the two previous reigns. But whilst this Charter was taken as the basis of the new constitution developed for France, its character was essentially changed from the one impressed upon it by Louis XVIII. It was no longer a concession granted, but a right exercised and a compact enjoined. It proceeded on the principle of the sovereignty of the nation, and was promulgated in the name of the king and the two Chambers of Peers and Deputies. The alterations it introduced were very considerable doubtless, but not so violently democratical as might, under the circumstances, have been expected. The chief among them were as to the Chamber of Peers-that for the future the king should have the power of nominating to the peerage only men recommended by a series of services in the various departments of the State and administration, the members of the four Academies, manufacturers, merchants, and bankers paying 3000 francs of yearly taxes, after being six years members of a council-general or a chamber of commerce, or having been named deputies or judges of a tribunal of commerce. The dignity was to be conferred for life only, and was not transmissible to heirs. No pension, allowance, or dotation was hereafter to be attached to the peerage, and no member could sit in the Chamber before he was twenty-five years of age, or exercise the privilege of voting until he had completed his thirtieth year. The princes of the blood were peers by right of birth; and over the deliberations of the Chamber the chancellor of France presided, or in his absence a peer nominated by the king.

As to the Chamber of Deputies, it was to be elected henceforth for five years, and each member was to be at least thirty years old. Freedom from arrest was secured to the members during the continuance of each session, and for six weeks before and after it. The provisions touching the elections were not embodied in the Charter, but were made the subject of a law finally passed on the 19th April 1831. By this law the number of the deputies was in future fixed at 459, distributed among the eightysix departments according to their extent and population. The qualification of electors was to be payment of 200 francs in direct taxes yearly, and the completion of twenty-five years from birth. The elections were to be made direct in electoral colleges assembled by arrondissement, and the presidents of these colleges were to be chosen by the electors. The electoral lists were to be revised and published every year, and minute precautions were prescribed to prevent frauds in their composition. The qualification of a deputy, besides his age of thirty years, was fixed at the payment of 500 francs of direct taxes; and certain functionaries were declared ineligible, such as prefects, sub-prefects, receivers-general, &c. The Chamber was to be convoked at least once a year, and no taxes could be imposed or levied without its concurrence. No salary or allowance was attached to the office of deputy. The

ministers of the crown might sit as members; but whether members or not, they were entitled to be heard whenever they demanded leave to speak. Every member appointed to a place with a salary attached, vacated his seat, and required to be re-elected. Such were the principal provisions of the new electoral law which sprung out of the Revolution of 1830, and which limited the electoral body to less than 200,000 in number for a population of upwards of 30,000,000 of souls.

With regard to the press, the only articles respecting it in the Charter were a declaration of the right of every Frenchman to publish his opinions, if not in contravention of the law, and of the censorship being for ever abolished. But in the subsequent session a law was passed regulating this difficult subject of the press, in which, beyond the deposit of caution-money, and the registration of proprietors and editors, no restriction was imposed on the free publication of all journals and other writings. For seditious articles, libels, or other offences against the laws, trial by jury was in all instances to be observed, except in cases of contumacy, which the presidents of the Courts of Assize were empowered to adjudicate upon without the intervention of a jury. The deposit required was very considerable, nevertheless, being an inscription of rentes to the extent of 2400 francs (£96 sterling) for all papers published oftener than twice a week, three-fourths of that amount for publications appearing only twice a week, half for weekly periodicals, and a fourth for monthly. Provincial journals were required to make a deposit of 800 francs (£32) of rentes in towns containing 50,000 inhabitants and upwards; and of 500 francs in towns of less magnitude, if they were published daily; and half those amounts respectively if they appeared at more distant intervals. To establish a daily paper in the metropolis, therefore, it was requisite that the undertakers of the enterprise should sink, as it were, a capital of £1500 or £2000, according to the market value of rentes at the time, to be answerable for any fines they might subsequently incur. For semi-weekly and weekly journals, the capital required was proportionately less; but such heavy deposits must necessarily be a serious drawback to the multiplication of journals, whether political, literary, or scientific. In addition, they were subject to a stamp duty of six centimes for each sheet of a certain size, and of three centimes for each separate half sheet. Thus it must be confessed that if the press received substantial guarantees for its practical freedom against oppressive thraldom, its extension or popularisation was clearly not an object or a consequence of the Revolution of July.

As the domestic institutions of France received their definitive development at this period of her history, matured as they had become in the crucibles of her different governments since 1789,

