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XLV.

were equally put forward as candidates for the presi- CAP. dentship. The King, at the desire of Martignac, chose Royer Collard. Such homage to the Left Centre was necessary, since in the composition of the new ministry Martignac had altogether left out the Doctrinaires. The debates and votes upon the address were even more insignificant than the presidential election. A paragraph censured the late deplorable system, which had paralysed the good intentions of the Crown. The King was furious on learning the natural consequence of the overthrow of Villèle. He proposed to dissolve the Chamber But Martignac, alarmed, hinted that he could not sign such an ordonnance, and observed that the word of blame was far better than an impeachment, which the late minister might have incurred.

at once.

The Royal ire was at last appeased. But the ministers felt strongly the necessity of measures directly opposed to the policy of Villèle. In obedience to this they completed their cabinet by separating public instruction from ecclesiastical affairs, and appointing Vatimesnil minister of the former. The Bishop of Beauvais, a liberal prelate, replaced Frayssinous as ecclesiastical minister. And a commission was named to examine into the subject of education, and report what change was requisite to free it from the undue control of the clergy.

The first law presented to the Chamber was also a popular one. It was an amplification of what the Peers had lately laboured to establish-a certain freedom of election. When the franchise is low, the violence or influence exercised by government or a party on the mob of electors is often treated as a joke. But all the electors of the Restoration were the better classes, paying the highest rate of direct taxes. Injustice done to them, their exclusion from the lists, ministerial

* Paul Louis Courrier, though a landed proprietor, paying the due aVOL. V.

BB

mount of tax, could never get his name
inscribed upon the electoral lists.

CHAP.
XLV.

threats or vengeance, uttered or exercised, the arbitrary use of power by the authorities-these extremes, from which Villèle and Corbière did not shrink, formed no small portion of their unpopularity. M. Guizot's chief complaint against Villèle indeed is, that he wore out all the springs and resources of government for no greater end than keeping himself in power, and that he thus left government authority so hated and disrespected that he rendered the task impossible to his successor. Even Martignac, in restoring independence of election, although he thereby increased the popularity of his cabinet, threw away, as his adversaries reproached him, much of the salutary influence of whatever party was entrusted with the government.

A new law respecting the press was also a necessary measure, as the censorship could not be maintained. It was accompanied or followed by another which greatly facilitated its working-a law with difficulty wrung from Charles the Tenth, but which the Martignac Cabinet insisted on-the expulsion of the Jesuits not only from public instruction, but from recognised existence in France. The committee appointed to examine this, impartially composed by the minister, had reported, five against four, that the eight great Jesuit colleges were not illegal. This decision by a majority of one was so outrageously contrary to law and the public opinion, that the government was obliged to come forward to reverse it. The King resisted. The ministers told him that his resistance followed by their resignation would infallibly lead to an impeachment and condemnation of M. de Villèle. This staggered Charles the Tenth. He submitted, and a royal ordonnance appeared subjecting the Jesuits' seminary to the control and supervision of the university. This, in other words, was the expulsion of the order. The decree made much noise. It was, however, not really so important as the re-organisation of the system of primary

XLV.

instruction by the minister Vatimesnil. He established CHAP. a school committee in every commune of nine members, the curé, mayor, and juge de paix, with two assessors nominated by each, forming the council. The governing lay authorities thus outnumbered the ecclesiastical; and as the Martignac ministry meditated a reorganisation of municipalities also, and the introduction into them of more freedom, this reform was really popular and liberal.

