prying investigation; they were only to strike out abuse and insult, and to protect persons and functionaries against accusations a thousand times more formidable than those which are carried before tribunals, where there are means of defence, while here there

are none.

The report of the Committee of Deputies was favourable to the measure. They began with stating indeed, that some part of their number was decidedly hostile to it. According to them the liberty of the journals was inseparable from that of the press. Vigilant sentinels, advanced guards, these checks were to a representative government what speech is to man; they formed a correspondence and a tye between all similar interests; they left no opinion without defence, no abuse in the shade, no injustice without avengers. The minister learns beforehand what he has to hope or fear; the people what will be useful or injurious to them; the journals give wings to thought, and afford that sudden publicity and seasonable manifestation which nothing can supply; attack openly the liberty of the press, or respect that of the journals, the law makes no distinction

between them.

In opposition to this opinion, how ever, the majority of the committee thought that there were peculiar circumstances in the state of France which rendered the unrestrained liberty of the journals at present unsafe. The diversity of opinions and interests destroyed or created in a revolution of twentyfive years, formed a terrible situation, which had no parallel in the history of nations. It was important then to maintain the rights acquired by the nation, but without hatred and without violence; to make France a united people; to conclude a treaty between the belligerent parties; to shut the gates of that arsenal of abuse, where every one went to seek poisoned arrows. The scandalous abuse of

the journals had been admitted even by the defenders of their liberty, had offended the majority of the Chamber and foreign governments, and placed public liberty in danger.

The warm and prolonged debate which followed was much less employed in the discussion of the particular project, than in a general attack and defence of the whole system of ministry, and particularly of all that series of measures of which the present formed a part. "We are at such a crisis," exclaimed M. Bignon, " that if individual liberty, the liberty of the press, and the liberty of elections, are taken from us, not only will there be neither charter nor constitutional monarchy, but there will be neither monarchy nor despotism; there will be nothing but revolution and anarchy. The power will rest with the strongest; who will not then shudder at the dangers to which the nation will be exposed?""It is not three months," said Benjamin Constant, "since, censuring what did not accord with your doctrines, you quoted to us the example of Spain! In that country there were no limits to power, no journals carrying liberal ideas into all the villages, no legisla tion separate from the religion of the state, no law of democratical election. On the contrary, all that you wish to give us, Spain possessed. Your law against individual liberty is only a poor copy of the measures which peopled the castles, the convents, the galleys. Your restrictions on the press would have made the inquisitors smile. Your law of oligarchical election will never be so good as the Council of Castile. Well! what has been the result to Spain of all that you seek to introduce into France?"

The strongest impression, however, was made by the speech of Camille Jordan, an individual rendered highly respectable by age and talents, who had been intimately connected with ministers, and was still a member of the Coun

occasion.

cil of State. "A member," said he, "of the committee which examined the project,and having differed from the opinion of the majority, I think myself called upon to explain my motives, and not to give an entirely silent vote on this grave It is with feelings of deep grief that I mount this tribune. Anxious respecting the destinies of the country and of the throne, I cannot but be afflicted also at the painful situation in which my duty places me, when, a functionary of the government, I feel myself called upon to resist the measures proposed by it; when, united with many of his Majesty's ministers by old ties of affection and esteem, I am called to combat those whom I should have been so happy to defend. But I obey the voice of my conscience; nor is it till after a scrupulous examination, and with the most entire conviction, that I have decided upon such a dissent, and its public expression. It appeared peculiarly the part of us, old partizans of royalty, early victims of revolutionary persecution, here to raise our voice, and to give to the opposition against ministry the character which it ought to have, that of an opposition animated by no feeling of bitterness, founded upon principle only, and whose fears are still less for liberty than for the throne, which is more directly and immediate. ly menaced."

Ministers, following the train of opposition, directed their efforts to defend less the law in question, than the general system of administration, and even the fundamental principles of the constitution. "It is alleged," said M. Pasquier," that the charter has not been accepted by the nation, like all the other constitutions which have successively governed us. Strange acceptances, to which nothing was ever want ing, except freedom and conviction. Buonaparte found all routes easy to his designs of supreme greatness, because

