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IX.

1820.

CHAP. times. The Royalists justly reproach him with having established, by the royal authority, an electoral system of the most democratic character, and thrown himself into the arms of the Liberals, who made use of the advantage thus gained to undermine the monarchy. But, in justice to him, it must be recollected that the working of representative governments was then very little understood, and the practical results of changes, now obvious to all, were then only discerned by a few; that his situation was one surrounded with difficulties, and in which any false step might lead to perdition; and that if the course he pursued was one which entailed ultimate dangers of the most serious kind on the monarchy, it was, perhaps, the only one which enabled it to shun the immediate perils with which it was threatened. In common with the king, his leading idea was reconciliation; his principle, concession ; his policy, to disarm opposition by anticipating its demands. This view was a benevolent and amiable one, but unfortunately more suited to the Utopia of Sir Thomas More than the storm-beaten monarchy of the Bourbons; and experience has proved that such a policy, in presence of an ambitious and unscrupulous enemy, only postpones the danger to aggravate it.

49.

The Assembly, by the fall of M. Decazes, and the Division of infusion of Royalist members into the Cabinet, was dithe Assem- vided differently from what it had hitherto been. The M. Decazes intermediate third party was extinguished by the fall of

parties in

bly after

fall.

This

M. Decazes. The Royalists and Liberals now formed two great parties which divided the whole Assembly between them the centre all adhered to the right or left. circumstance rendered the situation of the Ministry more perilous in the outset, but more secure in the end; it was more difficult for them to gain a majority in the first instance, but, once gained, it was more likely to adhere permanently to them. It is a great evil, both for Government and Opposition, to have a third party between them, the votes of which may cast the balance either way; for

IX.

1820.

it imposed upon both the necessity of often departing CHAP. from their principles, and avoiding immediate defeat by permanently degrading themselves in the eyes of the country. The Doctrinaires all retired with their chief, M. Decazes, but they voted on important questions with the new Ministry; and the abilities of M. Guizot, M. de Staël, M. de Barante, and M. de Saint-Aulaire, who 1 Cap. vi. formed the strength of that party, were too well known 334, 337; not to make their adhesion a matter of eager solicita- 312, 314; Lac. ii. 391, tion, and no slight manoeuvring, on both sides of the 394. Assembly.1

Lam. vi.

the Duke

and execu

Louvel.

Two painful scenes took place before the measures of 50. the new Ministers were brought forward in the Chamber Funeral of of Deputies-the funeral of the Duke de Berri, and de Berri, the trial and execution of his assassin. The body of the tion of prince was laid in state for several days in the Louvre, March 14. and afterwards carried with every possible magnificence to the ancestral but now untenanted vaults of Saint-Denis. The king, accompanied by the Duke and Duchess of Angoulême, attended the mournful ceremony, which was celebrated with every circumstance of external splendour which could impress the imagination, and every reality of woe which could melt the heart :

"When a prince to the fate of a peasant has yielded,

The tapestry waves dark in the dim-lighted hall;
With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall;

Through the courts at deep midnight the torches are gleaming,
In the proudly-arched chapel the banners are beaming,
Far adown the long aisles sacred music is streaming,
Lamenting a chief of the people should fall."

Such was the emotion of the Duchess d'Angoulême at witnessing such a scene in such a place, that she sunk senseless on the pavement. One only ray of hope remained to the royal family, arising from the situation of the Duchess de Berri, which gave hopes that an heir might yet be preserved for the monarchy, and the hopes of the assassin blasted. That fanatical wretch was brought to trial, and condemned on the clearest evidence, fortified by his own

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1820.

CHAP. confession. He admitted the enormity of his crime, but still insisted that on public grounds it was justifiable.* His answers, when interrogated, evinced the deplorable atheism in which the dreams of the Revolution ended. "I was sometimes a Catholic," said he, "sometimes a theophilanthropist." "Do you not fear the Divine justice?" asked the Prevost de Montmorency. "God is a mere name," replied the assassin. He was executed on the 7th June, and evinced on the scaffold the same strange ii. 383, 391. indifference which had characterised his demeanour ever

1 Moniteur, June 8, 1820; Ann. Hist. iii. 129; Lac.

51.

measures of

Argument

against the

first.

