that each minister's acts and responsibility were strictly bounded within the limits of his own department. The wheels of the state, if the expression may be used, moved each independent of the others, and there was no appearance of any presiding or governing principle, by which the whole should be directed and influenced. Each minister, feeling himself independent of the others, entrenched himself with in his own department, and within its precincts made such regulations as suited his temper or his interest, independent and often contradictory of the measures which might be adopted by his brethren of the cabinet. As the king himself, from whom their ministerial authority emanated, was declared by the charter incapable of doing wrong, the public looked in vain either for an individual first minister, or an united and combined body of ministers, to whom should attach the legal responsibility of the general acts of administration. And thus, in every sense, the political body wanted a head, though it had the full proportion

of members.

To add still farther to the inconve niences of this state of administration, Louis XVIII. had a favourite, al though he had no prime minister. Count Blacas D'Aulps, minister of the household, an ancient and confi dential attendant on the king's per son during his exile, was understood to be the channel through which the king's wishes were communicated to the other ministers; and his protec tion was supposed to afford the surest access to the favours of the crown. According to the vindication which Count Blacas thought it necessary to publish, these ideas of his influence and ministerial primacy arose chiefly from the casual circumstance of the ministers holding their cabinet-councils in the apartment which belonged to his office of Grand Master of the

Wardrobe, the choice of a room being thus mistaken for a measure of state. But there was more reason than could flow from a cause so trivial, for conciuding that he enjoyed, in a peculiar manner, the ear and confidence of his sovereign; and he paid the usual penalties of censure and calumny for such an honourable but invidious advantage. Without doing his master the service of a premier, or holding either the power or the responsibility of that high situation, De Blacas had the full share of odium usually attached to it. The royalists, who pressed on him for grants which were in the departments of other ministers, resented his declining to interfere in their favour, as if, having satisfied his own ambition, he had become indifferent to the interest of those with whom he had been a joint sufferer during the emigration. The opposite party, on the other hand, represented Count Blacas as an absolute minister, an emigrant himself, and the patron of emigrants; a royalist of the highest class, and an enemy of course to all the constitutional stipulations in favour of liberty. Count Blacas has complained, that while his unpopularity was universal with all classes, and while the public voice heaped upon him all the blame arising from the various errors and miscarriages in every department of the state, the accusations of his enemies never assumed so distinct and determined a shape as to admit of decided refutation. There was, however, one charge of a grievous nature, unnoticed in his published exculpation, perhaps, because it had never reached his ears. It was generally said that the Count de Blacas did not hesitate to convert the king's favour to his own personal advantage; and that by such indirect modes he acquired a considerable fortune during the few months that he held his official situation, and enjoyed the royal con

fidence. Thus far it is certain, that the unpopularity of Monsieur de Blacas, with all ranks and parties in the state, had the worst possible influence on the King's affairs; and as his credit was ascribed to a blind as well as an obstinate attachment on the part of Louis, the monarch was of course involved in the unpopularity of the minister of the household.

Thus France was governed rather by a set of independent ministers than by a combined administration, and the only channel through which something like a general impulse was given by the crown, was considered as partial, suspicious, and corrupt.

What rendered this disconnected, wavering, and weak administration yet more prejudicial, was the conflicting state of parties, which demanded a government, watchful, firm, mild, united in itself, decisive in its views, cautious, secret, and prudent in resolving; but firm and prompt in execution. To understand the dis sentions by which the country was divided, it is necessary to consider the parties as drawn up under the political standards to which they respectively adhered. The French of this period might be divided into four parties, Royalists, Republicans, Buona tists, and constitutionalists.

The ROYALISTS, while they added little real strength to the king by their numbers, attracted much jealous observation from their high birth and equally high pretensions; embroiled his affairs by their imprudent zeal; embittered his peace by their just and natural complaints; and drew suspicion on his government at every effort which he made to serve and relieve them. They consisted chiefly of the emigrant nobles and clergy. The former class were greatly reduced in number by war and exile; in so much, that of the House of Peers, consisting of one hundred and seventy and up

