me henceforth to accept. I appeal to your honour, M. le Ministre, and in case of necessity, to that of Prince Louis Napoleon himself, to make my resignation public through the same channel as my nomination-that is, by its insertion in the Moniteur.

"Accept M. le Ministre, &c.
"CH. DE MONTALEMBERT.

"To M. de Casabianca,
Minister of State."

The other was from M. Dupin, one of the Executors of Louis Philippe, and President of the National Assembly at the period of its violent dissolution by the coup d'état of the 2nd of December. He wrote with spirit and dignity.

“To the President of the Re

public.

"I regret exceedingly that, previous to the publication of the decree which I have read this morning in the Moniteur, you had not heard my opinion with the same kindness you have sometimes manifested towards me. I should have tried to demonstrate to you, not merely in the private interest of the children, the greater part minors, of the late King, of whom I am one of the testamentary executors, but in the interest of your own Government, that those who have suggested that measure are not acquainted with the facts; and that they have disregarded all the rules of law and equity. In fact, there is an extreme exaggeration (at least to the amount of half) in the estimate made of the property of the Orleans family. In law, the decree violates in its essence the very principle of property. This right of property was recognised, after a solemn discussion, in the

person of the late King, by the 22nd and 23rd clauses of the law of the 2nd March, 1832; and in the person of his children by the very acts of the Revolution of February, by the decree of the Constituent Assembly of the 25th October, 1848, and by the law of the National Assembly of the 4th February, 1850, promulgated by your Government, and authorised the loan of 20,000,000 on that property by your Minister of Finance. Thus, public right, will, special laws, contracts, all have recognised in the hands of the princes of the house of Orleans their right to the property which the decree of the 22nd of January deprives them of all at once, and in a manner so absolute that the sacred rights of the tomb, the burial ground of Dreux, are not even excepted. If the Constitution of the 15th January was in vigour, the Senate might be appealed to in virtue of the 26th article, which permits that body to make opposition to the promulgation of laws which are contrary to the inviolable character of property.' In the present state of things, the only resource is to appeal to you, Prince, and to invoke your wisdom and the magnanimity of your own feelings when they are again consulted and more deliberately listened to. But if these rigorous measures are to be maintained, a great scruple arises from the depth of my conscience. As Procureur-Général to the Court of Cassation for nearly 22 years; as the principal organ of the law in that high branch of jurisdiction; charged as I am by the Government to proclaim the constant respect to right, and to require the reversal and the annulling of the Acts which violate the laws, or which constitute the

incompetence or the excesses of the Government-how shall I be able henceforth to exercise the same firmness if Acts are introduced in our legislation which are in contradiction with those principles? I feel myself bound, therefore, to tender you my resignation. But I pray you, Prince, and in an earnest manner, not to misunderstand my motives. The resolution I have adopted has nothing to do with politics. As President of the late Assembly, I rigorously kept myself apart from parties and their fatal divisions, and limited myself to maintain, as much as I individually could, the legal and moral doctrines on which the essential order of civilized society reposes. After the coup d'état of the 2nd December, against which it became my duty to protest, as I have done, I awaited the judgment of the people appealed to by you. After that solemn judgment, I adhered frankly to the immense powers which were the result of that appeal, considering them as the strongest guarantee that could be presented to preserve or re-establish those principles which a wild Socialism had endangered and menaced; and, as a public functionary, my co-operation was loyally given to you. But, at the present moment, and on a question of civil right, and of private rights, of natural equity, and of all Christian notions of what is just and unjust, and which I cherished in my soul for more than 50 years as jurisconsulte and as magistrate, I feel myself absolutely called on to resign my functions of ProcureurGénéral.

"Be pleased, Prince, to accept the expression of my sentiments of respectful consideration. 'DUPIN."

With reference to this protest, the Duke de Nemours and the Prince de Joinville, addressed the following letter to the testamentary executors of Louis Philippe, dated

"Claremont, Jan. 29, 1852. "Gentlemen-We have received the protest which you have drawn up against the decree of confiscation issued against us, and we thank you very sincerely for your efforts to resist injustice and violence.

"We have found it quite natural that you should have directed your attention specially to the question of law, without noticing the insults heaped in the preambles of those decrees on the memory of the King our father.

"For a moment we thought of abandoning the reserve which exile imposes upon us, for the purpose of repelling in our own persons the attacks so shamefully cast upon the best of fathers, and, we do not fear to add, the best of Kings.

"But, on considering the matter more maturely, it appeared to us that to such imputations a disdainful silence was the best answer.

"We will therefore not lower ourselves to point out how particularly odious the calumnies are, when brought forward by a man who on two different occasions received proofs of the magnanimity of King Louis Philippe, and whose family never received anything from him but benefits.

"We leave it to public opinion to do justice to the words as well as to the act which accompanies them; and, if we are to believe the testimonies of sympathy which we receive from every side, we are sufliciently revenged.

"To the honour of a country to which the King our father has given eighteen years of peace, of prosperity, and of dignity-of a country which we his sons have loyally served to the honour of that France which is always the mother-country which we love we are happy to observe that these disgraceful decrees, and their still more disgraceful preambles, have not dared to appear excepting under the régime of the state of siege, and after the suppression of all the guarantees which protected the liberties of the nation.

"In finishing, we beg of you, gentlemen, to express our warm feeling of gratitude to the eminent men of all parties who have offered to us the assistance of their talent and their courage.