since the murder.1

The first measures of the new Ministers were diMinisterial rected to the prosecution of the measures prepared the session, by the former ones, arming Government with extraordinary powers of arrest, and restraining the licentiousness of the press. Much difficulty was at first experienced in arranging terms of accommodation with the Royalists on the right, so as to secure a majority in the Chambers, but at length the terms were agreed on; and these were, that the powers of arrest were to be conferred on Government for a limited period, that the press was to be restrained, and that a new electoral law was to be introduced, restoring the double step in elections. Nothing could equal the vehemence with which these laws were assailed by the Opposition, when they were introduced. That on the law of arrest was the first that

came under discussion. "It belongs to the wisdom of the Chambers," said General Foy and Benjamin Constant, "to defend a throne which misfortune has rendered more august and more dear to fidelity. Let us beware lest, in introducing a law more odious than useful, we substitute for the present public grief other grounds of discontent which may cause the first to be forgotten. The

* "C'était une action horrible, c'est vrai," disait Louvel, "quand on tue un autre homme cela ne peut passer pour vertu, c'est un crime. Je n'y aurais jamais été entraîné sans l'intérêt que je prenais à la nation suivant moi je croyais bien faire suivant mon idée.”—Moniteur, June 4, 1820; Procès de Lourel, 37.

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1820.

prince whom we mourn pardoned with his dying breath CHAP. his infamous assassin. Let us take care that the ex'ample of that sublime death is not lost for the nation, the royal family, and the public morality; that posterity may not reproach us with having sacrificed the public liberties on a hecatomb at the funeral of a Bourbon.

52.

"The abyss of a counter-revolution is about to open : a system is announced which will attack successively all Continued. our rights, all the guarantees which the nation sighed for in vain in 1789, and hailed with such gratitude in 1814. The régime of 1788 is to be revived by the three laws which are proposed at the same time, the first reviving lettres de cachet, the second establishing the slavery of the press, the third fettering the organs of freedom whom it sends to the Chamber. Experience has demonstrated in every age, and more especially in the disastrous epoch of the Revolution, that if a government once yields to a party, that party will not fail soon to subjugate it. The present time affords a proof of it. The barrier, feeble and tottering as it was, which the Ministry opposed to the counter-revolution, shakes, and is about to be thrown down. Perhaps the Ministry does not at this moment foresee it; but all the laws which you are called on now to pass, will be turned to the profit of the counter-revolution, and that principle is to be applied to the proposed law, compared to that of 1817. That which in 1817 was, from the pressure of circumstances, merely irregular, will in 1820 be terrible; that which in 1817 was only iii. 61, 81; vicious in principle, will in 1820 become terrible in its 398. application."1

1 Ann. Hist.

Lac. ii. 397,

the Govern

On the other hand, it was answered by the Duke de 53. Richelieu and the Duke de Fitz-james, on the part of the Answer by Government: "Is it possible that any one can be so ment. blind to existing circumstances, and the dangers which menace the state and the royal family? Does any one persist in asserting that the assassination of the 13th February is an isolated act? Have the persons who

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1820.

CHAP. assert this been shut up in their houses for the last six months? What are those ferocious songs, repeated night after night with such perseverance that the indulgent police have at length come to pretend that they do not hear them, nothing ?-those songs which commenced on the very night of the assassination, and which they had the effrontery to repeat under the windows of the Duchess de Berri herself? What! those placards, those menaces, those anonymous letters-not to us, who are accustomed to, and disregard them, but to her for whom they know we are disposed to sacrifice a thousand times our lives; those execrable threats against a bereaved father, whose grief would have melted tigers, but has only increased the thirst for blood in our revolutionary tigers. What! those medals, struck with the name of Marie Louise and her son-their images sent everywhere through the kingdom, and now paraded even in the capital; those clubs, in which they count us on our benches, and have a poniard ready for each of our breasts; the coincidence of what passes in the nations around us with what we witness in our interior-the assassination by Sand, the attempted assassination of Thistlewood, repetitions abroad of what was going on in our interiorhomicide and regicide converted into virtues, and recommended as deeds worthy of eternal glory. What! Spain become the prey of a military faction, and of acts of treason which have dishonoured the name of a soldier. Are these not proofs of a conspiracy extending over all western Europe, which is advancing with rapid strides towards its maturity?" So obvious were these dangers, 1 Ann. Hist. that, notwithstanding a vehement outcry in both houses, Lac. ii. 399, the proposed law was passed by considerable majorities, the numbers in the Chamber of Deputies being 134 to 113; in the Peers, 121 to 86!1

iii. 61, 82;

400; Cap. vi. 315, 350.

The law re-establishing the censorship of the press excited a still more violent storm in the Chambers. As a prelude to it, the most extraordinary ferment took place

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