did not cease to influence politics till 1830. But, abroad, there was a reaction to the older type of popular government in 1814 and 1815; and it was thought possible to combine freedom and order by copying, with very slight changes, the British Constitution. From a longing for liberty, combined with a loathing of the French experiments in it, there sprang the state of opinion in which the constitutional movements of the Continent had their birth. The British political model was followed by France, by Spain and Portugal, and by Holland and Belgium, combined in the kingdom of the Netherlands; and, after a long interval, by Germany, Italy, and Austria.

The principle of modern popular government was thus affirmed less than two centuries ago, and the practical application of that principle outside these islands and their dependencies is not quite a century old. What has been the political history of the commonwealths in which this principle has been carried out in various degrees? The inquiry is obviously one of much importance and interest; but, though the materials for it are easily obtained, and indeed are to a large extent within the memory of living men, it is very seldom or very imperfectly prosecuted. I undertake it solely with the view of ascertaining, within reasonable limits of space, how far actual experience countenances the common assumption of our day, that popular government is

likely to be of indefinitely long duration. I will first take France, which began with the imitation of the English, and has ended with the adoption of the American model. Since the introduction of political freedom into France, the existing government, nominally clothed with all the powers of the State, has been three times overturned by the mob of Paris, in 1792, in 1830, and in 1848. It has been three times overthrown by the Army; first in 1797, on the 4th of September (18 Fructidor), when the majority of the Directors with the help of the soldiery annulled the elections of forty-eight departments, and deported fifty-six members of the two Assemblies, condemning also to deportation two of their own colleagues. The second military revolution was effected by the elder Bonaparte on the 9th of November (18 Brumaire), 1799; and the third by the younger Bonaparte, on December 2, 1851. The French Government has also been three times destroyed by foreign invasion, in 1814, 1815, and 1870; the invasion having been in each case provoked by French aggression, sympathised in by the bulk of the French people. In all, putting aside the anomalous period from 1870 to 1885, France, since she began her political experiments, has had forty-four years of liberty and thirtyseven of stern dictatorship. But it has to be

5 I include in the thirty-seven years the interval between September 1797 and November 1799.

remembered, and it is one of the curiosities of this period of history, that the elder Bourbons, who in practice gave very wide room to political freedom, did not expressly admit the modern theory of popular government; while the Bonapartes, who proclaimed the theory without qualification, maintained in practice a rigid despotism.

Popular government was introduced into Spain. just when the fortune of war was declaring itself decisively in favour of Wellington and the English army. The Extraordinary Cortes signed at Cadiz a Constitution, since then famous in Spanish politics as the Constitution of 1812, which proclaimed in its first article that sovereignty resided in the nation. Ferdinand VII., on re-entering Spain from France, repudiated this Constitution, denouncing it as Jacobinical; and for about six years he reigned as absolutely as any of his forefathers. But in 1820 General Riego, who was in command of a large force stationed near Cadiz, headed a military insurrection in which the mob joined; and the King submitted to the Constitution of 1812. In 1823 the foreign invader appeared; the French armies entered Spain at the instigation of the Holy Alliance, and re-established Ferdinand's despotism, which lasted till his death. Popular government was, however, reintroduced by his widow as Regent for his daughter, no doubt for the purpose of strengthening Isabella's title to the

throne against her uncle, Don Carlos. It is probably unnecessary to give the subsequent political history of Spain in any detail. There are some places in South America where the people date events, not from the great earthquakes, but from the years in which, by a rare intermission, there is no earthquake at all. On the same principle we may note that during the nine years following 1845, and the nine years following 1857, there was comparative, though not complete, freedom from military insurrection in Spain. As to the residue of her political history, my calculation is that between the first establishment of popular government in 1812 and the accession of the present King, there have been forty military risings of a serious nature, in most of which the mob took part. Nine of them were perfectly successful, either overthrowing the Constitution for the time being, or reversing the principles on which it was administered. I need hardly say that both the Queen Regent, Christina, and her daughter Isabella, were driven out of Spain by the army or the fleet, with the help of the mob; and that the present King, Alfonso, was placed on the throne through a military pronunciamiento at the end of 1874. It is generally thought that he owes his retention of it since 1875 to statesmanship of a novel kind. As soon as he has assured himself that the army is in earnest, he changes his ministers.

The real beginning of popular or parliamentary government in Germany and the Austrian dominions, other than Hungary, cannot be placed earlier than 1848. The interest of German politics from 1815 to that year consists in the complaints, ever growing fainter, of the German communities who sought to compel the Princes to redeem their promises of Constitutions made during the War of Independence, and of the efforts of the Princes to escape or evade their pledges. Francis the Second expressed the prevailing feeling in his own way when he said to the Hungarian Diet, 'totus mundus stultizat, et vult habere novas constitutiones.' With some exceptions in the smaller States there were no parliamentary institutions in Germany till the King of Prussia conceded, just before 1848, the singular form of constitutional government which did not survive that year. But as soon as the mob of Paris had torn up the French Constitutional Charter, and expelled the Constitutional King, mobs, with their usual accompaniment the army, began to influence German and even Austrian politics. National Assemblies, on the French pattern, were called together at Berlin, at Vienna, and at Frankfort. All of them were dispersed in about a year, and directly or indirectly by the army. The more recent German and Austrian Constitutions are all of royal origin. Taking Europe as a whole, the most durably successful experiments in popular

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