France since 1814/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II
A RETROSPECT OF EIGHT YEARS — 1824.
Louis XVlll. died on the 16th of September, 1824, and his brother, " Monsieur, " the Comte d'Artois, reigned in his stead as Charles X. Louis had reigned ten years. The Hundred Days, and the violent reactions they caused, had terribly increased for him the difficulties inseparable from all restorations. We have seen how he bravely dissolved the celebrated " Introuvable " Chamber, whose fantastic proceedings had disturbed the country. What happened after that in those eight important years on which hung the future of the Monarchy ? What support did the King receive from his princes, his ministers, and his Parliament ? From 1815 to 1820 the tendency had been towards an increasing Liberalism. First Richelieu, then General Dessoles, and the Comte (afterwards Duc) Decazes were at the head of cabinets which leaned more and more of their own accord towards the moderate Left. In 1820 the assassination of the Duc de Berri had been the signal for a reaction which restored to power Richelieu (changing his bearings this time for the Right), and then brought in Villèle, one of the leaders of the ultra party. Even the friends of the Villèle Ministry prophesied for it a brief existence. Nevertheless, it contrived to last seven years, and found itself still in power at the death of Louis XVIII.
At the Tuileries, the King found in his brother an indefatigable opponent. Not that the future Charles X., whose temperament was more or less amiable and frivolous, could have defended his opinions and pursued his ends with any very conspicuous decision ; but what was more serious, he suffered opposition to be organised in his name, and made himself its willing mouthpiece. I shall come back to this. The Duc d'Angoulême, who had too little self-confidence, and was, moreover, afraid of displeasing his father by taking his uncle's part, fortified himself by a discreet silence. The death of the Duc de Berri, second son of the Comte d'Artois, was a great misfortune for the Monarchy, seeing that his eldest son, the Duc d'Angouleme, had no children, and that he himself had only a daughter by his marriage with the Princess of the Two Sicilies. But seven months after his tragic death the Duchesse de Berri was delivered of that son of his who was to have been Henry V., and never was anything but the Comte de Chambord. His unexpected birth moved the country to a genuine outburst of Royalism, and seemed of the happiest augury for the future.
The King found in his ministers the support which he missed in his family. Circumstances in this respect favourable to his crown had gathered round him a whole constellation of remarkable men, distinguished by various titles. These men deserve well at the hands of posterity.
First, there were the born statesmen, such as Kichelieu and Decazes. The European eminence assured to Richelieu, both by his own nobility of character and his friendship with the Emperor of Russia, was of immense benefit to France. The anticipated evacuation of territory, and the re-admittance of France into the concert of European Powers were the twofold aim which he attained at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (1817). His uprightness, his honesty, impressed even his adversaries; his disinterested devotion knew no bounds. Decazes never reached the moral eminence of Richelieu, but was distinguished by his prolific energy and almost prophetic insight. He formulated his programme in the fine phrase: "Royaliser la France, et nationaliser la royauté!" That was the supreme necessity of the moment, and it could not be summed up more clearly and concisely. To be sure, in the application of his liberal policy, Decazes was occasionally guilty of somewhat arbitrary proceedings which recalled the former Prefect of Police. Again, the extreme favour in which he was held by Louis did not tend to make him very popular with his contemporaries. A favourite is always distrusted. His correspondence with the King, now being published, exonerates him from many reproaches, while it throws upon the figure of the old king a still more flattering light.
Then De Serre, that great orator, always at the post of danger in spite of the illness that was sapping his forces, his eloquence magnificently victorious over party spirit. Pasquier, too, with his splendid sense, the sane and upright judgment that was never carried away, never lost sight of the line he wished to follow. And those skilled specialists, the Minister of War, the Maréchal Gouvion St. Cyr—who gave his name to the famous military law of 1817, that wise and virile measure which reorganised the army, established the principle of regular promotion, and prepared the way for victories in Spain and later in Algiers—he and the Ministers of Marine, the Marquis de Clermont-Tonnerre and Councillor Portal (author of the celebrated Ordinance of 1819), and last, the great Ministers of Finance, Baron Louis, Roy, Corvetto, Villèle, of whose administrations it has been said that the budgets of France had never been better organised and better conceived. Villèle was also at the head of the Government. If he did not bring to those high functions the spirit of Richelieu or Decazes, he at least showed considerable ability, and his exercise of power was sufficiently moderate to expose him to the violent attack of those ardent Royalists who had themselves advanced him to power. These leaders were backed by an honest and enlightened staff, well able to understand their aims and carry them out.
