a character which made them spies, and converted into spies the whole provincial magistracy. They were to send him, on the 1st of each month, a report "on the state of opinion" in their respective neighbourhoods; and they were told that they would easily obtain the necessary information from the Procureurs du Roi, as the latter were in constant communication with the mayors, and the justices of peace, of the arrondissements. "What," exclaimed the Parisians, "all the mayors, the paternal administrators of their communes, charged to make opinions a matter of police, to dive into the sentiments of their fellow-citizens, and to furnish bulletins of them to the Procureurs-general, with whom they have continual connection! Justices of peace, whose mission ought to be characterised by union, confidence, and, if we may use the expression, with friendship, placed as sentinels to surprise the secrets of those whom they are appointed to judge!—an office of conciliation transformed into an inquisitorial surveillance."

During the autumn, M. de la Fayette had occasion to take a journey into the south of France. Every where he was received with public honours: the citizens, in welcoming him with banquets and processions, welcomed him as a respected representative of that policy which was now contending with the new Cabinet. The mayor of the commune of Vizille, through which the general passed, had taken part in one of these shows. For this expression of opinion the ministry immediately deprived him of his office; and the consequence was, that the whole population voted him an address of thanks and congratulation, and invited

him to a public dinner. The gentleman appointed by the ministerial prefect of the department to fill the office provisionally, refused to accept it, stating, that as his predecessor had been deposed for having taken part in the honours paid to M. de la Fayette, at which he himself, as well as all the inhabitants of the commune had assisted, he was anxious to anticipate the interference of the Minister of the Interior in his own case, and therefore declined the office.

These imprudent acts, and acts like these, incessantly presenting new points of collision between the Cabinet and the public, kept up the irritation, and drew forth daily

some

new expression of public opinion. That opinion was the opinion of the departments fully as much as of Paris. In September, after the ministers had been a month in power, a petition praying for their dismissal was addressed to the king by a number of the inhabitants of Grenoble, the language of which will suffice as a specimen of what was thought and said of them in all corners of the kingdom. "A faction," said they, "has placed itself between the prince and the people; the avenues to the throne are occupied by its leaders. Will they, who have always protested against the charter, observe it? Will they restore to us those institutions which they have deprived us of-they whom we reproach for the loss of them? Will they respect the liberty of the press-they who will never cease to be accused by France, whilst France retains a voice? Will they suppress electoral frauds they, against whom we have ever been obliged to contest, to have them suppressed? Will they reduce the taxes that are crushing us-they

who have ever voted against every reduction? Will they improve the system of public instructionthey who put all their hope in the ignorance of the people? Will they be able to have French generosity respected by our neighbours -they who have ever been averse to any thing generous? Will they defend the independence of your crown-they who have been placed in power by foreign influence? Are they worthy depositaries of the glory of our armies-they who are only known to our warriors by their treason? Will they drive vengeance from their breasts, will they conciliate the hatred of parties they who prepared lists of Frenchmen for the scaffold, they who call clemency inactivity; they who, to express their horrible wishes, have become the plagiarists of the tribunes of terror? France sees with horror united in the ministry men who were joined in its antipathies, and from whom every citizen fled, who enjoyed the esteem and honour of his countrymen. Sire,-Have pity on France and the throne; drive from it the evils with which it is menaced. To render it glorious and fortunate, France has need of the confidence of its king. Give her ministers worthy of her and yourself. Sire, -In terminating these humble representations, permit us to assert our respect for your prerogatives. We know good from bad ministers, before kings can know them. We know them by our sufferings, and kings know them only by our groans. That is a legitimate prayer which requires from heaven good kings; why should not that be the same which requires from kings good ministers ?"