he could place himself on the ruins of anarchy, while we owed anarchy only to the delirium of liberty. Nothing, accordingly, was offered to France, but the lifeless semblance of a liberty of which she had never felt anything except the excesses. Thus it was with the consular and imperial constitutions; they were not really chosen by the nation, but deliberated and accepted in the manner that it was then allowed to deliberate and accept. Legitimacy fol lows another course; she admits no forms but those which are real, and respects them when once adopted. It is studiously repeated, that in 1814, the charter was only a word, and existed only in name. But perhaps it was not possible at first to act otherwise. I ask, if those who pass censures so severe, and I venture to say so dangerous, what government has been, in point of fact, more liberal? The misfortunes of foreign occupation were doubtless terrible; but how rash are those who dare to reproach, even indi. rectly, an august family with those evils, which, without it, would have passed all imaginable measure! France, partitioned perhaps, orescaping this evil only by ten years of internal war, which would have spread devastation over the whole surface of this fine country; a national bankruptcy; a population de stroyed; an agriculture annihilated; such are the evils from which we have been a second time rescued by that standard of the lily, which an orator lately has scarcely feared to reproach with the protection which we owe to it."

The Minister for Foreign Affairs observed, that in all the speeches of the opposition, one principle reigned, which was, in case of the adoption by the Chambers of the laws proposed, to invoke, to foretell, to threaten an insurrection, in which the strongest should give the law. On this subject, however, the minister trusted that

France had not yet lost all the fruits of her experience. Her own history told her that the insurrections of soldiers are always mortal to liberty; and not their insurrection only, but even their intervention. She could not forget days yet living in her annals, where they were written in characters of blood. Yet the enemies of government had looked abroad through Europe to find, if possible, a spark out of which they might kindle the conflagration which they desired to exhibit. A great movement had taken place in Spain, in which the troops had taken a share, and even given the first impulse; cries of joy were raised. The ministry for foreign affairs were already threatened with an accusation for not having shewn themselves sufficiently favourable to this new revolution. The minister ardently wished the happiness of the Spanish people, and that by erecting upon new bases the alliance of the throne and of the nation, they might give at once to public liberty and to the rights of the crown every desirable security. At the same time, he feared not to say, that if liberty did not, from its very dawn, cause the arms to fall from the hands of those soldiers, who could for a moment forget that they had received them only under an oath of obedience to the King; if this error were prolonged beyond the first moments of its birth, all was over with the liberty, the repose, the happiness, of the Spaniards. Let Spain then be free, great, and happy, with her King; but let us not forget that the point which she is rushing forward to, is that at which France is already arrived.

In the discussion of the particular clauses, a number of amendments were moved by the left side, which, however, were all rejected, though by small majorities. The law itself was finally carried by a majority of 136 to 109.

Warm as had been the debates on the two laws now passed, they were

only the prelude to that tremendous conflict, in all which the political elements of France were to rush in battle array against each other, and the shock was to be felt in the farthest extremities of the kingdom. The Parisians looked forward with intense anxiety to what they called the "battle of the elections," which was to decide whether an essential change, tending to increase the power of the monarchy and the aristocracy, was to be made in the constitution.

According to the law of elections, established by the charter in 1815, the right of voting was made to depend upon the amount of direct taxes paid by every individual to the state. Every one paying 300 francs (about 127. 12s.) was a voter. This test was not, perhaps, very happy, since it was liable to fluctuate with every change in the financial system. At the same time, the amount fixed did not tend to narrow the qualification so much as might in this country be supposed. The direct taxes in France exceed those levied by any other mode. The land-tax forms the largest source of its revenue; and the contributions on trades and professions are equally considerable. Probably, therefore, the direct taxes paid in France by all possessed of property, rather exceed than fall short of the tenth of their income. In this manner, the privilege of election was extended to nearly the whole of the middling classes, a body, generally speaking, very well qualified to exercise it, and who are too much excluded under the British system. At the same time, as the proprietary classes form a pyramid, the breadth of which very rapidly increases as it descends, the consequence follows, that in voting by numbers, the lowest class admitted carries every thing before it. Thus the Chamber of Deputies was appointed almost entirely by the middling class, to the exclusion of the higher and the lower;

and such a monopoly, even by the best class, cannot be considered as an eli gible mode of forming a national representation. Had it not been, therefore, for the great peril of shaking the basis of a constitution once established, there might be little objection to an arrangement which should enable the great proprietors to elect a certain proportion of the assembly. Neither, indeed, however little such an idea was likely to enter the minds of the French government, and however little partial we ourselves are, on the whole, to universal suffrage, should we have objections to a few broad democratical elections, such as we have in Englandto give a kind of life to the representative system; to form a tie between the Chamber of Deputies and the mass of the people, and to compose even a species of safety-valve, by which a large portion of popular effervescence may escape. Nothing of this kind, however, entered at present into contemplation. The ministers scarcely even made it a secret that the object was to preserve in power themselves and their own party, whose measures, of course, they considered best calculated to promote the national interests. They openly proclaimed the necessity of that, which we complain of as a grievance, a fixed and steady majority, on which they might depend. From the great proprietors they hoped to obtain support against the republican party, on the one hand, and on the other, against the high royalists, whose views, being supposed to tend towards the resumption of emigrant property, struck terror into the numerous class by whom that property was held.

