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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 95.: FRENCH NEWS [20] EXAMINER, 20 MAR., 1831, P. 186 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I

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Subject Area: Political Theory
Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

95.: FRENCH NEWS [20] EXAMINER, 20 MAR., 1831, P. 186 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I [1822]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXII - Newspaper Writings December 1822 - July 1831 Part I, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


95.

FRENCH NEWS [20]

EXAMINER, 20 MAR., 1831, P. 186

This item is headed “London, March 20.” For the entry in Mill’s bibliography, see No. 55. The piece is identified as “Article on France” and these two paragraphs are enclosed in square brackets in the Somerville College set.

a change has taken place in the French ministry. Laffitte has resigned; Mérilhou was out of office already; the others, who composed the dregs of the late Cabinet, remain in office, though with some shuffling and changing of places, under the new Premier, M. Casimir-Périer, who takes the department of the interior. Louis, the most narrow-minded and inept of Bonaparte’s clerks, resumes the post of minister of finance, which he held in the administration of Guizot, and in two of the numerous ministries of Louis XVIII.1 His nephew, Admiral De Rigny, who commanded the French fleet at Navarino, becomes minister of marine.2

From the letter of our Paris correspondent,3 it will be seen what the popular party think of this ministry; they conceive, and do not hesitate, through their various organs, to declare, that it is the Polignac ministry of the new government, and will bring that government to the same abrupt termination as that which preceded it. We trust not; for as it is the second blow which makes the quarrel, so it is the second convulsion which annihilates future stability. But if there be such a convulsion, we are as fully convinced that the incredible folly and weakness of Louis Philippe, and the grasping selfishness of his worthy majority, are the sole cause of it, as we are that the wisdom of our public will lay the whole blame upon those who are contending for a Parliamentary Reform about half as extensive as that which an English King,4 and a cabinet of English Noblemen, have thought it safe and necessary to propose to an English Parliament, amidst the acclamations of the people from the Orkneys to the Land’s End.

[1 ]Baron Joseph Dominique Louis (1755-1837) had served the financial interests of Louis XVI, Napoleon, and Louis XVIII. Minister of Finance under the Provisional Government, he had continued to hold the appointment until November 1830.

[2 ]Henri Gauthier, comte de Rigny (1782-1835). The battle of Navarino, 20 Oct., 1827, was the decisive event in establishing the independence of Greece.

[3 ]“M.” (Pierre Martin Maillefer), “Foreign Intelligence,” Examiner, 20 Mar., 1831, pp. 184-5.

[4 ]That is, William IV (1765-1837), the third son of George III, who in 1830 had become King on the death of his brother, George IV.