One would suppose that it would not have required the whole machinery of the state, ordinary and extraordinary, to prevent the exclusion of such characters. The efforts of the machinery may be successful, and the Royalists may be excluded; but the very use of the machinery proves what M. D. Chateaubriand contends for, that the Royalists are not that unpopular and contemptible party which the supporters of the Revolutionary interests assert. But if it should happen that, in spite of all the threats and terrors of power, any considerable number of Royalists should be reelected, it would prove two most decisive and satisfactory points;

1st, that the Royalists were indeed a most powerful party and, 2d, that there is growing up in France a spirit of independence and consistency: we therefore have no hesitation in saying, that we think it would be greatly for the interests of France herself, and more remotely for those of Europe at large, that the new chamber should exhibit a majority of Royalists; not of bigots or madmen anxious to re-establish feudal rights, to resume national property, and abrogate the Charter; but of such Royalists as M. de Chateaubriand, who see in the strict maintenance of the Charter the only hope of salvation for France.

But the adversaries of the Royalists adduce the little resistance made to Bonaparte in March, 1815, as a decisive proof of the weakness of the Royalists. M. de Chateaubriand victoriously answers, that it is no proof at all; for that it was the men of the Revolution who filled all the posts, military and civil, at the mo ment of invasion; and he indignantly asks—

"Good Heavens! who, then, are they who use such an argument to prove the minority of the Royalists ?-are they not the very men who endeavour to excuse events in which they see their own condemnation?-worthy public servants, the authors and favourers of the system of revolutionary interests, by which none are to be promoted but the friends of Bonaparte the disciples of the Revolution?*

"What, you, who would believe nothing that we said-you, who treated us as alarmists, when we told you of the danger of FranceYOU, who would not even open the letters which were addressed to you from the Departments-You, who could not watch the gulf of Lyons with the whole Toulon fleet-you, so pusillanimous in the hour of danger, so incapable of taking a resolution, following a plan, or conceiving an idea-You, who had only time to hide yourselves, leaving thirty-five millions* in hard cash, for the immediate use of the Usurper, so difficult was it to find half a dozen waggons,-it is YOU--YOU who dare reproach the Royalists, scattered and disarmed by YOURSELVES, for not having saved the King! Oh, you had better have held your peace, than have exposed yourselves to hear that you and your dreadful systems are the cause of all the mischief-of all the

* About 1,500,0001. sterling-Trans.

misfortune. If you had not alienated all the Royalists, and advanced all the Revolutionists-if you had not "cooled our friends, and heated our enemies”—the Usurper could never have succeeded.

·

It was your revolutionary Prefects, your Bonapartist governors, who opened France to this calamity.

Did you not adroitly place major-generals all through the south, that he might not want creatures and partisans along the line of his march. Well might he say that his eagles would fly from steeple to steeple. He travelled commodiously from prefecture to prefecture, sleeping every night (thanks to your care) at a friend's house;—and it is you who complain of the Royalists! Who is there who does not know, that in all countries the civil and military bodies do all,—the unarmed crowd can do nothing? Where did the Usurper meet the slightest opposition, except where, by accident, he met some of those men who were not in your blessed revolutionary interests?—(pp. 135-137.)

M. de Chateaubriand next replies to the charge of incapacity brought against the Royalists. He admits, indeed, that if all the ministers since the Restoration had been Royalists, it would convict the Royalists of the most deplorable incapacity; but he shows that, except one or two men in each of the ministries, the cabinets were composed of the men of the Revolution; and, looking at the follies and faults of their administrations, he asks, 'could Royalists have done worse?" But he takes a more profound and philosophical view of the question, and shows that there is a species of ability, a fatal and peculiar talent, a kind of 'faculty for evil,' which may fit men for periods of anarchy or despotism. In times of darkness and confusion such men appear giants, who in the clearer and purer atmosphere of a well-ordered and free constitutional government dwindle to dwarfs; and though possessed of powers for disturbing or oppressing a people, are found totally unfit for the temperate and judicious management of their interests, and the peaceable and prudent maintenance of their rights. This is a truth of which the history of all times and ages, and above all, the history of the last twenty-five years, afford most convincing proofs. The manner in which the revolutionary interests are permitted to operate, is described by M. de Chateaubriand in the following dramatic style:

men?

