If the Liberals of the Left had been imprudent in treating Martignac and his measures so harshly as to afford the King a pretext for dismissing him, the sensible Royalists and their chief, M. de Villèle, were equally imprudent when, manoeuvring in the Chamber, afterwards in concert with the Left, they too precipitated the overthrow of the Minister. They hoped no doubt that Villèle would return to power in conjunction with the ultra-Royalists, without overcoming or rallying the Châteaubriand party. They were mistaken. The King's political hopes and affections were placed on Polignac, whom Villèle could not abide, and with whom even he refused to embark in the same boat. M. Guizot, however, thinks Villèle to have been impossible, and no doubt he was so with the existing Chamber. But his presence and his counsel, if listened to, would have been most salutary to the King. Polignac, who had neither brains nor ideas, scorned to adopt or consult those of others. Villèle remained all through 1829 in his country-seat at Toulouse.

The King gave indications of what was passing in his mind. The Chamber, during the discussion of the war budget, had harshly treated the minister, M. de Caux. The Left were in extreme ill humour since the withdrawal of the law, and showed it. De Caux, writhing under their severity, ejaculated in the King's presence that the Chamber was abominable.* The King instantly seized him, and drew him to a window to observe that such a state of things could not last. "Am I sure of the army?" "For what, Sire?" asked the astounded De Caux. "Oh, without conditions." "Anything that your Majesty might require in the name of the Charter, and in accordance with it, the army would zealously execute," observed the observed the wary minister; "anything against it, no. There is not one officer in forty who is a gentleman born, and not a thousand of them with six • Capefigue..

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CHAP. hundred francs a year revenue of his own. You must not try to establish the ancien régime with an army like that." "But no one wants to violate the Charter," exclaimed the King: "what has the army to do with the Charter?"*

The Martignac Ministry still held office, as well as councils, at the Tuileries, whilst Charles the Tenth was receiving in his closet, whither they were conducted secretly, the chiefs of the ultra-Royalist party. Polignac also stole back from London, and only left a card, after he had been in Paris some days, on the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The old Villelist president of the Chamber, Ravez, assured the King that a royalist majority existed in the Chamber, if it could be kept together. And probably it might have been kept together, if some one who stood between Villèle and Polignac were declared minister. But this seemed merely a repetition of the Martignac experiment, all but a change of names. The King cut the matter short by nominating on the 8th of August a Polignac Cabinet.

It must be confessed that both the King and Polignac made efforts to render the new cabinet not altogether ultra. The former besought Count Roy to remain Minister of Finance, and offered him a dukedom in recompense. Roy refused to remain without Martignac. Polignac would have retained the latter, were it possible. He might have refused to remain, but he was not asked, as La Bourdonnaye objected to him. This furious partisan-le plus mauvais coucheur qui fut oncques, † although Guizot depicts him as more furious in words than in acts, took the Home Office, which had the same effect on the public as if Robespierre had been resuscitated with royalist proclivities. Prince Polignac himself was Foreign Minister. Bourmont had the War Department. This general officer had deserted the army in full campaign † Châteaubriand.

* Capefigue.

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just before the battle of Waterloo, and gave testimony CHAP. against Ney of a most ungenerous kind. He was about the most unpopular man in all France for the post. Courvoisier, Chabrol, De Rigny, were declared Ministers of Justice, Finance, and Marine. The latter declined, and was replaced by Baron d'Haussez. Monbel, the only friend of Villèle in the Cabinet, took Ecclesiastic Affairs and Public Instruction again combined.

The very name of Polignac as minister was a declaration of war on the part of the government against the nation. This was responded to at once by associations, commenced in Brittany, for the refusal of taxes if any breach of the constitution took place. Lafayette, who happened to be on a tour through Auvergne and Dauphiné, was welcomed and feasted as if the fears and hopes of 1789 had fully revived. Ministers retaliated by prosecuting the journals which published the speeches and relations of what passed. But the judges, who had resumed their severity against the press during the moderate ministry of Martignac, abandoned it at once in the presence of Polignac, and acquitted journals and persons of the sedition laid to their charge. The most remarkable subject of their prosecution was an article published by the Journal des Débats.

