of its adversaries by marching too rapidly, as in the games of the Promethean fable, the torch as frequently went out from the fleetness, as from the sluggishness of the courser's motion. You will observe in time however the sad consequences of that improvident impatience.

Another circumstance contributed to exasperate M. de Serre, and to prevent his matriculation into the Côté Gauche. The liberal party had uniformly contended against the existence under the charter, of a right in the crown to punish or exile any individual, without an open investigation of his conduct, and a legal condemnation of it. This arbitrary power however, had been assumed by the crown after the second restoration, and the Chambre introuvable, had passed a law, expelling from France the regicides and persons most obnoxious to the ultra royalists. Now the ministry of 1819, did not hesitate to admit that this proscription was contrary to the charter, which guaranteed personal security, and oblivion of all past actions to the subject, but they contended that as the law had been carried into effect, its repeal would be a full pardon to these exiles, and that as this was repugnant to the feelings of the royal family, it was the duty of France to await quietly the relentings of the king's mercy. The Côté Gauche on the contrary conceived that as the edict was unconstitutional, it ought to be declared null and void, since to suffer its continuance would be. to sanction its principle. In the course of the debate which out of this subject, M. de Serre, who as minister of justice, might as well have been absent, let fall an unguarded suggestion, that the petitions included the Bonapartists, and that whether they did or not, the king would never consent to them. This intemperate declaration was the signal of irreconcilable war between him and the liberal party. The press immediately opened its batteries on both sides, and virulent philippics every day widened the breach between them. The ephemeral popularity of M. de Serre was then suddenly broken down, and the jealous inquietude of M. Decazes subsided along with it, so that these two statesmen became reconciled into a very cordial union with each other. That secession was a loss of greater moment to the liberals than they at first apprehended, for no zeal is more intense than that of a neophyte from irritation. In the ensuing session of the chamber, a dozen votes became of infinite importance to the destinies of

Europe, as well as to the liberties of France, and the influence of M. de Serre, which carried half the platoon of the Doctrinaires into the scale of power, caused it to preponderate.

In the heat of the debate on the exiles, M. de Serre, went perhaps farther than he was warranted in his declaration of the royal implacability, for the king immediately after partly appeased the general murmur it excited, by the recal of Marechal Soult, and four or five other generals from banishment. The pub lic would have been still more highly gratified to have seen Arnault, the author of Marius at Minturnæ, also recalled, for as no treason or love of the imperial regime could be imputed to him, they ascribed his absence to an aversion in the government, from men who had consecrated their lives to the advancement of the cause of true freedom.

The liberal party urged his recall as they did every other measure with an eager intentness that shook the stability of the ministry, and induced some of its members to caution them, that if they pressed the government too hard in their demands of constitutional laws, the king would revolt from his present course, and throw the government into the hands of the oligarchy. But warnings were lost upon them. They thought the wind too high in their favour, for the government to resist it, and therefore went on with all sail set, to their ruin. The Minerva an hebdomadal paper, edited with great ability by a party of liberals, was almost as violent against the ministry, for its scanty liberality, as the Conservateur, the oracle of the ultras, was from an apprehension of its flooding France with innovations. It styled the ministry "une bigarrure d' administration," isolated in the midst of the nation, having none but pensioned creatures for its supporters, and flatterers for its counsellors-upbraided it with floating about in perpetual uncertainty; with calling to its aid to day, those it denounced yesterday; with frightening the left by the projects of the right, and terrifying the right by the projects of the left. It contended, that although the French had given up their rights at the shrine of glory, they would never submit to relinquish them for no equivalent; that all they now asked was the fair execution of the charter, which by guaranteeing all rights and protecting all existencies, would give repose and stability to govern

ment,

That there was much truth in all this, I am not at all disposed to deny; but now that the short career of this ministry is finished, it is due to candour to declare, that France has never had one surrounded with equal obstacles, that did as much in the same space of time for the amelioration of her internal condition. They urged the king as much, and pushed him as far, as his sensitive jealousy of prerogative would permit; and his hesitations alone might have obliged them to manœuvre, instead of marching boldly forward with a firm and elastic step. So long as they were obliged to retain the great mass of executive officers, brought into power by the re-action of 1815, when the decks were swept to make way for new-comers, it would have been impossible to carry into efficient operation the principles of the charter. As some diversity of opinion prevailed too in the ministry, a part of which was unwilling to proceed further, before they had well observed the effects of the present relaxation of tyranny, it was judged most expedient to adjourn the questions of the municipal organization, the national guards, the jury, penal code, &c. till after the result of the next election was known.

