with M. Lainé, the Minister of the Interior, in a law which, though not quite perfect, conferred on France thirty years of a Government well balanced, stable, and free. The Law of 1817, in a country famed for caprice, instability, and love of change, enjoyed a wonderful, because a permanent, vitality; and to it, in great part, the country owed its moral and material prosperity, and the blessings of a regular fixed government, controlled by a healthy public opinion. It is true, the basis of the franchise was far too small, and might with advantage have been largely extended in 1829 and 1830, and again in 1847 or 1848, thus anticipating discontent, and adjourning, if not finally postponing, revolution. But this was destined not to be. The small privileged minority of electors in France antecedent to 1848 certainly did not always represent popular views, but this minority represented the opinions of the enlightened classes of the professional, commercial, banking, monied, and shopkeeping interests, far better than the cloud of peasants, priests, public functionaries, and soldiers whom the present Emperor has called into existence, under the terror of being marked men if they do not use their voting papers. The small body of electors, under the elder and younger Bourbons, circumscribed though they were in number, returned to the Chamber the orators, the statesmen, and the most celebrated publicists and writers of France, as well as some of her most celebrated soldiers, patriots, bankers, and merchants. Foy, Manuel, Lainé, Malouet, Louis Beugnot, De Serre, De Cazes, Merilhou, De Martignac, De Vatismenil, Lamarque, Casimir Perrier, Laffitte, Ternaux, Humann, Sebastiani, Clansel, Guizot, Thiers, Mauguire, Dufaure, Lamartine, Duchatel, Berryer, Etienne de Remusat, and many others whom we could name, are some of the men who illustrated the reigns of the elder and the younger Bourbons. Universal Suffrage and the Empire have given no men like these-indeed, have given no celebrated men in any walk of life to France. We have had the undistinguished Jew, Fould-the undistinguished Corsican, Abatucci-the undistinguished Pole, Walewski-the undistinguished senator, Magne -the ex-quartermaster, Fialin, calling himself de Persigny-the illegitimate son of Hortense Beauharnais, calling himself de Morny, the prince of stock-jobbers; and such provincial and Parisian advocates as Baroche, Rouland, Parieu, and Billaut. Billaut, the ex-Republican, has recently seen fit to resign the Home Office to a military adventurer, Espinasse (while these sheets are passing through the press Espinasse has been removed from office); and Baroche, looking forward, has recently dispatched his son to attend the funeral obsequies of the Duchess of Orleans. On the 24th February, 1848, Baroche, the father,

Baroche Pere-Baroche Fils.

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who but a year before was desirous of being chief of the Parquet under Louis Philippe, declared, in giving in his early adhesion to the Provisional Government, qu'il devancait la justice publique. When M. de Montalembert saw Baroche fils join the funeral cortége at Twickenham on the morning of the obsequies, on the 22nd of May, he could not refrain from exclaiming Voici la jeune Baroche, qui comme son pere en Fevrier, 1848, devance la justice publique.' The mot contains more of truth than such witticisms in general.

It is not to be supposed that a man like M. Guizot minces his opinions as to Universal Suffrage. He holds such a suffrage to have ever been in France an instrument of destruction or deceit ; and he might have said, sometimes of both destruction and deceit combined. There is scarcely a word in this volume which does not indirectly and by implication convey a censure on the degrading despotism which defrauds and oppresses France. M. Guizot, without any mean compliances or concessions, discreetly veils his purpose, for it would not be safe for himself or for his publisher to proclaim the truth on the house-tops. But he openly advocates now, under a stratocracy and military despotism, that which he has always advocated, a free press, which he properly believes to be useful to public morality, and essential to the proper management of public affairs.

There are studded here and there through this volume beautifully-sketched characters of public men. Some of them, more especially the characters of Lafayette and De Vilelle, we could have wished to have extracted at length. M. Guizot allows there never was a character more sincere, generous, and kind, more courageous and devoted to his cause than Lafayette, but abounding in honesty, earnestness, and courage, the old General failed in discernment, and a just estimate of men and circumstances.

Of Vilelle, M. Guizot remarks that it was a distinctive feature in his career that he became Minister as a partizan, and retained that character in his official position, while endeavouring to establish at the same time amongst his supporters general principles of Government in preference to the spirit of party. Often unacquainted with the ideas and passions of his party, he opposed them without positive disavowal, resolved not to desert his friends even though he might be unable to control their course. From a sound practical instinct he perceived the necessity of a strong attachment from the leader to his army to secure, as M. Guizot happily phrases it, a reciprocal feeling from the army to its chief. In thus acting, he bore the weight of errors which he would never have committed had he been unfettered. In conclusion, M. Guizot remarks of this strong-minded sensible man:

'As a Minister of a constitutional monarchy, M. de Vilelle furnished France with one of the first examples of that fixity of political ties which, in spite of many inconveniences and objections, is essential to the great and salutary effects of representative Government.'

M. de Chateaubriand enjoyed a celebrity so European that we must needs extract his character at length, premising that his defects were vanity, want of judgment, and jactance. Vilelle, on the other hand, was a cool, far-seeing, reflecting man, intuitively sagacious, schooled early in the severe discipline of the navy and of colonial life, knowing how to manage men, and to transact business in the most pleasant, plausible, and worldly fashion.