"Behold," said the writer, "the bond of love and confidence between prince and people now broken. Behold once more the court with its old rancour, the émigrés with their prejudices, the priests with their hatred of freedom, flinging themselves between France and its King. What the country has gained in forty years of struggle and misfortune, it is now to be deprived of. Everything that it most abhors is forced upon it. The glory of the dynasty was its moderation in the exercising of authority. But moderation is henceforth impossible. The present ministers could not observe it, how much soever they desired it. They may murmur the words of Charter and Liberty, but it can only be

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with the accents of fear or of hypocrisy. Yet what can they do? Recur to bayonets? But even bayonets have become intelligent. Will they tear asunder the Charter? Let them beware. All the efforts of despotism cannot prevail against it. The people pay 20,000,000fr. to the law. They would not pay 1fr. to the ordonnances of ministers. If they try to raise taxes illegally, a Hampden will be found to resist them. A Hampden? Are we reduced to invoke a name synonymous with civil war? Unhappy France, unhappy monarch!"

The proprietor of the journal, M. Bertin, pleaded his own cause. He had been to Ghent, and had suffered for his spirited Royalism. The Royal Court pronounced in his favour.

In consequence of these acquittals, the judges in their robes were but ill received at the Tuileries when they went to present their homage on the first day of the new year. The King scolded them. The Duchess d'Angoulême in reply to their address merely said, Passez"Move on." "Shall I inscribe her Royal Highness's gracious reply upon our register?" asked the President Seguier.

Amidst these skirmishes, the ministry lost the alliance of M. de la Bourdonnaye. He had from the first declined either to be Prime Minister himself or to cede that place to Prince Polignac. But to a government manifestly of reaction a head was necessary to declare the new spirit of the administration, and serve as a rallying point to the zealots. La Bourdonnaye would not hear of it. "The game we were playing," he said afterwards, "was for no less than our heads; and in such a game, I insisted on holding my own cards." Therefore, when Polignac was declared Prime Minister, La Bourdonnaye resigned.

Guernon de Ranville succeeded to the place of minister in lieu of La Bourdonnaye. He was a weak, though a clearsighted man, who plainly foretold to

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Polignac the consequences of his provoking the middle CHAP. classes by a coup d'état, and yet who, when summoned afterwards to sign the ordonnances, did so. Whilst the

King thus made up his ministry of the refuse of politicians, the electors, more provident, having two or three members of the Chamber to choose, returned Guizot and Berryer, which showed at least that if the King knew not how to discern or employ talents, the country did.

On March 2, 1830, the King opened the Chambers. He announced an expedition to Algiers, the conquest of which, by Bourmont, was looked to as a crown of glory for the new government. The Chamber listened without interest or approbation. The Monarch concluded his speech with a casual menace. "If culpable manœuvres," said he, "should raise obstacles in the way of my government, which I cannot and will not foresee, I shall find the force to overcome them, in my resolution to maintain the public peace, in the just confidence of the French people, and in the affection they have always shown to the King." "The King's attitude," observes M. Guizot, "betrayed agitation and embarrassment. He read his speech with precipitation, and the last passage, which contained the menace, was accentuated by him with more affectation than energy. As to the Chamber, it is difficult to say whether the prevailing sentiment was that of coldness or of sadness."

"A fortnight later," continues M. Guizot," the Prince de Polignac attended the committee of the address, much out of his place, amidst a world of which he knew little, and where he was little esteemed. Some one having made him a reproach, he replied awkwardly, in hurried and confused words, anxious to sit down again and be silent. My eyes met his on one occasion, and I was struck by their expression of astonished consciousness. Evidently, whilst meditating their coup d'état, neither the Prince nor the King were at their ease. In their minds, as in their physiognomy, was a mixture of resolution and