1831 and 1832, the two years which are immediately connected with the Revolution of July, form one of the most peculiar and striking moments of history. These two years rise like two mountains midway between those which precede and those which follow them. They have a revolutionary grandeur. Precipices are to be distinguished there. The social masses, the very assizes of civilization, the solid group of superposed and adhering interests, the century-old profiles of the ancient French formation, appear and disappear in them every instant, athwart the storm clouds of systems, of passions, and of theories. These appearances and disappearances have been designated as movement and resistance. At intervals, truth, that daylight of the human soul, can be descried shining there.
This remarkable epoch is decidedly circumscribed and is beginning to be sufficiently distant from us to allow of our grasping the principal lines even at the present day.
We shall make the attempt.
The Restoration had been one of those intermediate phases, hard to define, in which there is fatigue, buzzing, murmurs, sleep, tumult, and which are nothing else than the arrival of a great nation at a halting-place.
These epochs are peculiar and mislead the politicians who desire to convert them to profit. In the beginning, the nation asks nothing but repose; it thirsts for but one thing, peace; it has but one ambition to be small. Which is the translation of remaining tranquil. Of great events, great hazards, great adventures, great men, thank God, we have seen enough, we have them heaped higher than our heads. We would exchange Caesar for Prusias, and Napoleon for the King of Yvetot. "What a good little king was he!" We have marched since daybreak, we have reached the evening of a long and toilsome day; we have made our first change with Mirabeau,the second with Robespierre, the third with Bonaparte; we are worn out. Each one demands a bed.
Devotion which is weary, heroism which has grown old, ambitions which are sated, fortunes which are made, seek, demand, implore, solicit, what? A shelter. They have it. They take possession of peace, of tranquillity, of leisure; behold, they are content. But, at the same time certain facts arise, compel recognition, and knock at the door in their turn. These facts are the products of revolutions and wars, they are, they exist, they have the right to install themselves in society, and they do install themselves therein; and most of the time, facts are the stewards of the household and fouriers[32] who do nothing but prepare lodgings for principles
[32] In olden times, fouriers were the officials who preceded the Court and allotted the lodgings.
This, then, is what appears to philosophical politicians:--
At the same time that weary men demand repose, accomplished facts demand guarantees. Guarantees are the same to facts that repose is to men.
This is what England demanded of the Stuarts after the Protector; this is what France demanded of the Bourbons after the Empire.
These guarantees are a necessity of the times. They must be accorded. Princes "grant" them, but in reality, it is the force of things which gives them. A profound truth, and one useful to know, which the Stuarts did not suspect in 1662 and which the Bourbons did not even obtain a glimpse of in 1814.
The predestined family, which returned to France when Napoleon fell, had the fatal simplicity to believe that it was itself which bestowed, and that what it had bestowed it could take back again; that the House of Bourbon possessed the right divine, that France possessed nothing, and that the political right conceded in the charter of Louis XVIII was merely a branch of the right divine, was detached by the Houseof Bourbon and graciously given to the people until such day as it should please the King to reassume it. Still, the House of Bourbon should have felt, from the displeasure created by the gift, that it did not come from it.
This house was churlish to the nineteenth century. It put on an ill-tempered look at every development of the nation. To make use of a trivial word, that is to say, of a popular and a true word, it looked glum. The people saw this.
It thought it possessed strength because the Empire had been carried away before it like a theatrical stage-setting. It did not perceive that it had, itself, been brought in in the same fashion. It did not perceive that it also lay in that hand which had removed Napoleon.
It thought that it had roots, because it was the past. It was mistaken; it formed a part of the past, but the whole past was France. The roots of French society were not fixed in the Bourbons, but in the nations. These obscure and lively roots constituted, not the right of a family, but the history of a people. They were everywhere, except under the throne.
The House of Bourbon was to France the illustrious and bleeding knot in her history, but was no longer the principal element of her destiny, and the necessary base of her politics. She could get along without the Bourbons; she had done without them for two and twenty years; there had been a break of continuity; they did not suspect the fact. And how should they have suspected it, they who fancied that Louis XVII. Reigned on the 9th of Thermidor, and that Louis XVIII. Was reigning at the battle of Marengo? Never, since the origin of history, had princes been so blind in the presence of facts and the portion of divine authority which facts contain and promulgate. Never had that pretension here below which is called the right of kings denied to such a point the right from on high.
