populace in great cities, had been found to be instrumental in increasing the happiness or tranquillity of mankind; we did not know of many examples of industry thriving during the reign of the multitude, or expenditure increasing by the destruction of confidence, or credit being augmented by a successful exertion of the sacred right of insurrection; and we saw no reason to conclude, that a government arranged in a back-shop, in the neighbourhood of the Hotel de Ville, by half-a-dozen democrats, supported by shouting bands of workmen and hot-headed students, and sent down by the diligence or the telegraph to the provinces of France-was likely to meet the views, or protect the interests, of thirtytwo millions of souls in its vast territory. For these reasons, though possessed of no private information in regard to that important event, we ventured from the very first to differ from the great majority of our countrymen regarding it; and, after doing all we could to dispel the illusion, quietly waited till the course of events should demonstrate the justice of our view.

That course has come, and with a rapidity greatly beyond what we anticipated at the outset. The miserable state of France, since the Glorious Days, has been such as to have been unanimously admitted by all parties. Differing on other subjects as far as the poles are asunder, they are yet unanimous in representing the state of the people, since the Revolution, as miserable in the extreme. The Royalists, the Republicans, the Orleanists, the Doctrinaires, vie with each other in painting the deplorable state of their country. They ascribe it to different causes; the Republicans are clear that it is all owing to Casimir Perier and the Doctrinaires, who have arrested the people in the middle of their glorious career, and turned to gall and wormwood the sweet fruits of popular conquest; Guizot, the Duke de Broglie, and the Doctrinaires, ascribe it to the mad ambition of the democrats, and the incessant efforts they have made to agitate and distract the public mind; Saint Chamans and the Royalists trace it to the fatal deviation from the principle of legitimacy, and the interminable dissensions to which the establishment of a right in the populace of Paris to choose their sovereign must necessarily lead; while Marshal Soult has a clear remedy for all the disorders

of the country; and without stopping to inquire whether they are revolting from starvation, ambition, or experienced evils, cuts them down by grape-shot, and charges their determined bands by squadrons of cuirassiers. Men in this country may differ in respect of the causes to which they ascribe these evils, according to the side to which they incline in politics; but in regard to their existence and magnitude, after such a concurrence in the testimony of unwilling witnesses, no doubt can be entertained by Tory, Reformer, or Radical.

One single fact is sufficient to place, in the clearest light, the disastrous effect of this convulsion upon the internal industry of the country. It appears, from the returns of the French Commerce lately published, that their imports, before and after the Three Glorious Days, stood thus:

Thus it appears, that although the Revolution broke out in July 1830, so that one-half of the imports of that year was affected by the revolt of July, yet still the general imports in 1831, as compared with 1830, had fallen nearly a fifth, and those for home consumption about a fourth, in a single year! Such is the deplorable effects of popular triumph upon public industry, and the suffering and starvation brought upon the poor by the criminal ambition of their demagogues.

The progress of events, and, above all, the necessity under which Marshal Soult was laid of quelling the insurrection of June 1832, by "a greater number of armed men than combated the armies of Prussia or Russia, at Jena or Austerlitz," and following up his victory by the proclamation of a state of siege, and ordinances more arbitrary than those which were the immediate cause of the fall of Charles X., have gone far to disabuse the public mind on this

* SARRANS.

important subject. In proof of this, we cannot refer to stronger evidence than is afforded by the leading Whig Journal of this city, one of the warmest early supporters of the Revolution of July, and which is honoured by the communications of all the official men in the Scottish metropolis. The passage is as honourable to their present candour, as their former intemperate and noisy declamation in favour of democratic insurrection was indicative of the slender judgment, and limited historical information, which they bring to bear on political questions. It is contained in the preface with which the Caledonian Mercury ushers in to their readers a series of highly interesting and valuable papers, by a most respectable eye-witness of the Parisian revolt:

"It has appeared to us desirable to lay before our readers a view of a great event, or, rather, concatenation of events, so different from any which they have hitherto been accustomed to have presented to them; and we have been the more easily induced to give insertion to these papers, because, hitherto, one side of the question has been kept wholly in the shade,-and because differing, as we do, toto cælo, from the author in general political principle, we are, nevertheless, perfectly at one with him in regard to the real origin or primum mobile of the Revolution of July, as well as the motives and character of the chief personages who benefited by that extraordinary event. The truth is that, in this country, we prejudged the case, and decided before inquiry, upon the representations of one side, which had the advantage of victory to recommend and accredit the story which it deemed it convenient to tell: nor-first impressions being proverbially strong-has it hitherto been found possible to persuade the public to listen, with patience, to anything that might be alleged in justification, or even in extenuation, of the party which had the misfortune to play the losing game. Of late, however, new light has begun to break in upon the public. All have been made sensible that the Revolution has retrograded; that its movement has been, crab-like, backwards; and that the best of republics' has shown itself the worst, because the least secure, of actual despotisms; while the throne surrounded by republican institutions'-that monster of fancy, engendered by the spirit of paradoxical antithesis-has proved a monster in reality, broken down all the fantastic and baseless fabrics by which it was encircled, and swept away the very traces of the vain restraints imposed upon it. The empire, in short, has been reconstructed out of the materials cast up by a democratical movement-with this difference only, that, instead of a Napoleon, we now see a Punchinello at the head of it; and hence the same public, which formerly believed Louis Philippe to be a sort of Citizen Divinity, now discover in that personage only a newly-created despot, without any of the accessories or advantages which give, even to despotism, some hold on public opinion. A reaction has, accordingly, taken place; and men are, in consequence, prepared to listen to things against which, previously, they adderwise closed their ears, and remained deaf to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely."

