197 



CHARLES X. 



CHARLES XII. 



103 



banishment, fines, and confiscation. In the same session a bill was 

 presented by ministers concerning the ' police of the press," which in 

 effect re-established the censorship for all pamphlets of less than 

 21 sheets, though it wag not till a few months later that it was 

 formally re-established. The new bill also compelled the editors of 

 periodical papers to declare the names of all the proprietors of the 

 papers, and give security to a heavy amount. Under the third head 

 of the bill, severe penalties were inflicted for offences of the press 

 against the person of the king, the royal dignity, the religion of the 

 state, and other communions acknowledged by the state, foreign 

 sovereigns and princes, the courts of justice, &c. After a warm 

 debate ministers thought proper to withdraw their bill ; this created 

 a lively sensation in Paris. Soon after, at a grand review of the 

 national guards, Charles X. was saluted by cries from the ranks of 

 " Down with the ministers ; " " Down with the Jesuits ! " The king, 

 looking on some of the most clamorous, told them firmly, " I am 

 come here to receive homage, and not lessons." He then disbanded 

 the national guards. In November the king dissolved the House of 

 Deputies, and directed new elections to be proceeded with. He then 

 took off again the censorship of the journals. By another ordinance 

 he created seventy-six new peers. In January 1828 a new ministry 

 was formed. Messrs. Villele, Peyronnet, Corbiere, &c., gave in their 

 resignations, and were succeeded by Viscount Martignac, and Counts 

 de la Ferronnays, Portalis, and others. This change was considered 

 as a sort of concession to liberal principles. A commission was 

 appointed, at the suggestion of the new ministry, to frame a project 

 of municipal administration for all France. Another commission was 

 formed to inquire into the discipline and method of education which 

 prevailed in the ' petits S<5minaires,' or colleges for clerical students, 

 which were said to have fallen under the direction of disguised Jesuits, 

 as the Society of the Jesuits was not authorised by the laws of 

 France. 



The king's speech at the opening of the session of 1823 waa con- 

 ciliatory. A law was parsed in the Chambers concerning newspapers 

 and other periodicals, fixing the amount of security to be given by the 

 proprietor*, and enacting other regulations for the police of the press. 

 The commission on the clerical seminaries having made its report, 

 stating that seven or eight of those establishments were actually under 

 the direction of members of the Society of Jesuits, the king issued an 

 ordinance placing the establishments thus specified under the juris- 

 diction of the university, and ordering that in future no director or 

 teacher should be admitted in any clerical seminary unless he declared 

 in writing that he did not belong to any of the religious congregations 

 not legally established in France. 



In 1829 an elaborate project of a new municipal law was laid before 

 the Chambers by the Martignae ministry. It was rejected, and the 

 king was encouraged to try a ministry of decided royalists. This new 

 ministry was appointed in August 1829, after the Chambers had been 

 prorogued. It consisted of Prince Polignac, Messrs. Montbel, Haussez, 

 La Bourdonnaye, Qnernon Rainville, and others. As soon as the new 

 appointments were known the public indignation broke forth, and a 

 loud cry was set up by the newspapers that the king should dismiss 

 the obnoxious ministers. Associations were formed with the object of 

 refusing to pay the taxes. Prosecutions were instituted by the king's 

 attorneys against the more violent journals, but in several instances 

 the courts acquitted the accused. Meantime the country was thriving, 

 the new ministers were effecting retrenchments, and proposing a 

 corresponding reduction of taxation. 



On the 2nd of March 1830 Charles X. opened the Chambers. He 

 spoke of his friendly relations with the foreign powers, of the final 

 emancipation of Greece, of the intended expedition against Algiers, 

 and he lastly expressed his firm resolve to transmit to his successors 

 the unimpaired rights of the crown, which he said constituted the 

 beet safeguard of the public liberties secured by the Charter. In 

 reply to this speech, the address voted in the Chamber of Deputies, by 

 a majority of forty, told the king plainly that his miniatera had not 

 the confidence of the representatives of the nation. The deputies who 

 voted this address were 221 in number. The king, on receiving the 

 address, said that his heart was grieved to find that he had not the 

 support of the Chambers, in order to fulfil all the good which he 

 intended : his resolutions however were immoveable. His ministers 

 would let them know his intentions. The next day, the 19th of March, 

 the Chamber was prorogued to the 1st of September, and some time 

 after a dissolution was proclaimed, and new elections were made. 

 During the spring incendiary fires broke out in Normandy and other 

 provinces, and the sufferers were mostly small farmers and cottagers. 

 Among those who were seized as guilty of incendiarism, the majority 

 were women. Suspicions and mutual accusations were bandied about 

 from one political party to the other concerning these fires, but no 

 clue was obtained as to the real instigators. The new elections 

 increased the opposition majority to nearly two-thirds of the number 

 of deputies. Meantime news arrived of the conquest of Algiers, but 

 the tiilings were received surlily by the opposition. Every act of the 

 ministry waa reprobated. This state of things could not last. The 

 king called together a council of ministers, in which it was resolved 

 to give an extended interpretation to article 14 of the Charter, which 

 gave the king the power "of providing by ordinances for the safety 

 of th- state, and for the repression of any attempt against the dignity 



of the crown." On the 25th of July the king issued several ordinances 

 countersigned by his ministers. The first ordinance suspended the 

 liberty of the periodical press. No journal or periodical was to bo 

 allowed to appear without the royal permission. No pamphlet of 

 less than twenty sheets was to ba published without the permission 

 of the secretary of state for tha home department, or of the local 

 prefect. Ordinance 2 dissolved the newly-elected House of Deputies, 

 which had not yet assembled. Ordinance 3 altered the system of 

 election, reduced the number of the deputies from 430 to 258, and 

 placed the new elections under the direct influence of the prefects. 