"We accept that assistance with great pleasure, persuaded that in to-day defending our cause, they defend the rights of the whole of French society.

male, the Duke de Montpensier, the Princess Clementine of Saxe Coburg-Gotha, the Duchess d'Orleans, the Count de Paris, the Duke de Chartres, the King of the Belgians and his three children, and his Royal Highness Duke Frederick William Alexander of Wurtemberg, as guardian of his son by the Princess Marie d'Orleans; and it set forth that the Administration des Domaines had, in spite of the protest of the agents of the Orleans family, attempted to take forcible possession of Neuilly and Monceaux; that the estate of Neuilly consisted of purchases made before and since 1830, and that Monceaux was purchased at public auction by the late King and his sister, the Princess Adelaide, from the creditors of their father, and is not what the law calls domanial or apanager; that in any case, if the Administration des Domaines were to raise any pretensions thereto, it ought to cause them to be judged, and not seize by force, and of its own authority, a patrimonial property; that the domains of Neuilly and Monceaux, and other property of the late King, previous to his accession to the throne in 1830, reserved by him as a private domain, recognised and consecrated by the law of 1882, were the object of no attack or demand from 1880 to the revolution of 1848; that the late King enjoyed and disposed of that property during all that time; that if the revolution of 1848 ordered sequestration to be placed on the property of the house of Orleans, two decrees of the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies of the 25th of October, 1848, and the 4th of February, 1850, prescribed the giving up of the said property, and the definite removing of all sequestration; that the rights of property on which the Adminis

to.

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"LOUIS NAPOLEON.

"(Countersigned) "X. DE CASABIANCA,

Minister of State."

The President of the Republic,

Considering that, without encroaching on the right of property in the person of the princes of the Orleans family, the President of the Republic would not justify the confidence of the French people if he permitted property which ought to belong to the nation to be abstracted from the domains of the State;

"Considering that, according to the ancient public law of France, maintained by the decree of the 21st September, 1790, and by the law of the 8th November, 1814, all the property which belonged to the princes on their accession to the throne was of full right and at the very instant united to the domain of the Crown;

"That thus the decree of the 21st September, 1790, and the law of the 8th November, 1814, enact, The private property of the prince who comes to the throne, and that which he possessed during his reign, on whatever title it may be, is of full right and at the very instant united to the domain of the nation, and the effect of this union is perpetual and irrevocable;'

"That the consecration of this principle ascends to very distant times of the Monarchy; that amongst others may be cited the example of Henry IV.; that prince having wished, by letters patent of the 16th April, 1590, to prevent

gister those letters patent by a judgment of the 15th July, 1591, and Henry IV., subsequently applauding this firmness, issued, in the month of July, 1607, a decree revoking his first letters patent;

"Considering that this fundamental rule of the Monarchy was applied under the reign of Louis XVIII. and Charles X., and reproduced in the law of the 15th January, 1825;

"That no legislative act had revoked it on the 9th August, 1830, when Louis Philippe accepted the Crown; that thus by the fact of that acceptance all the property which he possessed at that period became the indisputable property of the State;

Considering that the general donation, subject to a life interest, consented to by Louis Philippe for the advantage of his children, to the exclusion of his eldest son, on the 7th August, 1830, the very day on which the throne was offered him, and before his acceptance, which took place on the 9th of the same month, had only for its object to prevent the union to the domain of the State of the large estates possessed by the prince called to the throne;

"That at a later period, when it became known, this act excited public disapprobation;

That, if the annulling of it was not pronounced, it was because there did not exist, as under the ancient Monarchy, an authority competent to repress the violation of the principles of public law, the protection of which was formerly confided to the Parliaments;

"That, in reserving the life interest of the property comprised

in the donation, Louis Philippe deprived himself of nothing, and wished only to assure to his family a patrimony become that of the State;

"That the donation itself, not less than the exclusion of the eldest son, in the expectation of the accession to the throne of that son, was, on the part of the King Louis Philippe, the most formal recognition of that fundamental rule, since it required so many precautions to elude it;

"That it would be vain to allege that the union to the public domain of the properties of the prince could only result from the acceptance of the Crown by him, and that as such acceptance only took place on the 9th of August, the donation consented on the 7th of the same month should produce its effect;

Considering that at the latter date Louis Philippe was no longer a private person, since the two Chambers declared him King of the French, under the sole condition of taking an oath to the Charter;

"That, in consequence of his acceptance, he was King on the 7th August, since on that day the national will was manifested by the two Chambers, and that the fraud on the law of public order does not exist less when it is concerted in view of a certain fact which is immediately about to be realised;

"Considering that the property comprised in the donation of the 7th August being irrevocably incorporated in the domain of the State, could not be detached by the clauses of Art. 22 of the law of the 2nd March, 1832;

"That it would be contrary to all principles ascribing a retroactive effect to that law, to cause it

66

Art. 2. The State remains charged with the payment of the debts of the Civil List of the last reign.

"Art 3. The dowry of 300,000f. awarded to the Duchess d'Orleans is maintained.

"Art. 4. The property returning to the State in virtue of Art. 1, shall be partly sold (vendus en partie) by the Administration des Domaines, and the proceeds shall be divided as follows:

"Art. 5. Ten millions are allowed to the Sociétés de Secours Mutuels authorised by the law of the 15th July, 1850.

"Art. 6. Ten millions shall be employed in ameliorating the dwellings of workmen in the great manufacturing towns.

'Art 7. Ten millions shall be