CHAP. VII. FRANCE.Continued Opposition to the Ministry-The Chambers mect-Preponderance of the Liberals-Violent Proposals of the Royalists-Address voted for a Change of Ministers-The King prorogues the Chambers-Preparations for a new Election-Partial Change in the Ministry-Dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies-General Election-The Majority of the Opposition is increased -Preparations made for the Meeting of the Chambers-Ordinances issued by the King, dissolving the newly-elected Chamber, introducing a new Law of Election, and abolishing the Liberty of the Press -Want of Preparation for enforcing the Ordinances-The Parisians resist-Disturbances in Paris-The Troops being ordered to quell them, the Populace take Arms-After three days' fighting, the Military are forced to evacuate Paris. 'N France, the preceding year The I had closed, while the war, which public opinion had waged with the ministry of prince Polignac, from the moment of his appointment to office, in the beginning of August, was still raging with increasing animosity. opening of the present year seemed to deprive the popular leaders of one of the most powerful instruments by which they kept alive hostility and alarm. They had filled the public mind with gloomy apprehensions, that the Crown, finding itself unable to compass the election of a pliant Chamber of Deputies, intended to rule without a legislature, or at least, by its own authority, so to remodel the elective system, as to place under its own control the constitution of the representative body. The language of some of the ministerial journals authorized these suspicions: they were willingly adopted: they were carefully fostered by the journals, and by the saloons; even those who did not seriously believe them, were not anxious to contradict impressions which favoured the objects of their own policy. The ground-work of these apprehensions disappeared, when the king, early in January, issued an ordinance, convoking the Chambers for the 2nd of March. But the certainty that ministers intended manfully to meet the Chambers, and did not as yet, at least, contemplate any violent infringement of the constitution, in no degree disarmed the hostility of the Liberals. The public mind was now occupied with the means of opposing and defeating them in the legislature; and although it was not known what they intended to propose, it was determined that nothing should be allowed to be done, till they consented to retire, or the king found himself compelled to dismiss them. The popular journals increased in number, and in violence; not satisfied with preaching a crusade against the ministers, both on account of what it was taken for granted they were inclined to do, and what it was certain they would refuse to grant, these writers began to hint at the probability of a change of dynasty, as the only step that would quiet the apprehensions, and satisfy the demands of the people, and to speak of it as a measure which would neither be unexpected nor regretted. The "Globe," a literary journal to which the duke of Broglie and M. de Guizot, both of them prominent actors in the scenes which followed, were understood to be contributors, put forth, in February, an article entitled, "France and the Bourbons in 1830." It was there said, "of all the crises through which we have passed since 1814, the present is, without contradiction, the most decisive for the house of Bourbon. It is, to reckon rightly, the fourth attempt at counter-revolution. It is curious and profitable to observe what part the nation has performed in all these rash experiments-how it has been progressively instructed and strengthened, while the party, which is dragging down royalty with itself, has been misled and weakened;-how, at every counter-revolutionary effort, the same melancholy and fatal idea of the separation of the throne and the country has presented itself, but on each occasion gathering strength, accepted by a greater number of minds; at first concealed as a secret intrigue or feeling of hostility, afterwards disclosed in public as an opinion, and thus proceeding, until, if Heaven avert it not, and if the old enemies of liberty still proceed farther, this opinion will become the resolution of a party with popular assent." "Certainly we need not now conceal that there has been for ten years tional party entertained no pro- in office, or if he be succeeded by any one, either bold or timid, who may attempt, by force or stratagem, to oppose the henceforth irresistible development of popular liberty." Against these and similar publications the government did not spare state prosecutions. The editor of the Globe was condemned to an imprisonment of four months,. and a fine of 2,000 francs. The editor of the National was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, and a fine of 1,000 francs, for an article of a similar tendency. The editors of the Journal du Commerce, and of the Courrier Français, who had appealed to the Cour Royale against a sentence of the tribunal of Correctional Police, which had condemned them to the penalties of fine and imprisonment, for publishing, with approbation, the plan of the Brittany Association, for refusing payment of taxes, if the charter should be violated, had their appeal disallowed, and their original sentence confirmed. The flame was too widely spread, and too abundantly fed from every quarter, to be any thing but excited by partial and occasional gusts of ministerial vengeance. : The Session of the Chambers was opened, as had been announced, on the 2nd of March. The king delivered the following speech "Messieurs,-It is always with confidence that I assemble round my throne the peers of the realm, and the deputies of the departments. "Since your last session, important events have consolidated the peace of Europe, and the concert established between my allies and me for the happiness of the nations. War has been extinguished in the East. The moderation of the conqueror, and the amicable intervention of the powers, by preserving the Ottoman empire from the evils which threatened it, have maintained the equilibrium and confirmed the ancient relations of states. Under the protection of the powers which signed the treaty of July 6, Greece will rise independent from its ruins. The choice of the prince called to reign over it will sufficiently evince the disinterested and pacific views of the sovereigns. I pursue at this moment, in concert with my allies, negotiations, the object of which is, to bring about a reconciliation, necessary for the repose of the Peninsula, between the princes of the house of Braganza. In the midst of the grave events with which Europe was occupied, I found it expedient to suspend the effects of my just resentment against a Barbary power; but I cannot leave longer unpunished the insult offered to my flag. The striking reparation which I desire to obtain, in satisfying the honour of France, will turn out, by the aid of Providence, to the advantage of Christendom. "The accounts of the receipts and of the expenditure will be submitted to you at the same time with the state of our wants and resources for the year 