 All the ordinances showed but too plainly the spirit in which the king 

 was ' immoveably ' determined to reign ; but the last ordinance was 

 decidedly an infraction of the constitution or Charter, for the king 

 had no right to alter the law of election. The sequel is well known. 

 Most of the editors of newspapers signed an energetic protest against 

 the ordinances, and continued to publish as before, and the tribunal 

 of first instance, and the tribunal of commerce, authorised them to do 

 so. Then came the protest of a number of deputies, denouncing the 

 ordinances as illegal, and proclaiming popular insurrection as a duty. 

 Several master manufacturers turned out their men and shut up their 

 factories, and a mass of people took up arms. Meantime Charles 

 remained quietly at St. Cloud, and merely sent Marshal Marmont to 

 take the command of the garrison of the capital, which consisted of 

 about 10,000 men, one-half of whom could not be depended upon. 

 On the 27th of July the first encounter took place between the troops 

 and the people. Next day an ordinance declared Paris to be in a state 

 of siege, or, in other words, under martial law. The fighting in the 

 streets became more general.. Many of the national guards joined the 

 people, who hoisted the tri-coloured flag, in opposition to the white 

 flag of the Bourbons. The Hotel-de-Ville was taken and retaken. On 

 the 29th the people attacked the Louvre and the Tuileries, the regi- 

 ments of the line abandoned their post, and Marmont with the guards 

 evacuated Paris. On the 30th a number of deputies and peers pro- 

 claimed the Duo d'Orle'ans lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and 

 Charles X. confirmed his nomination on the 1st of August. On the 

 2nd of August Charles X. abdicated the crown in favour of the Duo 

 de Bordeaux, and set out for Cherbourg. The Chambers however 

 would not recognise the claims of the Due de Bordeaux, and elected 

 the Due d'OrMans. [Louis PHILIPPE.] From Cherbourg Charles 

 sailed for England, and finally took up his residence at Holyrood 

 House. He afterwards removed to Prague in Bohemia, where the 

 Emperor of Austria gave him the use of the royal palace. In the 

 autumn of 1836 he removed to Goritz in Styria, for tha sake of a 

 milder climate. He there rented the chateau or mansion of Griifeu- 

 berg, but soon after his arrival he fell ill of the cholera, and died on 

 the 6th of October, 1836. His body was embalmed and buried in 

 the vaults of the Franciscan convent of Goritz. His son, the Duo 

 d'Angoulcme, who as well as his gr.mdaon, the Duo de Bordeaux, had 

 attended him in his last moments, did not assume the royal title, but 

 went by the name of Count de Marnes. The Duo d'Angouleme died 

 at Goritz in June, 1813. [BORDEAUX, Duo DE.] 



CHARLES XII., of Sweden, was born at Stockholm, in June 1682. 

 At fifteen years of age, in 1697, he succeeded his father, Charles XI., 

 a harsh and despotic prince, who had abolished the authority of the 

 senate and rendered himself absolute. Charles was brought up in his 

 father's principle?, and he showed from his earliest youth great self- 

 will and obstinacy, and an excessive fondness for military exercises. 

 When he was eighteen, a league waa formed against him by Frederic 

 IV., king of Denmark, Augustus, elector of Saxony and king of 

 Poland, and Peter I. of Russia, the object of which was to dismember 

 Sweden. Charles sailed immediately with an army for Copenhagen, 

 besieged that city, and in a few weeks obliged the king of Denmark to sue 

 for peace. He next sailed for the coast of Livonia, then a Swedish pro- 

 vince as well as Ingria ; which latter was invaded by the Russians, v.-ho 

 beaieged Narva. On the 30th November 1700, Charles, at the head 

 of 8000 well disciplined Swedes, attacked a disorderly body of 80,000 

 Russians, and completely defeated them. He next turned his arms 

 agaiust King Augustus ; but not satisfied with defeating him repeatedly 

 and taking Courlaud from him, he determined upon deposing him and 

 placing on the throne of 1'oland a young Polish nobleman, Stanislaus 

 Leckzinski, palatine of Posuauia, who by his manner and address had 

 won the favour of Charles. In this project he was favoured by a con- 

 siderable faction among the Polish magnates, always dissatisfied with 

 their sovereigns, and ever ready for change. After several battles 

 and negociationa, Charles, having overrun the greater part of Poland, 

 dictated to the Diet the nomination of his favourite, and Stanislaus 

 was proclaimed kiug of Poland iu July 1704. Augustus however, 

 at the head of his Saxon troops and a party of Poles and Lithuanians, 

 assisted by Russian auxiliaries, kept up a desultory warfare in several 

 provinces of Poland ; but Charles, at the head of part of his army, 

 having crossed the Oder and entered Saxony, Augustus was obliged to 

 sue for peace, which was concluded at Leipzig in the beginning of 

 1707. Augustus resigned the crown of Poland to Stanislaus, and 

 retired to his hereditary Saxon dominions. [AuousTua II.] 



Charles, in his head-quarters near Leipzig, at the head of a victorious 

 army of nearly 50,000 Swedish veterans, had for a while the eyes of 

 all Europe fixed'upon him. He received ambassadors from all the 

 principal powers, and the Duke of Marlborough himself went to Leipzig, 



