which ultimately gave place to the extract of beet-root, which was extensively cultivated, and afforded an inferior sugar in sufficient quantity for consumption. After the conclusion of peace, the growers of beet-root, who had grown into what was called an ❝ interest,' clamoured for protection against the cheap introduction of West India sugar, and in accordance with the notions of the time, it was granted to them. By this means the beet-root manufacture continued to flourish, through the enhanced price given to the legitimate article, and the annual produce gradually increased from five and seven millions of pounds to twelve and thirteen millions of pounds. Apart from the principles of political economy, which were grossly violated by a culture so purely forced, this native production of sugar could not be regarded as an evil, if, in the event of another war, France should be rendered again dependent for colonial supplies upon her chance of regaining a superiority at sea. For coffee she could of course find no adequate substitute, but from her improved position in the Mediterranean through her possession of Algiers, she must be always able to command a sufficient supply of that fragrant berry in the very worst of imaginable contingencies.

The principal articles of export from France, therefore, were wines, brandies, oils, fruits, raw silk, silk manufactures, hardware, leather, watches, and millinery, with a variety of smaller articles, and occasionally considerable quantities of agricultural produce, particularly to England, when the latter opened her ports to receive them. In 1829 the whole official value of these exports amounted to 666,500,000 francs (£26,500,000), being an increase since 1824 of upwards of 100,000,000 francs, or £4,000,000 sterling. The principal articles of importation at the same time were raw cotton, flax, hemp, wool, sugar, coffee, tobacco, cotton and linen yarn, coal, iron, steel; and the value of the whole amounted in 1829 to nearly 765,000,000 francs, or above £30,500,000 sterling, being an increase since 1824 of more than 65,000,000 francs, or above £2,500,000 sterling. The trade carried on to the greatest extent was with England, the United States, the Netherlands, Sardinia, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain. The intercourse with England was fettered by the jealous restrictions on either side, England refusing to receive the corn and cattle of France unless when she was half-starved, and France imposing on British manufactures a heavy and prohibitive duty in order to foster her own. Nevertheless, the imports into France from Great Britain in the year 1829 amounted to above 86,500,000 francs (£3,500,000), and the exports to above 113,000,000 (above £4,500,000). In the same year the imports from the United States exceeded 90,000,000 francs, and the exports to that country nearly equalled 74,000,000.

The number of French ships employed in outward commerce

was inferior to that of the foreign vessels engaged therein. Thus in 1829 the number of French ships reported outwards and inwards was 6149, representing a tonnage of 347,000 tons; whilst the number of foreign ships so reported was 9560, with a tonnage of more than 1,000,000 of tons. In the colonial trade the vessels employed were exclusively French, as the intercourse was carried on upon the strictest principles of monopoly. As the beetroot growers demanded protection against all sugars, so the planters of Martinique, Guadaloupe, Bourbon, Senegal, Cayenne, demanded protection against foreign sugars, so that the French people had to pay in support of both the home and the colonial interests. The quantity of sugar imported from the few colonies she still possessed by France amounted annually to about 1,200,000 cwts.; and in the whole colonial trade, including that with the insignificant East Indian establishments of Pondicherry and Chandernagore, about 480 ships were employed, representing an aggregate tonnage of 115,000 tons. The value of the exports to the colonies in 1829 exceeded 63,000,000 francs (£2,700,000), and that of the imports from them to upwards of 64,000,000 francs (£2,750,000); but in the immediately subsequent years the exports fell off nearly a third. In the coasting trade, the number of vessels had increased very materially, counting in 1829 upwards of 67,000, with a tonnage of 2,000,000 of tons, and manned by 260,000 sailors. In the prosecution of the fisheries, also, there was an increased activity; and in the herring, mackerel, and cod fisheries were employed upwards of 8000 vessels, representing an aggregate tonnage of nearly 120,000 tons, and manned by crews amounting in the whole to 50,000 men and boys.

The better to facilitate internal communication in France, no less than seventy-four canals had been constructed of greater or less extent, covering about 2300 miles. Of these, one of the earliest and most celebrated was that of Languedoc, extending 148 miles upon an average breadth of 60 feet. It ran from the Mediterranean to the Garonne, near Toulouse, and had in its course a tunnel upwards of three miles in length. The canal of Besançon, joining the Saone to the Rhine, was nearly 200 miles long. The canal of St Quentin united the Scheldt with the Somme, and that of Burgundy the Rhone with the Seine, the latter being 150 miles in length. Canals, as well as turnpike roads, were under the management of a government board called the Bureau des Ponts et des Chaussées in the department of the minister of the interior, all having been equally planned and constructed, as usual, by the central government. The invention of railroads, which had already received a considerable development in England exclusively by private enterprise, was as yet unknown in France; and it was not until many years afterwards that the government turned its attention to that superior mode

of communication, and sought to introduce its advantages into France.

