Chantelauze, is more consistent with the truth. Louis XVIII. asserted his anterior title, and it was admitted - admitted by the nation as the price of peace and the pledge of reconciliation.

It were, however, as idle to deny, as after the event it is easy to condemn the faults of the restoration. There was too much of the exterior indication of triumph in the return of the Bourbons to France. Væ victis, seemed to be announced to the adherents of the fallen dynasty, when the white flag was first seen upon the column which recounts the imperishable glories of the imperial reign. It may be said all Paris wore white cockades, and so in truth they did; much allowance must no doubt be made for many circumstances in the festivity, which were well calculated to prevent men of strong memories and sensitive honour from joining in it, and to wound the spirit of such a nation, as the French have in every period of their history proved themselves to be. Let no man blame the descendant of a long line of illustrious princes, if his blood rushed back to his heart at the suggestion of abandoning the flag which for nearly a thousand years had waved over the fortunes of his House, but when he met the illustrious marshals of the empire, and "assured them that he was not only happy, but proud to be surrounded by them," he should have called for the colours of Austerlitz and Marengo, and have strewed upon the white compartment of the tricolor, the lilies, in the sight of which France had made the world grow pale under Condé, Vendôme, and Turenne*. He should have shown some anxiety to secure in

Oui, elle a beaucoup fait pour la France, mais sans cesse ses institutions ellesmêmes n'arrivaient pas à leur résultat, et quelque fois aussi le spectacle de la défiance du pays appelait la défiance dans le sein du conseil. Aussi quand la couronne accordait quelques libertés on se plaignait de les voir émanées d'une Charte octroyée et revocable comme le principe de la Charte elle-même. Ainsi quand la Dynastie adoptait nos gloires on lui reprochait de les avoir déploré. Quand elle s'attendrissait sur nos disastres, on lui montrait aux champs de Waterloo, le lion Britannique, qui lui avait ouvert le chemin de la France.

*

Je sais, (said the Duc de Fitzjames in the debate on the abolition of the hereditary peerage, in December, 1831,) qu'au temps où nous vivons, les ser

full property to the memory of Napoleon, what he could not take away, the just reward of the military glory by which he had illumined the modern annals of France, as well as of the great legal and administrative reforms which had been effected under his government. Above all, he should have entered the solemn protest of his dynasty and his people against the ignominious durance put upon the "foremost man of all this world," whom he at least had not "confounded with those who had preceded him*,” and whose name will, as it ought, be held in honour by the French people, so long as honour is any part of their concern. By thus identifying himself, rather as a Frenchman than as a Bourbon, with the recent history of his country, he might, perhaps, effectually, as to a certain extent he did, by the intrinsic merits of the Charter, have effaced the recollection of his return to Paris under the protection of foreign bayonets, or as it was afterwards said in mockery and derision, "with the baggage of the Allies." There was in truth no just foundation for the sneer; he had himself met with a hearty welcome from the population of the capital; Bordeaux, the second city of the empire, had received the Duc d' Angoulême with enthusiasm, and Lille presented to the Duke of Orleans then, as long after "the most faithful of the subjects of the Crown of France +," the homage of its renewed allegiance to the head of his family — but, though still on neutral ground, I am unconsciously wandering to the very verge of party discussions - I think I hear you whisper in the words of your inimitable Boileau

"Mais vous, pour en parler-vous y connaissez vous ?”

vices qui ont cent ans de date sont comptés pour peu de chose, et cependant quand il a été versé pour la France, du sang dévrait compter pour du sang, et le boulet qui emporta la téte de mon aieul, étant de fer aussi bien que celui qui frappa Montebello, ne devrait-il pas peser le même poids dans la justice du pays?

Je ne confonds pas Monsieur Bonaparte avec ceux qui l'ont précedé.-Letter from Mittau, signed by Louis the Eighteenth and the Princes of his family. + See the letter of his Majesty the King of the French, to the Emperor of Russia, announcing his accession to the throne, August 1830.

F

I might defend myself by saying that all this is now matter of history, and that these topics were not deemed irrelevant to the cause either by the managers of the deputies, or the defenders of the Prince de Polignac and his colleagues, but I prefer yielding to the correction.

Qui ne sait se borner ne sut jamais écrire."

I am stating my opinion on a question of constitutional law; I am not writing a political pamphlet.