As a friend to rational liberty all over the world, I feel bound in expressing my admiration of the doctrines of the liberal party, to censure their conduct, for the acrimony with which they arraigned the irregular march of the government, and for the imprudence of the suspicions with which they falsified the sincerity of those ministers. I believe I have sufficiently pointed out to you already, the clogs which embarrassed the movements of these, to enable you to account for the seeming discrepancy between their opinions and policy. They did little or nothing that was wrong, and can only be said to have "left undone some things that they ought to have done." But the Liberals acted with a sort of Epimethean improvidence, before the game was in their own hands. They fixed their eyes on the stars that glittered on the mountain before them, and examined so little the way on which they were advancing, that they forgot its slipperiness; so that in attempting to stride too far, they fell back like the stone of Sysiphus, and have had their labours to begin anew.

If the revelations of time should not confirm my conjecture of the restraint in which the ministry of 1819 were held by the

court, posterity will very freely condemn their want of political wisdom. After they had begun the work of reform, they ought to have taken no holyday-no repose from their labours, until their work was done. What they had acccomplished offended one party, and what they had not accomplished, offended the other. The position in which France was placed, at the close of the Session, was false and insecure; and was actually, in its consequences, fatal to them. The charter was alleged to be the inviolable, fundamental, and even unalterable law of the state: and yet some acts, manifestly infringing it, were suffered to remain, whilst the press was set at liberty to attack them.The election of the third series of members was approaching, and nearly all the public functionaries, whose influence was necessarily considerable in the elections, were in opposition not only to the nation, but to the government; and although the precarious tenure, by which they held their offices, might prevent their impertinent interference against the ministers, it could not prevent the secret effects of their hostility; for suppleness is no guarantee for fidelity. The body of electors, too, was angered at this continuance in office of men whom they regarded as aliens to their interests; and in spite of the conciliatory dispositions which were then beginning to prevail between the government and people, were induced, by this prominent evil alone, to distrust the intentions of the ministers. All these circumstances combined to defeat the end of ministerial manoeuvering in the elections of last year, and to prevent the return of men of a ductile and acquiescent nature.

The Liberals undoubtedly imagined, that it was impossible for the government, after the dissolution of the Richelieu ministry, and the consequent failure of the attempt to change the law of elections, to recur with success to any similar experiment in future. But they contemplated their hopes more than their powers, and forgot how quickly "nature falls into revolt, when gold becomes her object." Had they been fully aware of the precarious independence of the Chambers, they might have acquiesced in the delay of the repeal of the obnoxious laws, and consented to have seen them bind France for a few months longer to the Promethean pillar of necessity, since time was forging the arrows with which the political Hercules might slay the vultures that tormented her.

LETTER XVIII.

Paris, April, 1820.

MY DEAR SIR,

Nothing could have been more enlivening than the prospect of prosperity which opened on France in the summer of 1819. The reins of her government were then in the hands of intelligent men, whose policy gave an universal stimulus to industry. Petty diversities of opinion as to the rapidity or extent of the reform of administration, may have given some trifling irregularity to the public pulse, but cannot be considered as having impaired the general soundness of the body politic, or lessened the hearty confidence with which this nation looked forward to the enjoyment of a long season of health and vigour. It seemed as if the bark of state, after much tossing and heaving about on the sea of revolution, was ready to cast anchor permanently in the halcyon haven of constitutional liberty. The consequences of the ameliorated political state of France,, were the rapid improvement of her manufactures, and the recovery of her commerce from the effects of the war. The season too, happened to be uncommonly propitious, and the earth brought forth a plentiful supply of corn, and wine, and fruit, of every description.

To gratify the public curiosity and vanity, the government ordered an exposition of the products of national industry; and no scene could be more brilliant than that which Paris exhibited during the months of September and October. A crowd of foreigners flocked in from every country of Europe, to enjoy the splendid exhibition; and during the first week after the opening of the Louvre, more than 20,000 English alone are said to have arrived in this capital. The disheartened vanity of the French was re-vivified by this admiration of their productions, and the press consequently teemed with extravagant encomiums on the perfection of the arts in France, and on the charms of Paris, as