The
sovereigns of France have probably been as good as the average of
sovereigns. Placed indeed at the head of the first nation of the
Continent, they have probably been better; but how atrocious has been
their conduct towards their neighbour! If we go back no further than to
the Restoration, we find Louis XVIII. forming the Holy Alliance, and
attacking Spain without a shadow of provocation, for the avowed purpose
of crushing her liberties and giving absolute power to the most
detestable of modern tyrants. We find Charles X. invading a dependence
of his ally, the Sultan, and confiscating a province to revenge a tap on
the face given by the Bey of Algiers to a French consul. We find Louis
Philippe breaking the most solemn engagements with almost wanton
faithlessness; renouncing all extension of territory in Africa and then
conquering a country larger than France--a country occupied by tribes who
never were the subjects of the Sultan or of the Bey, and who could be
robbed of their independence only by wholesale and systematic massacre;
we find him joining England, Spain, and Portugal in the Quadruple
Alliance, and deserting them as soon as the time of action had arrived;
joining Russia, Prussia, Austria and England, in the arrangement of the
Eastern question, on the avowed basis that the integrity of the Ottoman
empire should be preserved, and then attempting to rob it of Egypt.
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