In the evils, with which public alarm supposed France to be

threatened, there was, beyond doubt, a great deal that was merely imaginary. Many of the designs imputed to the ministry were either useful inventions of their opponents, put forth for the purpose of keeping strenuous opposition alive, or, if really believed, were believed only because the animosity of excited party spirit easily gives credit to whatever does honour to its own sagacity or patriotism. But still the composition of the ministry, while it exhibited nothing commanding in point of talent, was framed on principles which implied a policy hostile to the growth of public liberty. Above all, its composition was hostile to the wishes and opinions of the French people; even its continued existence, therefore, was of itself a proof of the spirit imputed to it by its enemies, viz. a determination to govern in defiance of these wishes and opinions. Whether the public was right or wrong in what it believed, it did believe that the ministry deserved only distrust, hatred, and contempt. Its unpopularity, founded on apprehensions, even before it had begun to act, might be partly undeserved; but thoroughly unpopular it was. The little it had done did not tend to diminish the dislike with which it was regarded; and thoroughly unpopular it continued to be. The public voice might, in some measure, be misled by party violence and chimerical alarms, but it was too loud and too universal to be despised with impunity.

The Cabinet itself, in the mean time, was divided. That it contained Labourdonnaye was one great cause of its unpopularity; and that minister himself would listen to no proposals of concession

-no mitigation of his own ultra principles. Another section of the ministry, with Prince Polignac at its head, was averse to violent or dangerous measures; and was particularly willing to carry concession the length of getting rid of their colleague. In November, M. de Labourdonnaye retired; but it was doubtful whether he retired from wounded vanity, or in the hope of allaying the tempest. The place of President of the Council had been vacant since the retirement of M. de Villèle, the last ministry having had no chief under this title. To obviate the inconvenience which would have been felt by the absence of a president at the meetings of the Cabinet, the king or the dauphin generally occupied the chair. M. de Villèle had a long struggle with some of his colleagues of higher titles and more ancient families, before he could prevail upon Louis 18th to promote him to this high dignity. When at last he obtained it, he found it a real source of power, which enabled him for several years to domineer over his colleagues, and to direct the administration at his pleasure. The President of the Council had access to the king at all times, and could interfere in the direction of every department of the State.

The

present ministry had likewise been formed on a principle of equality; but, in the middle of November, a royal ordinance appeared, creating Prince Polignac President of the Council, To this superiority the ambition and self-love of Labourdonnaye could not submit, and the resignation, which he tendered, was accepted. The appointment of a president was said to have been adopted for the very purpose of compelling a resignation, and thus

saving his colleagues from the ungracious position of appearing to sacrifice him to popular clamour. But whatever motive led to the event, it was one from which the ministers anticipated a relaxation of the popular odium. The exminister carried with him a considerable number of ultra-royalist votes; and he had already shewn, that, when driven into opposition, he would not hesitate to direct them against a royalist ministry; but they flattered themselves that his retirement would bring to them a greater accession of strength from among the moderate liberals, and would, at least, tend to divide their enemies.

In these expectations, however, they were disappointed. One very obnoxious man was removed, but he was not succeeded by any person commanding confidence or respect; many obnoxious men still remained, and the character and composition of the Cabinet was unchanged. The Ministry of the interior was filled up by simply transferring to it from the department of public instruction, M. de Montbel, the creature of Villèle. The only accession gained by the ministry was in M. de Montbel's successor, a M. Guernon de Rainville, procureur-general of Lyons; and M. de Rainville was known only as an ultra, who, when president of the electoral college of the arrondissement of Bayeux, had obtained, by his temerity and violence, a false return, and who had acted, throughout his magistracy, on the principle, common to most of his present colleagues, that all constitutional measures were revolutionary. M. de Labourdonnaye had been hated and feared; nobody contemned him: M. de Rainville was only despised and laughed at.

The expression of public opinion against the ministry, continued to be as strong and unanimous as ever. At one time the organs of the Cabinet threatened a dissolution of the Chambers a step which they were conscious they could not safely take; and the popular party, on the other hand, declared, that they desired nothing so much as an appeal to a new election, which, they were confident, would increase their numbers. At other times the ultra journals preached up the doctrine of ruling without the Chambers. "The ministers," said they, "loudly declare (and it gives us pleasure to repeat their declaration), that, if they have the majority, they will save the throne by it; and that, if they have not the majority, they will save the throne without it. Relying upon the support of the king, and the assistance of the royalists, who only wait for a signal, the ministers will find in the charter itself the means of wresting it from the hands of the factious, who would wish to destroy it, because it is the work and the support of the monarchy. What is this pretended deliberating majority, which not only presumes to treat with the throne as one power with another, but to dictate conditions to the living law,-the source of all laws, that is royalty? Of what is it composed? Of rhetoricians without a conscience, of demagogues without people, and of generals without soldiers; and yet they dare to call themselves the representatives of public opinion, and the organs of the nation. France recognizes only the king as its immortal representative; the word of the king is the expression of the sentiments,

of the wishes, of the wants, and of the interests, of his people.

