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

78.: FRANCE EXAMINER, 23 JAN., 1831, P. 55 - 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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78.

FRANCE

EXAMINER, 23 JAN., 1831, P. 55

Here Mill introduces a Paris correspondent, Pierre Martin Maillefer (ca. 1799-?), journalist and member of the Aide-toi Society, whom Mill probably persuaded in August 1830 (see CW, Vol. XII, p. 63) to write for the Examiner (see Nos. 95, 99, 117). Maillefer’s lengthy article (pp. 55-6, dated 11 Jan.) follows the three paragraphs here included. The article, in “Foreign Intelligence,” is headed as title. Described in Mill’s bibliography as “Paragraphs introductory to a series of letters from France, in the Examiner of 23d Jany 1831” (MacMinn, p. 14), the item is listed on the fly-leaf of the Somerville College set as “Introductory remarks to a French correspondence (by Martin Maillefer),” and Mill’s part of the article is enclosed in square brackets.

we have succeeded in obtaining the aid of a most valuable correspondent at Paris, whose first letter appears in this day’s Examiner. England has newspapers enough, which, while hypocritically affecting zeal for Parliamentary Reform at home, make it their daily business to re-echo the most contemptible calumnies propagated by the new Oligarchy against the Parliamentary Reformers of France. The letters of our correspondent will be a faithful picture of the opinions, the feelings, perhaps even the errors, of the younger and more ardent portion of the popular party. Whatever they know, he knows; whatever they feel, he feels; whatever he believes, is believed at least by many of the most active and influential in a party of which he himself is not one of the obscurest members, and of which his position and his sources of information render him an adequate representative.

We are not responsible for all the opinions of our correspondent, nor do we expect that he will never express any sentiments in which we should disagree. But we can answer for the purity and excellence of all the public objects, which he, and his friends, have in view. We cannot, of course, guarantee all the facts which he relates, especially those which are of the nature of anecdotes; but we are certain that he will affirm nothing as true, but what is at least, very generally believed; and it is often of as much, or even of still greater importance and interest, to know what is thought to be true, than what really is so. We are convinced, in short, that as nothing will be disguised in these letters, both the faults and the virtues of the French character, and of the popular party in particular, will be exhibited in them, with the utmost fidelity and naïveté; and that here, and no where else, will the English reader be enabled to judge the more exaltés of the young patriots of France from their own lips. The very first letter, and the picture which it exhibits of public opinion in France, exemplify at once the virtues and the failings most natural to the French people, those connected with great susceptibility and mobility of character. In the most sanguinary excesses of the first revolution, as a word would rouse the popular fury, so a word would calm it: and now, with manners and habits infinitely softened and improved, the French retain the same excitability of spirit: the most lively gratitude and affection towards public men who wish, or seem to wish their good; suspicion and distrust, easily conceived, and easily renounced; political tergiversation punished for a time by bitter resentment, but very slender and inadequate services accepted as a full atonement.

The correspondence will not be continued every week, but as often as events may require and space permit, or as the reception which it meets with from the public, may seem to justify.