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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 79.: FRENCH NEWS [12] EXAMINER, 23 JAN., 1831, P. 57 - 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

79.: FRENCH NEWS [12] EXAMINER, 23 JAN., 1831, P. 57 - 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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79.

FRENCH NEWS [12]

EXAMINER, 23 JAN., 1831, P. 57

This article is headed “London, January 23.” For the entry in Mill’s bibliography, see No. 55. In the Somerville College copy, the article is listed as “Article on France”; and Mill’s square brackets enclose the part of the article here included (two further paragraphs comment on Polish and Hanoverian affairs).

during the last week, the French Chamber of Deputies has been principally occupied with a bill relating to the Sinking Fund; in one clause of which, the Ministers have sustained what appears to us a merited defeat.1 They proposed, that the nation should pledge itself never to cancel any portion of stock until the whole was redeemed; but to continue paying the interest upon the stock which is bought up, to augment the fund for the redemption of the remainder. As M. Gautier observed, this would be to throw the whole burthen of paying off the debt upon the present generation, although in all probability the next will have greater resources, and fewer demands upon its finances for extraordinary expense.2 The clause was thrown out, members of both oppositions speaking and voting against it.

General Lamarque made another of his vehement exhortations to war.3 He appears to resemble the other Bonapartist officers in their military mania, though not in their baser attributes, the low selfishness and imbecile vanity, which distinguish almost the whole of Napoleon’s parvenu nobility. M. Mauguin followed with a speech of considerable ability, full of just observations on the character of foreign governments, particularly of the English, the Aristocratical character of which he perfectly understands; but too much in the same warlike tone.4 That able and highly-principled paper, the Courrier Français, has answered both speeches in an article, which, we trust, will be read in every corner of France.5

Addresses from the People and from the National Guard of different parts of France to Lafayette, lamenting his retirement,6 and to the King, demanding popular institutions,7 are now to be found in every number of the French newspapers, and they seem to be as numerous from what were thought the backward parts of France, as from any others.

[1 ]Mill is referring specifically to the debate and vote (17 Jan.) on Art. 7 of Projet de loi relatif à l’amortissement; see Moniteur, 1831, p. 119.

[2 ]Jean Elie Gautier’s speech of 11 Jan. on the sinking fund is reported ibid., pp. 76-8. Gautier (1781-1858), deputy 1824-31, first sat as a royalist, but spoke against the law of censorship in 1827 and subsequently was one of the 221.

[3 ]On 15 Jan., ibid., pp. 109-10. Maximilien Lamarque (1770-1832) had joined the army in 1791 and fought with brilliance until he went into exile in 1815. Returning in 1818, he was elected in 1828 to the Chamber of Deputies, and made a name for himself as one of the orators of the opposition. He was quickly disillusioned with Louis Philippe’s policy of peace at all costs, against which he spoke, favouring going to the aid of Poland.

[4 ]Ibid., p. 111.

[5 ]“De la paix et de la guerre,” Courrier Français, 17 Jan., pp. 1-2.

[6 ]See, e.g., Le National, 17 Jan., p. 4, 18 Jan., p. 3, 19 Jan., p. 3, and 21 Jan., p. 3.

[7 ]See, e.g., ibid., 17 Jan., p. 4, for the address from the Meurthe, mentioned in Nos. 81 and 85.