THE FROGS AGAIN;
OR, THE LATE MILITARY USURPATION OF NAPOLEON INTERPRETED.
VERIFICATION OF OUR EXPOSITION OF THE FROGS—PROPHESYINGS OF THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE—WAR NECESSARY TO THE MIXING OF THE IRON AND THE CLAY—THE NATURE OF FRENCH MILITARY DESPOTISM—ITS MISSION—THE TRUE ISSUE—LOUIS NAPOLEON AMBITIOUS OF THE CROWNS OF FRANCE AND ITALY—NAPOLEON’S AMBITION A GROUND OF HOPE TO THE DEMOCRACY—THE FALL OF NAPOLEON THE RESTORATION OF THE BOURBONS IMPERIALLY SUBJECT TO THE CZAR—CAUSES OF THE LATE REVOLUTION—RECENT EVENTS PRELIMINARY TO A GREAT CONVULSION.
In the 4th and 5th numbers of the 1st volume of this work we published a unique interpretation of the prophecy of the “Three Unclean Spirits like Frogs,” with wood cut engravings, demonstrating that the Frogs were the arms of France before the Lily was adopted as the heraldic device of the reigning dynasty. From the evidence adduced to prove this we stated our conviction that “the Frogs in the prophecy are the symbol of the French Democratic power;” and that “the President of the French Republic is the incarnation of that power, having been elected as chief of the nation by six millions of votes.”
A few weeks ago we were talking with a friend about the extraordinary furore which had seized upon the popular mind in New York in relation to Kossuth. We regarded him as a part of that agency being employed by Providence for the waking up of the nations for the war of the latter days. We observed that we did not believe that his mission extended to the Continent of Europe, but to the constitutionalists of extra Continental countries, such as to England and America: but that with all his endeavours Hungary would not be the first to move; because it was not to Hungary, but to France we were to look as the centre from which the movement was to proceed by which Europe would be aroused to new efforts against Absolutism. We spoke with full assurance of faith upon this subject founded upon the conviction we entertained respecting the Frogs and their mission. It is the Frogs who are to create the situation from which the governments of Europe cannot hope to extricate themselves without an appeal to arms. John saith—
“I saw three unclean spirits out of the mouth of the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet.”
What were they like? They were, says he, “like to Frogs”—they were not Frogs, but Frog-like spirits. Why were these spirits like to Frogs? Because you can see in the working of their policy that it has been originated and is continued by the doings of the Frog-power; which is the motive power among “the Powers,” embroiling them and causing them by its movements to enter upon a war that will astonish the world by its results. After this conversation with our friend, we expounded in the meeting held at his house, the third chapter of Joel, in which exposition we said much more to the same effect, showing from the prophets what kind of agency was to be observed at work among the nations preparatory to and inceptive of the gathering which is to terminate in the encampment of their hosts under the Assyrian’s standard before the walls of Jerusalem, when Jehovah’s mighty ones will descend and scatter them with sword, pestilence, and death, like chaff before the wind.
It is truly gratifying, and yields a pleasure which none can appreciate but those who experience it, for a student of the prophets to find his interpretations of them verified by current events. It proves to him that he is of that class referred to in Daniel of which it is said “the wise shall understand;” and encourages him to hope that he may enjoy the promise made to them, that “they shall shine as the brightness of the firmament:” and “as the sun in the kingdom of their Father”—Daniel 12: 10, 3; Matthew 13: 43. Be we, however, esteemed wise or foolish by our contemporaries, the fact is indisputable, that the day after our exposition of the necessity of a revolution in France previous to any further outbreak in Europe, on Monday, December 22nd, the news arrived in this city that the French President, the Frog-power incarnate, had become omnipotent in France.
