majority of the Chamber. The king was exceedingly offended by their opposition to a policy of which he had marked his approbation; and by their animosity to Decazes, whose insinuating manners and firmness had pleased and encouraged him. Nor was the advice of foreign powers wanting to impel the king to dissolve the Chamber. So alarmed were the allied monarchs, by the apprehension of a second expulsion of the Bourbons and a renewed war, so displeased at the folly which rendered the recurrence of such a catastrophe probable, that it is asserted by the "Homme d'Etat" that they had listened with favour to a plan suggested by the exiles at Brussels, for dethroning the Bourbons, and placing the Prince of Orange on the throne of France. When Richelieu came round to the proposition of Decazes for the dissolution of the Chamber, he applied to the Emperor Alexander for an exertion of his influence with Louis XVIII. The emperor immediately complied with this request, and wrote an autograph letter to Louis, advising the dissolution of the Chamber. The same advice was tendered by most of the ambassadors; and Louis, encouraged by the opinion of foreigners, and the assurances of a general support from the country, yielded to the advice of his cabinet, and issued the famous ordonnance of the 5th of September, whereby he dissolved the Chamber, and summoned a new one to be elected in strict accordance with the system of the charter.

The ordonnance of the 5th of September was deplored by the ultra-royalists as a fatal blow to the monarchy; and the ministers who advised it were represented by them to be the worst of traitors. It was the commencement, indeed, of a system which, while it lasted, proved fatal to their fanatical plans, conciliated the legitimate monarchy with the Charter, and brought the country to a comparatively extraordinary state of tranquillity and wealth. The ultra-royalists entered the Chamber to the number of 100: and in the first year proved a troublesome minority. Every annual renewal, however, replaced some of their body by liberal or ministerial deputies; the former greatly preponderated, their party having abandoned the fruitless game of conspiracy, and united their efforts in securing electoral influence. Among those who successively entered the Chamber were Foy, Manuel, Chauvelin, and Constant. Tranquillity gradually succeeded to the dread of re-actions; and the Charter came to be regarded as a positive security for liberty and order. The repressive laws adopted in the first year of the Restoration were gradually dispensed with. The functions of the Cours Prévôtales ceased. The law suspending personal liberty was continued for one year longer, and having been but little used, was not again renewed. The censorshsip

was renewed during 1817 and 1818, in spite of the eloquence which M. de Villèle exerted in favour of an entire liberty of the press during 1819 the press was allowed perfect freedom. A law was adopted to punish offences of the press, which, severe and vague as it was, so displeased the ultra-royalists, as to obtain from them the designation of the loi athée; and the offences cognizable under it were submitted to the trial by jury. An election law was adopted in accordance with the plan laid down in the Charter and the ordonnance of September. The National Guard was taken out of the hands of the Comte d'Artois, who, by the power of appointing the officers, had exercised the greatest influence over that body, and had in some places, as at Nîmes, succeeded in bringing it to something of the nature of the royalist volunteers of Spain. The Duc de Richelieu had the good fortune to succeed in shortening by two years the period of the occupation by the allied armies, and in completely liberating the soil of France from its invaders. The payment of the enormous tribute imposed by the treaty of Paris was anticipated by successful financial operations, which evinced the credit and wealth of the country. A national army was organized under the care of Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr; and its future composition regulated by that admirable law bearing his name, which secured the popular constitution of the army from the encroachments subsequently made by the royalists on all other institutions.

To the influence of Decazes the improved policy of this period is almost wholly to be ascribed. The well-intentioned but timid Duc de Richelieu shrunk ere long from the bold course on which he had entered. The great accession to the liberal party, caused by the elections of 1818, scared him with a renewed terror of the preponderance of the Jacobin party; and he insisted on some alterations of the election law. On this subject a conflict arose between him and M. Decazes, which ended in the dissolution of the cabinet. The duke, after a vain attempt to form a fresh ministry, resigned, and the charge was entrusted to Decazes, who was more successful. General Dessolles was placed at the head of the new cabinet, in which, however, Decazes was the real leader, and took the office of Minister of the Interior. A contest immediately arose on the subject of the electoral system. A modification of a slight nature was proposed by M. Barthélemy, and in spite of the warm opposition of the ministers, an address to request the king to propose a new electoral law was carried in the Chamber of Peers. An instant creation of sixty peers reassured a majority to the minister, and proved the attachment of the king to his policy. In the Chamber of Deputies, where M. Lainé, from the chief supporter of the electoral law

had now become its most vehement opponent, the proposition of a change met with no success.

The fortunes of the law of elections were, indeed, most singular. Were we to deduce the usual judgment from the abandonment it successively experienced on the part of all its first supporters, among whom this change of opinion became more decided as experience furnished fresh proofs of the mode in which the law operated, we should be inclined to think that only defects of the most serious nature could have deprived it of the partial approbation of its authors. When we recollect, however, that these successive deserters were the ministers whose power it at various times restricted, and that its adherents among the great mass of the people, instead of diminishing, were constantly on the increase, we may be inclined to think that it lost favour in the eyes of its original creators, only because it proved on trial to be too efficient a protection for the people. The change exhibited by MM. de Richelieu and Lainé was repeated ere the close of the year by MM. Decazes and De Serre, who had distinguished themselves as their most strenuous opponents. The same cause appears to have converted M. Decazes as that which had terrified his predecessor. The result of the renewal of the autumn of 1819 was a still greater triumph on the part of the liberals than even those of the preceding occasions. Another such would have given that party the decided command of the Chamber. M. Decazes, who was anxious to prevent the predominance of either party, saw with alarm that he was on the point of being subjected to one on the gratitude of which he had indeed many claims, but to which he had marked great distrust, and from which he had re ceived numerous manifestations of corresponding suspicion ana hostility.

