But though we have seen the commencement of the _era of social conflicts_, is there any man now alive who is likely to see its end? Experience has now completely demonstrated the wisdom of the Allied powers, who placed the lawful monarchs of France on the throne in 1815, and the enormous error of the liberal party in France, which conspired with the republicans to overthrow the Bourbon dynasty in 1830. That fatal step has bequeathed a host of evils to Europe: it has loosened the authority of government in all countries; it has put the very existence of freedom in peril by the enormity of the calamities which it has brought in its train. All parties in France are now agreed that the period of the Restoration was the happiest, and the least corrupted, that has been known since the first Revolution. The republicans of the present day tell us, with a sigh, that the average budgets of the three last years of Charles X. were 900,000,000 francs, (£36,000,000;) that the expenditure was raised by Louis Philippe at once to 1500,000,000 francs, (£60,000,000;) and that under the Republic it will exceed 1800,000,000 francs, (£72,000,000.) There can be no doubt of the fact; and there can be as little, that if the Red Republicans had succeeded in the insurrection of June last, the annual expenditure would have increased to £100,000,000--or rather, a universal spoliation of property would have ensued. Louis Blanc has given the world, in his powerful historical work, a graphic picture of the universal corruption, selfishness, and immorality, in public and private life, which pervaded France during the reign of Louis Philippe.[6] Though drawn by the hand of a partisan, there can be no doubt that the picture is too faithful in most of its details, and exhibits an awful proof of the effects of a successful revolution. But the misery which Louis Blanc has so ably depicted, the corruptions he has brought to light, under the revolutionary monarchy, have been multiplied fourfold by those which have prevailed during the last year in the republic established by Louis Blanc, himself! [6] LOUIS BLANC, _Histoire de Dix Ans de Louis Philippe_, iii. 321, _et seq._