A capital error which led this family to lay its hand once more on the guarantees "granted" in 1814, on the concessions, as it termed them. Sad. A sad thing! What it termed its concessions were our conquests; what it termed our encroachments were our rights.
When the hour seemed to it to have come, the Restoration, supposing itself victorious over Bonaparte and well-rooted in the country, that is to say, believing itself to be strong and deep, abruptly decided on its plan of action, and risked its stroke. One morning it drew itself up before the face of France, and, elevating its voice, it contested the collective title and the individual right of the nation to sovereignty, of the citizen to liberty. In other words, it denied to the nation that which made it a nation, and to the citizen that which made him a citizen.
This is the foundation of those famous acts which are called the ordinances of July. The Restoration fell.
It fell justly. But, we admit, it had not been absolutely hostile to all forms of progress. Great things had been accomplished, with it alongside. Under the Restoration, the nation had grown accustomed to calm discussion,which had been lacking under the Republic, and to grandeur in peace,which had been wanting under the Empire. France free and strong had offered an encouraging spectacle to the other peoples of Europe. The Revolution had had the word under Robespierre; the cannon had had the word under Bonaparte; it was under Louis XVIII. And Charles X. that it was the turn of intelligence to have the word. The wind ceased, the torch was lighted once more. On the lofty heights, the pure light of mind could be seen flickering. A magnificent, useful, and charming spectacle. For a space of fifteen years, those great principles which are so old for the thinker, so new for the statesman, could be seen at work in perfect peace, on the public square; equality before the law, liberty of conscience, liberty of speech, liberty of the press, the accessibility of all aptitudes to all functions. Thus it proceeded until 1830. The Bourbons were an instrument of civilization which broke in the hands of Providence.
The fall of the Bourbons was full of grandeur, not on their side, but on the side of the nation. They quitted the throne with gravity, but without authority; their descent into the night was not one of those solemn disappearances which leave a sombre emotion in history; it was neither the spectral calm of Charles I., nor the eagle scream of Napoleon. They departed, that is all. They laid down the crown, and retained no aureole. They were worthy, but they were not august. They lacked, in a certain measure, the majesty of their misfortune. Charles X. during the voyage from Cherbourg, causing a round table to be cut over into a square table, appeared to be more anxious about imperilled etiquette than about the crumbling monarchy. This diminution saddened devoted men who loved their persons, and serious men who honored their race. The populace was admirable. The nation, attacked one morning with weapons, by a sort of royal insurrection, felt itself in the possession of so much force that it did not go into a rage. It defended itself, restrained itself, restored things to their places, the government to law, the Bourbons to exile, alas! And then halted! It took the old king Charles X. from beneath that dais which had sheltered Louis XIV. And set him gently on the ground. It touched the royal personages only with sadness and precaution. It was not one man, it was not a few men, it was France, France entire, France victorious and intoxicated with her victory, who seemed to be coming to herself, and who put into practice, before the eyes of the whole world, these grave words of Guillaume du Vair after the day of the Barricades:--
"It is easy for those who are accustomed to skim the favors of the great, and to spring, like a bird from bough to bough, from an afflicted fortune to a flourishing one, to show themselves harsh towards their Prince in his adversity; but as for me, the fortune of my Kings and especially of my afflicted Kings, will always be venerable to me." The Bourbons carried away with them respect, but not regret. As we have just stated, their misfortune was greater than they were. They faded out in the horizon.
The Revolution of July instantly had friends and enemies throughout the entire world. The first rushed toward her with joy and enthusiasm, the others turned away, each according to his nature. At the first blush, the princes of Europe, the owls of this dawn, shut their eyes, wounded and stupefied, and only opened them to threaten. A fright which can be comprehended, a wrath which can be pardoned.This strange revolution had hardly produced a shock; it had not even paid to vanquished royalty the honor of treating it as an enemy, and of shedding its blood. In the eyes of despotic governments, who are always interested in having liberty calumniate itself, the Revolution of July committed the fault of being formidable and of remaining gentle. Nothing, however, was attempted or plotted against it. The most discontented, the most irritated, the most trembling, saluted it; whatever our egotism and our rancor may be, a mysterious respect springs from events in which we are sensible of the collaboration of some one who is working above man.
