of Paris of the danger of such an appeal to political passions. Some one fastened a print of the little Duke de Bourdeaux on the drapery of the funeral-car in the church, and placed over it a crown of everlastings. The crown was pulled to pieces by royalists who were anxious to wear its blossoms next their hearts. Murmurs spread, and the excitement was presently such as to call for the clearance of the church by the National Guard. But the people outside turned their indignation against the priest and the Archbishop, who might have prevented this royalist scandal; and the mob rose against the church and the palace, and destroyed also the Archbishop's country-house. One consequence of this riot was that the fleur-de-lis now disappeared altogether. It had been twined round the crosses in the churches and elsewhere, to symbolize the union of devotion and loyalty; and now it was found, that, if they were not separated, the cross would be made to share the fate of the "flowers of kings." The government charged itself with stripping the crosses of their lilies, the seal of State was altered, and the fleur-de-lis was proscribed thus soon after those who had worn it. Before the year was out, the Chambers had decreed the perpetual banishment of the elder branch of the Bourbons, and the sale of all their effects within six months. The same measure was dealt out to the family of Napoleon.

bers.

As for the other measures of the Parliament, the most important regarded the constitution of the two Chambers. Constitution The hereditary peerage was abolished; and the power of the Chamof the King to nominate Peers was restricted within certain defined classes of persons, under declared conditions of fortune and length of service. It is difficult to see what remained after this, to make a peerage desirable, at least, without a change of name. To sit in an Upper House, and be graced by the sovereign, might be an honor; but it is one altogether apart from all former ideas of peerage. It was easy to carry this Bill through the Chamber of Deputies; but what was to be done next? There was no doubt of a majority in the Upper House against the abolition of the hereditary principle. It was necessary to create peers for the occasion; and there was a creation of thirty-six. The Liberals were as angry as the Peers at this proceeding, which they considered illegal and tyrannical. The plea of the government was the singular nature of the emergency. The Peers showed their wrath in sullen silence; the Liberals, in clamor. During the whole proceeding, scarcely a sound was heard in the Upper Chamber. The voting was conducted, as nearly as possible, as it would have been in an assembly of the dumb. The majority by which the hereditary peerage was abolished in France was thirty-three. One touch

Abolition of the heredi

1

ing incident which followed upon this act was, that thirteen Peers sent in to the president of their chamber, a week or two afterwards, their abdication of their rank tary peerage. and privileges. In their letters they assigned as their reason the abolition of the hereditary principle. The president received the letters, but refused to read them aloud. In considering the conduct of the British House of Lords with regard to the Reform Bill, it should be borne in mind what was passing in France. When there was a threat of a large creation of Peers to carry the Bill, it was by a natural association of ideas that British noblemen, seeing what was doing at Paris, apprehended the abolition of their hereditary dignities, and looked upon their eldest sons as too likely to become commoners; while the family titles and honors would either expire, or be given to some stranger, as the reward of public service, to pass at his death to some other stranger. That such were the apprehensions of some nobles at home, while the thing was actually done in France, there can be no doubt; nor ought there to be much wonder.

The new electoral law, the French Reform Bill, was the most important subject of all that had occurred since the Electoral law. days of July. The number of electors to the Chamber of Deputies had hitherto been about 94,000 for the whole kingdom; and their qualification had consisted in the payment of yearly taxes to the amount of 300 francs (127.). The ministers proposed to double the number, taking the electors from the largest tax-payers. The project was not approved; and, after much debate, the Bill that was carried provided a constituency somewhat exceeding 200,000, in a population of 30,000,000; the qualification being lowered to the payment of 97. per annum in taxes. That a constituency so small should have satisfied a people who had achieved a revolution for the sake of it, indicates that the principle of a representative system of government was little understood as yet in France. There was one, however, who understood it but too well; and that was the King. He now sanctioned the law; and, from this first year of his reign to its last day, he was employed in virtually narrowing the constituency, and extending his own power over it by means of patronage, till, in the imminent peril that the representation would become as mere a mockery as in the time of his predecessor, his strong hand of power was snatched away from the institution which he had grasped for his own purposes. In 1831, however,

he accepted the new electoral law, and congratulated his people on the enlargement of their representative rights.

Nothing in the record of this period is more interesting to us

1 Annuaire Historique, 1831, p. 333.

now than to read the declarations on the principles of the politics of the day made by two men, conspicuous in that and in a later revolution, the King and M. Guizot. M. Guizot was a member of the King's first Administration, and of his last. We find on record the opinions of both, in this first year of the revolution, on the character of the two great parties,

Parties.

of the movement and of resistance. On the opening of the new Chamber in July of this year, M. Guizot declared himself to be, where it was the business of the government to be, between these two parties. After declaring that the resistance the conservative party would be gradually won upon by the blessings of good government, he said to the Chamber: "The other is the party that you have to deal with. That party, which I will not call the republican, but the bad revolutionary party, weakened and exhausted, is at this time, thank God, incapable of repentance and amendment. The revolution of July is all that there was good, sound, and national in our first revolution; and the whole converted into a government. This is the struggle which you have to maintain, between the revolution of July, that is, between all that is good, sound, and national, from 1789 to 1830; and the bad revolutionary party, that is, the rump of

our first revolution, or all that there was of bad, unsound, and anti-national, from 1789 to 1830." The King, in a speech in answer to a provincial address, in the early part of the year, had given his view of this matter, in terms familiar at this day to all who have ears: 2 "We endeavor to preserve the just medium (juste milieu), equally distant from the excesses of popular power on the one hand, and the abuses of royal power on the other." This phrase, un juste milieu, thus creditable in its origin, became discredited by subsequent events. It was from this moment indissolubly associated with the policy of the King and his Cabinet; and it presently came to share their disgraces. After having for years heard it used as the nickname of a tampering and hypocritical despotism, it is interesting to revert to the origin of this familiar term.

