XI. 1821. spread and dangerous a conspiracy, Government was in- CHAP. exorable to all applications for mercy. An effort was made, with the approbation of Lafayette, to procure their escape by corrupting the jailer; he agreed, and the money was raised, and brought to the prison gates: but the persons in the plot were seized by the police at the very moment when it was counting out. As a last resource, twelve thousand of the Carbonari of Paris bound themselves by an oath to station themselves behind the files of gendarmes who lined the streets as the accused were led to execution, armed with poniards, and to effect their deliverance by each stabbing one of the executors of the law. They were on the streets, accordingly, on the day of execution, and the unhappy men went to the scaffold expecting every moment to be delivered. But the preparations of Government were so complete that the conspirators were overawed; not an arm was raised in their defence; and the assembled multitude had the 1 Procès de pain of beholding four gallant young men, the victims of Ann. Hist. deluded enthusiasm, beheaded on the scaffold, testifying Lam. vii. with their last breath their devotion to the cause for iii. 262,264. which they suffered.1 Bories, &c.; v. 776, 807; 45, 47; Lac. on these It is impossible to read the account of four young 22. men suffering death for purely political offences, under a Reflections Government founded on moderation and equity, without events. deep regret, and the warmest commiseration for their fate. Yet must justice consider what is to be said on the other side, and admit the distinction between persons openly levying regular war against their sovereign, who may be perhaps entitled to claim the right of prisoners taken in external warfare, and those who, like these unhappy young men, belong to secret societies, having for their object to overturn Government by murder, and sudden and unforeseen outbreaks, veiled in their origin in studious obscurity. It is the very essence of such secret societies to be veiled in the deepest darkness, and to accomplish their objects by assassination, fire-raising, and VOL. II. 2 N XI. CHAP. treason. Every man who enters into them surrenders his conscience and freedom of action to an unseen and 1821. unknown authority, whose mandates he is bound instantly to obey, be they what they may. He is never to hesitate to plunge a dagger in the heart of his king, his father, his wife, his benefactor, or his son, if the orders of this unseen authority require him to do so. Such institutions convert the society which they regulate into a disciplined band of bravoes, ready to murder any man, burn any house, fire any arsenal, or commit any other atrocious act that may be enjoined. It is impossible to hold that death is too severe a penalty for the chiefs who establish in any country so atrocious and demoralising a conspiracy; and the example of the Ribbonmen in Ireland, and some of the trades' unions in Great Britain, too clearly prove to what abominable excesses, when once established, they inevitably lead. The only thing to be regretted is, that these chiefs so often escape themselves, while the penalty of the law falls upon their inferior and less guilty agents. But their guilt remains the same; and it was not the less in this instance that those chiefs were Lafayette, Manuel, d'Argenson, Benjamin Constant, and the other leaders of the Liberal party in France, whose declamations were so loud in the legislature in favour of the great principles of public morality.* The insurrections at Befort, Thouars, and La Rochelle *It is fully admitted now by the French historians of both parties, that these men were the chiefs of the Carbonari in France, and that the statements of M. Marchangy on the subject, in the trial of the Rochelle prisoners, were entirely well founded: "Le réquisitoire de M. de Marchangy restera comme un monument de vérité historique et de courage; son tableau du carbonarisme n'était point un roman, comme on le disait alors, mais de l'histoire, comme on l'avoue aujourd'hui. Il avait parfaitement pénétré dans le mystère des sociétés secrètes; il en avait compris la portée et les desseins."-CAPEFIGUE, Histoire de la Restauration, vii. 312. "Le voile longtemps épais par la dissimulation parlementaire des orateurs de 1822 à 1829, qui couvraient des conspirations actives du nom d'opposition loyale et inoffensive, s'est déchiré depuis 1830. Les meneurs, les plans, les complots, les instigateurs, les acteurs, les siéges, les victimes de ces conspirations ont apparu dans toute la franchise de leurs rôles. Les Casernes, les sociétés secrètes, les prisons, les échafauds mêmes, ont parlé. Sous cette opposition à haute voix, et à visage découvert, qui luttait contre XI. 1821. 