Guizot, and M. de Broglie, and the latter by MM. Dupont de l'Eure, Lafitte and La Fayette. These differences ultimately produced the dissolution of the administration.

The movement party having prevailed, M. Lafitte became the head of the succeeding Cabinet, and as such, was appointed President of the Council of Ministers. Immediately after the interview of the Baron Louis with the King at the Palais Royale, at which the former resigned his office of Minister of Finance, M. Thiers was sent for. On entering the presence of Louis Phillippe, the first words the King addressed to him were, "M. Thiers, are you ambitious?" An explanation followed, and, much to the surprise of M. Thiers, the King offered him the Ministry of Finance, which the Baron Louis had just resigned.

M. Thiers did not affect to conceal his ambitious hopes for the future, but he begged his Majesty to reserve so high an honor and so eminent a proof of his confidence for a future day, when more advanced age and more mature experience would enable him to accept such an office with greater confidence in his own fitness for it than he was then able to feel. The King, however, pressed the matter, and observed that the Baron Louis had himself expressly advised his appointment. In fine, M. Lafitte was charged with the office, with M. Thiers as Secretary-the latter assuming all the active and laborious duties.

The Cabinet, thus formed, and known as the Ministry of November 2, consisted of MM. Lafitte, Dupont de l'Eure, Sebastiani, Soult, Montalivet, de Rigny, and Merilhou.

While M. Thiers labored in the Hotel of Finance, under the practiced superintendence of the Baron Louis, he had little opportunity of assuming any conspicuous position in public affairs. The Baron, an experienced financier, left him only a subordinate part to play. Accustomed to regard him as an intelligent young man that he formerly patronized and admitted to a place at his table, he still addressed him by the paternal phrase of "Mon enfant," and used to laugh heartily at the opinions which the youthful ardor of Thiers would prompt him to utter, and which only betrayed to his superior the extent of his financial inexperience. All this, however, was completely changed when M. Lafitte took the portfolio of the finances. Being also President

of the Council, and having private business to engage a portion of his attention, the whole burthen of the Finance Department fell upon M. Thiers, who instead of being, as under the Baron Louis, an inconsiderable subordinate and a pupil, found himself, under the title of Secretary, the real head of the Department, at a crisis when the country was reduced to the brink of bankruptcy at home, and menaced with invasion from abroad! He was fully sensible of the importance of his position, and the personal advantages to be gained from it. Accordingly before he assumed the position he saw open to him, he announced to M. Lafitte his intention to resign with Baron Louis. Lafitte, sensible how necessary his aid would be in an office in which he had just been drilled for four months by so experienced a superior, and conscious of his own complete ignorance of the technical official details, found himself obliged to go to the King and announce the impossibility of his retaining office unless M. Thiers could be induced to render him that assistance which he alone could at that moment give. The consequence of this proceeding was, that an express command was sent by the King to M. Thiers, that the interests of the state demanded that he should retain the place of underSecretary of State in the Department of Finance.

The first impulse of a young man such as Thiers was-entertaining a profound consciousness of his own capacity and talents, and having all respect for official traditions, unshaken by the study of a succession of revolutions, and the personal observation of and participation in at least one-was to overturn all received ideas, and to establish a new systema dangerous step, more especially in the finances. A more unfortunate moment for experiments of the kind could scarcely have been selected. The country was shaken to its centre. Emeutes were everywhere menacing. The South hesitated to submit to the laws of 1830. La Vendée had already again taken up arms. The city of Lyons showed symptoms of revolt. Still M. Thiers

was not deterred from his innovations on the sensitive ground of taxation. What Napoleon in the plenitude of his power, or the Bourbons in the security of profound national tranquillity, dared not attempt, M. Thiers did not hesitate to propose amid the storms which were gathering around the throne of the Bar

