reduced to 3,000,000 of francs, two thirds off which were required for the purchase or construction of steam-vessels. "We," said M. Hyde de Neuville, the minister of marine, "have but nine steam-vessels; England has three hundred and thirty-eight." Surely the minister was not so ignorant as to believe that these vessels were public property, or formed any part of the means of national defence; yet even this might be credible, looking at the language, regarding this country, in which some of the members indulged. A general Lamarque said, that, in the event of a war with England, the first object should be to attack her commerce at all points; in which he was perfectly right, if he had only shewn how so desirable an object was to be successfully attained. "If," continued the general, "the attack directed against commerce should not be sufficient, the enemy must then be grappled with hand to hand, and for this steam will afford the means. Steam seems destined to establish equality on the seas, as gunpowder has on land. It will render useless naval tactics, of which Tourville was the inventor, but which have proved more advantageous to our neighbours than to us. It will set aside the advantages of a windward position, of breaking the line, or doubling a line, and of all those complicated evolutions, which, at Saintes, Aboukir, and Trafalgar, secured to our rivals triumphs which our mariners might otherwise have wrested from them. Naval battles will perhaps become what they were in the time of the Romans-contests in which intrepidity, address, physical force, and numbers will give the victory. Ah! had not he who, from the heights of Boulogne, so long threatened England, rejected the offers made to him for four years by the American Fulton, it would not have been as a captive that he would have visited the banks of the Thames. Other destinies would then have been reserved for the world, and had Providence, which has willed that France should be free, brought back amongst us the ancient race of our Kings, they would not have returned with a foreign chief, who, stripping our museums, violating capitulations, trampling on our national pride, proved to us, as Closterseven proved to our fathers, that the traditions of Punic faith had survived Carthage." It was a great deal to find a Frenchman admitting, as general Lamarque here expressly did admit, that his countrymen were no match for their adversaries in manœuvring a fleet. But when he spoke of steam neutralizing superiority of tactics, and giving naval combats a "Roman" character, he must have meant, if he knew what he intended to mean, that a close combat, hand to hand, would give French seamen a better chance for victory. Now it would have puzzled the general to have discovered, from the naval history of the two countries, that a French manof-war was peculiarly safe when laid alongside of a British antagonist; that British captains had ever avoided that "Roman" juxtaposition; or that British seamen were more formidable when cannonading from a distance, than when springing from the chains with their cutlasses and boarding-pikes. such absurdities were patiently listened to by the French legislative body. Yet In other branches of the public service, the opposition, who, by this time, in consequence of the fate of the Departmental bill, had lost all confidence in the ministry, struggled hard for reductions of expenditure, and, in some instances, were successful. A diminution was effected of 70,000 francs on the central administration of foreign affairs; 121,000 on diplomatic agency; 100,000 francs on retired pensions; and 250,000, on various other heads of charge. A motion to strike out of the estimates a sum of 60,000 francs, being the amount of the pensions of 12,000 francs each, granted to five of the old ministers, MM. de Villèle, Peyronnet, de Corbiere, de Chabrol, and de Frayssinous, three of which had been granted on the day the ministers retired from office, and the other two the day after, was lost only by a very small majority. A strong, but unsuccessful, opposition was likewise made to the vote for the salaries of the Councillors of State; and even the utility of that institution was called in question. Foreign affairs came into discussion only incidentally, and the chief topic of remark was the situation of Greece. The expedition, which had been sent out from France during the preceding year, had attained its object of compelling the surrender of those fortresses in the Morea, which still remained in the hands of the enemy. The opposition, however, whose distrust of the government was daily increasing, reproached it with having limited its demands in favour of Greece within too narrow bounds. In particular they complained of the intended provision, by which Turkey was still to be the suzerain of Greece, and was to exact, as such, an annual tribute, and of the rumoured negotiations by which the territory of the new state was to be defined. They accused the ministers of having betrayed the cause of humanity and civilization by consenting that Attica should be excluded; and when assured that no such consent had been given, they still insisted, that even a boundary, which should include Attica, would be too limited. What precise boundaries they themselves would propose, they did not state. They overflowed with vapid declamation about sacred and classic soils, and heroic ruins defiled by the feet of barbarians, but they