Petitions got up by the liberal party.

XVI.

In the same manner as the liberals, the royalists were already divided into two camps, one ultra, the other moderate. A man who was increasing in importance as in wisdom, M. de Villèle, governed the latter. M. de Labourdonnaie, an eloquent man, but who was incapable of becoming wiser, animated the other. Numerous petitions, got up in the provinces by the liberal party, and conceived in terms threatening to the crown, brought on a discussion. M. Mestadier, in the name of the royalist majority, and of the centre of which he was the organ, demanded that these petitions should be treated with contempt. Dupont (de l'Eure), whose moral authority with the liberals was founded on character as well as eloquence, exposed the contradiction between M. Decazes, asserting, a few months before, the perpetuity of the electoral law, and the same M. Decazes now rejecting the petitions which demanded its duration. General Foy made his maiden speech on this occasion. He palliated, without approving of, the exaggerated and insulting terms of the petitions. Liberty," said he," is the youth of nations. There is too much life in the government of liberty not to excite movements sometimes to the extent of agitation." In these first words might be perceived the accents of a mind that was both free and honest. General Foy took his position on the left, as M. de Villèle did on the right, like a man who wishes to conquer, but not to degrade, the government of his country. There was in these two men a promise of two ministries for the crown; the one if the demands of the royalists drew him to the right, the other if the requirements of public opinion should precipitate him to the left. The ministry, wavering between these two groups, obtained a majority of only three votes for the rejection of the petitions. These three votes were those of the ministers themselves. They trembled for the fate of the measure which they had promised the King to carry through the Chamber. They attached themselves to all influential parties in the palace, or in

The new electoral law.

public opinion, to obtain their support. An electoral bill, projected by M. de Serres, under the supervision of the Duke de Richelieu, and drawn up by M.M. Villemain, Monnier, Barante, Guizot, and Decazes, a young party more full of zeal than conviction, was at length to be submitted to the deliberation of the Chambers. This law, devoid of importance, and without the confidence of the country, divided it into two electoral nations; the plebeian nation nominated half the deputies in the chief towns of the respective districts, and the nation of the aristocracy of wealth, composed of proprietors paying taxes to the amount of 1,000 francs, nominated the other half in the capitals of the departments. A foolish law, with all its pretended prudence, which gave to the accident of fortune, instead of the accident of birth, a title to the right of citizenship-a title of wealth still more absurd than that of nobility, for family may impart sentiments and virtues, while fortune only bestows means and comfort. This law had an additional danger; it brought face to face, in the same assembly, men issuing from two different elections, an aristocracy of department, and a democracy of district, elements of antipathy, of classification, and of civil war, which would rend the country and the government in contending against each other as representatives. Fear had badly inspired the royalists; zeal for his master had badly inspired the favourite; systems had badly inspired the Doctrinaires, fawned upon by all parties, which sought to conciliate them for their own advantage; ignorance of the country had badly counselled M. de Richelieu; the love of monarchy M. de Serre. This law bore in itself the germs of a struggle between classes, and the ruin of royalty. It was a constitution of defiance; in a constitution, all defiance is a provocation. M. Decazes was proceeding blindfold to the ruin of the throne which he wished to consolidate. He had made a coup d'etat on the 5th September against the royalists; he was about to be compelled by the opposition of the Chamber to make a second against the liberals. But the coup d'état against the royalists only dethroned a party; that against the liberals dethroned a public opinion which had become a popular passion in the national masses. He was ruining himself, and

438 RESTORATION OF MONARCHY. IN FRANCE. [BOOK 36.

Impolicy of the new electoral law.

he was ruining his master, when one of those events in which fatality intervenes by the hand of crime, occurred to pull down the minister, to destroy a prince, and to disentangle, by the stroke of a poniard, a crisis of which nobody could foresee the catastrophe.

BOOK TEIRTY-SEVENTH.

The Duke de Berry-Louvel; his previous life, his monomania of regicide-He determines to kill the Duke de Berry-Night of the 13th of February-Assassination of the Duke at the Opera; his death-bed-Grief of the royal family-Consternation of the publicAccusation against M. Decazes; M. Clausel de Coussergues charges him with high treason-Violent debates; palace intrigues-Madame du Cayla; her origin; her favour-The Viscount de la Rochefoucauld -Fall of M. Decazes; review of his political career.

I.

THE Duke de Berry was the second son of the Count d'Artois, the favourite child of the royal family, and the only hope of the direct succession of his race to the throne, from the unproductive union of the Duchess of Angoulême. His worth lay more in his heart than in his appearance; for he was small in stature, with broad shoulders, awkward in his motions, a bony countenance, low forehead, shaggy eye-brows, a turned-up nose, thick lips, and a wild expression; his countenance revealed his goodness and intelligence only when lit up with a smile: then, in the frank and cordial penetration of his look, in the delicate contraction of his eye-lids, in the muscles of the mouth, in the easy freedom of gesture which gave, as it were, his heart with his hand, and in the brief and sincere quality of his voice, the prince was visible, the mind was understood, the soldier was apparent, and the heart was felt. The old sentiment of honour constituted the virtue of this prince; he had been fostered in it by that wandering and chivalrous nobility which had followed his father in his exile, and which bore with it, throughout all Europe, the frivolities, the prejudices, and the amiable vices, but also the fidelity and the self-devotion of former times. The precocious spirit, the unexpected sallies, the youthful fire

The Duke de Berry.

of the Duke de Berry, contrasted with the modest gravity and the sickly timidity of his elder brother, the Duke d'Angoulême, had proved at an early period the delight and amusement of the exiled court. He had those defects which are the luxuriance of rich natures and the augury of great qualities. They had been too readily pardoned in his family and his private circle not to become a sort of boast with himself; and his cultivated faults had thus become confirmed habits. He was one of those young men in whom everything is pardoned, and who at length think even their follies are admired from that very cause. He was, however, constant in love, firm in friendship, eager for action, and ambitious of glory, which if he did not acquire upon the field of battle, it was not his fault, but that of his destiny, which condemned him to a life of inaction. After having rivalled the ardour of the Duke d'Enghien in the army of Condé, the disarming of Germany had thrown him. back upon London. He lived there in obscurity, and in the mystery of a durable attachment for a foreign lady whom, it is said, he had irregularly married. Two daughters were the fruit of this private but faithful union, and he loved them openly with the tenderness of a father. Surrounded by these ties of affection and by some gentlemen, his comrades in the old court and army of Condé, he occupied his leisure hours in manly and mental arts, for which he entertained the noble passion of Francis I. He went to Hartwell, the residence, in England, of the exiled King, only on those rare occasions when this prince summoned his family around him, to concert some political negociations with Europe.

The fall of the empire had opened a field of action to the Duke de Berry. He was chosen by Louis XVIII., and by the Count d'Artois his father, for those martial enterprises to which his youth, his bravery, his natural soldier-like roughness, his activity, and his fire seemed to have destined him. They wished to present in him to France, and to the army, some living shadow of Henri IV.; but, however, the young prince might inherit the blood and the heart, and was, alas! to suffer the same death, he had neither the grace nor the captivating qualities of his ancestor. He mistook the proper