principle of France--the law against the press,* which, when refused, is followed by an ordonnance-the disbandment of the National Guards-the new creation of peers-carry the administration in every way to the farthest verge of constitutional power. Each spring of the constitution, stretched to the utmost, is strained, and its power injured.

Mons. de Villèle, as a statesman, was guilty of that fault which, if we regard its consequences, is a crime. The system which he essayed left in its failure no legitimate resource. Moderation after violence becomes weakness; and when violence has been carried to the extremest limit of the law, the next step you

will you not make a formidable democracy with the younger ones? And France-in taking from the circulation one-fourth of her property, will you not diminish her landed revenue, and will she not be menaced by new impositions?"

"The right of the elder born," said another peer, "is intelligible at the time when the possession of fiefs obliged their proprietors to lead their vassals to battle. But every thing is changed; the people to-day pay the subsidies and concur in the formation of the army; 'nobles' and 'roturiers' all have the same duty to perform. No one has the right to claim peculiar laws or peculiar privileges to protect his property, and watch especially over its conservation. The transmission of fortune from a father to his children, without distinction of age or of sex, is the law of God; and man has only the right to interfere so far as to regulate this right, and to conciliate it with paternal authority?"

Such were and are the opinions in France.

* The plan of the government was, by increasing the duty on the newspapers, to increase their price, thereby reducing their influence and the number of their readers. It is just worth remarking that this idea was taken from the English system, and recommended to M. de Villèle by M. Cottu.

"A-t-on jamais vu un calcul plus erroné," said M. Benj. Constant, que celui qu'on nous presente! en élevant le prix des journaux, on ne diminuera point leur produit annuel! mais le plus simple bon sens n'indique-t-il pas qu'en doublant le port on diminuera le nombre des abonnés, et par consequent le produit de la taxe? Maintenant toute la question est de savoir s'il est juste, sage et politique de diminuer la circulation des journaux de la capitale, et de tuer l'existence de ceux des départemens."

"Dans tout ceci," said M. de Chateaubriand," n'y-a-t-il pas quelque chose de puéril et de sauvage qui fait véritablement rougir? La France est-elle donc redevenue barbare?"

"Dans la pensée intime de la loi," said M. Royer Collard, " il y a eu de l'imprévoyance au grand jour de la création à laisser l'homme échapper libre et intelligent au milieu de l'univers !"

The Academy protested; the law was finally withdrawn.

make justifies resistance. Mons. de Villèle was a man of ability; he had a certain administrative talent, a certain parliamentary tact; but he had none of those loftier and more noble qualities, which lift a statesman to that height from which he can survey and provide for the wants of an epoch. All his ideas and hopes were within the hemisphere of detail and intrigue-to tickle the ear of the king, to entrap a majority of the Chamber, and to attend to the official duties of his department—all this M. de Villèle understood, and understood well but to see the course necessary to the nation, to urge the king to that course, to lead the Chamber to it-such a part was beyond the reach of his capacity, and totally out of the range of his ideas. Simple in his habits and expressions, regular in his office, and prodigal in places and dinners to his adherents, he exercised a great sway over the minds of those deputies who, fresh from their provinces, sympathized with his manners, enriched themselves by his appointments, and felt themselves raised in consideration by his hospitality. By this provincial body M. de Villele was adored: but all the better men of his time and of his party he alternately offended and disgusted. He betrayed Mons. de Richelieu, neglected Messrs. de Lalot and Labourdonnaye, dismissed Mons. Hyde de Neuville, insulted Mons. de Chateaubriand :-obtaining a certain reputation as a statesman, there is not a principle that he laid down, or a conviction that he followed-the whole course of his administration was foreign to his character, and in opposition to the policy he would more willingly have pursued. An advocate of peace, he engaged in the war with Spain; in no wise given to bigotry and superstition, he became the minister of the "congregation;" essentially of a cautious and moderate nature, the career of his government ran through a series of rash and violent experiments. An able man, he was the very reverse of a great man. In short, he had just sufficient talent to keep his place during six years, and to render the dy

nasty impossible for more than three years after his resignation.*

Such was Monsieur de Villèle.

