thanks to the distracted state of the country and of the Assembly, its too faithful image in this respect.

One would have imagined that a crisis of this kind, coming so shortly after so many crushing disasters, would have rallied the whole body of Conservatives in support of the Government. Quite the contrary. They continued to be divided among themselves, as well in the Assembly as in the country at large. By such divisions they lost many a seat in every partial election, to the great joy of the Radicals, who at every poll were in the ascendant.

There was one man, however, who was determined not to leave any stone unturned, if thereby he might save France. The Duc de Broglie was that man. In the reconstruction of his cabinet, he had handed over the Foreign department to the Duc Decazes, whils the reserved for himself the management of the Home Office, the most difficult and important of all in the present circumstances. A few days after the 20th of November, he brought forth a bill of a provisional character, authorizing the Government to appoint the mayors in most of the cities throughout the country. It was a flat contradiction to a law voted during the course of 1871, which had subjected those magistrates to election. According to our English ideas, nothing can be simpler, but we fancy many an Englishman would stare, if he saw the elective principle producing the same results as it does constantly in France. After an experience of more than two years, many stanch partisans of municipal freedom, the Duke among others, had gradually come round to an opposite conclusion. The Revolutionists had turned the law to their own advantage, and to such an extent, that in sequestered hamlets, no less than in large cities, they set all law and regular administration at defiance. The cosmopolitan Radicals, who swayed omnipotent over Paris in 1871, well knew their own interests, when they declared the Commune to be their prototype of all social organization. The law had supplied the municipalities with the means of setting up their own policy against the authority of the Assembly and Government. The mayors acted as so many tyrants over every inhabitant who was not exactly of their own opinion. To parade the red flag in the public squaresto be blind as to every street riot-to despise or resist every Government order-to suppress every act of the Assembly, every proclamation of the President-to abolish the police, or at least paralyze its forces-to neutralize the action of the law even for the repression of crime-to make an open profession of atheism-disorganize the common schools, and tamper with electoral lists, such were the daily achievements of

the village autocrats. All the south of France was infested with this sort of municipal plague.

The law was voted, a law which M. Thiers himself had formerly declared to be so indispensable, that he threatened to resign his presidential functions if he were not empowered to appoint the mayors. He had not, however, sufficient energy to apply it properly, being constantly fettered by his intrigues with the demagogues. The Duke, on the contrary, set to work with energy, and the riotous municipalities soon discovered that they had found a master, and all peaceable people that they now had a protector against their petty tyrants. But this was, after all, but a beginning: the Cabinet enforced its plans for the restoration of order in every direction, whilst applauding Europe began to look upon France as a reviving country. Yet, as long as the President's powers were not finally settled on a solid basis; as long as some sort of constitution did not lay down a few definite rules by which he was to govern; as long as some check or drawback should not be invented to act as a defence against the starts and fits of a democratic Assembly; as long as the whims and whirlwinds of universal suffrage were allowed to run riot, there was no security either for the country or for other nations, though the latter might for a time stand and look on. It was, therefore, to that difficult work that the Cabinet, headed by the Duc de Broglie, applied their energies.

But such a simple mode of acting could not certainly satisfy that extreme portion of the Assembly who go by the name of Chevau-légers. It has been the ever-renewed misfortune of the elder Bourbons to listen to and follow the advice of a chosen band of adherents, most sincere in their convictions, but most insensate in their line of policy. At Mittau, and afterwards at Hartwell, Louis XVIII. had to resist their suggestions, and still more their accusations, directed against the most devoted followers of his cause, who often were risking their heads to bring about the restoration of the old monarchy, coupling it with certain constitutional reforms, acknowledged by all parties as indispensable after the Revolution of '89. A young writer of rising eminence, M. Thaureau Dangin, lately published in Paris a most remarkable volume, in which he shows, with an abundance of historical evidence, those extreme Royalists, plus royalistes que le roi, doing all in their power to stultify and annul the very best efforts of the wisest and bravest defenders of the Bourbon cause. Their baneful influence was felt as early as the year 1794, after the fall of Robespierre. The Memoirs of Mallet Du Pan contain but too many proofs of the fact. They dreamt of no other system but

a thorough, complete reconstruction of the old régime with all its superannuated abuses. Of them the first Napoleon was wont to say, "Ils n'ont rien appris, rien oublié."

When in 1815, after a twofold invasion, bleeding France once more restored her antique dynasty, which she received with joy and blessed for the renewal of peace, the same party was again at work to pull to pieces what had been reared with so much difficulty. In their eyes, the Charter and the Parliamentary system were but an unhallowed compact with the demon of modern times, a compact which every good Royalist must needs tear asunder. One follows with melancholy interest the sober, yet telling, narrative of our author as he shows how the Ultras of those times broke down successively all the props of the throne.

So, as early as 1815, the party violently attacked the Cabinet of M. De Serres, one of the stanchest royalists and most able ministers whom the Bourbons could boast of. He fell under their efforts, and shortly died of grief. His crime was that he governed with the majority-a band of faithful but moderate members.

Then came the murder of the Duc de Berry in 1820, followed by a cabinet at the head of which was placed the chivalrous and high-minded Duc de Richelieu. But he, too, was too moderate, said the Ultras; so he succumbed to their most immoral coalition with the Opposition, the bitterest enemies of Religion and Monarchy.

