does more, He fills her with his presence; He fixes his abode in the heart of the children which he reserves for her; for the heart of the Christian is here below the Lord's home."-Polignac, E'tudes Historiques, &c., pp. 23, 24.

That a mind imbued with such convictions should in practical life be the advocate of the church as a national institution, and of the principle of legitimacy in politics, is to be expected; nor is there in the abstract views of M. de Polignac on church and state questions any thing but what the lovers of the church and monarchy in every country must heartily approve. The mistake into which he fell, was not that he held these principles, and that he opposed them to the infidel and democratic tendencies whose influence is as yet fearfully prevalent among the French people; it lay in this, that he identified his church principles with the Romish communion, and his principles of legitimacy with the impracticable notions and extravagant pretensions of the ancien régime, of which Charles X. was the royal incarnation. This was his fundamental error; the error from which even the bitter experience of his failure and his subsequent misfortunes has not delivered him. It was this error which led him to grasp with rather too eager a hand those reins of power which his subsequent conduct showed that he was unable to hold with the firmness and severity required by the fierceness of the opposition arrayed against him, And assuredly never did any man succeed to the possession of power, not only under greater personal disadvantages, but under circumstances more unfavourable. Upon this point the testimony of M. Capefigue is conclusive: he dates the ruin of the elder branch of the Bourbons as far back as the dissolution of the Villèle administration, of which at the close of its career he forms the following judgment:

"M. de Villèle may accuse himself of having inflicted a fatal blow upon the Bourbons of the elder branch. He wore out all the springs of government by overstraining them; he handed over to his successors all the arms of power in a wasted and decayed condition; henceforth there was nothing but concession; because every thing had been too violent, too completely at variance with law and opinion; every thing had been pushed to extremes; the country had been wantonly agitated. In consequence of the headlong adoption of a bad system, it had been necessary to strike down whatever offered any resistance; and as resistance spread more widely in proportion as the social order was more completely departed from, the result was, that every thing was struck down, and the hostility at last became universal. The legitimate influence of the government over the elections could no longer be exercised, on account of the manner in which it had been abused; in the provinces the power was no longer respected on account of the frauds which it had

committed; the control over the journals was worn out by the strange abuse of the censorship; religion was powerless, the clergy were denounced as enemies; the crown was universally distrusted, and the country was clamorous for guarantees, because no faith was any longer placed in promises. What I find fault with M. de Villèle for is, that he rendered any government impossible after him: there lies the real cause of the ruin of the elder branch; it is not to be sought in any thing else. It began when the septennial ministry placed all in opposition against the monarchy. And what means of resistance to so mighty a movement did that ministry bequeath to its successors? A power which the feeble probity and the vacillating system of the Marugnac ministry could neither raise nor strengthen in the eyes of the country.”—Capefigue, Histoire de la Restauration, vol. iv. pp. 71, 72.

It sounds rather inconsistent with this view of the condition to which matters had been reduced by the Villèle administration, to hear M. Capefigue declare elsewhere, that even after the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies by the Polignac ministry, and the re-election of the same hostile majority,

"Every thing was possible with a Martignac ministry; a cabinet guided by the loyal opinions of the Duke of Richelieu might have arranged every thing; M. Pasquier proposed a coalition ministry which would have brought back the defection votes; but nothing of the kind was done; and then nothing remained but to have recourse to extraordinary methods. . . . -Capefigue, L'Europe depuis l'Avènement du roi Louis-Philippe, vol. i. p. 314.

This assuredly was not the case; the Martignac ministry fell by its intrinsic weakness, by its want of a definite purpose; the system of concession had been tried, tried in vain and exhausted; there remained but one experiment to be made, and that was a return to decidedly monarchical principles; the accession of M. de Polignac to power was that experiment; in his hands and those of Charles X. it could not but fail; still it was a necessary experiment, the only alternative left to the crown in the condition to which the country had been reduced primarily by the ultramontane and royalist extravagances of the Villèle cabinet. But while in justice to Prince Polignac it must be admitted that he succeeded to an impracticable position, it cannot be denied that the difficulties of that position were much aggravated by the very fact of his appointment to the chief power, and by the manner in which he wielded that power. At a moment when the country was in a state of universal irritation and growing excitement, in consequence of a system of hostility on the part of the monarch, and the jesuitical clique by which he was surrounded, against the public rights guaranteed by the charter; when, moreover, a large

and powerful party made its jealousy for the charter the pretext of an opposition whose real object it was to place the democratic element in the ascendant, it was surely unwise in the extreme, to select as the first adviser of the crown a man who in the very infancy of the constitutional monarchy had made himself conspicuous, by demurring to take the oath and his seat in the house of peers, on the ground of a decided objection to the terms of the charter. Such an appointment was calculated to create, among those who were sincerely attached to the existing constitution, a suspicion that the charter itself was to be tampered with; while it afforded to the enemies of the constitution an excellent pretext for those measures of violent opposition, which ended in the overthrow of the monarchy and the triumph of their principles. But if the appointment of Prince Polignac was impolitic, the manner in which he executed the task he had undertaken was, if possible, still more ruinous to the cause of the monarchy. He had to deal with an implacably hostile principle, in opposition to which he meant to assert the divine right of royalty. To carry out this assertion successfully, it was absolutely necessary to strike a blow; and if a blow was to be struck, it was essential that it should be struck effectually, with such energy and promptness, as would paralyse the opposition, and secure to Charles X. and his minister that dictatorial power of which they stood in need, and which they might possibly have used, as it is evident that Prince Polignac intended to use it, for the regeneration of society. Instead of this, however, the blow was struck in the clumsiest and feeblest manner possible. M. de Polignac boasts that the secret of the fatal ordinances was most scrupulously guarded, so much so, that he excuses the omission of a variety of precautionary measures which the government ought to have taken, by his unwillingness to do any thing which might give the alarm as to the course determined upon by the ministry; and he makes it a matter of complaint and accusation against the liberal party, that they were in a state of complete organization, ready for resistance, the very moment the ordinances appeared. But although the specific measures comprehended in the ordinances were kept a profound secret, it was notorious, and had been so for a considerable time, that a coup d'état of some sort was in contemplation. Not only was the question of the expediency of a coup d'état, and of its possible results, freely canvassed in the political circles of Paris, but it became the subject of communications from the different European cabinets to the French king and his government. The opposition had therefore abundant notice and time to prepare for the day of conflict, at whatever moment, and upon whatever issue that conflict might take place.