descended to no sensible or statesmanlike view of what was politically practicable and desirable. The ministry satisfied themselves with declaring, that they were doing, and would do, nothing, but what would tend to fulfil the treaty of 6th July, 1827, between the three great powers, according to its true spirit. They had made all the use of the military expedition which had been intended; and they could see no reason for proceeding with hostile operations, while there was a prospect of obtaining from Turkey, by negotiation, all the concessions which could reasonably be demanded. A Neapolitan, of the name of Gulotti, who, having rendered himself obnoxious to his own government by political offences, had taken refuge in France, was delivered up at the request of the Neapolitan diplomatic agents, and hurried back to Naples to be executed. This occurrence excited immediately intense interest, and raised against the ministry one loud voice of indignation, both in and without the Chambers. When the matter, however, came to be explained, it turned out that the Neapolitan government had been guilty of a very mean deceit, and that the French ministry were blameless of the disgrace which otherwise would have attached to their conduct. They knew nothing of the political offences which had compelled Gulotti to flee from Naples. When the Neapolitan government applied to have him given up, they made the application on the ground that he had been guilty of an ordinary crime against individuals, to which the law of nations does not extend any protection, and they even laid before the French minister the judicial documents which seemed to prove that such was truly the case. All this, however, had been mere contrivance to get the man into their power. The order for delivering him up had scarcely been issued, when the truth was discovered. The order was immediately revoked; but the revocation came too late; Gulotti had been carried off to Italy without a moment's delay. Neither did the French government lose a moment: a special courier was instantly dispatched to Naples, and arrived just in time to safe the life of the unhappy prisoner. This transaction, therefore, scarcely afforded any just ground of blame against the ministry. " I myself," said M. de Portalis, the Foreign minister "I myself was compelled, early in life, to abandon my country, and follow my father into exile, on account of what were called political offences. The men, who then ruled France, demanded that the exiles should be given up; and we saved ourselves only by a hasty flight. The recollection of that event is never absent from my meI would rather see that band withered than use it to present a report to the king, sanction mory. ing the surrender of an individual for any political offence." Benjamin Constant insisted, that, as the Court of Naples had been guilty of deceit, all diplomatic intercourse with it ought to be broken off. The Session of the Chambers was closed on the 31st of July,and it closed amid far less friendly and encouraging feelings than had attended its commencement. The hopes of the constitutional party at its opening had been high. The conduct of the ministry during the preceding year, and the belief that it would seek no aid but what was to be found in the support which they themselves could bestow, had led them to anticipate, that they would find it willing, for its own interest, to cooperate with them in carrying through the measures which seemed necessary to secure and to consolidate popular rights. The commencement of the session itself had seemed to justify these anticipations. The sentiments expressed in the Royal Speech breathed a most friendly spirit towards constitutional liberty, and the regulation of the departments and communes was the most important step that could be taken in the path which they were eager to pursue. These hopes had now ended in nothing. Liberal declarations had produced no successful act of liberal policy; the very laws which promised so much had been sacrificed by the ministry which brought them forth. The conduct of that ministry in regard to them had betrayed any thing but unwillingness to see them defeated altogether. So anxious had it been even to delay the practical good to which they might lead, that it had sought to procrastinate, at the expense of risking, and suffering, SO a defeat in the chamber. It had shewn that there was an influence which it feared and respected more than it did the withdrawal of the confidence of the popular party; and to that party the only practical result of the session was, that the ministry would abandon them, whenever it could do with safety; that the government would grant nothing, which it could successfully refuse, and that their policy had not any chance of being carried into effect, except in so far as it might be literally imposed upon the Cabinet by the firmly-expressed voice of the legislature. In these circumstances it seemed impossible that a ministry, which had no stable foundation of its own, could continue to stand. Though several of its members were well-informed and able men, they possessed no influence beyond that of their official and personal character. They had no fixed majority in the Chamber; they were not the authoritative representatives of any great party or interest in the state; they did not enjoy the confidence of the Court; they had now lost the support of the country, which had been given them