it is fitting they should be here reviewed, in order to the elucidation of many topics which might otherwise be obscure to the apprehension. And first as to the administrative organisation, which was of a complex, but highly efficient character. France being limited to the territory she embraced in 1790, remained divided into the eighty-six departments originally parcelled out by the National Assembly at the instance of Sieyes, whose glory it was to have first conceived the idea of those advantageous circumscriptions. They answer to the counties of Great Britain, except that they are more equal in size, and more apportioned to the natural divisions of the soil. Their names were generally derived from the principal features of their landscapes, whether rivers or chains of mountains. They were subdivided into arrondissements or circles, of which there were in the whole 363, which were again subdivided into cantons, of which there were 2834, which underwent the last subdivision into communes, of which there were in the whole kingdom no less than 37,234. At the head of each department was placed a prefect, who was the supreme executive magistrate within his jurisdiction. He was appointed by the king, and had a salary varying from 40,000 francs to 10,000, according to the extent and population of his department. In the exercise of his functions he was assisted by councillors of prefecture, who were all likewise nominated by the crown. Once a year, or oftener, if necessary, he convoked a council-general, the members of which were elected in the cantons, one for each, by the parliamentary electors and by the persons inscribed on the jury-lists. These members required to be twenty-five years of age, and must likewise have paid for at least a year 200 francs of direct taxes in the department. The functions of the council-general were to audit the accounts of the prefect, to vote the budget of the department, to assess the direct taxes upon localities, to decide upon the formation of public roads, and to transact other business relative to the department. They were not allowed to pass any resolutions out of the strict line of their duties, and they could be dissolved by the minister or prefect if they attempted to transgress those confined limits. They were elected for nine years, but were renewable by a third every three years. Beneath the prefect were the sub-prefects, generally one to each arrondissement, who enjoyed salaries of 4000 francs each, and were also appointed by the government. To each subprefecture were attached councillors of arrondissement, nominated by the government, and councils of arrondissement whose members were chosen in the cantons precisely in the same manner as the members of the councils-general, only their qualification was reduced to the payment of 150 francs of yearly taxes. At the head of each canton was a juge de paix, or justice of the peace, who, besides his administrative functions, decided civil disputes

of small amount, and arbitrated in petty differences between neighbours. These juges de paix were all nominated by the crown, as were likewise the mayors of the communes and their adjuncts, who stood lowest in the scale of this administrative hierarchy. But they must have been chosen as members of the municipal council, which was assigned to each commune, and which consisted of from ten members to thirty-six, according to the population. The members of the municipal council were elected by the notabilities of the commune, including all the departmental electors, officers of the National Guard, doctors, surgeons, lawyers, members and correspondents of the Academy, and the highesttaxed citizens, who were to form at least one-tenth of the inhabitants in communes containing 1000 souls and less, with 5 per cent. additional for populations up to 5000, 4 per cent. up to 15,000, and 3 per cent. for all above 15,000. The functions of the municipal councils were strictly local and administrative, not partaking in the slightest degree of a political character; and they might be dissolved at any moment by the king at the instance of the prefect. They sat four times in the year in ordinary session for ten days at a time; and they might be convoked by the prefect for extraordinary sessions upon the special application of the mayor or his adjuncts. Such was the constitution of the department as finally manipulated after the Revolution of 1830.

For the State at large was the Council of State-an institution devised by Sieyes in the Constitution of the year VIII., and invested by Napoleon under the Consulate with extraordinary powers. It was composed, for ordinary service, of thirty councillors, thirty masters of requests, and twenty-four auditors. Its general meetings were presided over by the keeper of the seals, and they generally took place in the presence of the king, who was seated on a throne placed behind the president. For working purposes it was divided into five principal committees:—1st, Of legislation, for the discussion and framing of projects of law; 2dly, of war and marine; 3dly, Of the interior and public instruction; 4thly, Of commerce, agriculture, and public works; 5thly, Of finance. The ministers of the respective departments presided over these committees, in which all the more executory and administrative affairs of the government were deliberated and decided upon, and upon whose reports the royal ordinances were generally founded. Besides these five committees, there was a sixth, devoted exclusively to matters of administrative litigation occurring between rival functionaries, or between individuals and public officers, the merits whereof it investigated, and gave upon them a final decision, from which there was no appeal. The ministers and councillors of State alone deliberated and voted on measures submitted to the council; the masters of requests simply gave their opinions when asked for them; and the audi

tors attended the committees merely in the capacity of listeners, unless when they had been employed to draw up reports, which they were permitted to explain and support. The councillors of State had each a salary of 12,000 francs, and the masters of requests one of 6000; the auditors received no pay, being, as it were, on their apprenticeship; nevertheless the appointment was much coveted by young advocates, who thus got themselves on the sure road of promotion-first to be masters of requests, and then councillors of State themselves.

The council or cabinet of ministers was quite distinct from the Council of State. This consisted of nine ministers, who formed the responsible advisers of the crown. To each was assigned a principal department of the government, of which they were collectively the body and the expression. These were all men necessarily of the highest political importance, and could owe to that influence only their elevated position. Although nominated by the king, they were in reality dependent on the majority of the Chamber of Deputies, and must possess the confidence of that body, or withdraw from the royal councils, according to the approved theory of constitutional monarchies. Independently of magnificent hotels appropriated to the several ministries, these eminent personages all enjoyed appointments of 120,000 francs each, with the exception of the minister of foreign affairs, who, from the greater expenditure entailed upon him in diplomatic entertainments, was allowed a salary of 150,000 francs. Each of the ministers had under him numerous directors-general and secretaries-general, whose several salaries varied from 40,000 to 50,000 francs. The extent of patronage exercised by them was enormous, for never was such a swarm of functionaries known to exist under any government as under the French in every phase of its manifold mutations.

II. The judicial organization was vast and cumbrous, but singularly effective for the satisfactory and speedy administration of justice. The admirable arrangement of the laws into codes, which was the magnificent work of Napoleon, facilitated and simplified their application in an extraordinary manner. These codes were six in number, and each contained within itself the entire law applicable to its title, set forth in clear, precise, and scientific form. They were the Civil Code, the Code of Civil Procedure, the Code of Commerce, the Code of Criminal Prosecution, the Penal Code, and the Forest Code. Not since the days of Justinian has any country possessed so perfect a system of jurisprudence as the French in these codes, which are disentangled of all the rubbish accumulated through the darkness of ages, and afford to forensic arguments a higher scope and play, since there is no room allowed for contemptible quibbles and subtleties, which form the staple elements of pleading in British courts of