The indiscretions of which Charles X. himself was guilty in this respect almost surpass belief. Even so far back as the close of the Martignac administration, the king had betrayed his arrière-pensée, of having recourse to force of arms, if the following anecdote told by M. Capefigue may be relied on :

"The chamber had proved violent and even factious on the occasion of the war budget. M. de Caux (the minister of war) had returned from it sad and thoughtful. Well,' said the king to M. de Caux, how did you find the chamber?' In a fit of ill-humour the minister replied, 'Abominable!' At these words Charles X. drew M. de Caux aside, and thus addressed him :- Well! you admit at last, M. de Caux, that this cannot go on any longer; may I depend on the army?' and so saying he seized him by both hands. M. de Caux saw that he had committed an imprudence. Sire,' answered the minister, 'the question is, for what purpose?' Unconditionally,' replied the king. If your majesty were to appeal to the army by pointing to the charter, and in the name of the charter, you would obtain absolute obedience; but apart from the charter, I can assure you, not; and this is how I prove it. I have had a statistical survey of the army drawn up to say nothing of the non-commissioned officers and the common soldiers, I find that out of twenty thousand officers there are not five hundred who are gentlemen, and not one thousand who have a private income of 600 francs. With such materials, how can you enact the ancien régime ?' 'The charter, the charter !' continued the king, 'who wants to violate that? No doubt it is an imperfect performance! but I shall respect it. As for the army, it has no business with the charter.'-Capefigue, Histoire de la Restauration, vol. iv. p. 180.

Still more curious, as an indication that coming events were casting their shadows before them, is the conversation which took place some time before the July revolution, at a ball given to the king of Naples by the Duke of Orleans, between the Prince and M. de Salvandy, the account of which, coming from the pen of the latter statesman himself, possesses a more authentic character, M. de Salvandy had, in passing near the Duke, indulged himself in a jeu d'esprit, by observing to him, "This is quite Naples fashion, Monseigneur; we are dancing on a volcano." Upon this the Duke laid hold of M. de Salvandy's arm, and the following remarks were exchanged:

"That there is a volcano,' said his royal highness, I believe with you; it is not, however, my fault; I shall not have to reproach myself that I did not endeavour to open the eyes of the king. But what am I to do? nothing is listened to, and Heaven knows where all this will lead to!'--' Very far, Monseigneur, I am persuaded.'-'Certainly,' replied his royal highness, 'I do not know what may happen ; I cannot tell where they will be six months hence; but I know very

well where I shall be. In any event I intend to remain with my family in this palace; to have been driven into exile twice by the faults of other people is quite sufficient; I shall not be caught in the same way again. Whatever danger there may be, I shall not stir from this; I shall not separate my own and my children's destiny from that of my country; such is my fixed determination. I make no secret of my sentiments. Quite recently at Rosny, I have said very freely what I think of it all; and there, the king of Naples, who was with us, has formed a very correct estimate of our position. That prince, who is so broken down, though he is by four years my junior, is a man of great sense; external circumstances compel him to be an absolute king; but his inclinations are not that way, and he made some very judicious observations. A conversation of yours was mentioned at Rosny.'-' Monseigneur, I have said that they are undoing the monarchy; and I am equally convinced that the fall of the throne will compromise, perhaps for a century to come, the prosperity and liberty of France. Regretting as much as you do,' continued the prince, the course in which the king is engaging himself, I am not quite as much afraid as you are of the results."" Capefigue, L'Europe depuis l'Avènement du roi Louis-Philippe, vol. i. pp. 184, 185.

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This conversation, in which even the idea of a revolution, in imitation of the English Revolution of 1688, was introduced, shows to what extent the public mind was prepared for the course pursued by Charles X. and his ministers, and for the consequences which it was likely to entail. It was, therefore, childish, in such a state of the public mind, to imagine that secrecy as to the particular ordinances would enable the government to take the public mind by surprise, and give it the advantage of coming down upon its opponents before they had time to prepare themselves for resistance. That an unwillingness to contemplate beforehand scenes of bloodshed, a reluctance to engage in a decisive struggle, had their share in the irresolution displayed by M. de Polignac at the critical moment, and the inefficiency of his measures, there can be no doubt; and we feel that the man deserves to be honoured for much of what in the minister was

highly blamable. Still there is a general character of what almost amounts to imbecility in the arrangements made for the execution of the ordinances, which clearly proves, that whatever might be the abilities of M. de Polignac in other respects, he was not destined by nature to be a contriver of coups d'état. At the very outset, the insertion of the ordinances in the Moniteur, without taking, at least simultaneously, steps for securing their immediate execution, was a fatal mistake; and no less so the total ignorance of the intentions of the ministry, in which all the officers of the government were kept, who derived their first knowledge of VOL. VI.-NO. XI.-SEPT. 1846.

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