CHAPTER II. Meeting of the Chambers.-Speech of the King.—Address of the Deputies.-Prorogation.-Discussions.-Dissolution of the Chamber.-New Ministers.-Elections.-Algerine Expedition.-State of Algiers.-Cause of the War.-Preparation. Landing in Algiers.-Colonization of Africa. The French Chambers assembled on the 2d of March. All France awaited with intense anxiety the result of this the most important legislative meeting which had occurred since the Restoration. The King's Speech at the opening of the session, after alluding to the probable termination of the negociations regarding Greece and the intended Algerine expedition, and to some minor topics of internal policy, concluded with these words: The Charter has placed the public liberties under the safeguard of the rights of my throne. These rights are sacred; my duty is to transmit them entire to my successors. Peers of France and Deputies of Departments, I doubt not of your co-operation in effecting the good which I wish to accomplish. You will repel with contempt the perfidious insinuations, which malevolence endeavors to propagate. If culpable manœuvres should raise up against my government obstacles which I am unable (he added on recovering himself) which I do not wish to foresee, I shall find the power of surmounting them in my resolution to maintain the public peace, in my just confidence in the French, and in the love which they have always shown for their Kings.' In weighing, impartially, these expressions, which occasioned so much heat, excitement and discussion at the time, and which had such a decided effect in precipitating the critical moment, it seems clear that the great error of the Speech was in its mal-adaptation to the sentiments and opinions which then pervaded France. It was little better than mockery to speak of 'the love'. Address Solution Igerine -Pre -ica. ed of xiety ative ora ses n of end pics rds: the sa sors. not h to in If -n er he he in which the French had always shown for their Kings,' in sight of the half finished monument of the Place LouisQuinze, where the statue of Liberty stood within the memory of all men, and where Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and Madame Elizabeth perished on the scaffold. It was a compliment to the French no less equivocal, for a Bourbon to pretend a 'just confidence' in them, when they had seized on all occasions to inspire that family with well founded distrust, by killing four of its males within forty years, and only tolerating the residue from dire necessity. And to talk of the 'sacred rights' of a throne, which was, by the confession of the Ministers themselves, already shaken to its foundations by the assaults of revolutionary violence; to propose to place the 'public liberties' under the safeguard of its crumbling fabric; and complacently to hold up the liberties of the people in contrast with the rights of royalty: all this would have been injudicious at any time, but at the present conjuncture was unspeakably ridiculous. It was, however, the denunciation of the 'perfidious insinuations,' of the 'malevolence,' and of the culpable manoeuvres' of the Opposition,-and the implied threat in the concluding sentence, which roused the resentment and stimulated the resolu- The Opposition, feeling entire confidence in scious as they must have been of the probable issue, did not abate one jot of their confidence in language. They pretended the Charter was a mere gift of royalty, not a consequence or effect of the Revolution; nay, that it was a voluntary and an unexpected gift. All France, said M. de Conny, is counter-revolutionary, and now asks nothing of the Ministers, but that they shall consolidate the Restoration, combat and destroy the spirit of faction, unite the elements of an aristocratic power, and restore to the Departments their moral life of which they have been deprived. M. Guernon de Ranville contended, that the attack of the Chamber on the royal prerogative exerted in the appointment of his Ministers, was an act of intolerable usurpation and antimonarchial tyranny. But the comfortable assurances of M. de Sainte-Marine were the most edifying. The great majority of the population,' said he, the third party between the liberal faction and the cabinet, consisting of thirty-two millions of Frenchmen, enjoys the present, confides in the future, loves what exists, is fearful of changes, and knows that a progressive system is a change, as well as a retrograde system. They cherish their King, they love to be governed by him, they repose confidence in his wisdom, and his love for his people. They wait for the acts of the Ministers; and as the only thing that they now know is, that the King has chosen them, his choice is a presumption in their favor, and not a reason for their condemnation.' It is impossible, in any period of history, to find arrogant pretensions more strikingly contrasted with the real state of the facts. At length the Address was carried against the Ministers, by a vote of two hundred and twentyone to one hundred and eighty one, and concluded thus: e is ce in as & ffect tary Ide asks con the sto heir M. ack ted of 'Sire, the Charter, which we owe to the wisdom of your august predecessor, and the benefits of which your majesty is firmly resolved to consolidate, consecrates as a right the intervention of the country in the discussion of the public interests. This intervention must be, it is in fact, indirect, wisely measured, circumscribed within limits exactly traced, and which we shall never suffer to be passed; but it is positive in its result, for it makes the permanent agreement of the political views of your government with the wishes of your people an indispensable condition of the regular conduct of public affairs. Sire, our loyalty, our devotedness, condemn us to say that this agreement does not exist. 'An anxious distrust of the sentiments and reason of France is now the fundamental idea of the administration. It afflicts your people, because it insults them; it excites their apprehension because it threatens their liberties. 'This distrust cannot approach your noble heart. No, Sire, France no more desires anarchy than you desire despotism. She deserves your faith in her loyalty, as she reposes faith in your promises. Between those, who misunderstand a nation so calm, so faithful, and us, who, with a profound conviction, come to confide to your bosom the sorrows of a people jealous of the esteem and confidence of their King, let the wisdom of your majesty pronounce. Your royal prerogatives have placed in your hands the means of securing between the powers of the State that constitutional harmony, which is the first and necessary condition of the strength of the throne and the grandeur of France.' The Address by no means expressed, in all its parts, the concurring sentiments of all those who voted for its adoption. Many of them were avowed Republicans, who neither entertained that respect for the Monarch personally, nor for monarchy in the abstract, which is put forward in the Address. But such men were willing to overlook expressions of that kind, and to adopt the whole as a measure of opposition. Had the King been capable at this time, or at any other, of calculating his own position and rightly estimating the disposition of the country, he might undoubtedly have saved his throne for a while, and perhaps transmitted it peaceably to the Dauphin, by mak ing the concessions, which the temper of the times demanded at his hands. A change of Ministers, a frank and sincere committing of himself to such objects of public improvement as the liberal party proposed, might have left him the popular King of a great nation, if it deprived him of the dubious honor of being chief of an aristocratic faction. But, with the infatuation of another James II, he rushed headlong on to his own destruction, in spite of the warning voice of wisdom and experience. He immediately communicated to the Deputies his fixed resolution to persist in sustaining the Ministers, and ordered the prorogation of the Chambers to the 1st of September: it being well understood that he intended soon to order a dissolution, thus taking the chances of a new election, or at least procrastinating the contemplated blow at the Charter. Charles X was now at war with France. The nation had declared, in every form wherein such a resolution could be impressed upon the King, that his government should not go on so long as his present Ministers remained in office; and he had as resolutely declared that he would on no condition relinquish his Ministers. An appeal to arms must even then have been foreseen as the probable, nay, almost the necessary issue of such a contention. But the provisions of the last budget would enable the government to continue in being until the next September, without the aid of a new vote of supplies for the interim, at least so far as to meet the necessary expenses of the State. It is true that the expedition against Algiers required the concurrence of the Chambers; but the Ministers calculated, wisely enough perhaps, that if they carried their main object, of overturning the Charter, they should have no difficulty in disposing of the ob |