racades. The system of taxation, which had not been attempted to be disturbed in all the vicissitudes of administration since 1791, when it was settled by the constituent assembly, was now to be overthrown, not for the relief of the tax-payer, but to enable the government to plunge its hands deeper into the pockets of the people, and augment the gross amount of the finances. "The more the taxes are varied," said M. Thiers, "the more properties they will reach; and this principle must be applied in every variety of form. Taxation is an art which is in a state of progressive improvement, and which it may be hoped will soon attain the highest degree of perfection. By the new law a million of individuals will be liable to contribution, who were exempt under the old system!!" Such was the character of the first measures projected by the prime instigator of the Revolution of July! At this time M. Thiers made his debut in the Chambers, not as a Deputy, but as a Royal Commissioner, authorized to defend the projects of law on the subject of finance which were submitted to the Chambers. It was a curious incident in the life of this parliamentary orator, that in these his first attempts, he excited so much disgust, that M. Lafitte was compelled by the majority to engage that the bills which were to be subsequently introduced should be supported by himself, and that he would not continue to inflict upon the house his most intolerable under-secretary! Yet this same man has since proved to be incontestably the most powerful orator in the French Chambers. What, it will naturally be asked, was the cause of the invincible repugnance which he excited? We are told by those who were witnesses of these proceedings, that the tone of carelessness (insouciance) and levity which he assumed gave offence; that his long speeches, in which facts were loosely and inexactly cited, and figures given with flippancy were so erroneous that they were often exposed on the spot, were too like lectures, or articles read from a journal.

In a

Meanwhile difficulties continued to multiply around the Cabinet from other causes. Its intrinsic feebleness was such that it was evident it could not long subsist. It was discovered by M. Lafitte that the king himself was interfering without his knowledge in the business of the state; and justly considering such interference inconsistent with the principle of ministerial responsibility, he resolved to resign.

Having foreseen the approaching dissolution of the Cabinet, M. Thiers anticipated it, and resigned his office before the retirement of his friend and patron. “Swallows," says a contemporary writer, who noticed this proceeding, "are endowed with an instinctive presentiment of the falling of buildings in which they have fixed themselves."

Another construction, less unfavorable to M. Thiers, has, however, been put upon this proceeding, even by those who certainly are not too favorably disposed towards him. The following are the circumstances which have been mentioned in connection with it:

During this short administration of M. Lafitte, M. Thiers, as we have seen, held virtually the Ministry of Finances. At this time reports became prevalent in public, and were, without much affectation of reserve, repeated by the Press, which greatly embittered the life of this rising statesman, and have entailed upon his reputation injurious effects, which will probably never be effaced. These attacks assumed a form so definite, that nothing but a public and explicit refutation of the charges brought against him could by possibility deprive them of their most mischievous effects upon his character; and unfortunately that public refutation was never offered. In short, M. Thiers was charged with sharing in the improper gains derived from douceurs received for appointments to offices in the Department of Finances. That the nominees did pay these douceurs has not, we believe, been disputed. But it was not proved that M. Thiers was the receiver of them.

A writer who appears to have been well informed, states that one of the oldest and most attached friends of M. Thiers, with tears in his eyes, and his front suffused with a blush of honest shame, informed him of this deplorable circumstance. He affirms that the traffic referred to was carried on in the name of M. Thiers, by one whom it was impossible that he could denounce; that M. Thiers was deeply afflicted at it; and

that he instantly, on being made acquainted with it, renouncing all his ambitious hopes, and looking down with grief from the elevation to which he had raised himself to his original position, he determined to descend to his former station, and withdraw into the ranks of private life; that he went to M. Lafitte, confided to him the bitter misfortune of his situation, with a tone of simplicity and frankness of rare occurrence. He had resolved, he said, to quit the ministry, to return to those labors which he had pursued before the Revolution of July, and feeling the impossibility of offering the only refutation of the injurious reports which would be conclusive, he hoped at least to silence them by his retreat. On this occasion M. Lafitte displayed towards him all the affection and sympathy of a parent, consoled him, and enabled him to stop the further progress of the discreditable traffic. The king, informed of the circumstances, joined M. Lafitte in re-assuring M. Thiers, and in effacing from his mind the painful impressions which remained upon it.*

It gives us much pleasure to quote this authority in refutation of injurious rumors, which even still continue to be credited. It unfortunately happens with public men, in every country, that charges against them once getting into circulation can never be entirely neutralized, no matter how conclusive their refutation may be. One hundred persons will hear the slander for one that will listen to its refutation; and, unhappily, the public takes greater pleasure in believing ill of those who have risen to eminence than in crediting their vindication.

In fine, M. Lafitte retired from the Ministry on the 13th March, 1831, the under-secretary having previously resigned. Casimir Perier succeeded to the Presidency of the Council and Ministry of the Interior. M. Thiers made a voyage to the South to canvass the electors of Aix, whose suffrages he hoped for at the next election; and in this canvass he was supported by the new Ministry, notwithstanding his connection with the outgoing Cabinet, and his previous resignation of office. In fact it was known to the new Ministry that he would support their measures, and oppose his late colleagues.