'Launched on the world almost from infancy, M. de Chateaubriand had traversed the whole range of ideas, attempted every career, aspired to every renown, exhausted some, and approached others. Nothing satisfied him. My capital defect,' said he himself, 'has been ennui, disgust with everything, perpetual doubt.' A strange temperament in a man devoted to the restoration of religion and monarchy. Thus the life of M. de Chateaubriand has been a constant and perpetual combat between his enterprises and his inclination, his situation and his nature. He was ambitious as the leader of a party, and independent as a volunteer of the forlorn hope; captivated by everything great, and sensitive even to suffering in the most trifling matters, careless beyond measure of the common interests of life, but passionately absorbed on the stage of the world in his own person and reputation, and more annoyed by the slightest check than gratified by the most brilliant triumph. In public life more jealous of success than power; capable in a particular emergency, as he has just proved, of conceiving and carrying out a great design, but unable to pursue in government, with energy and patience, a well-cemented and strongly-organized line of policy. He possessed a sympathetic understanding of the moral impressions of his age and country; more able, however, and more inclined to win the favour by compliance than to direct them to important and lasting advantages; a noble and expanded mind, which, whether in literature or politics, touched all the exalted chords of the human soul, but more calculated to strike and charm the imagination than to govern men; greedy to an excess of praise and fame, to satisfy his pride, and of emotion and novelty, as resources from constitutional weariness.'

M. Guizot does not say a word on the law of amnesty by which the ascendants and descendants of Bonaparte were excluded for ever from the kingdom, and directed to leave France on pain of death. Nor does he remark on the measure declaring such of the regicides as voted for the Acte additionnel of Bonaparte, or who accepted office under the usurper, as irreconcilable enemies of France and legitimate government. On the insurrection at Grenoble, promoted by Paul Didier, who was

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supposed to have at heart the interests of the Duke of Orleans, M. Guizot is also silent. Neither does he allude to the suspension of the Polytechnic School by M. De Vaublanc, or to its altered organization.

The Chamber of Deputies had been dissolved on the 5th of September, 1816. The discussion on the law of Elections proved the ultra-Royalist staple of which it was composed. The majority in the Chamber affected to be more Royalist than the King himself. Notwithstanding, Louis XVIII. in his opening speech, said he would never permit any infraction of the fundamental law of the charter, and would repress the efforts of a too ardent zeal, the bigots and the ultras inveighed against the proposal to devote the forests to the sinking-fund-as a measure levelled against the Church. An ultra-Royalist speaker having declared that the Church had a right to the restoration of its property, for that religion, like the emigrants, had again returned to the land, M. Lainé, the Home Minister, replied. that religion had always remained in the hearts of the French. M. Decazes was the first and, for some time, the only one amongst the ministers who looked upon the dissolution of the Chamber of 1815 as equally necessary and possible. Personal interest had, no doubt, a share in his bold perspicuity; but I know ' him,' says M. Guizot, well enough to feel convinced that his ' devotion to the country and the King powerfully contributed to his enlightened decision, and his conduct at this crisis displayed at least as much patriotism as ambition.'

In the new Chamber Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr appeared as Minister of War. He had succeeded the incompetent minion of Bonaparte, Clarke, created by the Emperor Duke of Feltre, in 1809. St. Cyr it was who drew up the plan of military recruitment promised in the King's speech. The plan, to use the stilted language of M. Guizot, embraced grand ideas and ' noble sentiments, and accorded with the moral nature and poli'tical conduct of Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, who possessed an upright soul, a proud temperament, monarchical opinions, and republican manners.' The bill during forty years has been criticised, revised, and modified; but, according to M. Guizot, it has done more than last, through soundness of principle. Far from striking a blow at the monarchy, M. Guizot considers that it has made the army more devotedly monarchical. In this, however, we conceive the doctrinaire to be mistaken. Vilelle, though not an orator or a writer like M. Guizot, was a man of more sound, far-seeing, and sagacious views, and forty years ago he predicted the danger of organizing military institutions in a country in which there were no other institutions whatever.

Recent events have shown that the conclusions of the Royalist statesman of 1818 were correct. Since 1852 we have seen an army, democratically organized and selected, sustaining the worst abuses of autocracy and of irresponsible absolute power.

The army is not now a Royalist, but an Imperial institutionor rather, an institution playing the part of Viceroy over submissive Imperialism. To whatever the army wishes and desires Louis Napoleon Bonaparte must now accede, or the Pretorians, who elevated him on their shields six years and a half ago, will again put up the empire to auction, and sell it for sausages and champagne, on the plain of Satory or elsewhere, to a higher bidder, and a more ductile instrument of their desires and passions.

In 1823, as every one is aware, France marched an army into Spain. Chateaubriand spoke eloquently in favour of a policy which, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, he had promoted and provoked. Judged by its immediate results the expedition was successful, for in less than six months the French army, at a loss of only 400 men, had accomplished the objects which the Government had in view. M. Guizot holds that the war was in principle unjust, for it was unnecessary, the Spanish Revolution, in spite of its excesses, portending no danger to France or to the Restoration. A little after these successes of the French army, Chateaubriand was uncourteously dismissed from office. Two months after his fall, the Abbé Fraysinous entered the Cabinet as Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs and Public Instruction-a new department created expressly for him. He approved of the policy of M. de Vilelle, binding himself to support it; but while lamenting the blind demands of a portion of the clergy, he endeavoured rather to excuse and conceal than to reject them. He afforded Vilelle little aid, and committed him by language tending more to maintain his own position in the Church than to serve the Cabinet.

Three months after the dismissal of Chateaubriand, on 16th September, 1824, Louis XVIII. died. M. Guizot tells us nothing of the private history of the monarch. Chateaubriand is more communicative, and as the king disliked and dismissed him, there is some gall in his pen. Sa majesté (says the great writer) s'en'dormoit souvent au conseil et elle avait bien raison; si elle ne 'dormoit pas elle recontait des histoires. Elle avait un talent 'de mime admirable: cela n'amusait pas M. de Vilelle qui voulait 'faire des affaires.' Kings often resemble each other, and it may not be forgotten that the Duke of Wellington bears testimony to the admirable powers of mimicry also possessed by our own George IV.

Chateaubriand, Congres de Verone, chap. 36.