The Revolution of July is the triumph of right overthrowing the fact. A thing which is full of splendor.
Right overthrowing the fact. Hence the brilliancy of the Revolution of 1830, hence, also, its mildness. Right triumphant has no need of being violent.
Right is the just and the true.
The property of right is to remain eternally beautiful and pure. The fact, even when most necessary to all appearances, even when most thoroughly accepted by contemporaries, if it exist only as a fact, and if it contain only too little of right, or none at all, is infallibly destined to become, in the course of time, deformed, impure, perhaps, even monstrous. If one desires to learn at one blow, to what degree of hideousness the fact can attain, viewed at the distance of centuries, let him look at Machiavelli. Machiavelli is not an evil genius, nor a demon, nor a miserable and cowardly writer; he is nothing but the fact. And he is not only the Italian fact; he is the European fact, the fact of the sixteenth century. He seems hideous, and so he is, in the presence of the moral idea of the nineteenth.
This conflict of right and fact has been going on ever since the origin of society. To terminate this duel, to amalgamate the pure idea with the humane reality, to cause right to penetrate pacifically into the fact and the fact into right, that is the task of sages.
一八三一和一八三二，紧接着七月革命的这两年，是历史上的一个最特殊和最惊人的时期。这两年，象两个山头似的出现在这以前的几年和这以后的几年之间。它们具有革命的伟大意义。人们在这期间能看到许多危崖陡壁。在这期间，各种社会的群众，文明的基础，种种因上下关连和互相依附的利益而形成的坚强组合，法兰西古旧社会的苍老面貌，都随时忽现忽隐在多种制度、狂热和理论的风云激荡中。这种显现和隐灭曾被称为抵抗和运动。人们在其中能望见真理棗人类灵魂的光棗放射光芒。
这个令人瞩目的时期相当短暂，已开始离我们相当远了，趁早回顾一下，却还能抓住它的主要线索。
让我们来试试。
王朝复辟是那种难于下定义的中间局面里的一种；这里有疲乏、窃窃的议论、悄悄的耳语、沉睡、喧扰，这些都只说明一个伟大的民族刚赶完了一段路程。那样的时代是奇特的，常使那些想从中牟利的政治家们发生错觉。起初，国人只要求休息！人们只有一种渴望：和平，也只有一个野心：蜷缩起来。换句话说，便是要过安静日子。大事业，大机会，大风险，大人物，谢天谢地，全都见够了，再也接受不下去了。人们宁肯为了普吕西亚斯①而舍弃恺撒，宁肯为伊弗佗王②而舍弃拿破仑。
