268 



FRANCE. (HISTORY.) 



very persons whom it was the great object of the 

 government to exclude from the legislature, were Uie 

 persons who paid the highest taxes, and who, con- 

 sequently, were electors, and frequently were elected. 

 The Bourbons did not understand France, and had 

 gradually alienated the nation ; the latter knew the 

 sentiments of the Bourbons; they knew what they had 

 to expect from the new ministry, and were deter- 

 mined, from the beginning, not to tolerate their 

 illegal projects. The general condition of the people, 

 at this time, was prosperous ; commerce and manu- 

 factures flourished ; and the question was often asked, 

 ( )f what do the French complain ? Have they not 

 all they want? It is not necessary, in this country, 

 to refute those who consider the physical comforts 

 of a people as the sole standard of the goodness of a 

 government or of the condition of a nation. It is 

 one of the best points in the struggle of the French 

 nation, that, though they were, physically, in a flour- 

 ishing state, they yet spared no exertion, and were 

 willing to shed their blood, to establish principles 

 which they held dear. Prince Polignac was not the 

 author of the troubles which ensued. Without 

 denying his guilt, we think that the Bourbons must, 

 sooner or later, have come to open war with the 

 principles of the nation. All ways of incorporating 

 liberal principles with the notions of the royalists had 

 been tried in vain, in all possible shades of minis- 

 tries ; it remained only to declare open war against 

 the nation. But the war was resolved upon without 

 a calculation of the relative strength of the parties. 



1830. March 2, the speech from the throne 

 announced that war had been declared against 

 Algiers on account of the insults offered to the 

 French flag (the dey had also struck the French con- 

 sul at a public audience, on receiving an answer in 

 the negative to his question whether the debt above- 

 mentioned, due from France to Algiers, had been set- 

 tled) ; that active negotiations were on foot to effect 

 a reconciliation between the members of the Bra- 

 ganza family; and that the revenue of 1829, though 

 less than that of the preceding year, exceeded the 

 estimates of the budget. The speech ended with the 

 following words : " Peers of France, deputies of the 

 departments, I do not doubt your co-operation in the 

 good I desire to do. You will repel, with contempt, 

 the perfidious insinuations which malevolence is busy 

 in propagating. If guilty intrigues should throw 

 any obstacles in the way of my government, which I 

 cannot and will not anticipate, I should find force to 

 overcome them, in my resolution to preserve the 

 public peace, in the just confidence I have in the 

 French nation, and in the love which they have 

 always evinced for their kings." The funds fell as 

 soon as the speech was made public. There was a 

 considerable majority in the chamber of deputies 

 against the ministers. Royer-Collard was re-elected 

 president. When the doyen d"age (see Dean) gave 

 up the chair, he addressed the president by the term 

 citizen, which excited a great sensation. On the 

 18th of March, the usual deputation of the chamber, 

 with the president at their head, presented to the 

 king the answer of the chamber. The address 

 declared, in a frank but respectful tone, that a con- 

 currence did not exist between the views of the go- 

 vernment and the wishes of the nation ; that the ad- 

 ministration was actuated by a distrust of the nation ; 

 and that the nation, on the other hand, was agitated 

 with apprehensions which would become fatal to its 

 prosperity and its repose. "Sire," continued the 

 address, " France does not wish for anarchy any 

 more than you wish for despotism." Never was a 

 more firm, yet prudent warning given to a king. 

 'Ihe king replied, by expressing his regret that the 

 concurrence which he had a right to expect from the 



deputies of the departments, did not exist ; he 

 declared that his resolution was fixed, and that the 

 ministers would make known his intentions. The 

 peers had answered on the 10th, by a mere echo of 

 the speech from the throne. Chateaubriand's dis- 

 course on this speech was a bold attack on the min- 

 isters. The two chambers were immediately con- 

 voked for the next day (the 19th), to receive a com- 

 munication from the government, when the chambers 

 were declared to be prorogued until September 1, 

 the same year a measure which produced great 

 excitement throughout France. 



The journals became more active than ever. The 

 Jesuitical and royalist journals exulted in the measure, 

 and praised the ministry for its firmness, whilst the 

 liberal papers began to predict the events which have 

 since taken place. They were conducted, in general, 

 with great decorum, whilst the ministerial journals 

 were filled with abuse and reproaches of their oppo 

 nents, whom they denounced as traitors and enemies 

 of the throne. To the hatred of the liberals against 

 Polignac and his colleagues was added contempt for 

 his imbecility. A society was formed in Paris for the 

 purpose of printing journals in such departments and 

 districts as were destitute -of them, and removing the 

 impediments to their publication occasioned by the 

 refusal of printers to lend their presses to papers 

 opposed to the measures of government. In Brittany 

 an association was formed to refuse the payment of 

 taxes not regularly granted by the chamber of depu- 

 ties. The members of this association agreed to assist 

 each other in case of prosecution. The association was 

 denounced, but was acquitted by the cour royals at 

 Paris. Two hundred and twenty-one deputies had 

 voted for the answer to the king's speech, and 181 

 against it. The names of the 221 were printed in 

 hand-bills ; the number 221 was seen on snuffboxes, 

 &c., and un des 221 soon became an honourable title. 

 Benjamin Constant, however, declared himself, in the 

 Gazette de France, against the answer. Government 

 prohibited the sale of the snuffboxes, &c., and 

 published a list of prefects, dismissed or transferred 

 to other departments ; purified, as the ministerial 

 called it, all branches of the administration ; ap- 

 pointed many of the most servile partisans judges, 

 prosecuted the journals (as the Globe, National, &c.), 

 and men of letters, many of whom were national 

 favourites, and continued, though in the minority, to 

 treat their opponents as traitors, and deliberately in- 

 sulted the nation. 



April 1, count Villele had a long interview with 

 the king, and the papers asserted that negotiations 

 were on foot to recall him to the ministry. Prince 

 Polignac seemed to have become more violent in 

 proportion to his weakness ; and it would seem as if 

 schemes of vengeance had mingled with his absurd 

 ideas of governing France. The anniversary of the 

 entry of Charles X (then count d'Artois) into Paris, 

 in 1814, was celebrated April 13. All the public 

 bodies made flattering speeches, and received gracious 

 answers, and all the hollow pageantry of monarchy 

 (of a very different complexion from what was soon 

 to follow) was displayed. 



We have already mentioned the difficulties whicli 

 existed between the king of France and the dey of 

 Algiers, and the intimation, in the king's speech, of 

 his determination to take effectual measures on this 

 point. A war with Algiers could only be agreeable 

 to the administration. The same reason which was 

 one of the inducements to the war with Spain the 

 desire of making the army familiar with the name 

 of the Bourbons, and the drapeau blanc still existed. 

 But there were many other reasons which rendered 

 a war, with a reasonable probability of success, par 

 ticularly desirable for the ministry at this moment. 



