328 STATE OF FRANCE. [1817. 



they still owe a sufficient grudge) ; and I am confident, 

 had they been beaten that is, had Lafayette been 

 chosen some violent act would have been done. In 

 all probability the law would have been suspended ; 

 and while the Allies are in France, it is plainly not 

 the interest of the Opposition to drive the court to 

 such acts of force. I conclude that you are aware of 

 the manner of election and the qualification viz., 

 direct taxes answering to about 75 a-year income, 

 unless in the case of shopkeepers, who may have much 

 less, as they pay a shop-tax called Patente. I have 

 no doubt that some attempt will be made to disfran- 

 chise those patentes; for they being all the bourgeoisie 

 of Paris, the strength of the Opposition lies there. That 

 the election is quite popular enough as it now stands 

 is evident, there being nearly 10,000 voters for Paris. 

 A few, and but a very few, alterations in their other 

 laws would give them a fair chance of liberty. The 

 worst is the unlimited power of delaying a man's 

 trial, and the system of secret interrogatory connected 

 with it. The secret imprisonment is contrary to law, 

 but there are no legal means of checking the abuse. 

 The parties are in a strange state. The Eussian influ- 

 ence (which is all-powerful) had turned out Due de 

 Feltre, &c., of the Ultra party, the day before I got 

 there ; and the rage of the latter against the ministerial 

 party was beyond describing. The most sensible men 

 of the Constitutional or Opposition party held it wise 

 to look towards a gradual union with the ministers 

 against the Ultras ; and the Eussians had a plan of the 

 same kind, but with this defect, that they wished the 

 Opposition to be got into places one by one at long 

 intervals, which was manifestly objectionable. How- 