wards, the ancient nobles of France supplied only thirty. The rest were the fortunate marshals and generals whom the wars of the revolution had raised to rank and wealth; and the statesmen, many of whom had risen to the same station, by less honourable means of elevation. The old noblesse, after their youth had been exhausted, their fortunes destroyed, and their spirits broken, while following through foreign countries the adverse fortunes of the exiled Bourbons, beheld the restoration, indeed, of the monarchy, but were themselves recalled to France only to see their estates occupied, and their hereditary offices around the person of the monarch filled, by the fortunate children of the revolution. Like the disappointed English cavalier, they might well complain that though none had wished more earnestly for the return of the legitimate prince, yet none had shared so little in the benefits attending it. By a natural, and yet a perverse mode of reasoning, the very injuries which the nobility had sustained rendered them the objects of suspicion to the other ranks and parties of the state. They had been the companions of the king's exile, were connected with him by the ties of friendship, and had near access to his person by the right of blood. Could it be in nature, it was asked, that Louis could see their sufferings without attempting to relieve them; and how could he do so in the present state of France, unless at the expense of those who occupied or aspired to civil and military preferment, or of those who had acquired during the revolution the national domains which those nobles once possessed? Yet the alarm was founded rather on suspicion than in fact. Of the preferments of emigrants in the army we will speak hereafter; but in the civil departments of the state few obtained office. To take a

single example, in the course of eleven months there were thirty-seven prefects nominated to the departments, and the list did not comprehend a single one of those emigrants who returned to France with Louis; and but very few of those whose exile had terminated more early. The nobles felt this exclusion from royal favour, and expressed their complaints, which some, yet more imprudently, mingled with threats, that their day of triumph might yet arrive. This language, as well as the air of exclusive dignity and distance which they affected, as if the distinction of their birth was all that they had left to them, was carefully remarked and recorded against the king. Yet it was not in the saloons or anti-chambers of Louis that these imprudent speeches were heard. But the nobles who attended on Monsieur and his sons, the Dukes of Angouleme and Berri, permitted themselves greater licence. These princes were supposed to be the chiefs of the royalist party, and as such were held to be indisposed to the popular cause and national charter. Monsieur himself, and his eldest son, the Duke of Angouleme, were represented as being under the influence of the dignified clergy, and the high-born aristocrats. The Duke of Berri, with a more marked character than his father or brother, was still less popular. He imitated the hot and violent manDers of Buonaparte towards the soldiers and people, without recollecting that that person had arbitrary sway both over the persons and minds of those whom he insulted. The following is one of the most pardonable instances of his extravagance. He reviewed two regiments, one of which shouted Vive le Roi, the other was silent. "What !" said the Duke of Berri to the officers of the latter corps; "it seems you have not taught your men that cry, so dear to France? If you love your emperor, support him

openly, and I will charge you at the head of the regiment which cried Vive le Roi." Such a challenge could only pass as a cheap yet insulting bravado in the eyes of those to whom it was given, but by whom it could not be accepted. The king was frequently called upon to repair errors committed by this impetuous young man; of which he was doomed, nevertheless, to expiate the consequences and incur the odium. This happened on one occasion, when the Duke de Berri, in a frenzy of passion, tore the epaulet from the coat of a subaltern, who had served long and with reputation. The king, from policy alike and good nature, soothed the wounded feelings of the officer, by giving him instant promotion, and assuring him that the duke's violence only meant that one epaulet was misplaced on the person of one so well deserving to wear two, to which he now gave him the right. Upon the whole, however, the conduct of the king's near kinsmen was imprudent and unpopular; and they excited jealousy, by holding themselves out as chiefs of that party who affected to be better royalists than the king himself. In this as upon other occasions, the members of the king's family imitated too much the manners previous to the Revolution, when it was customary for the princes of the blood to head their own separate parties, in opposition to the reigning monarch. The divisions of the house of Bourbon had more than once brought it within a hair's-breadth of ruin at earlier periods of history, and had contributed not a little to its temporary downfall in 1792. And yet, untaught by experience so dearly bought, the princes were supposed to separate their views and their interest from that of the king, at a time when the united strength of the whole family was scarce likely to secure the permanence of the monarchy.

The state of the clergy falls under

our view of the royal party. They were sincerely attached to the king, and had they been in possession of their revenues and of their natural in fluence upon the public mind, their attachment would have been of the utmost consequence. But without this influence, and without the wealth, or at least the independence, on which it partly rests, they were as useless, politically speaking, as a key which does not fit the lock to which it is applied. This state of things, un fortunate in many respects, flowed from a maxim adopted during the revolution, and followed by Buona parte, who had his reasons for fearing the influence of the clergy. "We will not put down the ecclesiastical establishment by force; we will starve it to death." Accordingly all grants and bequests to the church had been so limited and qualified by so many conditions and restrictions, as to intercept that mode of acquisition so fruitful in a catholic country; while, on the other hand, the salary allowed by the state to each officiating curate was only five hundred livres (267. 16s. 8d.) yearly. No doubt each cominunity were permitted to subscribe what they pleased in addition to this miserable pittance; but in France, when the number of those who care for no religion at all, and of those whose zeal will not lead them the length of paying for it, is deduced, the remainder will afford but a small list of subscribers. With such encouragement, few young men have within the last twenty years been educated for the church; and it is only the zeal of a few religious persons, which maintains at the seminaries as objects of charity some halfstarved students of divinity. These, inured to indigence, and accustomed to dependence, are all to whom the church can trust for reforming the morals of the people, and the spirit of the age. The consequence is, that as