①普吕西亚斯（Prusias），指比西尼亚的普吕西亚斯二世，他将汉尼拔出卖给罗马人。
②伊弗佗王（roidGYvetoFt），法国贝朗瑞民歌叠句中的人物。
“那是一个多么好的小国王！”人们从天明走起，辛辛苦苦，长途跋涉了一整天，直走到天黑；跟着米拉波赶了第一程，跟着罗伯斯庇尔赶了第二程，跟着波拿巴赶了第三程；大家全精疲力竭了。人人都希望有一张床。
疲敝的忠诚，衰退了的英雄主义，满足了的野心，既得的利益，都在寻找、索取、恳请、央求什么呢？一个安乐窝。安乐窝，它们到手了。它们获得了安宁、平静、闲逸，心满意足了。可是与此同时，某些既成事实又冒出了头，要求人们承认，并敲着它们旁边的门。这些事实是从革命和战争中产生的，是活生生存在着的，它们理应定居于社会，并且已定居在社会中了，而这些事实又通常是为种种主义准备住处的军需官和勤务兵。
因而在政治哲学家们面前出现了这样的情况：
在疲乏了的人们要求休息的同时，既成事实也要求保证。
保证对于事实，正如休息对于人，是同一回事。
英国在护国公以后向斯图亚特家族提出的要求是这个；
法国在帝国以后向波旁家族提出的要求也是这个。保证是时代的需要。是非给不可的。亲王们“赐予”保证，而实际给保证的却是事实自身的力量。这是一条值得认识的深刻的真理，斯图亚特家族在一六六二年对此不曾怀疑，波旁家族在一八一四年却瞅也不屑瞅一眼。
随着拿破仑垮台而回到法国的那个事先选定了的家族，头脑简单到不可救药，它认为一切都是由它给的，给过以后，并且可以由它收回；它还认为波旁家族享有神权，而法兰西则毫无所享，在路易十八的宪章中让予的政治权利只不过是这神权上的一根枝桠，由波旁家族采摘下来，堂而皇之地赐给人民，直到有朝一日国王高兴时，便可随时收回。其实，波旁家族作此恩赐，并非出于心甘情愿，它早就应当意识到并没有什么东西是由它恩赐的。
它满腔戾气地觑着十九世纪。人民每次欢欣鼓舞，它便怒形于色。我们采用一个不中听的词儿，就是说一个通俗而真实的词儿：它老在咬牙切齿，人民早已看见了。
它自以为强大，因为帝国在它眼前象戏台上的一幕场景似的被搬走了。它却没有意识到自己也正是那样搬来的。它没有看出它是被捏在搬走拿破仑的那同一只手里。
它自以为有根，因为它是过去。它想错了；它是过去的一部分，而整个的过去是法兰西。法国社会的根绝不是生在波旁家族里，而是生在人民中。构成这些深入土中生气勃勃的根须的，绝不是一个什么家族的权利，而是一个民族的历史。它们伸到四处，王位底下却没有。
波旁家族，对法兰西来说，是它历史上一个显眼和流血的节疤，但已不是它的命运的主要成分和它的政治的必要基础；人们完全可以把波旁家族丢开，确也把它丢开过二十二年，照样有办法继续生存下去，而他们竟没有见到这一点。他们这伙在热月九日还认为路易十七是统治者，在马伦哥胜利之日也还认为路易十八是统治者的人，又怎能见到这一点呢？有史以来，从未有过象这些亲王们那样无视于从实际事物中孕育出来的这部分神权。人们称为王权的这种人间妄念也从没有把上界的权否认到如此程度。
绝大的谬见导使这家族收回了它在一八一四年所“赐予”的保证，也就是它所谓的那些让步。可叹得很！它所谓的它的让步，正是我们的斗争果实；它所谓的我们的蹂躏，正是我们的权利。
复辟王朝自以为战胜了波拿巴，已在国内扎稳了根，就是说，自以为力量强大和根基深厚，一旦认为时机到了，便突然作出决定，不惜孤注一掷。一个早晨，它在法兰西面前站起来，并且大声否认了集体权利和个人权利棗人民的主权和公民的自由。换句话说，它否认了人民之所以为人民之本和公民之所以为公民之本。
这里就是所谓七月敕令的那些著名法案的实质。
复辟王朝垮了。
它垮得合理。可是，应当指出，它并没有绝对敌视进步的一切形式。许多大事完成时它是在场的。