Unfortunately, from 1816 to 1824 the Parliament had almost entirely withheld its support. When we look at the long series of French Parliamentary assemblies, they reveal a peculiar threefold character which seems to have been pretty much the same from the very beginning of the century. Intemperance of language, and a certain inconsequence of action, with an irresistible tendency, if not to form conspiracies of their own, at any rate to denounce other people's, are the distinguishing characteristics of French deputies at the present day. We must not jump to the hasty conclusion that they have made no progress in that time. On the contrary, on several occasions the Chambers of the Third Republic have displayed a significant unanimity in dealing with national questions, and have been known to sink their private preferences in their anxiety for the public good. Any one who studies the history of French Parliamentarism with an open mind will be convinced that since 1814 its upward progress has been continuous. But the French deputy is still none the less liable to go wrong in the way we have indicated, and during the Restoration his aberrations were extremely frequent.
That intemperance of language, which was quite as characteristic of the Left as of the Right, arose as much from the inexperience of the tribune as from the virulence of opinions. It was increased by the fact that the members of the Chamber were not used to the free discussion of public questions in a large area under a running fire of comments. The situation provided some excuse for it. We might even say that the inconvenient tendency to get intoxicated with your own eloquence, to exaggerate your meaning, to say a great deal more than you intended to say, however much it was to be deplored, did not entail any very serious consequences : Verba volant, acta manent. But it is impossible to describe the levity, the naïveté, with which the deputies of the Restoration shook the throne they proposed to defend, and made impossible the government they desired to found.
The Right soon showed its preference for the dangerous policy of stimulating reaction by exaggerating the movements which tend to bring it about. This policy, in spite of its detestable results, still characterises our electoral morals. The programme of the Right, which was the programme of the "Introuvable," survived that Chamber. Chateaubriand later made an ironical offer to support Decazes if he would consent to " change the electoral law, to suppress regular promotion in the army, to restore the right of primogeniture, and to reorganise the monastic orders." In other words, to return to the Three Orders of the ancien régime, Clergy, Noblesse, and Third Estate. To tell the truth, I believe that many who supported this astonishing programme entertained no illusions as to the possibility of realising it, they simply made use of it as a cloak, and a remarkably ill-fitting cloak it was. If there was one thing which in the eyes of the people justified the Revolution, with all its crime and misery, it was the suppression of these three orders and the unjust privileges they entailed. The first work of the Royalists, who were anxious to consolidate the throne, should have been to reassure the people ; as it was, they seized every opportunity of frightening it with this ghost of the ancien régime, which many of them had ceased to believe in. In any case, in order to obtain a ministry capable of carrying out this retrograde programme, it was first of all necessary to clear the ground. To this end Chateaubriand and the ultras joined the extreme Left. This extraordinary alliance was maintained in the most risky circumstances. Thus eighty votes of the Right contributed to the election of Grégoire the regicide. To be sure, the assassination of the Duc de Berri caused a great deal of very sincere emotion, the more so as nobody anticipated the posthumous birth of his son. But the Right took the most sinister advantage of this sad event. It made no attempt to disguise its all-absorbing design to overthrow Decazes ; and when it had succeeded, and Decazes was replaced by Richelieu (this time determined to rely upon the Right), it was by no means satisfied. Neither was it pleased when Richelieu granted a new electoral law giving a preponderating influence to the great proprietors. It wanted to overthrow Richelieu, and in order to do this, it again joined the extreme Left, when it gave its vote to the reply to the speech from the throne. This address, which was most injurious to the King's interest, lie treated with the cool, proud dignity which characterised him.