very many parishes are now, and have been for years, without any public worship, ignorance has increased in an incalculable degree. "We are informed," was the communication from Buonaparte to one of his prefects, "that dangerous books are distributed in your department.""Were the roads sown with them," was the answer returned by the prefect, "your majesty need not fear their influence; we have not a man who could or would read them."When we add to this the relaxed state of public morals, the pains taken in the beginning of the revolution to eradicate the sentiments of religion, and render its professors ridiculous, and the prevalence of the military character, so conspicuous through France, and so unfavourable to devotion; and when it is further remembered that all the wealth of the church has fallen into the hands of the laity, which are fast clenched to retain it, and trembling at the same time lest it be wrested from them, the reader may, from all these causes, form some notion of the low ebb of religion in France.

The disposition of the king and royal family to restore the formal observances of the Romish church, as well as to provide the suitable means of educating in future those designed for the ministry, and other religious institutions, excited among the Parisians a feeling of loathing and contempt. It must be owned also, that though the abstract motive was excellent, there was little wisdom in attempting to bring back the nation to all those mummeries of popish ceremonial, which, long before the revolution, only subsisted through inveterate custom, having lost all influence on the public mind. After an interval of twenty years, and to the eyes of a dissolute populace equally void of religion and superstition, and of a youth trained up in arms, and in ignorance

even of the name of christianity, such efforts only excited ridicule. Other enactments, not only consonant with, but demanded by, the laws of christianity, were equally ill received by the perverse and corrupt metropolis of Paris. The shopkeepers murmured loudly against an edict which compelled them to suspend their traf fic, or at least to shut their shops, upon the sabbath; and the populace of high and low degree, which, like that of ancient Rome, considered food and amusement as equally the necessaries of life, were not less offended at the closing the theatres. And an incident happened, which showed in a striking point of view the popular feeling upon the revival of the catholic religion, with all its bigotry and intolerance.

It is well known, that by a rule unworthy equally of christianity and civilization, theatrical performers are in a state of constant excommunication by the catholic church. Upon this ground, the reliques of Moliere were refused christian burial by an Archbishop of Paris, himself famous for licentious gallantry. And when, at the personal entreaty of the king himself, the honour of a grave in hallowed ground was permitted to a man of the brightest genius that ever adorned France, the mob, instigated by the curate of Saint Eustace, attacked the funeral procession; and the widow of the poet could only purchase his reliques a quiet passage to the grave, by scattering money among the rabble who assembled to insult them. The church of Rome, whose motto is Vestigia nulla retrorsum, retains to this day the same mark of barbarism. In the year 1802, the curate of Saint Roche, under the reign of Buonaparte, refused the rites of burial to a female performer at the opera, and considerable tumult ensued in consequence. But on the

17th of January, 1815, a much more serious commotion took place upon the same subject. The remains of Mademoiselle Raucour, an actress, a woman of decent character and morals, were brought for interment to the church of St Roche, in the Rue St Honoré. The gates of the church were found locked, and all admittance was refused. An immense crowd began to assemble, with exclamations of fury and indignation. A deputation was sent to the king to solicit his interference, which was refused, with the excuse, that his majesty could not interpose in matters of spiritual jurisdiction. The tumult increased, and it seemed as if it might have effects different from, and extending far beyond the cause which had produced it. The doors of the church were forced open by the populace; and a second deputation sent to the king, and accompanied with a declaration, on the part of the theatrical performers of every class, that they were determined to become Lutherans or Calvinists, if the honours of sepulture were denied to them by the Catholic church, procured, or rather extorted an order from the king to the priesthood, to pronounce the service over the body. Mademoiselle Raucour was accordingly interred; but, as was alleged," with maimed rites," amid shouts of a bas les Calottes-a bas la cagoterie, &c. The incident was considered as a triumph of the popular party over the clergy, and even over the king; and the feeling was far from ending with the cause by which it had been excited.

The solemn obsequies of Louis XVI. and his unfortunate queen, although they excited no tumult, produced a deep and unfavourable impression on the public mind. The remains of these innocent victims to the fury and crimes of the revolution were raised from the hasty grave to which their