The majority is the king." Language like this justified every thing that the popular party could say or do. The more accredited organs of the Cabinet, indeed, did not openly repeat these sentiments, and were even authorized to blame them; but they were inseparably connected, in the minds of the people, with that set of opinions which the Cabinet represented. If the one party were led astray by assuming evil designs, which perhaps had no existence, ministers were equally blind to the character of their antagonists. They never alluded to them, but as revolutionists-enemies to the king-republicans— traitors-jacobins

attacking the

throne with seditious clamours a language foolish in the extreme, considering that the persons, to whom these epithets were applied, formed the great majority of the nation. Amid this excitement, and these mutual recriminations, the year closed; ministers keeping their places until the convocation of the legislature should determine, whether the Chambers were to decide the fate of the Cabinet, or the Cabinet that of the Chambers.

The foreign relations of France remained peaceful and unaltered. She was a tranquil, though not an uninterested spectator of the march of Russia to the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire; and her ministers, with those of the other European powers, bore a share in the negotiations which followed. The result of the campaign haying secured the independence of Greece, on the terms which the allies had originally proposed, the French troops in the Morea were recalled. They had fulfilled the

object of their mission, in reducing the Turkish fortresses; they had suffered little in the field, but had sustained severe losses from disease. Besides sending that expedition, France, in conjunction with Russia, had made considerable advances of money to the Greek government, in the shape of a monthly subsidy. On the accession of Prince Polignac's ministry, this subsidy ceased. A Greek agent proceeded to Paris, to urge the necessity, in the present circumstances of Greece, of making another and last advance; he was unsuccessful. He offered to supply one half of the sum from his own pocket, if the French government would make up the other; he met with a refusal. He requested the use of a king's ship to convey from Toulon to Egina, what he could advance from his own funds; that request was granted. This occurrence was, to the constitutional party in France, a fresh proof of the illiberal and anti-national spirit of the new ministry. For the ministry again, it was alleged, that, by the Turkish recognition of the independence of Greece, as proposed by the allies, the period, during which the subsidy had been promised, had expired, and they could not be considered as now holding funds which they might legally apply to such a purpose a constitutional delicacy in money matters for which their opponents were not inclined to give them credit.

For several years France had had a standing quarrel with the Dey of Algiers, the remote origin of which went very far back. During a period of scarcity, in the time of the republic, the French government had entered into contracts

with aJew, named Bacry, for a supply of corn. The Jew was connected with the dey; the money due for the corn amounted to 7,000,000 francs, and payment of it had been voted in 1824; but the dey had not touched a farthing of it. Four millions were said to have been paid to his agent; but report alleged that the greater portion of it had never gone farther than the hands of French officials. officials. At all events, the other three millions had been retained, on the pretext that they fell to be divided among French subjects, who had suffered loss by Algerine captures. Thence arose law-suits which threatened to have no end. An Algerine dey is accustomed to a much more summary administration of justice than is allowed by the tardy forms of European judicial investigation. His highness wrote a letter to the French Cabinet, requesting that the money should be sent to him, reserving to himself the power of doing justice to the claimants. If the claimants had failed on their side, such an appeal was for them abundantly unpromising; but the Foreign minister, who was then the baron de Damas, did not even answer the letter. Again his highness wrote, and again his letter remained unanswered. While affairs stood thus, M. Deval, the French consul at Algiers, having waited on the dey to pay his respects at the feast of Bairam, in 1827, a lively conversation took place between him and the dey regarding the conduct of the French government. In the course of the dialogue, the Dey struck the consul with his fly-flap; and thereupon ensued the negotiations, and declaration of war, recorded in our volume for `1827.