The Right relied upon two secret, or quasi-secret, organisations : one was the Congrégation, the other that sort of occult government in which Monsieur, the King's brother, was the moving spirit. The Congrégation dated from the Revolution. In the time when public worship was forbidden, its object was to facilitate for the faithful the practice of their religion. Its character changed from the moment when Napoleon laid violent hands on the Pope and held him prisoner. This anxiety to defend Catholicism was then tempered with policy. At the Restoration the Comte d'Artois and the Royalist intransigeants became members of the society, and policy took precedence of religion in the minds of all good Congregationists. As for the little occult Government, it originated in the abuses so wantonly re-established in 1814, which placed at Monsieur's disposal the distribution of appointments and salaries. This prince had a council permanently sitting in his neighbourhood, with a chancellor and several functionaries, drawing large emoluments, with no ostensible functions. This council had some sort of raison d’être before the Revolution, since Monsieur had then an apanage to administer. But in 1814 Monsieur had no longer an apanage ; nevertheless, he was allowed to re-establish his council, in which were placed, "very advantageously for them," says Pasquier in his Mémoires, "a great number of courtiers old and new." At the beginning of the Restoration, the National Guard constituted in the hands of the Comte d’Artois and his friends yet another instrument of propaganda. The prince was its nominal head, with the somewhat singular title of Colonel-général. His staff kept up a correspondence in his name with the Inspectors-general ; there was one of these for each department. They were chosen with the greatest care, and distributed to numerous agents the secret orders and special instructions received from Paris ; the object being political more often than military. When Louis decided to withdraw his brother from the supreme command of the National Guard, of which he had made such an extraordinary use, the organisation persisted, weakened, no doubt, but still effective. To the very last the " Pavilion Marsan " (the part of Tuileries inhabited by Monsieur) kept on interfering in the policy of the kingdom. Its intervention in home policy was frequently most ill-timed, as abroad it was sometimes the reverse of patriotic. It was from the " Pavilion Marsan," at the time of the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, that proceeded the famous Note Secrète, addressed by Baron de Vitrolles to the Foreign Powers, painting, for their benefit, the state of the kingdom in the most terrifying colours, at the risk of preventing the liberation of territory which Richelieu was about to negotiate at Aix-la-Chapelle. Happily the sovereigns considered that Richelieu's word was better than that of the exalted gentleman who addressed them. Louis XVIII, who had the very highest sense of the national dignity, deeply resented this contemptible behaviour, and withdrew Vitrolles from the honorary functions which had given him access to Monsieur.
At the same period the diplomatic body had a habit of frequent interference with public affairs. The Ambassadors of the four Powers (as England, Austria, Prussia, and Russia were still called) used to hold meetings, which constituted a sort of council of supervision, very displeasing to the King and his Ministers. This custom afterwards lapsed ; but the Right frequently encouraged Ambassadors to depart from the reserve imposed on them by their functions. At the Congress of Laybach, besides the official plenipotentiaries, there appeared (not at the actual sittings, but in the social reunions) M. dc Jouffroi, the agent of the " Pavilion Marsan," who discussed with the Emperor of Russia the utility of " enfeebling the constitutional Governments of the Continent."
The Right openly entertained retrograde theories. "In the matter of Education," says Chancellor Pasquier, "two fixed ideas dominated the most exalted sections of the Royalist faction : one, that very little education was necessary for the people ; the other, that this little should be given to it by the clergy." Nothing very serious or very astonishing in that, we may say. Education is spread in spite of the efforts of obscurantists. But it was astonishing to see a whole party deliberately labouring to make itself unpopular, to raise obstacles between itself and public opinion, and compromise by imprudence and absolutely futile violence the cause it wished to serve and the principles it meant to defend.
Such was the state of the Right under the Restoration. What about the Left ? Prevost Paradol, a severe critic, opposes its " mauvaise foi " to the " maladresse " of the Right, thereby implying that it was by far the guiltier of the two. Thureau-Dangin accuses it " d'avoir joué la comédie de l'opposition légale." Perhaps these reproaches are unnecessarily harsh. It is not easy to apply them to a party which counted among its ranks a man like General Foy, with his exquisite sense of honour and of constitutional right, who nevertheless was responsible for some of its errors. He may have been a little blind, but assuredly he was not one to "jouer la comédie."