Ask a favour for a soldier of the army of Condé from these gentle"No," they reply, "give us the men who have fired balls in the teeth of the allies." Now, for my part, I should like just as well those who fired balls in the teeth of the Bonapartists.

6

They place on the same level Laroche Jaquelein, who fell exclaiming Vive le Roi! on the field bathed with the blood of his illustrious brother, and some officer who died at Waterloo, blaspheming the name of the Bourbons. The cross of honour is given to the soldier who fought in that battle against the king; and the loyal volunteer who abandoned

all to follow his majesty, has not even the little riband which was promised at Alost, as the reward of his affecting fidelity.

Again: the decrees of Bonaparte, dated from the Tuileries in May, 1815, are carefully executed, while the ordonnances of the King, signed at Ghent in the same month, are wholly disregarded. The halfpay officer who is a member of the Legion of Honour is paid-and it is very right-but the knight of St. Louis, bent down by old age, and by adversity abroad, and more severe adversity at home,-starves upon alms too happy if he obtain a miserable great coat to cover his nakedness, and an order of admission into the hospital, where the Filles de la Charité may dress those old wounds, which are despised or forgotten like the old monarchy.

'Finally, it is a folly, an error, a crime! not to have served Bonaparte. If you wish to do a young man a service, take care not to say that he saved himself from the Conscription by forfeiting half his fortune; that he has suffered exile, persecution, and imprisonment, to avoid lending assistance to the Usurper;-that he never took any of his oaths, or accepted any of his places;-that he preserved pure and unstained his loyalty to the king, whom, at the hazard of eternal exile, be followed in his last misfortune:these are all sufficient motives for his exclusion. "He has not served," you will be answered coldly; "he knows nothing."

Is honour nothing?

"Nonsense! the present age knows better than that!"

But, to console yourself for this refusal, propose some man who has accepted all Bonaparte would give from the high dignity of trainbearer, down to the humbler office of imperial scullion. You have only to say; what would you have? Choose the magistracy, the ministry, or the army. A hundred witnesses will depose in favour of your client. They will attest that they have seen him keeping watch in the imperial anti-chambers, with extraordinary courage. He only asks a decoration; to be sure he ought to have one. Quick, let us knight him; hang to his button-hole the Cross of St. Louis.-Don't be afraid.-He is a cautious man, and at a proper opportunity will prudently put it in his pocket.

O for such a man I admit it was easy to find a place; he was spotless he had committed no offence: but you will hesitate to present this other.--He, during the hundred days, trampled, I regret to say, the Cross of St. Louis under his feet-"Poo, is that all? a trifle; merely excess of energy that fiery character is like generous wine, which time will mellow."

A man has during the hundred days been a historian of the Charnelhouses of the Police." Give him a pension: talents ought to be encouraged."

}

Another repaired to Ghent, at the risk of his life, to offer to the king money and soldiers. He solicits a small place in his village." A place to him, to an ultra-by no means. Give it to the Custom-House officer who fired at him as he was passing the frontier."

You have not succeeded in obtaining the appointment of tha

judge-But do you know why?" it was promised to an apostate priest."

'A prefect had prevaricated: the report of his crime was ready to present; but it is stopped-Why?" Do you not see that such a report would prevent us from employing him again?"

Where are your certificates? is a question put to the honest Royalist humbly soliciting the lowest place. He had suffered during twentyfive years for the king-lost his family, his fortune, health, every thing. -He has the recommendation of the princes, of that princess, perhaps, whose slightest word is an oracle to all who acknowledge the influence of virtue, of heroism, and of misfortune. These recommendations, alas! are quite insufficient-worse than nothing.