only on condition that they should resist the Court. When they had resolved on any important measure among themselves, they could not reckon on the countenance, either of the king, or of the legislature, to carry it into effect. Hence they had to explain their conduct in one manner to the Court, and in another to the Chamber; to submit to the will of the former in matters which they could not well defend before the latter; to make liberal declarations in the tribune, and follow them up with measures which bore the impress of the Thuilleries. Hence they presented projects of law on important matters, and after mature reflection, which they were forced to withdraw in alarm and precipitation, and to submit to see their power resisted or counteracted by their own agents, because these agents were countenanced by an authority, which, with safety to their places, they could not oppose. Such was the state of weakness, to which the Cabinet had been reduced by the general want of confidence in its consistency and stability-such was the provisional and uncertain nature of its existence, that no reliance could be placed on any intentions which it might announce regarding either foreign policy, or internal administration. The country was going on almost without a governmentand all this simply because the ministry had no decided system of policy of its own, but was living from hand to mouth, on such scraps as the two great contending parties allowed it to pick up. Having lost all favour with the popular party, it had lost the only quality which had ever made it tolerable to the Court. Its creation had been submitted to as a necessary act of compliance with the public voice, and in the hope that it would silence the clamours, without conceding many of the demands, of the country. Its inherent weakness, however, and the distrust and resentment excited by its too evident preference of the politics of the Court, had now rendered it impotent for any such purpose. Even if its members had been willing to retain their places by adopting openly and decidedly the royal party, to which in heart they had always been attached, they were not the men to form even a Court ; ministry. If a Cabinet was to be formed on these principles, there were statesmen at hand of infinitely greater influence, and who would at least be free from the reproach of inconsistency. By the time the Chambers rose, therefore, an universal expectation prevailed that the ministry would be changed. This expectation was increased by the return of Prince Polignac to Paris, a few days before the session closed. The public was not long kept in suspense. The session was closed on the 31st of July; on the 8th of August appeared a number of royal ordinances, appointing a new ministry. Prince Polignac was made Foreign Minister, in place of M. de Portalis; Courvoisier, Procureur-general in the Royal Court of Lyons, became keeper of the Seals, in place of Bordeau, who had enjoyed his dignity scarcely a couple of months; de Caux was succeeded, in the war department, by General Count de Bourmont; Admiral de Rigny, popular by having commanded the French fleet at Navarino, was named Minister of Marine, in place of Hyde de Neuville; the Ministry of the Interior was taken from Martignac, and given to Count de Labourdonnaye; Baron de Montbel was appointed minister of Ecclesiastical affairs and Public Instruction, and Grand Master of the University of France; the Finances were conferred on Count Chabrol de Crousol, instead of M. Roy; and the Ministry of Commerce and Manufactures was suppressed, its functions being transferred to the department of the Interior. No event, since the restoration of the Bourbons, had called forth any thing like the tempest of reproach and opposition, which was excited throughout France by the announcement of these ordinances. The country had expected a change, and probably did not expect, from the temper of the Court, that the popular cause would gain by the change; but still less had it expected the selection of a ministry deemed so openly and bigotedly adverse to every thing that the country desired, and comprehending so many objects of public distrust or detestation. All the new ministers belonged to the extreme rightto that party which the public had set down as the steadfast friends of the extension of irresponsible power in politics, and of spiritual domination in religion. The public voice did not wait, till the Cabinet had declared its intentions, either by acts or declarations; the character of its policy was assumed as certain from the known character of its members. All the leading journals, not merely of the capital, but likewise of the departments, combined in one bitter and continued attack upon the new selection of ministers, as being a plain proof that the king had determined to conduct his government on principles hostile to constitutional liberty; that the policy and practices which, not two years before, had roused the public indignation, and driven Villèle into retirement, were to be renewed; and that an obstinate resistance was to be offered to all those ameliorations, which the wishes and the opinions of the country demanded. By this act it was said, the bond of amity and confidence between the monarch and his people was once more broken; the Court with its ancient and rancorous feelings-the emigrants with their prejudicesthe priesthood with its hatred of liberty-had once more interposed |