What then is the prophetic or scriptural interpretation of this event? The New York Tribune, which is overflowing with wrath against “the perjured villain,” “the knave,” “the wretch,” “this flagitious traitor to his oath,” “the bayonet-girdled usurper,” &c., as it styles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, terms the event “the first blow of a struggle, which, whatever may be its immediate aspects and incidents, is destined to close only with the overthrow of Despotism throughout civilised Europe.” It also says, that “the present state of things will be of brief duration, and when the next downfall occurs in France, all the governments of Germany and Italy will go with it.” This is the prophecy of Horace Greely, but assuredly not of the prophets Daniel, Ezekiel, and John. We do not know what Mr. Tribune means by “brief duration,” but there is a sense in which there is more truth than fiction in his saying, that when that duration is ended, and the next downfall occurs in France, which will be the downfall of French military despotism, “all the governments of Germany and Italy will go with it.” Yes, they will “go with it;” but they will not go whither the Tribune and Kossuthism would send them. These well-meaning prophets predict “the overthrow of Despotism throughout civilised Europe” as the closing up of the struggle between Democracy and the Governments; consequently they predict that all the governments of Germany and Italy are to go with Napoleonism to perdition; and that Democratic Republicanism, which is righteousness and peace, and prosperity, will be the “order” of the day throughout Europe! All the governments will indeed go to perdition, and so will Democratic Republicanism, moderate and extreme; but before they vanish from the earth to appear no more forever, the French, German, and Italian governments will go into the shadow of the Czar, who will unite in his dominion all their power and glory. This is the conclusion of the struggle about to commence. Despotism will triumph throughout Europe, and Democracy will go to the wall.
But before this situation comes over Europe a sanguinary war must be waged between Democracy and Absolutism. This is inevitable. Self-preservation on the part of Governments, and hatred of them on the part of the peoples, will not permit things to remain quiescent. Without exception the governments seem disposed for peace among themselves. Peace also with foreign powers was the policy of the majority of the French Assembly; for their sympathies were pontifical and absolute. “Order,” “Family, Property and Religion,” were the passwords of their policy; because rulers, priests, nobles, and the rich, together with their dependents, all of whose sympathies are for each other, their antipathies, fears, and propitiatory charities, being for the poor, —they know that they have nothing to gain, but every thing to lose by revolution and reform. But a continuance of peace is incompatible with the formation of the Feet of Nebuchadnezzar’s Image. The Clay and the Iron cannot be mixed so long as peace is maintained. What then is to be done; if the governments are indisposed to make war upon one another, how shall the peace be broken? By suppressing the Legislative Assembly of France whose stronger party was intriguing to restore monarchy and priestism of the old Bourbon type. A military despotism is better than sacerdotal monarchy, and precisely adapted to the necessity of the case to be established. A military despotism is not a peaceable institution; therefore it is exactly the thing the situation of affairs demands. Let us glance at the history of the one just formed in Paris that we may acquire a right apprehension of its nature.
Napoleon the First was one of the people; a lieutenant of artillery, and once both poor and needy. After God had punished the priests and higher orders of the French nation, and those that adhered to them, by the Terrorists, the time had arrived to make use of the French Democracy to punish the governments and their armies belonging to other nations. The situation by which they invoked this upon themselves was created by the refugee adherents of the dethroned and hated Bourbons, stirring them up to war against the Democratic Despotism of France; which was in turn provoked to proclaim war against all priests, aristocrats, and kings, in the interest of all the oppressed peoples of Europe. Civil directors of military operations residing at a distance from the seat of war, inexperienced in the art, and divided by jealousy and faction, are ill adapted to carry on vigorous operations against an enemy whose will is the supreme law of civil and military affairs. The work to be accomplished demanded a military rather than a purely civil despotism. The latter did very well for the punishment of the power that murdered the Huguenots by thousands; but it required a strong military despotism, animated by the will of one tyrant only, to consume and lay waste “the Holy Roman Empire” with fire and sword—a dominion dyed scarlet in the blood of the saints, and the support of the vilest hypocrisy, and blasphemy against God and men.
The earliest internal struggles of the French Democracy against the royalists prepared a man to take the command of them when the time should arrive to smite Italy, Rome, and the German empire. That man was Napoleon 1. He was a man of destiny. A man prepared of God to inflict vengeance on the Papacy. A man of the required genius; an iron man—a remorseless slayer of humanity; a prince of tyrants; but the only man of his age fit for the work to be performed. He was, too, the idol of a vain, intoxicated people; haters of kings and priests, but lovers of glory which glorified themselves. Hence they regarded the successful man, who led them on to slay and be slain, as their best friend; for he was but the head of the phantom, the national glory which they adored.