1831. I have the satisfaction of seeing, that, in spite of the diminution which has taken place in the revenue of 1829, comparatively with that of the preceding year, it has exceeded the estimates of the budget. A recent operation has sufficiently indicated the interest at which loans have become negotiable; it has demonstrated the possibility of alleviating the burthens of the state. A law relative to the sinking fund will be presented to you. It will be connected with a plan of repayment, or exchange, which we hope will reconcile what the tax-payers expect from our solicitude, with the justice and good will due to those of our subjects who have placed their capital in the public funds. The measures, on which you will have to deliberate, will have for their object to satisfy all those interests. They will afford the means of assisting, without new sacrifices, and in a few years, towards the expenses which are imperiously required for the defence of the kingdom, the prosperity of agriculture and of commerce, the works of our fortresses, those of our ports, the repair of roads, and the finishing of canals. You will have, likewise, to occupy your attention with several laws relative to the judicial order, with different projects of public administration, and with some measures destined to ameliorate the condition of the military on half-pay. I have sympathized in the sufferings which a long and rigorous winter has inflicted upon my people: but charity has multiplied its succours, and it is with the liveliest satisfaction that I have seen the generous cares lavished upon indigence, in all parts of the kingdom, and particularly in my good city of Paris. "Messieurs, The first desire of my heart is to see France happy and respected, developing all the riches of her soil and of her industry, and enjoying, in peace, institutions, the blessing of which it is my firm purpose to consolidate. The Charter has placed the public liberties under the safeguard of the rights of my Crown. These rights are sacred. My duty towards my people is to transmit them entire to my successors. "Peers of France,-Deputies of Departments, I doubt not of your concurrence to effect the good which I wish to accomplish. You will repel the perfidious insinuations which malevolence seeks to propagate. If culpable manœuvres should raise up against my government obstacles which I do not wish to foresee, I shall find the power of surmounting them in my resolution to maintain the public peace, in my just confidence in Frenchmen, and in the love which they have always shown to their kings." In the concluding words of the speech, which alone alluded to the opposition raised against the government, the liberals found a distinct avowal, that their opposition was considered, not constitutional, but malevolent and perfidiousmade up of culpable manœuvres-and that the executive, if that opposition continued, would meet it by measures which the constitution did not know. The friends of ministers again alleged that it meant nothing more than that the king, if he and the Chambers still differed, would appeal to the people by a new election. In the Peers there was no division on the address; it was an echo of the speech, except that his majesty was assured, in somewhat equivocal phraseology, that France was as much averse to anarchy as the king was to despotism. Chateaubriand alone dissented from the address; it did not appear to him to be sufficiently strong. The language of the ministers, he said, filled him with consternation. "Superior talents may excuse consternation. Superior talents may excuse, if they cannot fully justify, bold and hazardous enterprises. Genius has its dictatorship and its tyranny, and sometimes they are submitted to; but blame must inevitably fall on ministers who, having never directed the affairs of a great nation, do not fear by their very first measures to shake the throne, and compromise established rights and interests, and every social compact. At the period immediately preceding the formation of the present cabinet, were associations to refuse the payment of the taxes heard of? Was there occasion to complain of the manifestation of certain opinions? Now our institutions are threatened; and, as every action will produce its re-action, bring forward principles of despotism, and you will be answered by axioms of democracy. Peers! a revolution proceeding from below is, in these times, impossible; but it may come from above, it may spring from a misguided ministry, ignorant both of its country and the age in which it exists. But I restrain the expression of my thoughts." The preliminary arrangements, which, in France, must be completed, before the Chamber of Deputies can proceed to act, manifested, at once, the irresistible preponderance of the opposition. On the day after the opening of the session, they elected the chairman and secretaries of the nine bureaux, or committees into which the Chamber is divided: with one exception, they were all either liberals, or members of the late ministry, whom Polignac had displaced. It then proceeded to elect the five members from among whom the king selects the president of the Chamber. They were all taken from the opposition side of the Chamber; and as it is customary for the king to take the name which stands first on the list, M. Royer Collard, who occupied that position, became president. He had filled the same office during the two preceding sessions, and had acquired a distinguished reputation for impartiality and temper, firmness of character, and an intimate acquaintance with parliamentary forms. The vice-presidents were all selected from the same side, and, of the four secretaries, three, at least, were decided liberals. These official arrangements sufficiently manifested the strength of the opposition. It was put forth with equal effect in the nomination of the committee to prepare the address in answer to the speech from the throne, the first important movement in the approaching campaign. It consisted of the count de Preissac, M. Etienne, M. Keratry, M. Dupont (de l'Eure), M. Gautier, count Sebastiani, baron Lepelletier d'Aulnay, count de Sade, and M. Dupin. Of these nine gentlemen, seven were avowed leaders among the liberals, and no better list could have been chosen to prepare an address which was to announce hostility to the government. It was already foreseen, in fact, that the Chamber would not yield, and there were not wanting vio lent counsellors who advised that recourse should immediately be had to despotic measures. M. Cottu, a well known judicial character, published a pamphlet, "On the necessity of a Dictatorship," in which he proposed that the executive should take all power into its own hands, abolish the existing electoral system, and establish a new one, the most striking features of which were, that all the electors were to be nominated, in the first instance, by the king, and their franchise was to be hereditary. Absurdities like these ought to alarm nobody, but men's minds were too highly excited to deem any expedient so wild as not to be possible. Another pamphlet, under the title of "Memorial to the King,” the production |