The Cradle of Rebellions: A History of the Secret Societies of France
By . New York : John Bradburn.
THE translator of this sharp and pungent sketch of the later French revolutionists is understood to be General John W. Phelps of Vermont, — a man whose personal services, despite some eccentric traits, will give him an honorable place in the history of these times. It is possible that readers may not agree with him in his estimate of the dangers to be incurred by American institutions from secret societies. They are a thing essentially alien to our temperament. The Southern plotters of treason were certainly open enough ; it was we who were blind. The “Know-Nothing” movement was a sort of political carnival, half jest, half earnest, and good for that trip only. If anything could have created secret societies, it would have been the FugitiveSlave-Law excitement: that, indeed, produced them by dozens, but they almost always died still-born, and whatever was really done in the revolutionary line was effected by very informal coöperation.
Indeed, even the French nation is, by its temperament, less inclined to deep plotting than any nation of Southern Europe, and as De la Hodde himself admits, “not one of our revolutions during the last sixty years has been the work of conspirators.” “ There is but one maker of revolutions in France, and that is Paris, — idle, sophistical, disappointed, restless, evil-minded Paris. We all know her.” “Of one thing we may rest assured : the greater part of our revolutions signify nothing.” And this has been notoriously true since the days of the Fronde.
Yet the moral of the book is not without value, and its historic interest is considerable, taken in connection with the other memoirs of the same epoch. 1 he style is rather piquant, and the translation good, though a little stiff. The writer is an Orleanist, and thinks the Revolution of 1848 a mere whim of the populace, favored by a “ vertigo ” on the part of Louis Philippe. It was “an incomprehensible contingency, —sovereign power giving way to a revolt, without the test of a combat.”
The book was first published under the Republic, to which the author professes due loyalty. He suggests, however, that, as no one is required by duty to fall in love with a very ugly woman who may have been imposed on him in marriage, so he is not yet very much smitten with the Republic. But he is ready to respect the dame, if she proves to deserve it, as a legitimate connection.