In the project of the new law, brought forward by the Duke Decazes, 162 members were added to the Chamber. These were to be chosen by what were called departmental colleges, to be formed of from 100 to 600 electors, each paying at least 1000

francs of contribution, and chosen by a majority of the general body of electors. Another article went to alter that arrangement, by which the Chamber was renewed, not at once, but by the going out and re-election of one-fifth annually. This regulation had been made in the hope of obviating that wide tumult and agitation, which is excited throughout Britain by a general election. In fact, however, it proved that election, going on throughout the kingdom, though on a smaller scale, had very nearly the same effect; and that this period, whenever it occurred, was marked by an increase of that tendency to political discussion and agitation, which it was the main object of ministers to counteract.

It soon appeared that this project was likely to meet with a very cold reception in the Chamber. The liberals detested its aristocratic tendency; while the royalists considered it still too popular; and both, equally hostile to the present ministry, were determined to oppose any measure which tended to keep them in power. The committee named to examine the project, was so composed as to afford a sure presage of its recommendation being entirely hostile to the measure. When, therefore, Decazes, its original proposer, withdrew from office, there remained no longer any influence which could afford to its partizans the hope of success.

In this state of things, Count Simeon, the new minister of the interior, judged it prudent to withdraw the origi nal proposition, and substitute another, essentially different in its character. The renewal of the Chambers by a fifth annually was to remain unaltered, and the only change to be in the mode of election. The newly created, or departmental colleges, were to consist of the fifth part of the electors of a district which paid the highest amount of taxes. The colleges of arrondissement,

or those formed on the original plan, were merely to elect candidates, out of which the new, or aristocratic colleges, were to choose the deputies.

This new project, it was alleged, made a smaller departure than the original one from the letter of the charter. In fact, however, it aggravated in the greatest degree all its offensive features. The new colleges, though they could not directly choose an individual deputy, could scarcely fail to find among a number presented to them by the colleges of arrondissement some one of the same political sentiments with themselves. Politically speaking, therefore, the power of election was entirely transferred to the departmental colleges, or those in which the great proprietors predominated; while the old colleges, in which the middling ranks prevailed, were allowed only a remote and nugatory interference. Thus, indeed, the project was rendered more acceptable to the high royalists, but the enmity of the liberals, and of the nation in general, was increased tenfold.

While the project was under the consideration of the committee, an event occurred, tending strongly to increase the exasperation that prevailed in men's minds. A petition was presented from Madier de Montjau, counsellor of state in the royal court of Nismes, a city fatally celebrated for the excesses of the ultra-royal, and anti-protestant party. The petition stated, that the manœuvres of this party were still carried on with the utmost activity; that a secret administration, and even a military force, were organizing,under directions received from Paris; and notes were produced, said to have been received from that capital, in which they were assured of ample aid, both in money and otherwise. The strictest precautions, in his opinion, could alone prevent the repetition of the crimes

committed at Nismes and in the neighbouring department.

The minister, in reply, complained that Madier should have sent this report to the Chamber, instead of the King's Advocate, to whose jurisdiction it naturally belonged. The Count de St Aulaire, deputy from Nismes, while admitting that there was no place where political enmities were so violent, and false alarms so readily spread, expressed his astonishment at the incredulity shewn by the heads of a certain party. Men, said he, otherwise honourable, have received and protected in their houses the murderers of their fellowcitizens; they have denied facts, which the walls and streets of the city, covered with blood, testified to the eye; they have denied crimes committed in the face of day. "All the facts," said he, "attested by M. Madier de Montjau, relative to the organization of a secret guard, its ranks, its pay, are no secrets at Nismes. There is a party, belonging to the highest ranks of society, which obeys the impulse of another party than that of the King's; or, rather, if I must say all, which obeys another King than the King himself." After a great deal of discussion, the petition was referred to the President of the Council; and Madier being accused of disrespectful conduct, was afterwards brought before the Court of Cassation, where he underwent a reprimand. The agitation, however, excited in the Chamber, was greatly increased by the belief, that, if Madier had dared, he would have named a Prince, the nearest heir to the throne, as the head of this secret and dangerous party.

On the 6th May, the committee brought in their report, which, with the exception of some trifling amendments, was favourable to the proposed law. Immediately, eighty-nine orators on the left side had their names inscri