the accorded liberties of the people. Year after year it was found impossible to place the Government in a just position; to make it an affectionate and holy link between the king and the nation. A system of fraud and exclusion separated it from the one; any approach to a fair and popular representation severed it from the other. Nor was this all: from the various political events which had distracted France for forty years, so many parties had risen up, that no one party was powerful. The different sects united in opposition were strong; but as each stepped out singly, and placed itself at the head of affairs, it betrayed its incapacity for remaining there. Uncertain what stay to look for-what arm to lean uponthe Government of necessity pursued a vacillating course. Its wanderings I have traced to their close-I have announced its end, and I now write its epitaph, while I call posterity to witness "That weakness is never so fatal to its possessor as when accompanied by violence; and that an absolute theory is the worst enemy of a constitutional throne." REVIEW OF THE RESTORATION. The benefits of the Restoration-From 1817 to 1827 the wounds of France healed-Advance in agriculture, in manufactures, in printed publications-A new philosophy, a new literature, a new race-The new race and the old race in presence-The course taken by each. SAY what you will of its ministerial errors, of its factious agitations, the Restoration' as a period of improvement was a mighty epoch. No country perhaps ever made in the same time the same advances, that France made from 1815 to 1830. The ambitious soldier and the enthusiastic boy may linger with a fond delight over the narrative of those almost miraculous exploits, which place upon so lofty a pedestal the endeavours of human genius; the more cool-blooded politician will observe that the Tower of Babel, the loftiest edifice on record, was the least useful, the most certain not to be completed, and that the merits of a reign are to be measurednot by the admiration it excites, but by the REVIEW OF THE RESTORATION. 55 benefits it produces. The battle of Waterloo left France the victim of two invasions. The losses which had been inflicted upon her territory have been estimated at fifteen hundred millions of francs, the same sum that she was condemned to pay the Allies. From 1818 to 1827, in nine years alone, says M. Dupin, "these wounds, profound and terrible as they were, had been healed; and even their scars obliterated. In the wars of twenty-three years, fifteen hundred thousand men had perished, and in thirteen years their loss had been repaired. Agriculture, which the presence of a foreign enemy had repressed, — (one department alone had suffered to the extent of 75 millions of francs,) revived, and had even advanced during the Restoration, as well by an increase in horses and cattle, as by various improvements in the art of cultivation. The manufactures of wool, of cotton, of silk, aided by the improvement of machinery and the experiments of chemistry, had added during that time in no small degree to the resources of industry and the investments for wealth. The population of Lyons alone had advanced in eleven years from 100 to 150,000 inhabitants. The product of indirect taxation, that sign not merely of the riches, but of the enjoyments of Ꭰ Ꮞ a people, had been swelled during the interval of 1818 to 1827 by 25 per cent. The Customs and the Post produced more, the Lottery less; and-a circumstance not to be forgotten in the details of administration-the expense of collecting the revenue had diminished as the revenue itself had increased. The number of printed sheets were, in 1814, 45,675,039; in 1826, 144,564,094; thus displaying in the production of human knowledge, a yet greater increase and a yet greater activity than in the other rapidly and daily increasing productions. Accroissemens Annuels. De la population humaine Du nombre des moutons Des consommations indiquées par les droits indirects Idem, par les octrois Des opérations industrielles indiquées par l'extraction de la houille Idem, par la fabrication du fer Des publications de la presse périodique 3 禾 "By this table it appears," says the valuable little pamphlet I quote from,*" que l'accroissement numérique de la population est moindre que celui de toutes les forces matérielles, que celui de tous les produits du travail; et que l'accroissement des publications, qui représente l'activité progressive de l'esprit, est le plus grand de tous." In three years (from 1817 to 1820) the elementary schools from 856,212, advanced to have 1,063,919 scholars; and the number of persons receiving instruction at these institutions within the period contained between 1816 and 1826 has been computed at five millions and a half. Schools of arts, agriculture, and the sciences, were formed throughout the kingdom; and, borne along on this mighty rush of new opinions, came a new and more noble philosophy-a new, a more rich, a more glowing, a more masculine, a more stirring, and energetic literature. The spirit and intellect of the country received a fresh birth, and at the same time a fresh race was born; a race that had neither the ideas, the wants, nor the history of its predecessors. - * "Les forces électorales," by Ch. Dupin. The effect of which may be seen in the subjoined calculation. Printed sheets on matter of Science: In 1814-232,314; in 1820-369,862; in 1826—1,177,780, D 5 |