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Charles the Tenth, then deeming himself all popular, declined it. The Upper Chamber, however, might have hesitated to take so bold a step as to reject a measure on which the government had employed all its influence and power, when an incident occurred to increase opposition, and even throw the moderate out of their moderation.

The Duke de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt was one of the most respected personages in France. He had shown courage in undergoing the perils of the revolution, and had slackened neither in his loyalty nor his philanthropy. He was at the head of numerous charitable establishments not emanating from the ultra-religionists. These did not pardon such independence; and the Home Minister, Corbière, made himself the instrument of their rancour by depriving the Duke de la Rochefoucauld of a variety of gratuitously filled and charitable offices. About this time the Duke died, at the advanced age of eighty. One of his beneficent acts had been to found a scientific college at Chalons. The pupils there proposed to the family to come up and act as bearers of the coffin of their benefactor. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld-Doudeauville, representing the family, accepted the offer. When When they came to perform this pious act, a commissary of police, by order of the Home Minister, intervened. There ensued a panic and a discussion, but the Duke de Doudeauville, a cabinet minister then present, overruled the commissary of police. The procession was again put in movement, whilst the police consulted M. de Corbière, and received from him the injunction to prevent the pupils from carrying the body. In consequence the funeral procession was again stopped in a street ere it reached the cemetery, and a scuffle ensued with the pupils and the police, in which the coffin was thrown on the ground and broken, and the remains of the aged Duke shattered. The Chamber of Peers as well as all the Rochefoucaulds felt

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the act of Corbière as a personal insult, and the expres sion of indignation was so strong both on this subject and upon that of the press law, that the government found it necessary to withdraw the latter altogether or to accept its inevitable rejection. If the rejection of the law of Droit d'Aînesse was the occasion of general illumination and feasting throughout France, the withdrawal of the Loi d'Amour gave rise to louder acclamations. The population of the great towns especially, such as Lyons, of which printers formed so considerable a body, were most enthusiastic in their demonstrations of joy.

Charles the Tenth could never comprehend his being unpopular. He was good-humoured, affable, and gracious, and scarcely failed to elicit from the people, when he came frankly in contact with them, the customary tribute of favour and applause. Just as Peyronnet's law was about to fall, the anniversary came round of the Royal family's return to Paris, which it was usual to celebrate by the National Guard exclusively furnishing the guards and sentinels of the palace. This was preceded by a review in the courtyard. The day was the 12th of April. Whilst passing the review, the citizen soldiers, not visiting on the monarch the unpopularity of his ministers, greeted him with loud and general cries of Vive le Roi! Charles was more than usually gratified with the manifestation, so much in contrast with all that he heard or witnessed of the unpopularity of his government. He expressed his satisfaction to the officers as well as his regrets that the entire body of the National Guard was not present. Those whom the King thus addressed replied, that all the National Guards were of the same opinions as those just expressed, and that a review of the whole force would prove it. Charles caught at the proposal-an imprudent one under the circumstances, and some would say, a fatal one. It was, certainly, one of the first steps, the Law of Love being the first, which

conducted Charles the Tenth down from the throne to exile.

Ministers sat in Council on the subject of this review, which they naturally dreaded, amidst the popular manifestations for the withdrawal of the recent law. Besides, they meditated, in concert with the King, the most unpopular acts, the re-establishment of the Censorship and the subjugation of the Peers by a large promotion. To pass a review of the Parisian citizens and claim their applause under such circumstances was neither fair nor frank; but Charles had promised, and the review was ordered to take place in the Champ de Mars on the 29th (April).

From 20,000 to 30,000 National Guards mustered on that day. The King on horseback, the Princesses in carriages, proceeded to the field. The Guards were distributed in Legions according to the different quarters of the city. The first belonged to the opulent districts. The National Guards of these welcomed the King with the accustomed cry of Vive le Roi! Those of the more central quarters mingled this cry with another of Vive la Charte! But when the Royal cortége passed the legions of the popular and manufacturing districts, Vive la Charte! alone was heard, and Vive le Roi! suppressed. The King displaying ill humour, "Do you find the cry of Long live the Charter offensive?" cried out a bold soldier from the ranks.

"I came here to receive homage," observed the King, "and not a lesson." Still there was nothing flagrantly hostile or offensive to the King himself. himself. But the Duchesses of Angoulême and Berry were not so well received. Instead of Vive la Charte! they were greeted with the cry of "Down with the Jesuits!" It was upon the ministers that the popular indignation was chiefly vented. They were, to be sure, not present at the review. But on quitting the Champ de Mars, the popular legions took their way home by the

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Rue de Rivoli and the Place Vendôme, where the Hôtels of Finance and the Chancery were situated, in the front of which they stopped to vociferate "Down with Peyronnet and Villèle!"

Had ministers been wise, they would have passed over these popular ebullitions, especially as the King was disposed not to show any resentment at the semi-disapprobation shown him. But Villèle himself began to lose temper and moderation at this time-qualities which Peyronnet and Corbière never had. These met in council to consider the cries vociferated before their hotels-as if statesmen had not grievances enough to consider; and the ministers who were so affronted proposed no less than the dissolution of the National Guard of Paris. Messrs. Chabrol and Frayssinous objected, as did the Duc de Doudeauville. Charles the Tenth himself presided the Council. He had immediately after the review been inclined to moderation, but the Princesses, and especially the Duchess d'Angoulême, urged him to resent the insult offered them, which recalled to her those proffered to Louis the Sixteenth and her mother. Thus influenced, the King proclaimed the dissolution of the National Guard. The citizen soldiers, relieved from a disagreeable duty, piled up their arms in silence, and were pleased to have no longer to meet or to defend the Bourbons. The Duc de Doudeauville resigned: he had sagacity to foresee the coming storm.

After this but one more law was brought forward to complete the session. It was for enabling the Prefects to pack the jury, and by a side wind at the same time modify the electoral lists. The Chamber of Peers did not indeed reject it, but so modified and amended it as to make a somewhat liberal law of what the government intended to be a reactionary one. It deprived the Prefects altogether of the power to modify the lists of either electors or jury, as the government purposed. The ministry did not smother its menaces against such an

Upper Chamber-so much so that there were several interpellations in the Chamber as to the bruited intentions of the government. The ministers maintained an ominous silence. The session closed; and it was immediately followed by a decree re-establishing the Censorship.

But not even the severe restriction of the Censorship could satisfy Corbière. Soon after its promulgation expired Manuel, somewhat forgotten during the last years, which his poverty compelled him to spend as the guest of Laffitte at Maisons. His death summoned all his old friends to his funeral, when they expressed in no extravagant terms their love and admiration for the deceased. The discourses were collected and published by Mignet, who, with the printer and publisher, was immediately summoned before the Correctional Police to suffer condemnation for the act. Lafayette instantly claimed to be the object of prosecution, as his was the speech incriminated. But even the Judge of Correctional Police could not respond to the fury of the government, and acquitted those brought before it.*

About the same time the King visited the Camp of St. Omers, from whence the general expectation was, that he would issue an ordonnance, assuming absolute power. But the time was not yet come. The only legal obstacle in the way of court and ministry was the Chamber of Peers; and this, there was the constitutional mode of overcoming by a large creation of Peers. The field for political men had, however, been much narrowed by an electoral system so restricted. Of those whom it had thrust forth into political life, very many, even Royalists, had gone against the administration. If therefore, for the sake of swamping the liberal majority of the peerage, some sixty or seventy deputies were promoted to the higher rank, the more important majority in the Chamber of Deputies might be lost.

* Lafayette's Letters. September, 1827.

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