XII. 1823. 41. teaubriand's French Those who incline to the CHAP. teaubriand in the French Chamber, in a speech worthy of himself and of these great antagonists: "Has a government of one country a right to interfere in the M. de Cha- affairs of another? That great question of internareply in the tional law has been resolved by different writers on the subject in different ways. natural right, such as Bacon, all the ancients, maintain that it is lawful to take up arms in the name of the human race against a society which violates the principles on which the social order reposes, on the same ground on which, in particular states, you punish an individual malefactor who disturbs the public repose. Those again who consider the question as one depending on civil right, are of opinion that no one government has a right to interfere in the affairs of another. Thus the first vest the right of intervention in duty, the last in interest. I adopt in the abstract the principles of the last. I maintain that no government has a right to interfere in the affairs of another government. In truth, if this principle is not admitted, and above all by people who enjoy a free constitution, no nation could be in security. It would always be possible for the corruption of a minister or the ambition of a king to attack a state which attempted to ameliorate its condition. In many cases wars would be multiplied; you would adopt a principle of eternal hostility-a principle of which every one would constitute himself judge, since every one might say to his neighbour, Your institutions displease me; change them, or I declare war. 42. "But when I present myself in this tribune to defend Continued. the right of intervention in the affairs of Spain, how is an exception to be made from the principle which I have so broadly announced? It is thus: When the modern political writers rejected the right of intervention, by taking it out of the category of natural to place it in that of civil right, they felt themselves very much embarrassed. XII. Cases will occur in which it is impossible to abstain from CHAP. intervention without putting the state in danger. At 1823. the commencement of the Revolution, it was said, Perish the colonies rather than one principle,' and the colonies perished. Shall we also say, 'Perish the social order,' rather than sacrifice a principle, and let the social order perish? In order to avoid being shattered against a principle which themselves had established, the modern jurists have introduced an exception. They said, No government has a right to interfere in the affairs of another government, except in the case where the security and immediate interests of the first government are compromised.' I will show you immediately where the authority for that exception is to be found. The exception is as well established as the rule; for no state can allow its essential interests to perish without running the risk of perishing itself. Arrived at that point of the question, its aspect entirely changes; we are transported to another ground; I am no longer obliged to combat the rule, but to show that the case of the exception has accrued for France. 43. "I shall frequently have occasion, in the sequel of this discourse, to speak of England; for it is the country Continued. which our honourable antagonists oppose to us at every turn. It is Great Britain which singly at Verona has raised its voice against the principle of intervention; it is that country which alone is ready to take up arms to defend a free people; it is it which denounces an impious war, at variance with the rights of nations—a war which a small, servile, and bigoted faction undertakes, in the hope of being able to burn the Charter of France after having torn in pieces the Constitution of Spain. Well, gentlemen, England is that country; it alone has respected the rights of nations, and given us a great example. Let us see what England has done in former days. "That England, in safety amid the waves, and de VOL. II. 2 T XII. 1823. 44. CHAP. fended by its old institutions-that England, which has neither undergone the disasters of two invasions, nor the overturnings of a revolution of thirty years, conceives Continued. it has nothing to fear from the Spanish revolution, is quite conceivable, and no more than was to be expected. But does it follow from that, that France enjoys the same security, and is in the same position? When the circumstances were different-when the essential interests of Great Britain were compromised-did it not-justly, without doubt-depart from the principles which it so loudly invokes at this time? England, in entering on the war with France, published in 1793 the famous declaration of Whitehall, from which I read the following extract: The intention announced to reform the abuses of the French government, to establish personal freedom and the rights of property on a solid basis, to secure to a numerous people just and moderate laws, a wise legislature, and an equitable administration-all these salutary views have unhappily disappeared. They have given place to a system destructive of all public order, sustained by proscriptions, exiles, and confiscations without number, by arbitrary imprisonments without number, and by massacres the memory of which alone makes us shudder. The inhabitants of that unhappy country, so long deceived by promises of happiness, everlastingly renewed at every fresh accession of public suffering, the commission of every new crime, have found themselves plunged in an abyss of calamities without example. 45. Such a state of things cannot exist in France withContinued. out involving in danger the countries which adjoin it, without giving them the right, and imposing on them the duty, of doing everything in their power to arrest an evil which subsists only on the violation of all laws which unite men in the social union. His Majesty has no intention of denying to France the rights of reforming its laws; never will he desire to impose by external force a government on an independent state. He desires to do so XII. 1823. now only because it has become essential to the repose and CHAP. security of other states. In these circumstances, he demands of France-and he demands it with a just titleto put a stop to a system of anarchy, which has no power but for evil, which renders France incapable of discharging the first duties of government, that of repressing anarchy and punishing crime, which is daily multiplying in all parts of the country, and which threatens to involve all Europe in similar atrocities and misfortune. He demands of France a legitimate and stable government, founded on the universally recognised principles of justice, and capable of retaining nations in the bonds of peace and friendship. The king engages beforehand instantly to stop hostilities, and give protection to all those who shall extricate themselves from an anarchy which has burst all the bonds of society, broken all the springs of social life, confounded all duties, and made use of the name of Liberty to exercise the most cruel tyranny, annihilate all charters, overturn all property, and deliver over entire provinces to fire and sword.' 46. "It is true, when England made that famous declaration, Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were no more. Continued. I admit that Marie-Josephine is as yet only a captive; that her tears only have been caused to flow. Ferdinand is still a prisoner in his palace, as Louis XVI. was in his before being led to the Temple and the scaffold. I have no wish to calumniate the Spaniards, but I cannot esteem them more than my own countrymen. Revolutionary France gave birth to a Convention; why should not revolutionary Spain do the same? England has murdered its Charles I., France its Louis XVI.; if Spain follows their example, a series of precedents in favour of crime will be established, and a body of jurisprudence of people against their sovereigns. "England herself has admitted the principle for which 47. I contend, in recent times. She has conceded to others Continued. the right for which she contended herself. She did not XII. 1823. CHAP. consider herself entitled to interfere in the case of the Italian revolution, but she judged otherwise for Austria; and accordingly Lord Castlereagh, while repudiating the right of intervention in that convulsion claimed by Austria, Prussia, and Russia, declared expressly, in his circular from Laybach of 19th January 1821-It must be clearly understood that no government can be more disposed than the British to maintain the right of any state or states to intervene when its immediate security or essential interests are seriously compromised by the transactions of another state.' Nothing can be more precise than that declaration; and Mr Peel has not been afraid to say on a late occasion in the House of Commons, that Austria was entitled to interfere in the affairs of Naples, because that country had adopted the Spanish Constitution:' no one can contest the right of France to interfere in those of Spain, when it is menaced by that Constitution itself. 48. 6 "Can any one doubt that we are in the exceptional case Continued. that our interests are essentially injured by the Spanish revolution? Our commerce is hampered by the suffering consequent on that convulsion. We are obliged to keep vessels of war in the American seas, which are infested by pirates who have sprung out of the anarchy of Europe; and we have not, like England, maritime forces to protect our ships, many of which have fallen into their hands. The provinces of France adjoining Spain are under the most pressing necessity to see order re-established beyond the Pyrenees. Our consuls have been menaced in their persons, our territory three times violated are not their essential duties' compromised? And how has our territory been violated? To massacre a few injured Royalists, who thought themselves in safety under the shadow of our generous country. We have been obliged, in consequence, to maintain a large army of observation on the frontier; without that, our southern provinces could not enjoy a moment's security. That |