801. I then undertook my first work on Political Economy, which I published at Geneva, under the title of Richesse commercielle, 3 vols. 8vo., 1803.

1806. I undertook to furnish all the articles on the History of Italy for the Biographie Universelle. I had written them all, and sent them to Messrs. Michaud, booksellers at Paris, long before the first volume of this biography appeared in 1811.

1807. I at last succeeded in getting the two first volumes of my History of the Itlian Republics published by Geasner at Zurich, in French and German.

1808. The following year he published the 3 rd and 4 th volumes

1809. Gessner being dead, Nicolle, at Paris, made a new edition of the four first volumes of the Italian Republics, and a first of the four following ones.

1811. I prepared, in 1811, and I gave in the winter of 1811-12, my course of lectures on the Literature of the South of Europe.

1813. I worked at it in Italy, and I published it the following year, with Treuttel and Wurtz, in four volumes 8vo.

1815. I published with Treuttel and Wurtz, the five last volumes, the 12th, 18th, 14th, 15th, and 16th, of my Italian Re- publics.

I composed for Dr. Brewster the article on Political Economy, for his Edinburgh Encyclopedia. In this I had down my first sketch of my system of Political Economy, on the abuse of labour, of competition, and on the excom of production.

1819. I published with Delaunay my New Principles of Political Economy, or wealth in its relation to population, 3 vols. 8vo.

In the month of May, 1818, I decided on undertaking the History of the French (Histoire des Français) and I had begun to make extracts from books, and to engage in the preparatory studies. In the year,

1821. I published the three first volumes with Treuttel and Wurtz.

1822. I published Julia Severa, or the year four hundred and ninety-two, 3 vols. 12mo.

1822. Published the 4th, 5th, and 6th volumes of Histoire desFrançais.

1826. Published the 7th, 8th, and 9th volumes.

1827. Published a new edition of Nouveaux Principes d'Economie Politique, very much increased.

1828. Volumes 10, 11, and 12 of my History.

1831. Volumes 13, 14, 15.

1832. I published in Lardner's Cyclopaedia an abridgment of the History of the Italian Republics, under title of Italian Republics of the Middle Ages, I vol. 16mo.; and immediately afterwards the same work in French, under the title of Histoire de la Renaissance de la Laberté on Itatie, et ses Progrées, et sa Décadence, et sa Chute, 2 vols. 8vo.

1833. I published successively, volumes 16 and 17 of the History.

1834. The 18th.

1835. I published in Lardner's Cycloædia, in English, and at the same time with Treuttel and Wurtz, in French, the History of the Fall of the Roman Empire, and the decliDe of civilization, from the year 250 to 1000, 2 vols. 8vo. It was a course of lectures which I had given at Geneva, in 1820–21, on the History of the first half of the Middle Ages. The same year I published, one after another, vols. 19 and 20 of the History.

1836. Volume 21 of the History, and the first voltune of Etudes sur les Constitutions des Peuples Libres. No. 1, des Sciences Sociales.

1837. Volume 2, des Sciences Sociales. No. 1, d'Etudes sur l'Eeonomie Politique.

1838. Volume 3, des Sciences Sociales. No. 2, d'Etudes sur l'Economie Politique.

1839. I published the abridgment of the History of the French, 2 vols. 8vo., which I had written at Pescia; and after my return, volume 22 of the History.

1840. Volumes 23 and 24.

1841. Volumes 25 and 26.

1842. Volumes 27, 28, and 29.

G. Woodfall and Son Printers, Angel Court, skinner Street, London

[a]See note at the end.

[a]The electors are divided in France into colleges or assemblies.

[a]But things do not go on well, please your Royal Highness; all these changes will not do. We will have no more of these ancient law. and taxes, and such follies.