To a ministry which Charles X. said represented himself, succeeded a ministry which represented nothing,

One is startled at almost every page in the modern history of France to see the little political faith that burns in the hearts of public men. M. de Martignac comes into office because M. de Villèle can no longer command a majority in the Chamber. All that M. de Martignac looks to, then, is to get the majority which M. de Villèle wants. He casts his eyes to this side, he casts his eyes to that side, in search of recruits; and it is a singular fact that the ministry distinguished from M. de Villèle's by its moderation, began by an offer to the party which, during M. de Villèle's administration, had formed the ultra-royalist opposition. M. de Labourdonnaye, however, was not to be obtained, except on higher terms than M. de Martignac could afford to give him; and the government, which began by a proposition to the extreme right, wheeled round at once to the left centre--and now its march becomes every day more and more decided towards the left. The members of the former government, Chabrol and Frassinous, who, at first remaining, formed a kind of link between the old government and the new, are dismissed. The liberty of the press is to a certain degree accorded. A law to regulate and preserve the purity of elections, scandalously violated by M. de Villèle, is brought forward. The deficit left by that minister is acknowledged. But all these recog

* Mons. de Villèle gave himself one Chamber by a creation of peers, and hoped with the usual arts of government to strengthen his majority in the other by a new election; but the feelings against the " congregation," and against the arbitrary succession of measures which had left the nation without defence, from the double power of absolutism and superstition, except in its representatives, excited throughout the country such a feeling in respect to the election of those deputies, that the minister was completely baffled, and in consequenceresigned,

nitions of public opinion are insufficient to satisfy it. Why is this?

When a system of concession is adopted, because a system of repression is found unavailing-when such is the case-when a government conciliates because it cannot coerce, it should not merely yield to what is demanded, it should go beyond what is expected; the applause which it thus surprises from the people becomes a barrier against future opposition; it obtains the credit, not of submitting from weakness, but of acting from opinion; it environs itself with the double charm of power and popularity, and by appearing to to do more than concede, it acquires strength to resist.

And now one word as to the folly of an intempestive course of repression. In what direction did the nation march during the reign of M. de Villèle? Mark !Men the most moderate-men who, like M. Villemain, had formerly supported--men who, like M. Decazes, had formerly proposed the censure--were now far in advance, not of the administration that had gone by, not of the administration of M. de Villèle, but of the liberal administration that had succeeded, of the administration of M. de Martignac; nor could the king or his administration oppose themselves to the unanimous cry which demanded the ordonnances of June against the Jesuits.*

The new minister, embarrassed by the nation on one side, by the court and a strong party in the two houses on the other; alive to his difficulties, uncertain perhaps in his course, was still not insensible to the feelings that were abroad, nor to the only career which the monarchy had to run. Prevented by the circumstances that surrounded him from being more liberal than he was, he was fully aware of the peril of being less so; and one of the most remarkable acts of his

The principal part of these ordonnances was that which declared that no person thenceforward could remain charged with any office of instruction in any of the places of education dependant on the university, or in any of the secondary ecclesiastical schools, if he did not affirm in writing that he did not belong to any religious congregation not legally established in France.

administration was the "mémoire" presented to the king in 1828, and concluding with these singularly. prophetic words :

:

"Insensate must they be who would advise your majesty to a dissolution of the Chamber. The electoral colleges would only return a more powerful and compact majority, who as their first act would declare the sovereignty of parliament. Then there would remain to your majesty but one of these two alternatives; either that of bowing your august head before the Chamber, or of recurring to the unconstitutional power for ever alienated by the charta-a power which, if evoked, could only be evoked once for the purpose of plunging France into new revolutions, amid which would disappear the crown of St. Louis."

Every thing which occurred in the two administrations that succeeded M. de Villèle's is to be accounted for by the condition in which, as I have stated, that minister left the crown. Legal severity had then been tried to the utmost; a feebleness beneath the law, or a violence beyond it, were the two alternatives that remained. The ministry of M. Martignac represented the one, as the ministry of M. de Polignac represented the other. The king and the people alike looked upon the Martignac ministry as a transition. They each saw that that ministry could not stand, and that something must follow which would decide the long struggle of sixteen years, either by destroying the charta, or by proclaiming that it was the right of the nation, and not the gift of the king.

It is difficult to say whether the state of the country and of parties was such, that there could at this time have been made any concessions that would have kept the dynasty and the constitution the same. A feeling of hatred to the elder race of the Bourbon family had grown up among all classes and provinces of the kingdom. There was not, perhaps, a wide extended conspiracy against them; but there was a firm belief and conviction that they could not endure. I remember a conversation that I had, in the year 1828, with one of