Such was the military despotism of “my uncle,” and such also its mission. It was necessary. It did its work superbly, showing that the hand of God was in it. It slew the Beast with fearful carnage, in extinguishing the German empire by 1806. But after it had done all, the work to be done is only partially accomplished. The odious Papacy still exists, and the governments yet delight to do it honour; and governments that look with complacency upon Romanism, patronise its priests, lend their power to the support of such a creation as the Pope, proscribe the Bible, and practise every abomination, are foredoomed to trouble without reprieve. The issue is not God and the People versus Absolutism. The people are no more God’s friend than their oppressors; God however loves the world though it hates him. His cause is not identified with theirs. His way is not their way; yet He will save them in spite of themselves, and by means which they dislike. The issue is GOD AND HIS SAINTS versus THE NATIONS AND THEIR RULERS; and before the Almighty can gain his cause upon the principles he has laid down, he must make use of the democracy and the governments to chastise and weaken one another, and then step in and conquer them both. This is the situation of things; and as the first Democratic Military Despotism fulfilled its mission without finishing the work, the time has at length arrived for the consolidation of a second, that the work may be advanced another stage towards its entire accomplishment.
The military despotism of Napoleon I was an armed imperial democracy; that of Napoleon II is a revival of it. The last is the elect of the people by universal suffrage, and will doubtless be sustained by them on the same principle. He is therefore the Head of the Democracy. The army has also added its suffrages to the people’s; he is consequently head of the army and the people, or Chief of the Armed Democracy. Now this is just what the European Democracy needed. Hitherto they were peoples without an army, all the armies being on the side of their enemies: but by the recent revolution in France God appears to have given them an army and a chief whose name is a tower of strength against Austria and the Pope. As to the man himself God knows more about him than we do. He has had no opportunity of showing what he is capable of in the field. At all events he has shown himself to be a good general, or at any rate a better general than his opponents though numbering many generals among them, for he has brilliantly out-generaled them all. It is mind, not mere brute force, that gains a victory. The probability is that with a devoted army he would not only outmanoeuvre, but vanquish the unwilling hosts of Austria in the field; and by a powerful diversion in Italy enable Hungary to rise and cooperate in the overthrow of Hapsburg-Loraine.
Louis Napoleon’s tendencies have ever been imperial. His unsuccessful attempt a few years ago in that direction by which he became a prisoner in Ham, proves this. He is no respecter of the principle of legitimacy, nor of socialism; for they are two extremes equidistant from his personal ambition. He is doubtless a tyrant. If he were not, he would not be fit for the chief of an Armed Democracy. Foreign despots may tolerate him for a time, but they can neither love nor trust him; for their principle is legitimacy; his is revolution. In relation to the Constitution, the Legislative Assembly and he are equally violators; they had both abolished universal suffrage, and the Assembly would have arrested and imprisoned him, if he had not extinguished it. Justice and righteousness, integrity and principle, are not to be named in such a crowd. Morality there is a mere negation—a mere question of which thief is not more thievish than the rest of the Forty Thieves. A dishonest set pretending solicitude for the Constitution so far as convenient, and ready at any time to tear it into shreds if deemed necessary to the accomplishment of their intrigues. We conclude therefore that France is a gainer by the exchange of seven hundred and fifty wranglers for only one tyrant who will rule it more after its own taste. This taste is imperial; and Louis Napoleon is a man of strong predilections for the iron and golden crowns of France and Italy, and it is probable that before his career is closed he will attempt to seize upon them both; for that of France alone is not imperial.