Under the Ministry of Lafitte, Thiers was the life and soul of the movement party; he spoke only of crossing the

Rhine, and of raising again in Italy the old banner of Napoleon's victories. On his return from the South, however, his tone was totally changed. His

"Thoughts, he must confess, were turned on peace."

The country, he declared, could only be served by peace; and as Lafitte's zeal in favor of the movement was guided by that of his under-secretary, so Casimir Perier found himself equally surpassed by the same individual in his advocacy for the pacification of Europe, and the consolidation of the foreign alliances.

M. Thiers, however, or his friends speaking for him, defend him against this charge of inconsistency. They say that he differed from M. Lafitte before the dissolution of his cabinet; that in his private conversations with him he adjured him not to allow himself to be allured by the mere attraction of a hollow popularity, but to adopt the conservative policy, and protect the new monarchical institutions from the factions which menaced them.

He declared that although he would resign with M. Lafitte, he would nevertheless defend the principles of order and of resistance to the enemies of the new government. Such conversations, it is said, took place in the presence of several of the members of Lafitte's family, who are living witnesses of them.

All this may be perfectly true, and yet the inconsistency charged against M. Thiers remains unexplained. M. Thiers knew of the approaching changes in the government long before they occurred; and nothing could be more natural than to smooth the way to his future course by such conferences. It rendered the transition less abrupt.

Be this as it may, M. Thiers and his former friend and patron were thenceforward mutually estranged; and it was evident that the former suffered from an uneasy consciousness of the awkwardness of his new position towards the late president of the council. After his election, and his opening speech in favor of the new cabinet and against his friends,

M. Thiers could not conceal his efforts to avoid personal communication with his former friend. An amusing example of his want of tact in permitting this feeling to be visible in the Chamber is related. There are two doors leading into the Chamber. The habitual seat of

M. Lafitte was at the extremity of the lowest bench on the left, next to one of these doors, and in the position most remote from the other. Before the dissolution of the Lafitte cabinet Thiers invariably entered the Chamber by the door on the left, next the seat of Lafitte, stopping as he passed to chat with his friend. After its dissolution he just as invariably entered at the right hand door, to avoid the necessity of such a conversation!

M. Thiers, in fact, became now the avowed supporter and orator of the new cabinet; and, if we can credit the statements of M. Loeve Viemar, received two thousand francs a month from the secret service fund for his trouble. His influence on the Chamber as well as his reputation for good faith were, however, seriously impaired by the reckless precipitancy with which he hazarded assertions of facts and figures. While the Ministry accepted his advocacy they were not willing to avow the connection. M. Perier openly ridiculed the gasconade rashness and levity of his speeches; and did not dissemble his vexation when M. Thiers identified himself with the ministry by using the first person in speaking of Cabinet measures. On one occasion, when M. Manguin, in referring to M. Thiers, spoke of the latter as the orator of the Cabinet, M. Perier said in a contemptuous tone, and loud enough to be heard by M. Thiers,-"That thing an organ of the government!-Oh! M. Manguin wishes to ridicule us!"

As an instance of the carelessness, to use the most gentle term, which M. Thiers evinced at this time, with regard to the truth of the statements he made from the Tribune, we may mention one occasion on which General Lamarque had spoken of the military forces of France and of other powers, with which it was well known that he was intimately acquainted, from having kept up an active and extensive correspondence with the eastern states of Europe. M. Thiers, armed as usual with a load of documents, came to the Chamber, spreading before him an enormous chart, which covered the entire bench of the doctrinaires, on which he had planted himself. He then mounted the Tribune, casting a sarcastic glance at the opposition benches; he began to count on his fingers what the forces really were, as he maintained, which France had to fear. So many

regiments were on the Rhine; few in number, feeble, with small complements of men, and totally destitute of artillery! these were not worth mentioning; he enumerated the entire Prussian army, from Aix-la-Chapelle to Magdebourg; not a division or company that he did not carefully count, and the whole body amounted to a very contemptible force! And was this force to be held up as a bugbear! The opposition listening to all this, and remembering the many instances in which the speaker's inaccuracies had been already detected and exposed, gave vent to expressions of incredulity. No one, however, was prepared at the moment to refute the statement, and the orator obtained a temporary triumph. The next day, however, when a search was made, it was found that the army of M. Thiers and the army of the King of Prussia had nothing in common. But this discovery took place the next day, and the next day is an epoch which M. Thiers holds in small respect or consideration.*

Until the debate on the question of an hereditary peerage, M. Thiers must be regarded as floundering through a succession of failures as a parliamentary speaker. It is true that there were, now and then, momentary flashes of success, but he had established no influence; on the contrary, he had excited much ridicule on the part of the opposition, and even those in whose favor he spoke, accepted his advocacy with a certain shyness and reserve, and as though they were ashamed of the connection.