The expulsion of the Jesuits rendered the legislation concerning the press much more efficient, since it removed from the breasts of the judges and from the courts of law that resistance and opposition to the government which had induced them to absolve the journalists. The judges, indeed, showed at once, by their sentence on Cauchois Lemaire for putting forward the claims of the Duke of Orleans, that they would not tolerate treason. The new law of the press therefore was one of repression by the tribunals, not one of precaution by the censorship or of ruin to publishers and printers. It required responsible gérants of newspapers, and a large cautionnement, establishing heavy fines and punishments on conviction. These two were no longer to fall on men of straw, the gérants being required to own a considerable portion of the property of the paper, or of the money lodged for security. Such a law, however, though so much more liberal than Peyronnet could have devised, still did not satisfy the Left, whose orators denounced it. They found the sum required to be vested as security (8,000l.) infinitely too large, and they also desired the jury to decide in trials of the press. Some of the Royalists supporting the former amendment, it was carried; but the latter was rejected. Indictments for a tendency to do this or that were prohibited, and finally the law passed.

A popular act of the Martignac Ministry at this time was the despatch of General Maison to Greece at the

CHAP.
XLV.

head of an army. Although the naval forces of Turkey and Egypt had been crushed at Navarino, Ibrahim still continued to hold and to ravage the Morea. Although the new Finance Minister, Count Roy, accused his predecessor of a deficit, M. Martignac still made the large demand of 3,000,000l. for the Greek expedition; and it was willingly granted. Hyde de Neuville, Châteaubriand's alter ego, was Marine Minister; and both pressed the liberation of Greece, as some kind of a set-off to the enslavement of Spain. The French thus acquired the honour of putting the copingstone to the liberation of Greece, and to the final establishment and independence of the Hellenic Kingdom.

The year and the session of 1828 produced to all appearance a complete triumph for the Martignac Ministry. It seemed to have overcome the obstinacy of the King without deeply offending him. It had expelled the Jesuits, who, driven from the schools, took refuge in Switzerland. It had opposed the Pope to the bishops. It had rendered the elections independent of the government functionaries—had restored the press to a fair degree of freedom-had reorganised the Council of State, so as to place it in harmony with a liberal administration. Count Roy's management of finance was more honest than Villèle's, and as able. Martignac in the Home Department had encountered more opposition from the King than any of his colleagues. There was an ex-prefect of police, a creature of Villèle's and of the Congregation, named Franchet, whom Charles the Tenth consulted in private respecting the merits of each functionary; and fortified by his advice, the King opposed most of Martignac's nominations to the Prefectures and other posts. That minister could bring the rest of the cabinet to his aid in the enforcement of measures, but in the choice of men he was left to himself, and often fought an amicable battle with the monarch. Charles was annoyed at Martignac's bland

ness: he preferred the rudeness of Count Roy, and was wont to mock the soft and silky oratory of the Home Minister, whom he in jest compared to a favourite prima donna of the day. "Have you heard La Pasta?" asked the King once, alluding to an eloquent speech delivered by Martignac. Nor was he alone in this opinion, for Dupont de l'Eure was heard to ejaculate during one of the minister's speeches, "What a syren!"

The influence of the political syren was in fact more charming than commanding; and even 1828, his great year of success, had but the effect of rendering friends and enemies more impatient. A great portion of the Royalists, angry with Villèle, had hitherto supported him, and did not shrink from joining with the Liberals in their votes. But they soon perceived that Martignac was not going their road, but that on the contrary he was paving the way for the advent of the Left to influence and power by the liberality of his measures. One of the causes indeed of the shipwreck of the Restoration was that a great body of Royalists, and even the most sensible of them, did not know what to aim at or whither they were going. Those men attached to the monarchy deprecated its subservience to and close alliance with the priesthood. They were impatient too of ministerial control, and had found the advantage of a free press and free elections. Why then not have become surely and permanently allied with the Left, which rejoiced in these same gains? Unfortunately a great portion of the Left indulged in revolutionary and Imperial preferences. In their writings and orations they had been wont to oppose the glories of the Empire to the ingloriousness of the Bourbons. Manuel, Lafayette, Constant, and the song-writer Béranger they who had formerly conspired against the Bourbons-now, though they had ceased to conspire, continued to deride. And this created an abyss between

* Guizot.

CHAP.
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