A Bonapartist arrives; countenances unbend; his papers were in the office of the Police; but he lost them when M. Fouché was dismissed. That is unlucky, but we will take your word; here, my good friend, here is your appointment.'

According to the system of revolutionary interests, a man of the hundred days cannot be too speedily employed: too soon sent, reeking with his new treason, to infect the Palace of our Kings, as Messalina brought into that of the Cæsars the stain of her imperial prostitutions.―pp. 189 *

-193.

As to the fidelity of the persons thus preferred to the Royalists, M. de Chateaubriand, in a strain of impartial indignation which does him great honour, and which few Frenchmen would have the candour to utter, says

• What does it cost these men to deny their masters? Nothing. Did they not desert Bonaparte himself? Within the space of a few months they alternately assumed, abandoned, and resumed, the white, and the tri-coloured cockade. The arrival of a Courier at once changed their hearts and the colour of their riband.

C

They are in the right, however; for every time that they violate the faith they have sworn, they obtain a new office, The age of an old deer is reckoned by the branches of his horns; these men's places may be counted by their oaths.'-p. 181.

But the great object of M. de Chateaubriand's anxiety is the cause of religion and the state of the clergy; he demands with admirable eloquence and unanswerable force of reasoning a church establishment, not extravagantly endowed, but just rich enough to induce a sufficient number of respectable persons to adopt the ecclesiastical profession. We cannot find room for as many extracts as we could wish, but we cannot refrain from giving the picture of the state to which the clergy of the most Christian monarchy is now reduced.

"When a poor priest wants the month's salary which is due to him, he must present a certificate of character to the Mayor of the place in which he resides. The Mayor writes to the Sub-prefect, who, in his turn, addresses himself to the Prefect, whose prudence induces him to

refer it to the Chief Clerk in the ecclesiastical branch of the Home Department: the Chief Clerk may think it necessary to speak to the Minister, and at last this great affair being maturely examined, eight shillings and eleven pence are munificently paid down to the man, who consoles the afflicted, shares his mite with the poor, comforts the sick, exhorts the dying, buries the dead, and prays for his enemies, for France, and for the king!'-pp. 199, 200.

This subject leads him to the real cause of the present commotions in France, and the dissolution of the Chambers, which we shall very briefly state. All the property of the church was confiscated during the Revolution; the greater part of it was alienated to individuals, and relative to this point there is no question any where, it is secured by the Charter to its present possessors. But some of the woods of the church were not alienated, and remain to this day in the hands of the government: the ministry proposed to sell these woods for the profit of the state, the deputies opposed this measure, and would restore to the church the unsold property; the ministry insist, the deputies are firm, and the Chambers are dissolved. M. de Chateaubriand observes on this subject, that

• The doctrines of those disciples of liberty are somewhat singular.

The rights of property, established by the Charter, are construed to extend to those only who have other people's goods, and not to those who seek to obtain their own. These rights of property are made, it would seem, for new France, and exclude old France-they protect the acquisitions of yesterday, and defeat those of a thousand years ago.-Confisca tion of property is abolished by the Charter in the cases of treason; but it is permitted to exist, it seems, in cases of fidelity.'-pp. 122, 123.

he

The latter chapters of M. de Chateaubriand's book, at which we now arrive, are directed against those who desire the old régime; proves, with irresistible force, that the old régime cannot, ought not to be re-established, and that the prosperity and glory, not only of the country at large, but of the higher orders themselves, are most certainly attainable by the representative system of constitutional monarchy. The following passages, contrasting the condition of the higher orders before the Revolution and under the Charter, is a very just reproach to the favourers of the old régime.

What under the old system of France became of that class of men who had attained "the age for ripening the fruits which youth had promised? What occupations remained for them in the prime of their life and in the fulness of their faculties?--a burden to themselves and others; surviving the passions which animate, and the graces which adorn, youth, they withered in a garrison or at court; in the idle corner of an old country house, or in the as idle bustle of Parisian society;-triflers by prefession, endured rather than desired--without any occupation but the gossip of the town, the sittings of the academy, the success of