GENERAL HISTORY. 



[109 



the establishment of cantonal 

 schools under the superintend- 

 ence of local gratuitous commit- 

 tees, and subject to the visitation 

 of the superior clergy and ma- 

 gistrates. The children of the 

 poor are to be taught gratuitously. 

 The system of instruction is to 

 proceed in gradation from the 

 first elements of reading, writ- 

 ing, and arithmetic, to those at- 

 tainments which may be useful 

 in ordinary life, such as mensura- 

 tion, surveying, &c. Masters are 

 to be employed at salaries propor- 

 tioned to their abilities in three 

 distinct classes. Moral and reli- 

 gious principles are particularly 

 to be attended to; and provision 

 is made for the instruction of 

 Protestant children, under the 

 superintendence of their own 

 clergy, or conjointly with those 

 in the general schools wheie there 

 are no separate establishments for 

 them. Besides the public funds 

 destined to the support of tliis 

 system, private donations and be- 

 quests are encouraged. This plan, 

 if duly carried into effect, seems 

 well calculated to remedy that 

 ignorance wliich has long been 

 the reproach of the lower orders 

 of people in France. 



Of the party differences pre- 

 vailing in the French legislature, 

 some notice was taken in the his- 

 tory of the last year. They were 

 such as miglit with certainty be 

 expected from the political state 

 of the country, and the rapid and 

 extraordinary changes it had un- 

 dergone in the system of public 

 authority; and independently of 

 peculiar circumstances, they might 

 in great part be referied to those 

 diversities of o{)inion, which are 

 always foynd in constitutions the 



basis of which is partly monar- 

 chical, partly popular. As the 

 Whigs and Tories of England 

 have always divided on the prin- 

 ciple of regal authority, one de- 

 riving its origin from national 

 choice, the other from indefeasi- 

 ble hereditary right, so, after the 

 restoration of the Bourbon dy- 

 nasty, there was a party in France 

 which chose to regard Louis 

 XVIII. as reigning by the autho- 

 rization of the people, and on 

 conditions settled by a national 

 constitution ; and another, which 

 considered him as the heir of le- 

 gitimacy, as the term is applied, 

 and regarded as null eveiy claim 

 which was the product of the re- 

 volution. The latter were ac- 

 cordingly eminently monarchical 

 in their principles, and were in- 

 vidiously branded with the title of 

 ultra-royalists; whilst the former, 

 under the name of constitution- 

 alists, were charged with a lean- 

 ing to republicanism. A zealous 

 attachment to the established re- 

 ligion, as in other coimtries, was 

 a feature of the votaries of mo- 

 narchy; while the greater part of 

 those who embraced revolution 

 politics, were supposed to be 

 more than indifferent to the in- 

 terests of religion. 



The contests of these opposite 

 parties affoid a leading topic for 

 the domestic histoi-y of France in 

 the present year. An important 

 document connected with it, ap- 

 peared in an English paper, with 

 the title of " Declaration of the 

 jirinciples of the majority of the 

 Chamber of Deputies, Jan. 20th, 

 1816.'' Considering itas a real ex- 

 position of theviews and principles 

 avowed by the royalist party, we 

 shall give it without abridgment. 



" We, 