But although, from the very first, we clearly discerned and forcibly pointed out the disastrous effects on the freedom, peace, and tranquillity, first of France, and then of the

world, which the Parisian revolt was calculated to produce, yet we were not aware of the strong grounds, in constitutional law and public justice, there were for the Ordinances of Charles X. We considered them as a coup d'état justified by necessity, and by the evident peril in which Charles stood of losing his crown, and throwing the nation back to the horrors of revolution, if he did otherwise, but as confessedly an infraction of the constitution. Upon this subject we are now better informed. The great and energetic ability of the Royalist party has been exerted in France to unfold the real grounds of the question; and it is now manifest that the Ordinances were not only imperiously called for by State necessity, but strictly justified by the charter and the constitutional law of France. Many of those who now admit the lamentable effects of the overthrow of Charles X. are not disposed to go this length, and are not aware of the grounds on which it is rested. Let such persons attend to the following considerations :

The King's defence of the Ordinances is contained in the following propositions :

1. That by an article of the charter granted by Louis XVIII. to the French, and the foundation of the constitution, power is reserved to the King to make such regulations and ordinances as are necessary for the execution of the laws, and the safety of the state.

2. That matters, through the efforts of the Revolutionists, had been brought to such a pass, that the Ordinances of July were necessary "for the execution of the laws, and the safety of the state.'

The 14th article in the Charter is in these terms"Reserving to the King the power to make regulations and ordinances necessary to insure the execution of the laws, and the safety of the state." On these words we shall not injure, by attempting to abridge, the argument of M. Pey

ronnet.

"The alleged treason is a violation of the Charter; and how can the Charter have been violated by the exercise of a power of which it authorised the use? It has been asserted repeatedly, that the Charter authorised the King to make regulations and ordinances, necessary for the execution of the laws, and for the safety of the state. The execution of the laws, and the safety of the state; these words demand attention. They were not written without a motive, nor without their signification and force being understood. Those who introduced these words into the Charter, well knew that they VOL. I. G

expressed two things, between which there was still more difference than analogy.

"If the first words had sufficed, the latter would not have been added. It is quite obvious, that if the framers of the Charter had understood that the safety of the state was in every case to be provided for only by the execution of the laws, these last words would have been sufficient. Why give an explanation in a special case, of the execution of the laws, after having decreed a general rule, including every case, whatever it might be? Can it be imagined, that a legislator could have spoken thus, You are to execute the laws; and, farther, if the safety of the state be in danger, still you shall execute the laws?'

"A very obvious necessity demands the admission, either, that the power to provide for the safety of the state was independent of the power to enforce the execution of the laws; or, that the rules commonly admitted in legislation must be abandoned, to the extent of assuming that a positive provision, which has a known object, an evident meaning, a natural and important reference, means, however, nothing by itself, but is confounded and lost, as though it did not exist, in the preceding provision, to which it adds nothing. Lawyers, literary men, all men of sense, well know that such an assumption is inadmissible. When the law is clear, nothing remains but to execute it; and even when it is obscure, the right of interpretation only extends to the preferring one meaning to another; it does not authorise the declaring it of no effect. The interpreter of the law does not annihilate it. He expounds and gives it life. Quoties oratio ambigua est, commodissimum est id accipi, quo res de quâ agitur in tuto sit.' Whenever the meaning of a law is doubtful, that interpretation is to be adopted which will insure its effect. This is what the law pronounces of itself; and this maxim has been transmitted to us by the Romans.

"Besides, what are the true interpreters of the law? They are, at first, example; and, subsequently, the opinions of persons of authority, expressed at the period of the publication of these laws. Let the provisions of the Charter be submitted to this double test, and it will be seen that, from the first days of the Restoration, the most enlightened, the most esteemed, and the most impartial men have explained this provision as I have done. Of this, the Moniteur has collected the proofs. It will be farther seen that, in 1814, 1815, and 1816, even the founder of the Charter exercised without dispute the right I refer to,-sometimes as regarded the press, sometimes in relation to the enemies of the crown, and sometimes, but in an opposite sense, as regarded the elections. No one has, however, asserted that the Ministers who signed these ordinances have been impeached as traitors, and threatened with death. On the contrary, they were not only obeyed, but applauded. Some have thought the ordinances of 1815 to have been just; others have considered those of 1816 salutary. Approval was general, and was given by all parties in succession. The measures were various, it is true, and could not fail to produce different results; but the source whence they sprang was the same; the right to dictate them was the same; and thus, whoever has approved of these measures, has consequently admitted this right."

M. Peyronnet proceeds to confirm, by examples, what is here adduced in regard to the power reserved to the King by this clause, and the practice which had followed upon it. The following instances, in none of which the exercise of the dispensing power was challenged as illegal, afford sufficient evidence of this position.