ABSTRACT
In an amusing book, but one of which the popularity has been far beyond its merits, The Englishman in Paris, it is stated of the Revolution of 1848 by the anonymous author that neither his friends nor himself ‘have ever been able to establish a sufficiently valid political cause for that upheaval’. For myself, who lived in intimate relations with many French families, I can only say the exact contrary. I will not here repeat what I said in far more vigorous language than I am now capable of, on the ‘Reign of Louis Philippe’ in the first number of Politics for the People. But I, a man of 79 (1900), declare that what I wrote on the subject at 27 is not in the slightest degree exaggerated; that a baser, more corrupting rule than that of Louis Philippe never weighed on a great people, except that of the Second Empire, for which it was in reality the preparation.
