CHAP. New elections, thought Villèle, will at least return deputies of similar sentiments to those promoted. But to complete these manœuvres it was indispensable to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies when the list of new Peers was announced. It was with much reluctance that the King assented to these measures of Villèle. Not that he deemed them too strong, but that the courtier party attached to him personally denounced that minister as the cause of the King's unpopularity, and recommended already a bolder statesman in the Prince de Polignac. Villèle for the moment had his way. Seventy-six new promotions to the Peerage were proclaimed, and the Chamber was dissolved on the 5th of November. The elections were ordered to take place in ten days, thus allowing, it was hoped, no time for the Liberal party to concert or organise opposition. The unpopularity of the minister, even with the Royalists, proved to be organisation enough. The Royalists and Liberals in opposition coalesced, the journals of one recommending the candidates of the other. There spread through the country a general hurra against Villèle. And whatever colour were the candidates elected, they were at least antagonistic to the minister. Paris returned none but members of opposition. The wealthy and the poor quarters showed the same spirit. When it was known that none but Liberals had been returned, the shopkeepers of the Rue St. Denis resolved to illuminate, as they had done when the Droit d'Ainesse was rejected. It was at first but good sport to them. It became less so when the populace joined in it. They descended in force from the suburbs, and when they perceived a house ill-lighted, they called for lampions: if not immediately satisfied, they broke the windows. The police tried to stop them, and the people for the first time showed an inclination to resist the authorities. Taking advantage of an entanglement of carriages and carts, or of a XLV. house in demolition, the mob here and there entrenched CHAP. themselves against the police, and threw up barricades of planks and paving stones. The same manœuvre had been employed centuries back against the Valois, and now reappeared like a national protest against the Bourbons. Opposite the passage du Grand Cerf, in the Rue Grenetat, near the great market, and the church of St. Louis, barricades were erected, which the police were unable to force. The troops were obliged to be employed, and before their first volley the defenders of the barricades disappeared. A circumstantial account of the making and taking of these barricades appeared afterwards in the Moniteur, and considerably encouraged the people at a future opportunity to erect them, as it unfortunately inspired the government with confidence in its powers of overcoming such disturbances. Such was the peril to which even the sage Villèle had already brought the Bourbons. Insignificant as this first serious émeute might appear, it still suggested to one of the liberal journalists of the day a panacea for existing troubles and disaffection, without going the length of revolution. Cauchois Lemaire, in a letter to the Duke of Orleans, which he had the hardihood to publish, recommended him to come forward and bid for the throne. "Courage, Prince," said the pamphlet; "exchange your ducal blazon for a civic crown. Take, in the monarchy, the place which Lafayette would hold in a republic. Be our first citizen. The French people is a great child that must have a tutor. Do you assume the office, to prevent it falling into worse hands. The car of state is upsetting. Do you on your side, the people on theirs, come forward to keep it from total overthrow." The prophetical advice cost the writer a heavy fine and fifteen months' imprisonment.* * Cauchois Lemaire, Histoire de la Révolution de 1830. СНАР. The elections were to Villèle complete shipwreck; he stretched out suppliant hands to one party after another— to the Royalists and Liberals. Both repudiated him. If he retained position and influence during December, it was merely to give the King advice as to the construction of a ministry, and to exclude from its composition all who were his personal enemies. In this last effort Villèle succeeded. The Count de Chabrol undertook the office of forming or choosing a new administration. He presented a succession of lists to the King, who consulted Villèle, and drew his pen through many names. He would not hear of Châteaubriand. He objected to La Bourdonnaye. The King was determined that the ministry he was about to appoint should only be temporary, and therefore he did not object to Casimir Perier or Sebastiani. These would not accept office. At last on the 2nd of January the following ministry was constituted: M. de Martignac, Home Minister and real head of the