The truth is that the action of the Left was a hundred times more important than that of the Right. One helped to weaken the Restoration, the other did more — it prepared the way for all the moral revolutions to come ; it revived Bonapartism under its most disastrous form ; it did its best to sow the seeds of insubordination in the Army and of insurrection among civilians ; and it is my firm conviction that many of its members had no idea what they were about.
How, only a few years after the fall of the Empire, there arose that extraordinary legend which in the eyes of a large section of the French people transformed Napoleon into the champion of liberty and peace, is one of the most interesting psychological problems in history. Such an audacious fiction could have little hold on the generation which had known the Emperor. But the generation which followed was in a manner nursed in this fiction, and it stuck to it. It was this that made the nation so ready to restore the Empire and help Napoleon III. to the throne. The captivity of St. Helena, the silence of the death on that rock hidden in the wastes of the great sea — these things were so impressive an end to Napoleon's tragic destiny that they at once threw over him the glamour of a half-mythical hero in the popular imagination. That great memory served the interests of party too well for the opposition to miss the chance of appropriating it to its own ends. Unfortunately the opposition preached the benefits of liberty, and Napoleon had been a despot ; the opposition tended to fraternity among the nations, and Napoleon had been their oppressor. But there are ways of squaring the truth. Somebody made the great discovery that Napoleon desired to subjugate the world in order to deliver it. He made war in order to enforce peace, and enlisted men to discipline them in the practice of liberty. Unknown is the name of the genius who published this theory ; but his work did not perish. His views were repeated, timidly at first, as an audacious paradox with only a grain of truth in it. Then public opinion in the lower classes got used to the idea. The grotesqueness shocked them no longer. Democrats, Republicans, or even Liberals, gravely accompanied the Jacobins in their periodical pilgrimages to the Vendôme Column. A new Napoleon dominated France, sung in prose and verse, glorified in every conceivable way — a man perhaps a little uncertain in his temper, but full of generous impulses, who adored the people, only lived to make it happy, and had not succeeded because he had fallen a victim to kings, priests, and nobles.
The men of the Revolution participated in this unforeseen hero-worship. They had been the forerunners of Napoleon. No doubt they had been guilty of faults, not to say violences (their crimes were no longer mentioned), but they were full of great thoughts and noble aspirations, and it was circumstances over which they had no control which carried these generous patriots further than they had meant to go. And so on. In their blindness the Liberals helped to mislead both themselves and public opinion by deafening the ears of France with their eternal panegyrics of the men and the institutions most directly hostile to liberty. Their clumsy error surpassed that of the ultras, though its consequences took longer to develop and were not so soon perceived.
As for that love of mystery, that mania for Machiavelism, which I have shown to be characteristic of the French deputy, the Right contrived to satisfy it by means of the Congrégation and the occult Government, the Left by military conspiracies. From the moment when the Liberals (and under this title I include the entire Left) took their stand on Bonapartism they were bound to turn their attention to the Army. Was not the Army the instrument and, so to speak, the symbol of the Empire ? Only when politicians turn their attention to the Army their aim is more often to unsettle it than to maintain discipline, the more so when we have to do with a party which preaches emancipation, equality, the rights of man, and contempt for the traditional hierarchy.
The reaction which occurred in 1820, at the time of the assassination of the Duc de Berri, seemed to scatter the last remnants of the fitful wisdom of the Left. La Fayette was then heard to declare solemnly to the Tribune that he considered himself " released " from his oath. Released from his oath, because the King, in accordance with the Constitution, had yielded to the will of the Chamber in replacing his moderate Ministry by one more distinctly Royalist ! What could be more insane ? This appeal to revolt, absurd and unjustifiable as it was, had a widespread effect. It was followed by others specially addressed to the young students in the University ; as for the Army, it was openly invited to join the conspiracy. There had been some plotting already, but this was a serious affair. It was denounced to the Government. Inquiry revealed the existence of three secret committees, one of which, led by the Duc de Rovigo, had in view the proclamation of Napoleon II. and the regency of Prince Eugène ; the two others, under the influence of La Fayette, aimed only at the organisation of a general insurrection and a provisionary Government. The General was not arrested ; that was a mistake. He continued to lend his support to other attempts of the kind, and military conspiracies multiplied. They were set on foot in the School of Cavalry at Saumur, in Belfort, and La Rochelle. Their aim was obvious. Napoleon II., brought up in Austria, and deprived of all communication with his country, was an Unknown, all the more dangerous because his reign would have necessitated a regency ; the Duc d’Orléans, who had more or less effaced himself, would not have seemed popular enough for a candidate. Some fanatics who were in communication with the Prince of Orange attempted to thrust him into this position ; he lent himself to their designs very improperly, and later on betrayed them by giving their names to Charles X. As for the Republic, it was not yet possible ; it took years to separate that name from the horrors which at that time it conjured up. The stupefaction of France when the Republic of 1848 was proclaimed shows how remote was that idea from the dreams of 1824. La Fayette in his Mémoires (vol. v.), declares, with an incomparable naïveté, that he had no other end but to bring about the meeting of a constituante which in all probability would have upheld the Constitutional Monarchy. So it would seem that all this apparatus of destruction aimed at the maintenance of what already existed !
