XXXIII. 1835. but that situation was reserved in permanence for Mar- CHAP. shal Maison, then ambassador at St Petersburg, who accepted the office. Shortly before, Prince Talleyrand, whose health had suffered severely from the climate of London, was relieved, at his earnest request, of that embassy, which was conferred on Count Pozzo di Borgo. this crisis. This ministerial crisis, which had now lasted without 12. intermission for six months, appears at first sight an in- Cause of explicable circumstance, considering the immense majority which the ministerial candidate had obtained at the election of the President of the Chamber, the usual trial of strength of parties in France. But a little consideration must show that it arose from that majority itself. The terror excited among all the holders of property in France, from the repeated insurrections and daring language of the anarchical faction, had become such that they had all united in returning a Chamber which might oppose it : thence the immense majority which supported M. Dupin as President. But when the victory was gained, and the terrorists put down, the usual divisions consequent on success at once appeared. Each of the sections of which the Government majority had been composed, strove to work out the victory for its own profit, and openly aspired to nominating the Ministry, and getting the whole patronage of the State at its disposal. The Centre, or Tiers Parti, as it was called, whose junction with the Ministerialists had so materially swelled that majority, were particularly loud in the assertion of their pretensions, and Marshal Gérard's Ministry, whose motto was economy, had been its creature. But the King was equally inflexible on the other side; he was by no means broke into the favourite maxim of the Liberals, Le Roi règne et ne gouverne pas. On the contrary, he was more than ever determined to exercise his own judgment on the A pamphlet of M. Roederer's, which inculcated the doctrine that the King should nominate his Ministers just as he did his domestic servants, was read aloud at the matter. XXXIII. 1835. CHAP. Tuileries with the warmest applause, especially from the Princess Adélaide, whose ascendancy over her brother had been more than once evinced; and from the divisions in the Chamber, which arose from its being split into so many parties, each desirous to turn the crisis to its own profit, the King was encouraged to hope that, by persevering in his policy, it might in the end be crowned with The Monarchy was for the time firmly established, but the Ministry rested on a most insecure basis; 51, 70; L. and, as in England after the passing of the Reform Bill, the Cabinet began to totter from the moment of its triumph.1 1 Cap. viii. Blanc, iv. 564, 567. 13. success. Albeit united at present in a cordial support of the Divergence Doctrinaire party, of which they constituted the strength, and Guizot. M. Thiers and M. Guizot were beginning at this time to of Thiers exhibit symptoms of divergence, and it was the perception of that which was one cause of Marshal Mortier's retirement. It was not merely personal rivalry which occasioned this. They both aspired to be Prime Minister; but, independent of this, their principles and associations were essentially different. M. Thiers was essentially revolutionary, but it was revolution coerced and directed by the sabre of the Emperor. He had no associations with la veille France; the ancient stock of the Bourbons was to him an abomination; he felt throughout a cordial hatred at the regime of the Restoration; and when Charles X. was overthrown, he only worked out his principles in contributing to its downfall. He was the friend of order, but it was order emanating from and supported by revolution, and crushing the opposite factions with the sword of despotism wielded by the hands of Republicans. M. Guizot in all these respects was essentially different. Deeply versed in the antiquities, a perfect master of the history of France, he was strongly moved by the traditions and feelings of the ancient monarchy. Too philosophical in his ideas, and too well versed in present affairs not to see the immense XXXIII. 1835. change which the Revolution of 1789, itself an effect of CHAP. preceding causes, had produced in the social necessities of the State, he was the friend of freedom, but it was freedom resting on the loyalty and traditions of the monarchy, rather than the usurpation of the Empire. He accepted the Revolution of July as a compromise between these contending principles-he served it, when once established, with cordiality and fidelity, and he indulged in the sanguine hope that, like the English Revolution of 1688, it would become the opening of a long era of 128. prosperity, freedom, and grandeur to France.1 1 Cap. viii. 14. the Duke de The Duke de Broglie, who now assumed the arduous duties of Prime Minister, was different from either of Character of these eminent men, and formed, as it were, an interme- Broglie. diate link between them and the throne. Of high rank and polished manners, he had imbibed liberal ideas, and acquired the power of expressing them with eloquence from the conversation of Madame de Staël, whose daughter he had espoused. From the brilliant genius of the mother he had taken his principal views, both of present events and the future destinies of society. Like her, he had regarded the Restoration as an era of emancipation from the servile despotism of the Empire, and the only period in which real freedom, equally distant from courtly corruption or democratic despotism, had existed in France. He was strongly opposed, however, as