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
