The French Revolution of 1848 was followed by an alarm on the part of
men of property, or of those whose profits depended on the integrity of
property being respected, which produced grave effects, the end whereof
is not yet. That revolution was the consequence of a movement as
purely political as the world ever saw. There was discontent with the
government of M. Guizot, which extended to the royal family, and in
which the _bourgeoisie_ largely shared, the very class upon the support
of which the House of Orleans was accustomed to rely. Had the government
yielded a little on some political points, and made some changes in the
administration, Louis Philippe might have been living at the Tuileries
at this very moment, or sleeping at St. Denis. But, insanely obstinate,
under dominion of the venerable delusion that obstinacy is firmness, the
King fell, and with him fell, not merely his own dynasty, but the whole
system of government which France had known for a generation, and
under which she was, painfully and slowly, yet with apparent sureness,
becoming a constitutional state. A warm political contest was converted
into a revolution scarcely less complete than that of 1789, and far more
sweeping than that of 1830. Perhaps there would have been little to
regret in this, had it not been, that, instead of devoting their
talents to the establishing of a stable republican government, several
distinguished Frenchmen, whom we never can think capable of believing
the nonsense they uttered, began to labor to bring about a sort of
social Arcadia, in which all men were to be made happy, and which was to
be based on contempt for political economy and defiance of common
sense. Property, with its usual sensitiveness, took the alarm, and the
Parisians soon had one another by the throat. How well founded was
this alarm, it would be difficult to say. Most likely it was grossly
exaggerated, and had no facts of importance to go upon. That among the
disciples of M. Louis Blanc there were gentlemen who had no respect for
other men's property, because they had no property of their own, it is