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

236.: FRENCH NEWS [87] EXAMINER, 9 FEB., 1834, PP. 88-9 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II [1831]

Edition used:

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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236.

FRENCH NEWS [87]

EXAMINER, 9 FEB., 1834, PP. 88-9

There are two sections on France in this report, headed “London, February 9, 1834”; presumably both are Mill’s. For his bibliographic entry, see No. 226. In the Somerville College set of the Examiner, the item is listed as “Article on France.”

intense interest has been excited at Paris by the duel in which M. Dulong, a Republican Member of the Chamber of Deputies, has sacrificed his life.1 There is the strongest reason to believe that this catastrophe has been occasioned, not by the resentment of the offended party, Gen. Bugeaud, who is said to have shown himself well disposed to an accommodation, but by the vindictiveness of Louis-Philippe. M. Dulong had written a letter of apology which M. Bugeaud had considered satisfactory, and the quarrel was believed to have terminated; but a paragraph appeared next day in a Government paper, giving to the act of retractation a colour so dishonourable to M. Dulong, that he felt himself obliged to recall it; and when, immediately before the fatal meeting, he demanded back his letter from M. de Rumigny, one of his opponent’s seconds, who is aide-de-camp to the King, it was not forthcoming.2 This M. de Rumigny (the same who acted the part of a police spy in getting up the charge of conspiracy against MM. Cavaignac, Guinard, and others, three years since) has subsequently admitted that the letter was at the Tuilleries, and that he destroyed it in the presence of the King, Louis-Philippe is thus publicly and undeniably implicated in the affair, and nobody seems to doubt that it was he who caused the insertion of the offensive newspaper paragraph in order to produce a renewal of the quarrel.

The funeral procession of M. Dulong was attended by a concourse of people, exceeding, it is said, even the assemblage at the funeral of Gen. Lamarque. Not an act of disorder, nor an intemperate word, occurred to furnish the police with an excuse for massacring the people. The impression made upon public opinion by the whole affair is said to be such as Louis-Philippe’s greatest enemies would desire.

The French Government has taken a leaf out of the book of the Castlereagh Ministry. It has proposed the introduction into France of one of the Six Acts.3 A Bill has been introduced for the suppression of cheap political publications.4 For some months past there has been growing up in Paris a class of periodical and other tracts, sold by hawkers in the streets, at a price within the reach of the working people, to whom, principally, they are addressed. These publications are mostly republican. The object of the Bill now introduced is, first to require all venders of such publications to take out a license from the police; and next, to subject the works themselves to a stamp.

We shall watch the progress of this Bill. There is no doubt that it will pass; for public opinion is not yet sufficiently advanced among the French, to maintain any struggle in behalf of freedom of discussion for its own sake, when they take no personal or party interest in those who are the victims of its infringement. The proposed law will be considered a measure against the republican press; and, consequently, nobody who is not a republican, will deem himself concerned in opposing it.

The Commission on the Budget is said to make some difficulties about the estimates, and it is even pretended that they will refuse to grant the increased military force which Marshal Soult demands.5 This we take the liberty to doubt; a timid and irresolute body like the present Chamber, always succumbs to obstinacy, and Louis-Philippe has more of that quality than any man who has held power in France since Napoleon.

[1 ]François Charles Dulong (1792-1834), lawyer and politician of the left. On 25 Jan., during a very heated discussion over the rights of young officers, especially those in the artillery, Dulong shouted a remark at General Bugeaud, referring to him as the gaoler of the duchesse de Berry. (The debate but not the interjection appears in Moniteur, 1834, pp. 162-4.) A duel took place on 29 Jan. in which Dulong was wounded; he died next day and was buried on 1 Feb.

[2 ]See La Tribune, 30 Jan., 1834, p. 1, which quotes the offending passage from the Bulletin Ministériel and summarizes the affair. Marie Théodore Gueilly, comte de Rumigny (1789-1860), a colonel under Napoleon, was patronized by Louis Philippe. For details of the earlier charge of conspiracy, see Nos. 100 and 101.

[3 ]For the Six Acts of December 1819, see No. 9; the one specifically referred to is 60 George III & 1 George IV, c. 9.

[4 ]Projet de loi sur les crieurs publiques (24 Jan.), Moniteur, 1834, p. 154. The bill was reported by the commission to the Deputies on 3 Feb., and, after debate on the 5th, 6th, and 7th, was passed; the Peers adopted it on the 15th, and it was enacted as Bull. 110, No. 253 (16 Feb., 1834).

[5 ]The commission was appointed on 18 Jan. to deal with Projet de loi relatif à la fixation du budget des dépenses de l’exercice 1835, and Projet de loi relatif à la fixation du budget des recettes de l’exercice 1835, both of which were introduced on 9 Jan. (Moniteur, 1834, pp. 78 and 146). Soult’s demand of 3 Feb. is in Projet de loi tendant à accorder un crédit supplémentaire pour 1834, au ministère de la guerre (ibid., pp. 213-14).