From this time a cursory view of the politics of France presents little but a painful spectacle of a disguised conflict Press prosebetween the King and his people. In 1832, the King cutions. began his prosecutions of the press, which were carried on for the rest of his reign to such an extent as makes the historical reader wonder that they were endured so long as they were. It was not only that newspapers were watched over and punished for their political articles, but that paragraphs in ridicule or censure of the King himself were laid hold of, and the authors subjected to cruel imprisonment. It required no small courage to brave

1 Annuaire Historique, 1881, p. 242. 2 Annuaire Historique, 1831, p. 54.

such hatred as the King incurred, when, for a libel against himself, he snatched a young man from his bride and his home, and shut him up for a term of years, the victim fainting three times while his head was shaved on his entering his prison after sentence. When such punishments were inflicted by tens, by fifties, the King could not expect to be beloved, even by those to whom the name of public order was most sacred. And he showed no sign of a desire to be beloved, but only to preserve order by the means which seemed to him best. The excuse of his libellers was, that he merged his function of King in that of Minister; that he did not reign, but govern; and that he had therefore no right to complain of the same amount of criticism and comment which would be put up with by any one of his ministers. He chose, however, to be both Minister and King; and he compelled others, as well as himself, to take the consequences. Within three years of the accession of Louis Philippe, the number of prosecutions of the press on the part of the government was 411.1 Out of this number, there were 143 condemnations. This was not exactly the method of government that the nation had hoped to obtain by their revolution; but they bore with more than could previously have been expected. They were weary of changes and tumults, and thankful to be spared the expense and burden of war. In the hope that the resources of the country would improve under a peace-policy, like that of Louis Philippe, the great middle classes of France were willing to bear with much, in order to gain time, and wait for natural change. The discontents of the injured, therefore, showed themselves in acts without concert, -in attacks on the Insurrec- King's life, and libels against his character; and in tions. occasional insurrections. Among the most formidable of these were two in 1832, one in Paris, on occasion of the funeral of General Lamarque, and supposed to be the work of the republican party; and the other in La Vendée, for the purpose of restoring the old branch of the Bourbons in the person of the Duc de Bourdeaux, whose mother conducted the insurrection. During the revolt in Paris, the capital was declared in a state of siege; on the legality of which there were endless discussions afterwards, hurtful to the influence of the government. The provincial insurrection was put down, and the Duchess de Berri taken prisoner. The affair ended in a manner most mortifying to the exiled family, and ludicrous in all other eyes. The devoted mother, the widow of the murdered prince, the pathetic symbol in her own person of the woes of the banished line, gave birth to an infant in prison, and was thereby compelled to avow a private marriage in Italy. Everybody

1 Annual Register, 1833, p. 243 (note).

1

laughed at this proof of a divided devotion, and the heroine was allowed, on her recovery, to go where she would. She did not go to Holyrood, to meet the reproaches of the sufferers whom she had made ridiculous.

of Paris.

It was after these revolts that the vigilant among the French patriots observed with uneasiness the stealthy progress Fortifications of measures for fortifying Paris. Strong works were rising in commanding positions round the capital; and, when inquiry was made, the name of Napoleon was put forth by Marshal Soult. Napoleon had resolved to fortify Paris, and had fixed on these very positions. But then, it was answered, that was during the hundred days, when he had reason to apprehend attacks from all the world. France was not now in apparent danger of invasion from any quarter; and the vigilant intimated their suspicion, that these fortifications were intended to be held, not for, but against Paris. In 1833, the Minister required from the Chamber, when he brought in his budget, a grant of 2,000,000 francs (above 83,000l.) for carrying on the works.2 The deputies protested against a series of detached forts; and demanded that, if there were any fortifications at all, they should be in the form of circuit-walls, which might be manned, against a foreign enemy, by the National Guard or the citizens. The government held to its right to fortify the towns of the kingdom in its own way, without being called to account about the method; and the Chamber refused the amount by a large majority. The works, however, proceeded; the vigilance of the citizens increased; there was reason to apprehend a forcible demolition of these works, raised by invisible funds; and at length the workmen were dismissed, and all was quiet for a time.

In the affairs of government, however, there was no quiet. There were several changes of Ministry during the year 1834; more suppression of journals and political societies; more riots in Paris and Lyons; and, at one time, some danger of a war with the United States, about a money-claim which France at last hastened to satisfy, to avoid war. The king made Characterismore and more advances towards being the sole ruler tics of the of the country, with mere servants under him in the reign. name of ministers. The substantial middle class grew more and more afraid of disturbance, the longer they enjoyed the blessings of external order. They escaped the qualms of a consciousness of their having bartered freedom for quiet, by endeavoring, as much as possible, to avoid the whole subject of politics. Those who felt the despotism in their consciences, intellects, and affections, became disheartened under this apathy and contentedness of

1 Annuaire Historique, 1833, p. 270. 2 Annuaire Historique, 1833, p. 284.