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tween the additional act' of the empire, and 'the constitutional charta' of the restoration.

If Bonaparte, by his defeat on the field of battle, attached to his name some melancholy and affectionate remembrances, the recollections which Louis XVIII. had left in the legislative assembly-the calm courage and the noble dignity with which, in the presence of his military rival, he had held the charta as a buckler before the throne, were favourable to his person, and threw a constitutional halo round the renewal of his reign.*

The remonstrances of foreign diplomacy, the manifest faults which the royalists had themselves committed, the bitter lesson that Bonaparte brought with him from Elba, the certainty that the nation was neutral, and the army

* It was before quitting Paris that Louis XVIII., who had, from the first landing of Napoléon, shown calmness, firmness, and dignity, made the attempt to excite a constitutional enthusiasm by appearing to the chambers, and delivering one of those remarkable discourses which no one better knew how to utter or compose. Celui qui vient allumer parmi nous les torches de la guerre civile y apporte aussi le fléau de la guerre étrangère; il vient remettre notre patrie sous son joug de fer; il vient enfin détruire cette charte constitutionelle que je vous ai donnée-cette charte, mon plus beau titre aux yeux de la postérité-cette charte, que

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hostile the good sense of Louis XVIII. himself, who saw that his policy must be to unite under the wing of the monarchy the different factions into which an attachment to the old régime,' a prominent part in the revolution, or a situation under the empire, had split his agitated and divided people-procured for a moment the appearance of moderation, which the dismissal of the Duc de Blacas, and the appointment of Fouché, a regicide, and Guizot, a protestant, to office, seemed to guarantee. But how often is it deemed impossible to adopt a general system of conciliation without a partial display of force! The party who clamour for punishment must be appeased, while there is something fatally flattering to human vanity in the demonstration, that if we choose to be generous, we dare to be severe. Hence those fatal executions and proscriptions which overshadowed the great name of the Duke of Wellington, and revived the worst memories of the French republic. Hence the exile of Carnot, the assassination of Labédoyère,* while Nismes, tous les Français chérissent, et que je jure ici de maintenir.”—“ We'll die for the King !" shouted the people ; but liberty' was not at that time a habit, and Bonaparte marched to Paris at the head of his troops.

* Labédoyère was not actually brought to trial until the ministry of Richelieu.

Toulouse, and Marseilles were disgraced by the madness of an infuriated populace, and the blood of Marshal Brune at Avignon disgraced the cause of royalty and religion.

It was now that a new class of persons, attached to the Bourbons at the commencement of their reign, began to wish and to conspire for their overthrow. The republicans and the more liberal part of the constitutionalists had welcomed the restoration from their hatred of Bonaparte and though the senate felt that the octroyization of the charta was an attack in point of form upon the privileges of the nation, still it felt also that that charta did in fact assure those privileges. We find then that Barras, previous to the hundred days, warned the Duc de Blacas of the catastrophe that was preparing, and that Manuel and Lafayette, after the battle of Waterloo, paralyzed all Napoléon's further plans of resistance. Had it not been for this-had the liberal and the military part of France been at that time united, a battle would have been fought under the

*It is but justice to observe, that the state of the Protestants in the South excited the attention of the British and Prussian governments, who insisted on the repression of these disorders.

walls of Paris, and the army of the Loire might have been still formidable to the invaders.

The persecutions of Louis XVIII. effected that which the misfortunes of Bonaparte had not been able to produce; they united against the restoration-the opponent parts of the empire, i. e. the heroes who had formed its glory, the patriots who had objected to its principles. But how far was Louis XVIII. to blame?

Every day made his difficulties more apparent: the government of Monsieur de Talleyrand, notwithstanding the cruel compliances which alienated one party, found it impossible to resist the wrath which its mere reputation for liberality excited in another.

Fouché published his celebrated memorials,* among the most important political documents that ever appeared; and finally, the Prince of Benevento found himself obliged to tender his resignation.

The mass of the imperial army, the more violent of the imperial opposition, were now hostile to the Bourbon ' régime;' a conflict commenced between the more moderate and the more bigoted royalists, as to who should administer its affairs. At the head of these parties

* See Appendix.

were the Monarch now in exile-the Monarch then upon the throne.

There had been between these two Princes a kind of jealous rivalry from their very boyhood. Celebrated for his grace, his intrigues, the flower of the fashionable nobility of Versailles, the Comte d'Artois had early in his favour all the more brilliant part of the court of Marie Antoinette. The women extolled him, the young men imitated him, and applauded the frankness of his follies-in opposition to the more reserved carriage and the more serious pursuits of the Comte de Provence. Moreover, the aristocracy of the emigration, instituting a kind of periodical hierarchy among themselves, placed the persons who departed after the first triumph of the revolution in a much higher rank than those who subsequently retired.*

The Comte d'Artois then, opposed to any popular compliances, was decidedly the royalist chief. Proud of his situation, vain of his authority, irritated by a restless desire for contention and intrigue-this prince-the presumptive heir to the crown-already dis

* Louis XVIII. frequently complained in private of this distinction.