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princes, who had introduced several of the undoubted CHAP. benefits of modern French administration. The court of Naples had to undo all this, to displace, to destroy, to avenge. When in Sicily, they had encouraged a wide secret society, called by the name of Carbonari. They directed it against Murat. The Neapolitans and Sicilians retained the secret organisation, and directed it against the Bourbon. Aided by its General Pepe, it achieved in Naples (July 1821) a revolution similar to that recently accomplished at Madrid. The Spanish Constitution was proclaimed and accepted by Ferdinand of Naples, as by Ferdinand of Spain.

Metternich was then the guiding hand of European governments, and his principle was to freeze the current of human affairs, so as that there should be no progress, no innovation. The King of Prussia, who had broken the promise of constitutional government to his subjects and to Germany, could but adhere to Metternich. Alexander wavered. He still preserved some shreds of his old liberalism of 1814, and had his misgivings that repression could neither suffice nor endure. But the Poles proved recalcitrant, and in some Russian regiments were discovered, at the time, germs of that wide-spread conspiracy against despotism which pervaded Europe, and insinuated itself among the military.

The Austrian minister, having been promised the sanction and support of Russia, made light of those of England and of France. Whilst an army of occupation was collecting in Lombardy, the King of Naples was summoned to meet his brother sovereigns at Laybach. He told his people that he went to support their cause, and in a few days informed the sovereigns that he came to betray it. An Austrian army, under General Fremont, found its way without any difficulty through the Abruzzi to Naples, where it soon reinstalled Ferdinand in his despotic power. In the mean time, an insurrection had taken place at Turin. There Charles Albert played the

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CHAP part of Ferdinand, joining the revolution one day, and betraying it the next. The revolution had been accomplished by the most eminent men of the country, organised in the society of Carbonari. The latter learned to mistrust, for the future, all princely cooperation.

The constitutional efforts of the educated class of Italians were easily crushed by the legions of Austria. The people were still, and long after, what the priesthood had made them. The Spaniards, more remote, enjoyed much more scope and time to combine their revolution, France being not yet prepared to intervene, and it being too flagrant an insult for other powers to attempt to do so across French territory. The same struggle was, indeed, taking place in France itself, between the principles of liberty and despotism. The latter had risen to power from the time of the death of the Duke of Berry, which had terrified the Moderates into aiding and paving the way for their ascendency. This once gained, they proceeded to use it with all the violence and virulence of the Jacobins. The questions laid before the Chamber in the session of 1821 and 1822 were, as if they had been purposely selected to provoke both parties in the state to the most furious antagonism. The first subject was the dotation of the army, in other words, the pay and pensions of the highest and oldest officers. This dotation, settled by Napoleon on foreign countries, was now to be paid by the Treasury. The Royalists were for giving these imperial veterans but a pittance, whilst in amendments they purposed to remunerate highly the Chouan and Vendean chiefs. The Liberals, even such men as Foy, lost all patience and temper at this punishment and impoverishment of the veteran French soldier. Debates. became little more than mutual denunciations and defiance. The Liberals, perceiving that no argument had

any weight with their opponents, spoke merely with the
view to stir up public opinion and to represent the
dominant party, as hostile to the military glory, as
to the political progress of the nation. Such were the
arguments with which Foy, Constant, and Manuel met
the ravings of Castelbajac and Donnadieu. The army
administration being entrusted to Latour-Maubourg,
was soon conducted in a spirit completely the opposite
of that of St. Cyr, the extreme Imperialists were set
aside, and Royalists alone appointed to commissions and
command. Such facts as these were apparent to every
one, and came home to every family. And although
the press was allowed scarcely comment upon such
subject, Bérenger took it up in his songs, which flew
from ear to ear, and from mouth to mouth, and ful-
filled even more than the stifled mission of the journals.
To the Royalist crusade against military men and
military glories of the country came to be added the
equally unpopular crusade of the clergy against the
university, its professors, and its doctrines. The uni-
versity deserved better treatment.
Its eminent pro-
fessors, such as Cuvier and Guizot, had engaged in
vigorous war against materialism in philosophy, and
against extremes, especially including the revolutionary
extreme, in popular history. But the Duke of Richelieu
had given the ministry of Public Instruction to the
most coarse, retrograde, and ignorant of politicians, a
Breton named Corbière, the follower of Villèle.
at once placed education under the exclusive control
of the clergy, discontinuing the Enseignement Mutuel
then in vogue with the Liberals, and did not shrink from
declaring, that the Jesuits would prove cheaper and
better schoolmasters. Lay professors the minister was
determined to do away with altogether.
"How can
you expect a system so diametrically opposed to the
national spirit to last?" exclaimed Benjamin Constant;