在复辟王朝统治下，人民已习惯于平静气氛中的讨论，这是共和时期所不曾有过的；已习惯于和平中的强大，这是帝国时期所不曾有过的。自由、强大的法兰西对欧洲其他各国来说，成了起鼓舞作用的舞台。革命在罗伯斯庇尔时期发了言，大炮在波拿巴时期发了言，轮到才智发言，那只是在路易十八和查理十世的统治之下。风停息了，火炬又燃了起来。人们望见在宁静的顶峰上闪颤着思想的纯洁光辉。灿烂、有益和动人的景象。在这十五年中，在和平环境和完全公开的场合，人们见到这样的一些伟大原理，在思想家眼里已非常陈旧而在政治家的认识上却还是崭新的原理：为法律地位平等、信仰自由、言论自由、出版自由、量才授职的甄拔制度而进行工作。这种情况一直延续到一八三○年。波旁家族是被粉碎在天命手中的一种文明工具。
波旁家族的下台是充满了伟大气势的，这不是就他们那方面来说，而是就人民方面来说。他们大模大样地，但不是威风凛凛地，离开了宝座。他们这种进黑洞似的下台并不是能使后代黯然怀念的那种大张旗鼓的退出；这不是查理一世那种鬼魂似的沉静，也不是拿破仑那种雄鹰似的长啸。他们离去了，如是而已。他们放下了冠冕，却没有保留光轮。他们有了面子，却丢了威仪。他们在一定程度上缺少那种正视灾难的尊严气派。查理十世在去瑟堡的途中，叫人把一张圆桌改成方的，他对这种危难中的仪式比那崩溃中的君权更关心。这种琐碎的作风叫忠于王室的人和热爱种族的严肃的人都灰心失望。至于人民，却是可敬佩的。全国人民在一个早上遭到了一种王家叛变的武装进攻，却感到自己的力量异常强大，因而不曾动怒。人民进行了自卫，克制着自己，恢复了秩序，把政府纳入了法律的轨道，流放了波旁家族，可惜！便止步不前了。他们把老王查理十世从那覆护过路易十四的帏盖下取出来，轻轻地放在地上。他们怀着凄切和审慎的心情去接触那些王族中人的身体。不是一个，也不是几个，而是法兰西，整个法兰西，胜利而且被胜利冲昏了头脑的法兰西，它仿佛想起了并在全世界人的眼前实行了纪尧姆·德·维尔在巷战①那天以后所说的严肃的话：“对那些平时习惯于博取君王们的欢心，并象一只从一根树枝跳到另一树枝的小鸟那样，对从危难中的荣誉跳到昌盛中的荣誉的人们来说，要表示自己大胆，敢于反对反抗中的君王，那是容易做到的；可是对我来说，我的君王们的荣誉始终是应当尊敬的，尤其是那些处于患难中的君王。”
①巷战，指一五八八年五月十二日在巴黎爆发的社会下层群众起义。次年，波旁家族的亨利四世继承了王位。纪尧姆·德·维尔（Guillaume du Vair）是当时的一个政治活动家。
波旁家族带去了尊敬的心，却没有带走惋惜的心。正如我们刚才所说的，他们的不幸大于他们自己。他们消失在地平线上了。
七月革命在全世界范围内立即有了朋友和敌人。有些人欢欣鼓舞地奔向这次革命，另一些人背对着它，各人性格不同。欧洲的君王们，起初都象旭日前的猫头鹰，闭上了眼睛，伤心，失措，直到要进行威胁的时候，才又睁开了眼睛。他们的恐惧是可以理解的，他们的愤慨是可以原谅的。这次奇特的革命几乎没有发生震动，它对被击败的王室，甚至连把它当作敌人来对待并流它的血的光荣也没有给。专制政府总喜欢看见自由发生内讧，在那些专制政府的眼里，这次七月革命不应当进行得那么威猛有力而又流于温和。没有出现任何反对这次革命的阴谋诡计。最不满意、最愤慨、最惊悸的人都向它表示了敬意。不管我们的私心和宿怨是多么重，从种种事态中却出现了一种神秘的敬意，人们从这里感到一种高出于人力之上的力量在进行合作。
七月革命是人权粉碎事实的胜利。这是一种光辉灿烂的东西。
人权粉碎事实。一八三○年革命的光芒是从这里来的，它的温和也是从这里来的。胜利的人权丝毫不需要使用暴力。
人权，便是正义和真理。
人权的特性便是永远保持美好和纯洁。事实上，即使在表面上是最需要的，即使是当代的人所最赞同的，如果它只作为事实存在下去，如果它包含的人权过少或根本不包含人权，通过时间的演进，必将无可避免地变成畸形的、败坏的、甚至荒谬的。如果我们要立即证实事实可以达到怎样的丑恶程度，我们只须上溯几百年，看一看马基雅弗利①。马基雅弗利绝不是个凶神，也不是个魔鬼，也不是个无耻的烂污作家，他只是事实罢了。并且这不只是意大利的事实，也是欧洲的事实，十六世纪的事实。他仿佛恶劣不堪，从十九世纪的道德观念来看，确也如此。
①马基雅弗利（Machiavelli，1469?527），意大利政治家，曾写过一本《君主论》，主张王侯们在处理政事时不要受通常道德的约束。
这种人权和事实的斗争，从有社会以来是一直在不断进行着的。结束决斗，让纯洁的思想和人类的实际相结合，用和平的方法使人权渗入事实，事实也渗入人权，这便是哲人的工作。