The rupture of Decazes with the Liberals is perhaps the most interesting and most debated point of the reign of Louis XVIII. It occasioned the downfal of that system which had done so much for the prosperity of France, had established tranquillity and constitutional government, It gave rise to a commencement of a second disastrous period of reaction, subjected the country for many years to the oppressive rule of the priests and their faction, and imposed the necessity of the Revolution, which put a violent end to that evil. The blame of this unfortunate event we are at first inclined to throw on the Liberals. It seems natural to accuse them of ingratitude in exerting their power against a minister to whom their cause was so much indebted; and to blame them still more for compromising the interests of their country by too eagerly grasping at a predominance of which a little time and a little prudence would assuredly have put them in possession.

Yet there is very little in their conduct to justify this charge. They had, it is true, made various reductions in the budget of 1819, presented petitions praying for the pardon of the political exiles, proposed different popular alterations in the organization of the police and the national guard, and demanded an improved system of municipal administration. There were none, surely, of these or their other acts which marked so strong a disposition to encroachment as to require an alteration of the law which allowed them admission into the Chamber. Their chief error, perhaps, was the openly opposing the ministerial candidates in the elections, and securing the return of deputies avowedly hostile to M. Decazes' policy. This, however, was the act of the majority of the electors of France; from a body so large it is vain to expect any exhibition of that prudence which consists in dissimulation. It was for M. Decazes to concede to the declared opinion of the electoral body. It might be natural for him to feel provoked at being forced into a change of system, or a resignation, by the opposition of that party which he himself had restored to political power; but his personal wrongs were not to be redressed by a sacrifice of the system, which, up to the moment that it came into collision with his own power, he had supported as necessary to the good government of France. The published portion of the work of the "Homme d'Etat" does not extend to this period, and we are consequently deprived of the information or arguments which M. Decazes or his partizan will doubtless adduce in support of his conduct. Until further revelations are made, the blame of this unfortunate schism must rest rather on M. Decazes than on the Liberals. Greatly superior as was his policy in principles to that of most, in skilfulness of execution to that of all of the ministers of Louis XVIII., we must regret that a contingency arose which showed that he was either incapable of thoroughly understanding representative government, or of sacrificing his system or his power to its maintenance.

The design of altering the election law, and of renewing the laws of exception against the press and personal liberty, was announced at the commencement of the session: the determination of the ministers had been previously manifested by the retirement of Dessolles, St. Cyr, and Louis, from the cabinet. From the very first an open hostility was carried on between the ministry and the left of the Chamber; and the former secured with difficulty a majority on a few occasions by the aid of the Ultra-Royalists, whose language showed, however, that their deep hostility to M. Decazes was in no wise abated. Thus was the exclusion of the Abbé Gregoire carried, and the rejection of the numerous petitions which poured in from every part of France

against any alteration in the law of elections. It was evident, however, that the Royalists were as much as ever bent on the destruction of Decazes: and on the 13th of February, 1820, the assassination of the Duc de Berry gave them the means of effecting their object. The court rung with denunciations of the minister, whose encouragement of the Liberals was said to have led to this catastrophe; even in the Chamber it was proposed by M. Clausel de Coussergues to impeach M. Decazes as an accomplice of the murderer. The weak mind of Louis XVIII. could not stand the urgent entreaties of his family, which turned its misfortune to the profit of its political influence, and he sacrificed the only minister for whose person he had ever felt attachment. M. Decazes remained in office just long enough to introduce the new law of elections and the laws against personal liberty and the press, and was then replaced by the Duc de Richelieu.

The murder of the Duc de Berry was a most fatal event for the liberties of France. Not only did it excite a reaction of the most deplorable nature in the mind of the king, but that reaction extended to the nation, roused the feelings of all men in favour of a family assailed by the assassin, gave confidence and popularity to the royalists, and subjected the liberals to most unjust odium. The assassin Louvel, an ignorant, enthusiastic, melancholy man, declared that he had no accomplices; and that the only suggestion of his crime had proceeded from an internal voice. It is evident that an act, which, not to speak of its atrocity, was in no way calculated to promote the interests of any party, was most probably not the result of a conspiracy: it was doubtless suggested in some of those moody wanderings of the mind which folly oft-times receives as the dictates of something which it calls duty or conscience. No traces of any plot or any accomplice were discovered during the investigations instituted by the police, or the evidence given at the trial: but the crime of the solitary fanatic exercised an extensive influence on the fortunes of his country.

The small band of ultra-royalists in the Chamber now lent their support to the Duc de Richelieu, who had undertaken the mission of restoring the preponderance of the party which he had previously overthrown. The united strength of the ministerial and royalist parties enabled them to gain a triumph over the vigorous opposition of the liberals, who manfully united to resist the commencement of a system of reaction. It is pleasing to record the admirable conduct of the great body of the doctrinaires, who on this occasion did not suffer themselves to be turned from the support of constitutional freedom by any of that timidity, or those theories of a somewhat passive obedience, which have in