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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 230.: FRENCH NEWS [83] EXAMINER, 12 JAN., 1834, P. 23 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II

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

230.: FRENCH NEWS [83] EXAMINER, 12 JAN., 1834, P. 23 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II [1831]

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The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II, 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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230.

FRENCH NEWS [83]

EXAMINER, 12 JAN., 1834, P. 23

For the entry in Mill’s bibliography, see No. 226. This article, headed “London, January 12, 1834,” is listed as “Article on France” in the Somerville College set of the Examiner.

the debate of the French Chamber of Deputies on the address in answer to the King’s Speech is now nearly concluded.1 We have deemed it useless to lay before our readers a meagre abstract which would utterly fail in conveying any notion of the general spirit of the debate. The circumstance which appears to have made the strongest impression on our English contemporaries, is the distinct disavowal of Republicanism and declaration of attachment to hereditary monarchy, which has emanated from MM. Odilon Barrot, Mauguin,2 and other leaders of the Constitutional opposition; on the other hand, MM. Voyer d’Argenson and Audry de Puyraveau, men of the highest character and personal merit, being called to account by a member for having affixed their signature to the Republican manifesto of the Société des Droits de l’Homme, avowed and justified their conduct.3

As we find that some English journals are propagating the same false impressions respecting this society, and making the same indefensible use of the name of Robespierre, for the purpose of discrediting its intentions, as the Government papers in France had already done,4 we shall next week do what no English paper, we believe, has yet attempted; we shall state exactly what the society in question is, what are its principles and objects, and in what manner the name of Robespierre has come to be mixed up with it.5 At present we shall only say that the Société des Droits de l’Homme represents only a fraction of the Republican party, if party it can be called; a fraction which carries its views of innovation further than even what are considered the most violent of the Republican newspapers: and though it holds the entire insurrectional strength of the party in its hands, or rather is the only Republican party which any person in his senses believes to meditate insurrection, the Republican cause for purposes of discussion and popular enlightenment, is in far more efficient as well as more temperate hands.

In separating itself avowedly from Republicanism, the opposition in the Chamber has taken the only means by which it could have a chance of recovering some political importance. The Chamber is no place for advocating doctrines in advance of the existing charter; for such the press is the proper organ; in the Chamber an orator, even of the most commanding talents, could not obtain a hearing for such opinions as are held by the ablest opponents of the present French Government. There is still room in the Chamber for a Constitutional or Monarchical opposition; but the men whose opinions fitted them for composing such a party, by merely carping at the measures of Government in detail, without wedding themselves to any principle, had allowed all popular influence to pass out of their hands into those of the bolder, more consistent, and, we must add, abler men who form the Republican opposition out of doors. They are now making an effort, and of the right kind, to redeem themselves from the insignificance into which they have sunk; they have declared unequivocally their political creed. They are adverse to a new revolution, adverse to the abolition of hereditary Monarchy; but they contend strongly for a large extension of the suffrage in the election of members of the Chamber of Deputies.

The French people are at last awakening to the truth, of which the English from their longer experience have been for some time aware—that the constitution of the representative body is the really vital question of Government; and that their own rests on far too narrow a basis. For the first time, numerous petitions are now preparing from various parts of France for a more popular system of election.

[1 ]The address in answer to the Speech from the Throne (23 Dec., 1833) was read and the debate began on 2 Jan. (Moniteur, 1834, pp. 10-16).

[2 ]Mauguin’s speech of 3 Jan. on the address was reported ibid., p. 24; Odilon Barrot’s, of the 4th, ibid., p. 28.

[3 ]For the episode on 6 Jan. and the speeches by Argenson and Audry de Puyravault, see ibid., pp. 40-2. The member who called them to account was Thomas Robert Bugeaud de la Piconnerie, duc d’Isly (1784-1849), who became a general under Louis Philippe, and had been a deputy since 1831. The Société des Droits de l’Homme (see No. 226, n2) had issued in 1833 the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen, prefaced to the Constitution of 1793 by Robespierre; see No. 233 for Mill’s fuller discussion.

[4 ]See, for English examples, “Y.,” “Private Correspondence” (Paris, 1 Nov.), The Times, 11 Nov., 1833, p. 1, and “Foreign Intelligence (from our Private Correspondent),” Standard, 16 Dec., 1833, p. 2; for a French example, “Paris: 28 octobre,” Journal des Débats, 29 Oct., p. 1.

[5 ]The promise was not fulfilled until two weeks later (No. 233), there being no room in the Examiner for 19 Jan., to which Mill contributed Nos. 231 and 232, the latter of which usurped the space.