As to the dispositions of the Duc d'Angoulême there could be no doubt, and he commanded the army-by that army alone could the Regency exist for an hour: the provinces of the East, West, and South, were still nominally under the rule of the Cortes. If the Regency played false to its Commander, it must have done so at its own peril-a peril too grave to be incurred, or by intelligence with Paris. In that case the agents of the secret Government would be acting in opposition to the responsible Ministry in France and the Commander of her armies in Spain. Let us look at their acts: a couple will suffice.

Within a week of the Proclamation, a Decree issued for arming the ultra faction, under the title of "corps of voluntary royalists," a body that soon rivalled the Strelitz of Ivan the Terrible.

On the 27th June a Decree appeared without a parallel, even in revolutionary France, entitled " For the purification of civil servants," by which every person employed for the previous three years (it was soon afterwards extended to the military also) was subjected to an examination, by a secret tribunal, as to whether or not he had done or said anything "by which the servants of the King and the good cause may have suffered." There was no method of procedure laid down; every method was good; all information was available, and all proceedings secret. The body thus affected is numerous beyond the limits of English conception, and even of French calculation: the multitude of clerks is, in fact, the master grievance of Spain: there was not one of this body not affected to one or other faction, because, in fact, they constituted the factious class. But this decree struck not alone antagonists; every one of them from that hour was an accused person, without knowledge of the accusation, without opportunity of defence. Servility became the bread of the public servant, the fear of delation his companion. The vices of men, or even their weakness, the jealousies of vicinage, the competitions of self-love, were worked into the tissue of civil power, transmitted into patriotism, and gratified under the

form of public zeal. You will find the description of such things in the pages of Tacitus, but it was a native Despot who enforced them on Rome. Here ten times ten thousand prizes were held out to invention, and who shall count the solaces for pique? But in the novelty of circumstances, the advantage was not possessed of professional informers, and in town and city, in village and hamlet, they were separated from the neighbour, the relative, the dependant, and the friend, by an uncertain and meandering line.

But the Duc d'Angoulême could not suppress his indignation, and he issued a Proclamation, in which he declared himself the arbiter of contending parties, and resolved not to allow the triumph of France to become the triumph of faction. The French Minister is furious; he instantly writes to the Ambassador, whom he had ordered to be "King of Spain," to nullify by every means the Proclamation of the Prince: his words are-amortir le coup. The Prince had to submit to the humiliation of an explanation, which was, in fact, a retractation.

Did the French Minister really believe that a republican reaction and the destruction of the French would have been the consequence of this step? By no means. In his private communications now published he describes it as having produced the "best effects, even amongst the corps of royalists, who complain that by punishing the constitutional troops who had laid down their arms, new enemies are constantly raised to them." This is no after-thought; it is written nine days after the Decree, namely, on the 17th of August. Again, ten days later he writes to the Ambassador at Madrid, who had been sending him all the absurd gossip of the Puerta del Sole, as follows:

"You have been listening to the cries of the Spanish royalists and to the complaints of diplomatic agents, enemies of France. You have not seen, as I have here, the answers of the Commandants of the Fortresses, who all declare that they are desirous of surrendering themselves, but are prevented, because in laying down their arms they would be

imprisoned and massacred by the orders of the Regency. You have not seen the reports of the cruelties of Merino and the other royalist chiefs, and, consequently, you have not been in a state to judge of the effect."

Can it be believed that the sentence immediately following is this: "Une seule ordonance a tout gaté?"

The only act of the Prince was that Proclamation: it was directed against the only danger that France had to fear― the only business in which the Regency was engaged.

I subjoin a Spanish statement of the case, from the introduction to the Marquis of Miraflore's valuable collection of State Papers:

"In six short weeks this change has been effected, so powerful were the means and so instant the agents, the Duc d'Angoulême having, in the mean time, remained a passive spectator, restrained by that same occult influence which had already not only coerced his judgment, but compromised him in its own measures. His patience was at last exhausted, and he fulminated against the regency, on the 8th August, the Decree of Andujar. On this a howl arose from the clubs and journalists of Madrid, and, far more important, a whisper came to him from Paris. He had dared to take at length a step, according to his pledge, to arrest excesses and vengeances. He had dared to take measures for the safety of his army, thereby compromised. He had dared to endeavour to keep faith with those who had laid down their arms by Compact with France, and on the condition of an Amnesty, and he was consequently bearded to the face by the regency and its minions, threatened with the resistance of the armies of Spain, in case he attempted to withdraw from their lusts the victims of their vengeance. He was told by the rabble of the streets of Madrid that he had attacked Spanish independence, and it was notified to him from Paris that vengeance was a customary habit of the Spanish nation;' that he had exceeded the powers with which he was invested, mistaking the views of the King's government; that his act would seriously compromise it in face of the Northern Powers."

The easy march of the French, so contrary to all expectation, brought to the clearest demonstration two truths. The first, that the party of the Cortes had no root: the second, that the Royalist party had, if possible, still less, for it had been expelled by that very Government which vanished before the French. The Spaniards are the proudest of people, and the ablest to resist a foe; but France was their friend, or they expected her to be so. They looked to being rescued by her out of the hands of 200,000 brawling Philistines, who had got hold of them as a Dragoman does of a traveller, or an Ambassador.

The grave and important part of the matter is, however, the insight it affords into the causes of the present condition of Europe, and into the working of its governing system. The Minister of one power here appears acting for another, who is kept out of view. To serve this foreign master, he had accepted every consequence, and employed every means, even to the last. What the urgency was that impelled him, may be estimated from the obstacles against which, apparently unaided, he had to contend-the aversion of his colleagues, the exasperation of England, the opposition and disgust of the agent whom he employed,-no less a person than the heir to the French Crown, in face of the anticipated contingency of a general triumph of Revolution, and a Muscovite occupation of France. The path was too intricate to have been hit by chance,—the difficulties too great to have been conquered by accident,-the consequences too appalling not to have been avoided,—the results too evident not to have been foreseen.

That Minister was no longer M. de Villele, but M. de Chateaubriand, suddenly transferred to the Foreign Office at Paris, and dismissed so soon as the Spanish operation was completed.

CHAPTER VIII.

Quadruple Treaty.

THE Decade does not elapse without a new convulsion; French troops are again crossing the Bidassoa, not as foes but friends, and this time, according to the original scheme of Chateaubriand, wearing the Spanish cockade. But in the meantime the colours had changed. It is no longer inviolable right to succession that had to be maintained,—it is no longer to support a King against a Constitution, but to maintain a Queen set up by one. Strange reflections might be suggested by such events to the inhabitants of the other planets, but in this earth they are not extraordinary. England, who was so decidedly convinced in 1823 of the guilt and folly of interference in the affairs of neighbours, is now engaged with France in this same scheme, and, indeed, has seduced her into it. This is a matter which admits of no discussion; if not seen at a glance it cannot be seen at all.

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Now what had we to expect? Time had passed his hand over the wounds of former strife, and covered even the cicatrices mutual jealousies had ceased between England and France; they admitted community of political interests, and a new bond had arisen between them,-that of similarity of opinions in regard to government, and of Institutions. Was it possible then to conceive that both should concur, or that even one should undertake, any foreign operation not unmistakeably just, profitable and necessary; or that the freedom of the people should suffer any measure to be undertaken, except after the fullest exposition and the freest consent?

This union of the nations was not merely one of sympathy, it also involved the profoundest political objects; it was at once an enjoyment and a security. It must have been their first care to preserve these blessings, and therefore to