The political situation was still further complicated by the absence of any middle party capable of lessening the friction between Left and Right. The germs of such a party existed in the section that was beginning to be known as the doctrinaires, but the very name shows in what respect it would be incapable of playing with any plasticity an independent role. If a desire for vengeance against the Revolution animated the ultras, if an unquenchable thirst for popularity urged the leaders of the Liberal side to depart from their role and hurl about imprudent language, the doctrinaires were a prey to the most formidable vanity. They had the very highest possible opinion of themselves, and professed to act according to the most superior principles, whereas they were too frequently governed by the suggestions of their amour-propre. The writings of Royer-Collard, and Guizot's pamphlet, Des Moyens de Gouvernement et d’Opposition en l’état actuel de la France (published in 1821), with its bitter spirit of contempt, show the incapacity of the doctrinaires to offer any durable support to any Government whatever.
Such was the state of the Parliament from 1816 to 1824. That it did not overturn more Cabinets was owing to the fragmentary character of the various parties, and to the personal animosities which permitted the Cabinet to find, now here, now there, a provisionary and fluctuating support, while it accomplished its perpetual work of equilibrium. If any good and useful laws were passed it was owing to the talent of the Ministers, to their frank eloquence, to their individual influence over the Chamber. As for the House of Peers, it showed, as a rule, great wisdom and moderation in its acts and its language, and much was to be hoped from it.
One question still remains : What were the people thinking all the time ? For in order to realise the character of this period, we must bear in mind that the deputies were not the representatives of the people, but of the bourgeois class. At moments of crisis, even if the people had no part in the Government, its attitude sufficiently revealed its sentiments. It was not difficult to determine its state of mind in 1814 and 1815. In 1824 this is not quite so easy. Nobody appealed to it ; not one of the Liberals ever dreamt of considering its needs, and public affairs apparently did not concern it. All the same, the people had its own opinion ; only the Parliament and the Press prevented it from making that opinion clear. But the credit of France was restored ; agriculture and industry prospered ; the first Exhibition of the products of industry at Paris had met with the greatest success ; a General Council of Commerce, a free School of Arts and Crafts had been established ; by his courageous initiative, Louis XVIII. had arrested a pernicious reaction in 1816. True, that reaction had reappeared in 1820, but far less violently, and since then the King had been able to continue the good work begun. All this was reassuring and significant ; the country was enjoying a delightful time of peace and stability; only the language used every day in the Tribune and the journals went far to destroy the good effects of this visible prosperity. If we are to believe the deputies and the journalists, peace had been bought at the price of national dishonour ; the Government was "sold to the foreigner" ; the blackest designs were meditated by the King and his Councillors — no less than the confiscation of national property, the restoration of the privileges and the corvée of the ancien régime ; the Charter and representative Government were nothing but a deceptive lure, destined to disappear at the least expected moment, and so on. There was no Government Press, properly speaking ; the few journals that defended the Government did so with a nervous awkwardness. The French Press was still without experience, and as opposition is easier to do than anything else, the opposition journals were the more numerous and more brilliant ; moreover, truth and justice being the virtues least esteemed by their editors, they exercised a disastrous influence.