23. tion at Marseilles, were not the only ones that Lafayette and the Car- CHAP. bonari committee projected, and tried to carry into execution during this eventful year. A few days after the outbreak at Befort had failed, Colonel Caron, a half- Insurrec pay officer, deeply implicated in their designs, with the Colmar, aid of Roger, another discontented ex-military man, and Toulon. attempted to excite an insurrection in a regiment of July 1. dragoons stationed at Colmar. It in effect received him with cries of "Vive Napoléon II.!" and Caron led them from village to village for some time trying to excite an insurrection; but they everywhere failed, and the regiment which had revolted, seeing the affair was hopeless, ended by arresting him, and delivering him over to the police, who were all along privy to the design. He was brought, after the manner of Napoleon, before a military council, by whom he was condemned, and shot in one of the ditches of the citadel of Colmar. Similar attempts, attended with no better success, were made about the same time at Marseilles and Toulon, but they were all frustrated by the vigilance of the police and military, and terminated in similar judicial tragedies, which every friend of humanity must deeply regret, but which were absolutely necessary to extinguish the mania for secret societies and conspiracies which had so long been the scourge of France, and had been encouraged in so flagitious a man les ministres, en affichant le respect et l'inviolabilité de la royauté des Bourbons, on a vu quelles trames obstinées et implacables s'ourdissaient pour la renverser, les unes au profit de Napoléon II., les autres au profit de la république, celles-ci au profit des prétoriens subalternes, celles-là au profit d'un Prince étranger, d'autres au profit d'un Prince de la Maison Royale, d'autres enfin au hasard de toutes les anarchies pouvant élever ou engloutir de téméraires dictateurs comme M. de La Fayette. Nous-mêmes nous avons reçu d'acteurs principaux, une partie de ces mystérieuses confidences. Nous empruntons le reste à des historiens initiés par eux-mêmes ou leur parti à ces conspirations, où ils furent confidents, instruments, ou complices: surtout à un historien consciencieux, exacte, et pour ainsi dire juridique, M. de Vaulabelle, témoignage d'autant moins récusable que ses jugements sur la Restauration sont plus sévères, et que son opinion et ses sentiments conspiraient involontairement avec les opinions et les sentiments des conspirateurs, pour lesquels il réclame la gloire et la reconnaissance devant la postérité.”—LAMArtine, Histoire de la Restauration, vii. 21, 22. XI. 1821. CHAP. ner by the Liberal leaders in the Chamber of Deputies, and Lafayette, Manuel, and Kochlin, the central chiefs at Paris. Happily the failure of these conspiracies, and the executions, had the desired effect, and France, during v. 210, 216; the remaining years of the Restoration, was freed from a Lam. vii. political disease of all others the most fatal to public morality and the ultimate interests of general freedom.1 1 Ann. Hist. 46, 62, 1822. 24. The interest excited by these events diminished the Budget of importance of the parliamentary proceedings in this year: it was useless to attempt legislative measures when the Liberal leaders were every day expecting the Government to be overturned, and a republican régime established, of which they themselves were to be installed as the primary leaders. Thus, after the grand discussion on the restriction of the press, which lasted six weeks, had terminated, the parliamentary history of France, during the remainder of the session, exhibits nearly a blank. The budget alone called forth an animated discussion, and the details which the Finance Minister brought forward on this subject proved that the country was in as prosperous a condition, so far as its material interests were concerned, as it was in a disturbed one, as regards its political feelings and passions. From these details it appeared that the revenue of the year 1823 was estimated at 909,130,000 francs (£36,450,000), and the expenditure at 900,475,000 francs (£36,025,000), leaving a surplus of above 8,000,000 francs, or £320,000. vote of the supplies for 8000 Swiss in the army was the subject of impassioned invective on the part of the Liberal Opposition they dreaded a repetition, on a similar crisis, of the fidelity of 10th August 1792. The revenue of Ann. Hist. 1822 was 915,591,000 francs (£36,600,000); the expenditure 882,321,000 francs (£35,960,000), leaving a 20, 1822; surplus of 33,270,000 francs (£1,320,000) disposable in the hands of Government.2 To what object they destined this large surplus was obvious from the magnitude of the v. 623, 639; Ordon nance, Nov. Moniteur, The XI. 1821. 25. result of the the Royal ists. sums voted for the army, which amounted to 250,000,000 CHAP. francs (£10,000,000), from a supplementary credit for 13,000,000 francs (£520,000), put at the disposal of the Minister of Finance, and a levy of 40,000 men for the army, authorised by an ordonnance on 20th November. The annual election of the fifth of the Chamber, in the autumn of this year, indicated the great change which Favourable the law of the preceding had made in the constituency, elections to and the increased ascendancy of property and superior education which the classifying the electors into colleges of the arrondissements and the departments, and the throwing those paying the highest amount of direct taxes in the department into the latter, and forming it of them exclusively, had occasioned. In the colleges of arrondissements, the Royalists gained twenty-eight seats, the Liberals seventeen; in the colleges of departments, the former had twenty-four, the latter only five.* Thus, upon the whole, the gain was thirty to the monarchical party. So considerable an acquisition, and, still more, the fact of the majority being decided in both colleges, proves that the result was owing to more than the change, great as it had been, in the Electoral Law; and that the example of successful revolutions in the two adjoining peninsulas, and the numerous plots which had broken out in various parts of their own country, had brought a 1 Ann. Hist. large portion of the holders of property, who formerly v. 259, 260; Cap. vii. were neutral, or inclined to be Liberal, to vote with the 330, 331. monarchical party.1 Notwithstanding these favourable appearances in the |