By the decennial census of 1831, the population of France was found to be 32,569,223, being an increase of more than 2,000,000 since 1821. The population of Paris was 774,338; of Marseilles, 145,115; of Lyons, 133,715; of Bordeaux, 99,062; of Rouen, 88,086; of Nantes, 77,992; of Lille, 69,073. No accurate classification of the inhabitants was attempted; but it has been estimated that at least 17,500,000 were employed in the pursuits of agriculture, and very little above 6,000,000 in manufactures-thus confirming, what was indeed before notorious, that the rural population very far outnumbers the urban in France. More than one-half of the entire soil of France was under profitable cultivation, being a much larger proportion than in England, and the whole surface of the country was thus distributed :

The hectare is equivalent to about 2 English acres, and consequently the whole of France covers an area of upwards of 131,000,000 of acres.

CHAPTER XXIII.

EXTRAORDINARY DIFFICULTIES OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT-RECOGNITION OF LOUIS-PHILIPPE BY THE DIFFERENT POWERS OF EUROPE-TRIAL OF THE MINISTERS OF CHARLES X.-REPUBLICAN CONSPIRACIES AND INSURRECTIONS-DUCHESS DE BERRY IN LA VENDEE ATTEMPTS AT ASSASSINATION-AFFAIRS OF BELGIUM, ITALY, SPAIN, AND PORTUGALPEACEABLE POLICY OF LOUIS-PHILIPPE, AND INTIMATE UNION BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGLAND-TREATY OF THE 15TH OF JULY 1840, AND THE ISOLATION OF FRANCE-1830 TO 1840.

It is impossible to overrate the difficulties which surrounded Louis-Philippe upon his accession to the throne after the popular insurrection of the famous Three Days. Upon all questions there was a ferment of ideas which threatened to render a definitive solution all but hopeless. Among those who viewed the change as identical with the event of 1688-and they comprised the great majority of the Chambers, and indeed the late opposition party in general-many argued that a change in the national faith ought to follow, according to the precedent, and that the Protestant should be substituted for the Catholic religion, whose spirit was antagonistic to popular liberties. The conduct of several of the prelates and dignified clergy gave additional cogency to this reasoning, for in numerous instances they avowed their determination not to take the oath to the new government, or even to allow the prayer for the king to be recited in the liturgy; and many of them withdrew from their dioceses, and from the kingdom itself. But the reasons for maintaining the Catholic religion to be that of the established Church in France were overpowering, notwithstanding the truculent demeanour of its discontented priesthood, on account both of its being the really predominant faith, and of political considerations altogether irrefragable. The genius of the French people was wholly unsuited to the cold and simple forms in vogue among the reformed churches; and if they were at heart indifferent to religion in its abstract virtue, they would assuredly revolt against the proposition of an apostacy, although in its essence merely ostensible, which would seem in their eyes a national disgrace. But the importance of France was especially linked to its remaining a Catholic power, inasmuch as in every part of Europe she exercised an influence which would immediately cease, or be greatly shaken, if she abjured Catholicism. In Italy, in Spain, in Belgium, in Ireland, in Poland, and finally in the East, where it was her traditional policy to play the part of a protector to the

Christian tribes of Lebanon and Palestine, she could always roll her propagandist thunder whilst she adhered to the standard of the Apostolic Church, but might awaken repugnance and resistance by departing from its orthodox to enter a schismatical fold. Consequently the advocates of Protestantism were soon silenced, and the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion declared by the Charter to be the standing creed of the majority of the French nation.

But in civil matters, and in the settlement of the government, far more serious perplexities were to be encountered. Setting aside the Republicans, who still hovered around Lafayette, suggesting to him evil doubts, and reproaching him with an inglorious credulity, the Liberals were full of extravagant conceits, and particularly the journalists, who plumed themselves as the chief authors of the victory, and aspired to become the absolute directors of its results. Hence that temperate and guarded policy which it so essentially behoved the new monarch to observe was the most difficult of all to sustain; and he could only hope to succeed by a prudence which was every moment exposed to be defeated by an outburst of revolutionary passions. Every act taken by him was liable to criticism and censure by Republicans, Liberals, and Legitimatists, who arraigned his conduct on the opposite grounds of being directed towards a mere re-establishment of the subverted system, and of indicating a base subservience to work out his treacherous designs. Whilst intent, therefore, to institute a stable monarchy, it was incumbent on him to amuse and flatter the obstreperous men of the movement; and if he seemingly entertained their wild doctrines, and listened complacently when they urged that propagandism was the destined policy of France, an aggressive fraternity her prescribed province, it was his deliberate object to impart a totally different character to his government. By the choice of his first ministers he at once smoothed the more pressing difficulties of his position and betrayed its great embarrassments. It was fortunate that the Municipal Commission, installed at the Hôtel de Ville, had contained certain conservative elements, which he could therefore the more easily commingle in the cabinet he called around him, and particularly the Doctrinaires, who had borne so conspicuous a part in the opposition of recent years. Hence to Guizot was assigned the ministry of the interior, and to Molé that of foreign affairs-by far the most important departments of the government at all times, but especially so after a great civil convulsion. Broglie had the ministry of public instruction, Louis that of finance, Sebastiani that of the marine, Gerard that of war, all being decided Monarchists, and disposed to render the change as little revolutionary as possible. With these were mingled Dupont (de l'Eure), as keeper of the seals and minister of justice,