From all this it resulted that the people, though satisfied, preserved a secret feeling of distrust ; the accusations which arose on all sides against the Monarchy prolonged the effect of the Hundred Days, and prevented it from recovering the prestige of 1814, or giving the same impression of secure stability as before.
In 1824, however, a great step was made in this direction. The military conspiracies had come to an end, the Army was loyal and faithful, the prestige of the nation abroad had considerably increased, and it was about to see the reign of Louis XVIII. close and that of Charles X. begin in peace — an object-lesson not repeated in the course of the century. This happy state of things which restored France to her former high rank among the nations was mainly due to the recent Spanish War.
The foreign policy of the Restoration has been the object of many bitter criticisms. To be sure, the Congresses of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), of Troppau (1820), of Laybach (1821), and Verona (1822) were organised by Metternich and the Emperor Alexander (who was becoming more and more disgusted with his former Liberalism and more and more inclined to an understanding with Metternich) with an intention directly hostile to the emancipation of the people : and France took her part in each Congress without adopting an attitude openly antagonistic to absolutism. Owing to these facts the Restoration has been accused for long enough of sympathy with the anti-Liberal policy, cried up by the Austrian Chancellor and Russian Emperor. But now that historians have access to the sources of information, official documents, mémoires, and so on, they are beginning to perceive that the facts were otherwise. The instructions given to ambassadors and plenipotentiaries plainly reveal a twofold anxiety to remain faithful in Germany and Italy to the old policy of Henri IV. and Richelieu, with regard to the protection and maintenance of the petits États, and at the same time to favour as far as possible the development of public liberty. Words are too often the medium of exchange with politicians, and this is a little misleading to historians. In Spain there was the so-called Constitution of 1812, which, though harmless in itself, was far too democratic to be applied to any people like the Spaniards, the Neapolitans, or the Piedmontese, who had still to learn their first steps in the ways of democracy. In this world everything is the result of a slow process of evolution ; and it is obvious that, for instance, the Constitution which suits our Third Republic at the present day could not have ruled France in 1824 without serious consequences. In Italy, however, Naples and Turin arose in revolt to cries of " Vive la Constitution Espagnole de 1812 ! " and in Spain, at the same time, this Constitution, re-established by the Revolutionists, and imposed by them on Ferdinand VII., caused all manner of disorder in the country. Now, in the face of Austria and Russia, who desired to re-establish absolute monarchy all over Europe, France continued to insist that the famous Constitution of 1812 should be replaced by a Charter modelled on the wise principles of her own Charter. Nothing, indeed, could be more desirable. One thing only was to be regretted — that France and England could not come to a common understanding on this point. Their ambassadors spoke independently, without any previous agreement ; but with this reservation it must be recognised that the various French representatives invariably expressed themselves with regard to the Greeks, the Italians, and the Poles, in moderate and reasonable language.
There remains the war with Spain. Indubitably it arose from a false principle — the right of one nation to interfere with the affairs of another, which if generally recognised becomes the surest possible source of tyranny and injustice. But we can easily understand why the Royal Government decided to interfere, conscious as it was of a resolve to display moderation in the first place, and knowing also that the war was a matter of life or death to it. Curiously enough the man who most clearly saw this necessity was Châteaubriand, whose political perspicuity had hitherto been almost invariably at fault. He realised perfectly that the Monarchy would never be founded until the Army should have won some victory, or carried through some successful campaign under the white standard, and with a prince at its head. The justice of this idea might be seen when the extreme Left, especially its Bonapartist and Jacobin members, defined their attitude. That attitude was shameful. Not only did men like Carrel, the celebrated journalist, cast aside all notions of duty to go and enrol themselves in the Spanish Army and fight against their own countrymen, but in the ranks of the French Army everything was done to provoke desertion and revolt. The passage of the Bidassoa was dramatic. The French exiles were waiting in troops on the banks of the river, with their great tricolours, under the command of Colonel Fabvier, who called on the Army to desert the white standard ; they sang Bérenger's disgraceful song, " Soldats ! Demitour a gauche ! " It was a solemn moment. The officer present in command of the Army was an old servant of the Empire. He unhesitatingly gave the order to fire ; no less unhesitatingly the soldiers obeyed. That cannonade was historical ; its roar resounded far beyond our frontiers. The Restoration might count its cause gained, since the Army would not betray it ; the Army was loyal ! The Liberals were dumb with amazement ; the opposition was apparently to be annihilated, and of military conspiracies nothing more was heard. Carrel himself, when he could form a saner judgment of these things, said later, in writing of the war in Spain : " Probably there never was under the Empire an Army of one hundred thousand men better disciplined, or so well instructed." And Canning gave it the same high praise when he said that no army had ever done so little harm or prevented more.