The debate on the peerage was the crisis of his parliamentary life. He evidently intended that it should be so. From what we have formerly stated, and from some of the quotations we have given from his writings as a journalist, it will be perceived that the beau-ideal of government which he had set before his mind was the British. The Sovereign, the higher aristocracy, and the representatives of the people; these elements were essential to the system of his admiration. He would have France copy this. The sense of the country was, however, opposed to the principle of hereditary legislators.

The question of the constitution of the peerage had been postponed, on the settlement of the government after the revolution of July. It was left for future and more mature and dispassionate dis

cussion than it could receive in the confusion which necessarily followed the fall of one dynasty and the establtshment of another. The time had now arrived when it became necessary finally to set this important question at rest. Is the legislative power conferred on a peer to descend to his heir, or is it to determine with the death of him on whom the Royal will has conferred it.

The head of the Cabinet, Casimir Perier, declared his conviction that the principle of inheritance should be adopted, but like the Duke of Wellington and Peel, in the case of Catholic emancipation, he at the same time admitted that, in the actual state of public opinion and feeling in the country, its adoption was impracticable. With an opinion, therefore, against the measure, he nevertheless proposed to the Chamber, that the peerage should only be enjoyed for life; that the principle of an hereditary peerage should be renounced in France.

M. Thiers, on this occasion, delivered a speech in many respects remarkable. Admitting that he was a supporter of the Cabinet, secretly paid, and therefore bound, in general, to advocate its measure, on this particular question, it is apparent, from what we have just stated, that he was free. It was, in fact, an open question. He knew the predominant feeling in the country and in the Chamber, and was well aware that the hereditary principle could not be maintained. Yet he took the unpopular side, and not satisfied with speaking in favor of the hereditary system, voted in favor of it; thus going further even than the President of the Council himself did.

It was evident, as we have already said, that M. Thiers intended to produce a great impression on this occasion. For eight days previously, his speech was talked of in the Chamber and announced in the newspapers. It was known, in short, that a performance of no common order was designed, and expectation was on tiptoe. M. Thiers, contrary to his custom, arrived early in the House. It was observed that more than usual care had been bestowed upon his external man, and that, especially, he wore gloves! It was evident that he was going to produce a profound impression. At last he ascended the Tribune with a slow and deliberate step, but with the air of negligence of one who is about to discharge some common task, which gives him neither trouble nor solicitude. He stood

for some time silent, endeavoring, by his manner, to impose a silence on the Chamber which it had not usually accorded to him. At length, by the interposition of some members friendly to him, the House was hushed. From the first it was evident that, in all respects, the orator had undergone a revolution. He used no manuscript-referred to no notes. His delivery, gesticulation, and even his personal attitude in the tribune, were all different from what they had ever before been. It was apparent that he was going to try a new style of eloquence; that he had laid aside his prelections and history, and his pompous rhetoric, and had adopted that familiar and colloquial style which prevails generally in the British House of Commons. In a word, instead of the classical eloquence in, which, hitherto, he had had such indifferent success, he was trying the conversational style. He endeavored to make the House enter into the spirit of this style of speaking, by telling it that this was an assembly of sensible men, and not an ancient forum. Throwing off the toga in which, hitherto, he had robed himself when he ascended the tribune, he was there in his individual person, as he had met and chatted separately with the deputies of his acquaintance. The speech he delivered on this occasion had certainly been deliberately composed and written. Its complete structure and plan, and its very language, were evidence of this. The reasoning formed a chain, the artificial connection and regularity of which were very imperfectly concealed by the tone of conversation in which the speaker endeavored to dress them up, or by the episodes and historical anecdotes with which he so elaborately adorned them. His speech on this occasion occupied four hours. His voice, naturally feeble, failed in the middle of it, and he was obliged to make a considerable pause to recover strength before he could proceed.

This speech was listened to by the Chamber, and at the period of his parliamentary life at which he delivered it, that was a great point gained, for it could scarcely be said of any of his former orations. M. Thiers had yet much to learn of parliamentary tactics. He was still unable to carry his audience with him. He produced an effect, it is true, and that, probably, was all he expected to do. But he did nothing for the question under debate. The success he attained was his