I have said that the charter of 1814 was granted to, not contracted for, by the people of France, and accepted by them as a concession from the anterior right of entire sovereignty, which Louis expressly claimed to be inherent in him by right of birth, as the head of his family, and which no considerable party at the time was up to gainsay. In the first place, after the example of Charles the Second, he treated all the governments which had existed since the death of Louis the Seven teenth as usurpations, and dated this very constitutional charter from the nineteenth year of his reign. In it there is not only no restriction of the royal prerogative, but a distinct assertion that its illimitable and boundless power could be the only legitimate source of the institutions it established. There are, besides, many parts of the constitution which the charter does not regulate; among others, the electoral system: and its silence respecting those parts affords the clearest possible evidence that the prince from whose mere will it emanated, never thereby intended to confine and limit by its provisions the ancient anterior attributes of his royal power. The charter indeed contains a long enumeration of concessions to the people, but not one word does it contain of the extent or the nature of the prerogative of the crown, except in the introductory address, where it is declared to be unlimited, and the article wherein its ordinary influence on the constitutional bodies by it established is ascertained and explained. It contains not one word respecting the inheritance or succession to the crown, not one respecting the power of the king

to appoint or to dismiss his ministers, or to exercise any but the very highest attributes of sovereignty. By the fourteenth article it is declared the king is the supreme head of the state. Was this meant as a merely formal announcement of his superior and pre-eminent rank, or was it meant as a confirmation of the preamble to the charter, that all legal power was from him and through him? It goes on to enumerate all the most important points on which the kingly power can be exercised, not for the purpose of restricting or limiting that power, but rather to preserve it from all encroachment on the part of the legislative bodies which the charter established.

Here again is another instance of the hasty manner in which certain portions of the American constitution were made to fit into the new monarchical constitution of France. This enumeration seems indeed inserted to prevent the possibility of assumption, on the part of the chambers, of the power which the congress of the United States, under the second section of the second article, possesses, of controuling the president by withholding their consent from the treaties which he may be disposed to enter into, and the nominations to offices which he may be inclined to make.

Article 14.-The King is chief supreme of the state; he commands the military and naval forces, declares war, enters into treaties of peace, alliance, and commerce; appoints to all offices in the public administration, and makes the orders and the ordinances necessary for the execution of the laws and the safety of the State.

It was on this 14th article of the Charter that the Ministers justified what, in a determined spirit of honourable secresy, they persisted in calling their advice of, but what was evidently their reluctant and extorted consent to, the ordinances of July *. No

* Mais pourraient-ils avec plus de succès, maintenant que sa personne est en sureté, rejêter sur lui tous les maux qui ont accablé Paris et la France, s'excuser de la part qu'ils y ont prise sur leur devouement aveugle, sur leur obéissance à ses volontés?

man can read the 14th article of the Constitutional Charter, after the preamble announcing the intentions of Louis XVIII., without admitting that it was at least a matter of probable construction that the King meant to retain the power of altering or suspending the laws. If there be a doubt there is an end of criminality. It is quite impossible that the Charter should have intended the crime of treason to be imputable to an act, the illegality of which was left by it as a matter of conjecture. The Revolution of 1830 has, in fact, established beyond a question, the existence of a grave, well-founded difficulty in the construction of the original Charter. In the 14th article of the Charter of 1830, the words, "for the safety of the State," are omitted, and they have made way for the great principle of our Revolution of 1688, "without having the power of suspending the laws themselves or dispensing with their execution."

Nothing can be more improbable than that such an alteration should have been made in the 14th article of the Charter, even before the Ministers were put upon their trial, if it had not been a known and admitted fact, that a grave doubt had arisen on the former words which was not consistent with the foundation of the new monarchy; and, therefore, that they were to some extent, at least, descriptive of some portion of the royal prerogative of the old dynasty, untouched by the former Charter. A declaratory act would have sufficed to prevent all future ambiguity, if the trial of the Ministers of Charles X. should fail to decide the point. Instead, however, of waiting for the result of that trial, or of removing all future dispute by an act to expound the words, the leaders of your Revolution determined to make the enacting part of the Charter consistent with the principles on which the

L'accusation s'empressera d'entrer dans cette nouvelle voie, ouverte à la défense, quoique par un sentiment qu'elle aime à reconnaître honorable, les anciens Ministres aient évité de compromettre le nom de Charles X., et aient plutôt laissé deviner, qu'ils n'ont avoué la severité de ses ordres, l'opiniâtreté qu'il mettait à ce qu'ils fussent executés, et enfin l'irresistible influence qu'il exerçait sur eux.-M. Béranger. Procès des Ministres, vol. iii. p. 202.