These fine results were in a great measure owing to the Duc d'Angoulême. This time, not being on political ground, he was not restrained by his exaggerated filial respect. He had ample freedom, and he used it with remarkable prudence and perseverance, and an absolute sense of justice and honour. He chose his staff with a supreme indifference to coteries, and having fixed upon General Guilleminot, an old Imperialist, for his Major-General, he contrived to support him through thick and thin. No pressure ever moved this prince. Just as in trying to pacify the South in 1815, he had persistently displayed his anxiety to treat Protestant clergymen with the same respect as the Catholic priests, so now he showed that no consideration of birth or opinion could influence his judgment of an officer. Under his command the operations of war were well directed (the taking of the Trocadero, a success systematically underrated by the opposition, deserves a high-rank among our feats of arms). But the operations of peace were even better conducted. Wherever the French Army went it brought with it order, toleration, and justice. The celebrated Ordinance of Andujar, published by the Duc d'Angoulême on the 18th of August, was not the least of his many titles to glory ; it authorised the French commandants to set at liberty every person unjustly arrested. When Ferdinand VII. was liberated, and had recovered his independence, the Duc d'Angoulême urged him to proclaim a Liberal Constitution and a general amnesty, bitterly regretting his inability to do this himself. But he had no illusions as to what he had to expect from a weak, deceitful, and cruel King like Ferdinand VII. On his return the prince refused to be fêted at Madrid, but paid long visits to the French troops stationed from one end of Spain to the other, giving many evidences of his solicitude for the Army. One of the good results of this war was that it threw full light on the future heir to the throne, the man who then seemed destined to become Louis XIX. Unhappily his excess of modesty and filial reverence caused him, in 1830, to add his abdication to that of his father, with disastrous consequences to France.
The instructions which Villèle had given to the French plenipotentiaries at the Congress of Verona entailed, besides the reduction of the Austrian army of occupation at Naples, the evacuation of Piedmont and the guarantees for the revolted Greeks, the recognition of those Spanish colonies which were already constituted separate States, together with their commercial liberty. At least these benefits were secured by our initiative (Feb. 1824). Unfortunately the success won by the Army in Spain, and the tremendous impression it caused in the country and abroad, had the effect of exciting the ultras to the extent that they believed they could do anything. Villèle had not the qualities capable of resisting them. He took it into his head to dissolve the Chamber, hoping thus to get rid both of the opposition of the Left and the still more passionate antagonism of the Right. Without the least shame he brought a very dubious pressure to bear on the electors. As it happened, his calculations were upset. The success of the Royalists was overwhelming, but many of them were of the number of those very lunatics whose leader he was, whom, in spite of that fact, he desired to throw out, so much he feared their extravagance. It is said that a hundred and twenty new deputies were members of the Congrégation. The act known as the Law of Septennalité was passed by the new Chamber and by the Peers. Up till then a fifth part of the Chamber was changed every year, and there were obvious disadvantages in a system which kept the country in a permanent state of agitation. On the other hand, seven years was perhaps rather a long interval.
It was in the midst of these events that Louis XVIII. died. Old and ill, but sustained by his intense moral energy, he had continued to reign and to govern. If we try to imagine what France might have been then, not taking into account the Hundred Days, her position in 1824 may leave something to be desired ; but allowing for that event, it strikes us as exceptionally brilliant. We have only to look at the comments which the King's death gave rise to abroad to be convinced of this. Even those who at that time looked backward on the past were astonished at the ground travelled over. But we are in a better position than contemporaries for forming a generalised judgment of that period, and I have no hesitation in forming mine. The King and his Ministers, almost without exception, did their duty by France. The parties failed in theirs. Therein lay the danger for the future.