He

CHAP.

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CHAP.

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"depend upon it before ten years have elapsed (he spoke in 1821) your whole edifice, with the party which builds it, will be swept away to destruction!"

It was unfortunate for France and for the restored Bourbons that the epoch did not produce a statesman fit and capable of fulfilling the post of Prime Minister. The previous syncope of constitutional and political life indeed rendered this natural, and it was one of the errors of Napoleon, that his system extinguished the high political talent of the country. Prince Talleyrand and the Duke of Richelieu were both ignorant and incapable of domestic administration, especially in accord with the wishes of a Parliament. Decazes possessed the knowledge, but he wanted the persistence, the time, and perhaps the ability, to form a party. He had no claims to head either the Liberals, or the Royalists. Nor had he the commanding intellect to be acknowledged the chief even of the select band of eminent men known as the Doctrinaires. Whilst to have formed what he could best have done, a party from the functionary class, required time, and a hold of power based on something more solid than the personal favour of Louis the Eighteenth.

M. Decazes fell, to all appearance, alone. The Doctrinaires had aided in his overthrow, and some of them, such as Lainé and De Serres, succeeded him as ministers, but the blow which struck him was aimed at them also. And when Pasquier, Lainé, and De Serres advised the Royalists to pass an electoral law exclusively in their own favour, these men were but committing political suicide. They were soon indeed told their fate. The ultras denounced them fiercely, and when Pasquier, in astonishment, asked whether they were determined to get rid of every politician, save the furious ultras, they replied they must at least get rid of him. Villèle, however, stood up for a time for instruments so useful. He joined their ministry without any especial office, merely demanding that of Public Instruction for Corbière.

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But when the work was done, the electoral law passed, CHAP. Villèle and Corbière withdrew, in order that the fall of the Richelieu ministry might take place without damaging or implicating them. The temporary support given by the Royalists to the Duke of Richelieu lasted during 1821.

In October of that year new elections for one-fifth of the Chamber took place, and turned out, as was inevitable, altogether in favour of the Royalists. Villèle instantly flung off the mask of friendship, that he had worn towards Richelieu and De Serres. And when the session opened, he and his friend Corbière were no longer seen on the ministerial benches. The Duke of Richelieu had hoped to get quietly through the difficult questions of foreign policy raised by the Italian and Spanish revolutions, by steering a middle course and abstaining from active interference. Such a neutral and indifferent attitude displeased alike Royalists and Liberals. The one asked him how he could allow Austria to treat the whole of Italy as if it were its own. The other demanded how long it was intended to permit revolutionists to keep a Bourbon under durance and oppression. An amendment which evinced the discontent of both sides was proposed to the address and carried by a large majority. It was a mortal blow to the administration. Its members, however, made efforts to survive and to reign. They offered the Royalists a batch of more severe laws against the press, which was refused. They made overtures to the Left, which demanded the abrogation of the worst clauses of the last law of election. There was nothing left but to resign. Louis the Eighteenth, though hurt at the circumstance, was softened by the blandishments of his royalist mistress, and consented to receive M. Villèle and Corbière, the former as Finance Minister, the latter in the Home Department. M. De Montmorency took Foreign Affairs; Peyronnet, Justice; the Duke of