The Extreme Right was triumphant, and yet they could not even form a cabinet of their own; for though M. de Villèle, who came to power in 1821, had at first taken his seat among them, he was too much of a statesman not to see the dangers to which these madmen exposed the throne itself. He had consequently come round by degrees to share the opinions of the majority. His seven years' administration forms certainly the brightest and most prosperous period of the Restoration, as is now universally acknowledged; and yet he had scarcely assumed the management of public affairs when a bitter, strong, and violent opposition set in against him from that side of the House where he had least to expect it, since he selected among them some of his colleagues in office. At the distance of half a century, it is, however, a curious thing to discover, by the light of newly-published documents, that these stanch defenders of Divine right, these purest among the pure, were not always moved by the purest motives, but condescended to become place-hunters like other men of a more vulgar clay. They even went so far as to threaten a continuation of their hostility, should they not

obtain satisfaction in this respect for themselves and friends. And in fact their opposition became stronger than ever, their immoral combinations with the Left more frequent than ever, to the intense joy of their common enemies, till at last they succeeded in their endeavours, and pulled down the Villèle cabinet, as they had done with others before; as they did with the shortlived Martignac ministry; and then they ushered in the Polignac government, with what consummate skill and what signal success for the reigning dynasty the present Count de Chambord must be well aware.*

It is with an express purpose that we have briefly recalled. the memories of former times, for the old Ultras of the Restoration seem to have left an active and numerous posterity behind them. The Chevau-légers of 1874 all show a family likeness with those of 1821 and 1830; the same blood seems to run through their veins. They all pretend to be religious and conservative men, and yet they have formed an impure alliance with barefaced atheists and revolutionists, whose fundamental principle is the overthrow of all we hold sacred and necessary to the very existence of society itself. This sounds strange, but so it is.

First of all, in the eyes of the Ultra-Legitimists, any measure or cabinet tending to strengthen the hands, to prolong the government, of Marshal MacMahon, is a direct attack upon their own system of Monarchy,-nay, more, it is a crime against the king, as retarding his immediate restoration; the very fact of which would suffice to cure France of all her evils. To be sure, the country may not be ready for such an event, or she may be intent upon stipulating beforehand some guarantees of one sort or another. That has nothing to do with the matter, and such pretensions must be met with a flat refusal. If her folly and obstinacy should bring down upon her devoted head calamities of the most appalling description; bloodshed and ruin from civil war, or foreign invasion, perhaps both, woe to her; yet it may be a means of bringing her back to her senses; that is, to her only sovereign. Now these doctrines are supported daily in the most accredited journals and no less accredited circles of the party, with what success the reader may well imagine. Radicalism and Imperialism are the only winners.

* We have seldom met with a work so highly instructive on the history of that interesting period. Its effect on the present Conservative party in France has been deep, reading, as it really does, like a prophetic portrait of their own time. We give the title in full for the benefit of our readers :— "Royalistes et Républicains. Essais historiques sur des questions de politique contemporaine. Par PAUL THUREAU DANGIN. Paris: Plon, 1874,"

Such being the views and policy of the Extreme Right, it was hardly to be expected they should support the Duc de Broglie in his endeavours to establish the Marshal's government on a sound basis. They had hitherto yielded to the pressure of the moderate Legitimists on all important occasions, but henceforward declared opposition to the Cabinet, though they had voted the Septennate on the 20th of November last. They were afraid, in fact, that the nation should become accustomed to, and begin to feel secure under, a rule which, after all, bears the name of a Republic. That it should have a chance of lasting seven years, with a Senate or Upper House of some sort, with an electoral system modified in such a way as to prevent vagrants and the dregs of the population from going to the poll,-all this was too much for the feelings of the Chevau-légers, and so they coalesced with the Revolutionary party, well knowing they would thereby cause a total rupture in the Conservative majority. Consequently, at the reopening of the session, when an all-important measure for the electoral reform was brought forth by the Duke,-a measure which provoked the fury of the Radicals,-they voted on their side, and thus overthrew the Government, for the Duke had very rightly staked his reputation on that vital question.

From that day-May 16th-the Assembly and the country itself have been one continued scene of confusion. By a singular inconsistency, the former immediately resumed the discussion of those same constitutional laws which had proved the stumbling-block of the preceding Cabinet. A new one was formed, to be sure, but of men whose leading principle is that they must interfere in no political question whatsoever, contenting themselves with doing the humdrum business of their respective offices. The effects of such a system are easy to conceive. As there is in reality no leader nor leading policy, the Assembly goes on debating by fits and starts, which gradually undermine its authority and prestige in the country. The public grow more and more indifferent to the petty squabbles and bickerings that now mark its career. The idea of a prompt dissolution, which but lately was a downright bugbear, is fast becoming a household word, to the great delight of the Radicals and Thiers party. The former are intent upon overthrowing any constitutional measure to be voted by the actual Assembly, being sure thus to secure both a dissolution and the return of another thoroughly Radical,—a plan in which they are sure of support from the Chevaulégers. M. Thiers, again, has but one object in view, that of bringing about a dissolution as an effectual means of unseating the Marshal, and of becoming once more a President