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



Conservative Senate assembled, April 6, and drew up the Charter, in 

 which the chief articles were 



" 1. The French Constitution is monarchical and hereditary, from 

 male to male, in the order of primogeniture. The French people call 

 freely to the throne Louis Stanislaus Xavier de France, brother of the 

 last king, and after him the other members of the house of Bourbon in 

 the ancient order." 



" 5. The king, the senate, and the legislative body concur in the 

 making of laws." 



" 9. Each department sends a deputy, and they shall be chosen by 

 the electoral bodies, which shall be preserved, with the exception of the 

 changes which may be made by a law in their organization/' 



(< 23. The Liberty of the Press is entire, with the exception of the 

 legal repression of offences which may result from the abuse of that 

 liberty." 



" Louis Stanislaus Xavier shall be proclaimed king of the French, as 

 soon as he shall have signed and sworn by an act stating, ' I accept the 

 constitution / swear to observe it and cause it to be observed !' " 



The Count d'Artois, too, was especially a party to this compact, for, 

 on the dissolution of the Provisional Government, April 14, and his 

 taking the government on himself until the arrival of his brother, the 

 decree of the senate was presented to him as a preliminary ; when he 

 declared, that, " though he himself had taken cognizance of the consti- 

 tution, he had not received power from his brother to accept it ; though 

 as he knew his sentiments, he could assure them that the king would 

 accept the bases !" Those bases he then declared to be, the princi- 

 ples of a representative government divided into two branches, liberty 

 of the press, and liberty of worship. 



Louis XVIII. accepted those declarations in a more detailed and 

 formal manner, May 2, before he was received in Paris as Monarch, 

 admitting that he was recalled " by the love of his people." It is not 

 to be forgotten that the right of the French people to form a free con- 

 stitution was solemnly declared by the Allied Sovereigns, and that they 

 were promised " the guaranty of the Sovereigns to the Constitution 

 which they formed;" that, in fact, French liberty was a compact not 

 merely of the king with the people, but of all Europe with the people, 

 and Charles X. is not merely a breaker of faith with the French, but 

 an assailant of the whole body of the Allied Monarchs, the protectors 

 of the Constitution. But he has fallen ; and so fall all who would 

 follow his example ! 



In the Moniteur of Monday, July 26, the memorable " Ordonnances" 

 appeared; and they fell like a thunderbolt on the people. They were in 

 the shape of three decrees. By the first, the liberty of the press was 

 declared at an end ; and no journals were to be published except those 

 directly under the controul of government. By the second, the Cham- 

 ber of Deputies was dissolved (even before it had met). And by the 

 third, the whole election law was changed. To the maintenance of all 

 which privileges Charles X. had pledged himself as prince, and sworn 

 as king. 



This " ordonnance" was not for reform, but for extinction ; not to 

 rectify the disorders of the Charter, but to extinguish it ; not to modify 

 a constitution, but to make a tyranny. It was power trusting to the 

 sword for its success ; a tyrant proclaiming war against a people ! 



