252 The French Revolution of July, 1830. [SEPT. 



taken, Prance would execrate her representatives, and return to a new 

 chamber a royalist majority.'' 



Here, setting aside the verbiage, which seems borrowed from the 

 Moniteur, we have the whole project distinctly laid down. There is, 

 the admission that the government is charged first, with hostility to the 

 charter, and next, to the freedom of the press i The persons who charge 

 it with those offences are plainly pronounced violent and intemperate 

 demagogues. Events, however, have tolerably wiped away that imputation. 



But then comes the Cabinet declaration, that if the deputies present 

 an insolent address, requesting the dismissal of ministers, those deputies 

 will be instantly cashiered, the parliament being dissolved. Or, if they 

 take another way, and without presenting the insolent address, refuse to 

 accede to the budget, or refuse to raise taxes for the purpose of enslav- 

 ing the people, then a royalist majority will be contrived ; which, as it 

 could not be provided for by the old style of election, must be provided 

 for by a new, namely, a subversion of the form prescribed by the charter. 

 Thus, let what would come, the charter was to be crushed. Whether the 

 Ministers of England had ever read this paper, or ever read any thing but 

 the list of boroughs and sure votes, must remain in their own bosoms, 

 But here was the knowledge perfectly at their service ; and the fact is, 

 that every journal in France and England talked of the king's intention 

 to overturn the French parliament, if he could not make it submissive. 

 It is, too, a curious instance of the fierce activity that folly can some- 

 times exhibit, to see the French king disdaining to wait for even what 

 he had avowed as the necessary provocation. The deputies did not pre- 

 sent the insolent address, nor stop the budget ; for they never met. The 

 hand of power was impatient to grasp the charter, and it asked no other 

 excuse than its having 15,000 troops within beat of drum. The Press 

 was the only ground which it could discover, to make out even the 

 semblance of a case ; and on the strength of its having discovered that 

 the French writers were troublesome, and the liberty of thought incon- 

 venient to the ministerial process of managing kingdoms, war was 

 declared against the nation, thousands of lives were sacrificed, all France 

 was put in a ferment of revolution, and all Europe is, at this moment, 

 dreading in what quarter the burst of popular vengeance shall first rise 

 to throw the world into confusion. 



The details of the revolution will yet form one of the most striking 

 features of history. On Saturday, July 24, a French newspaper first 

 slightly announced, that there was an immediate intention to issue Cordon- 

 nances " hostile to the charter. But, as the information was restricted 

 to this paper, it was disregarded. On Sunday the 25th, the king held 

 a court, at which he received the ambassadors as usual. At this court 

 the royal signature was given, and the ordonnances were handed over to 

 the Moniteur. 



We have already asked whether the British Cabinet did or did not 

 know the parricidal designs of the French one ? But we have super- 

 abundant proof that the Polignacs had long meditated the crime. It is 

 many months since Cottu, a lawyer, and one of those beings whose pen 

 is ready to advocate any thing, wrote a pamphlet De la Necessite d'une 

 Dictature ; the object of which was to abolish the law of elections and 

 the liberty of the press, the whole spirit of the charter ; concluding with 

 the advice, that the crown should, without delay, establish a Dictator- 

 ship ! an absolute despotism ! 