Assuming, then, that the Imperial Democratic Military Despotism of Napoleon II is established, what would seem to be its mission? We reply, sooner or later, to combat with the Beast and False Prophet, that is, with Austria and the defenders of the Pope. These were his uncle’s old enemies, and are likely to prove his. He has not yet had time to develop his foreign policy, but peace will be no more his forte than his uncle’s. We apprehend that his troubles will begin in dynastic reminiscences. The victory of Waterloo, the occupation of Paris by foreign troops, the fall and imprisonment of Napoleon, are neither forgotten nor forgiven by Buonapartists and the French. Louis Napoleon in succeeding his uncle doubtless inherits his antipathy to England. And for the present it may suit Russia and Austria to foment a quarrel between them. There are Rome and Italy too, who may come in as complications of “the situation.” Louis Napoleon knows that the occupation of that city in support of the Pope is unpopular with the French; he may therefore without withdrawing the troops from Rome pursue a more liberal policy, which may make their continuance there insufferable to His pseudo-Holiness, who would seek the intervention of Austria in order to abate the nuisance. Austria, backed by Russia, finding it expedient to withdraw their countenance, might assume such an attitude towards Napoleon in behalf of the Pope as to make it “a point of honour,” with Louis, to resist, and declare war in behalf of French interests in Italy, to look after which was the principal reason of a French army being sent to Rome under General Oudinot. Such a declaration would be a resurrection trumpet to the oppressed nations of the Continent. The war-loving democracy would flock to the standard of Napoleon, and crowd his armies, panting, if their courage be equal to their words, for a hand to hand combat with the troops of their oppressors. The democratic armies would rejoice in victory after victory, until the tide of war would turn against them. If not abolished, Austria and the Papacy would at least be ready to give up the ghost. The Pope will continue to exist as the Roman Prophet, but without dominion, till the resurrection of the dead; but the House of Hapsburg, if continued, would only be a sort of viceroy to the Czar, dividing with him nominally the majesty of the Roman world. The Napoleon despotism would have done its work. Its conquests would be wrested from it, until repelled on every side it would be reduced to contend for the possession of France itself. At length, as Republicanism or Democracy in any shape cannot prevail in this country, it being one of the ten Toe-kingdoms which all exist as such at the end, France would be lost, and replaced under the Bourbons, no longer independent sovereigns of the country, but as provincial kings of the imperial European dominion of the Czar.
Thus would the Democracy have done their work. They would have done their best for “liberty, fraternity, and equality,” and have proved for a second and last time, upon a grand scale, their utter incompetence for the work of curing society of the evils which afflict it. In their mad, but necessary, career, they would have been the cause of the conquest of Turkey by the Autocrat, and the subjection of Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, Naples, Greece, Bavaria, Lombardy, and Hungary—the ten kingdoms of the Iron Monarchy, thereunto united by “the miry clay” of the Russian Autocracy. Thus, Absolutism would have completely triumphed; and the curtain have fallen upon the third act of the extraordinary tragedy enacting before all nations from 1789 to the setting up of a kingdom and dominion by the God of heaven in the land promised to the fathers of Israel and their seed for ever.
The ways of God are admirable. We see his hand in the working of things very notably since 1848. Had the National Convention done its work wisely Napoleon’s usurpation would never have occurred. It erred in permitting the Bonaparte family’s return to France. This was the first error. The next was in not permitting the re-election of the President for another succeeding term. A third error was embodied in the 31st, 45th, and 46th articles of the Constitution, which provided that the power of the Assembly and President should expire at the same moment, the President on the 10th and the Assembly on the 18th of May 1852; and their successors to be elected between April 29 and May 10. Those acquainted with the state of parties in France can easily imagine the anarchy that would have resulted from such an arrangement. Constitutionally Napoleon had no hope for four years, and it is contrary to the nature and creed of a Bonaparte to surrender power if he can keep it. These “singular and clumsy oversights,” as they have been termed, created a situation of despair for the Imperialists, hope for the old Monarchists, and fear for the friends of tranquillity and moderate republicanism. The resolution of the crisis was doubtful to all; but Providence had prepared it, and had provided a man to cut the knot which could not be untied. The anti-constitutional treason of the Monarchists and enmity to Napoleon, together with his self-preservation and despair, have developed the revolution which has sorely disappointed the republican-gospellers, but has placed things more in harmony with the necessities of the future which will soon become manifest. The Frog-power hath again uttered its voice; now, therefore, look out for the “thunders and lightnings, and a great earthquake,” or revolution, “such as has not been since men were upon the earth, an earthquake so mighty and so great.”
December 31st., 1851. EDITOR.