cabinet; Count Roy, Finance; Portalès, Justice; De la Ferronnayes, a friend of Châteaubriand, Foreign Minister; St. Cricq, Commerce; De Caux, War. With this semi-liberal administration Charles the Tenth inaugurated the year 1828. Villèle's chief merit may be summed up in a few words: he managed to retain power in the midst of most fluctuating circumstances and fickle people for a period of eight years. He did nothing, however, to consolidate the monarchy. If Charles the Tenth was an insurmountable obstacle to this in the latter half of Villèle's administration, Louis the Eighteenth in its earlier years might have been made to second and approve of such an attempt. But Villèle's hands were tied by the party on whose back he had clambered to power. So that, in reality, the minister was merely able to attain office and enjoy it without making it subservient to aught greater than personal aims. His chief cause of weakness proceeded from want of mastery XLV. over his own party, which was owing to his lack of sin- CHAP. cerity and truth. By nature and disposition a moderate Royalist, he was prevented from acting as such by men like the Duc de Richelieu, De Serres standing before him as well as Châteaubriand. He was thus obliged to lend himself to the ultra-royalists-not only the lay politicians, but the ecclesiastical ones. Among and over these he could only hold pre-eminence by dissimulation, nor could he counteract their extravagance except by occult and insidious means. In this false position his best aim was always neutralised, and he spent so much time and power in merely holding the helm of this ministerial bark, that he could attain nothing else. He kept afloat-that was all; and instead of conducting the vessel to any safe or honest port, he was driven to windward, and was finally unable to preserve either it, or himself, or the monarchy from wreck. Kings have an instinctive horror of intellectual superiority, that being the only quality to which they must bow, and which is able to put a yoke upon them. Can Charles the Tenth be so much to blame for obeying this instinct, when even Napoleon, himself an intellectual giant, could not bear any who equalled or approached him? Cleverness and ability is the highest range to which politicians who serve a monarch ought to pretend. Villèle had these. His successor, Martignac, had infinitely more. A native of the Gironde, he recalled by the warmth and blandness of his eloquence those celebrated orators of the Revolution who bore the name. Like them he was highly educated, of cultivated and literary intellect, the very contrast of Villèle and Corbière. He was a man of society too, and even of pleasure, which Charles the Tenth in the asceticism of his age chose to frown at. Martignac, a disciple of Lainé, had been to Spain with the French army of intervention, and had brought back from it a horror of ultra-royalism and ultra-sacerdotalism, CHAP. both of which he saw so egregiously developed and illustrated by the government of Ferdinand. XLV. That Martignac was the real chief of the ministry, and that he wanted not firmness to maintain that position, was shown at the first meeting of the cabinet council. The King presided, and as usual he opened the business of the day. He did so by declaring that M. de Villèle's policy had been his, and that though compelled to part with the man, he was still influenced by his ideas. Martignac instantly observed that no ministry could face the new Chamber with declarations or sentiments like these. There had been a change of men, and a change of measures was the inevitable consequence. Charles the Tenth did not show himself obstinate. He consented even to Châteaubriand becoming minister, but this personage would accept no post save the Foreign Office. The great difficulty with the new ministry was the Royal speech. It was absolutely necessary to announce to the Chambers some liberal measures, contrary to and implicitly condemnatory of the policy of the late administration. To this Charles the Tenth was most adverse. Still even he consented to a compromise, and agreed to promise the partial freedom of education from exclusively sacerdotal control, and at the same time to redeem Villèle's lukewarmness in the cause of Greece by a hearty approbation of the battle of Navarino. As this had been more regretted than approved of by the British government, its acceptation by the French cabinet was more significant. The votes for the presidential chair gave some idea of the composition of the new Chamber. The thoroughly liberal opposition had retained its old number of votes. Joined to the Left Centre or Doctrinaires it mustered nearly half the votes of the Chamber. The Right and Right Centre formed the other half. Parties were thus nearly balanced. La Bourdonnaye and Casimir Périer |