Madame de Staël would doubtless have been had she lived to see it, to the ordonnances of Polignac, and, like Guizot, accepted the throne of Louis Philippe as the only possible compromise between the opposite principles of despotism and revolution. His abilities were not of the highest order, but they were of the most available description, and he had lived so much in the society of the most superior men and women, that he had become impregnated with their ideas, and shone in conversation with a lustre not his 128. own.2 The first difficulty with which the new Ministry had to 2 Cap. viii. XXXIII. of the cans. 15. ques CHAP. contend was that arising from the continued demand of the United States for a settlement of their long-standing 1835. claim for 25,000,000 francs (£1,000,000), which, as Settlement already mentioned, had arisen out of their claims for tion with injuries inflicted on the members of the Union by the the Ameri- Berlin and Milan decrees of Napoleon. It was impossible to deny the justice of the American demand, for it was founded on a treaty concluded in 1831, by General Horace Sébastiani, with the American Government, and was for the precise sum which he had agreed the French Government should pay as an indemnity. The King, accordingly, admitted its justice, and the Cabinet had long been solicitous that the treaty should be ratified and the debt discharged. It was not so easy a matter to get the Chamber to agree to this, burdened as the finances were with a very large military establishment and extravagant budget, little in harmony with their economical ideas. The ratification had been refused, accordingly, upon various pretensions, in the last session. Upon this the American President inserted in his address to Congress, in the beginning of the winter, a very severe, and even menacing, paragraph, regarding reprisals on French property.* * When this message was known in France, it excited the most violent indignation; and so vehement was the clamour that the French envoy was recalled from Washington, and his passports offered to the American Minister at Paris; though, at the same * "Since France, in violation of the engagements undertaken by its minister, resident here, has so delayed its resolutions on the subject, that they cannot be communicated to this Congress, I propose that a law should be passed authorising reprisals on the property of Frenchmen, if in the ensuing session a law is not passed for the payment of the debt. This is not done in the view of intimidation; France is too well known to permit of such a thing being thought of; but only to demonstrate the fixed determination of the Government of the United States to cause its rights to be respected. The French Government, by doing what itself has recognised to be just, will spare the Government of the United States the necessity of taking their redress into their own hands, and save French properties from that confiscation which the American citizens have so long suffered without either reprisals or indemnity." -President's Message, Nov. 2, 1834; Ann. Hist. 1834, 672, 673. XXXIII. 1835. time, a vote of the requisite amount was demanded from CHAP. the Chamber. There could be no doubt that the American Government, though right in the main question, were wrong in the way in which they proposed to make their demand effectual; for this was to be done, not by hostilities against the State, but by seizing the property of individuals in their harbours, or on the high seas, till enough had been collected to discharge the debt. The French Government, accordingly, replied in a dignified, and yet conciliatory tone, to the President's message, and by degrees more reasonable views began to be entertained on both sides.* The American Congress Hist. xviii. soothed the irritated feelings of the French, by declining 1 Moniteur, to pass a law in terms of the President's message; and Jan. 15, at length the French Chamber, by a large majority (289 18:35; Ann. to 172), agreed to ratify the treaty and pay the money, Blae, iv. upon the Government being satisfied that nothing inju- 378, 382; rious to the national honour had been intended by that 155, 156. of the United States.1 81; L. Cap. viii. treason the Cham A more serious difficulty awaited the Government in 16. the trial of the persons confined for their accession to the Commencegreat and combined insurrections in April 1834, who ment of the were still in prison in various parts of France. It has trials before been already mentioned, that by an ordonnance of the ber of Peers. King, on 15th April 1834, the Chamber of Peers had been erected into a supreme court of justice for the trial of all these offenders; but when the preparatory steps to the trials came to be taken, no small embarrass "La Chambre, nous n'en doutons pas se reportera à ces hautes considérations de Puissance commerciale, et de force maritime, qui ont toujours fait regarder notre alliance avec les Etats-Unis, comme une de ces règles inaltérables de la politique nationale. En parlant ainsi, nous ne voulons que rendre hommage à des vérités de tous les temps, les opposer à des impressions passagères, et surtout déclarer que la France n'impute ni au peuple ni au Gouvernement de l'Amérique les sentimens et les propositions que le Président des Etats-Unis vient d'exprimer. Nous ne voulons voir dans son message au Congrès que l'acte peu réfléchi d'un pouvoir isolé et l'honneur national ne nous en commande par moins de persister dans la politique qui fut toujours celle du Gouvernement du Roi, la politique de la loyauté."—Moniteur, Jan. 16, 1835 ; and Ann. Hist., xviii. 81. April 1835. |