no small uneasiness among the friends of the new Spanish system. The pestilential fever had disappeared for eight months, yet the cordon sanitaire remained immoveable. The position of Barcelona is towards the eastern extremity of the Pyrennees; but the troops were assembled towards the west; and successive trains of horse and foot artillery, with two divisions (6,000) of cavalry, had been marched to the same quarter, which were not, as it seemed, the most proper instruments for repelling the approaches of contagion.

On the 24th of July, the situation of the Peninsula became the subject of discussion, in considering a resolution for defraying the charges of the foreign department. The ministers were accused of having fomented conspiracies against freedom on the other side of the Pyrennees. M. de Bonald denied, that the French government had interfered in the internal affairs of Spain. General Foy, in a vehement speech, often interrupted by plaudits on the one side, and murmurs on the other, maintained the contrary, and called upon the ministry to beware, lest their conduct in that kingdom should produce the same effect as the manifesto of the duke of Brunswick had once done in France. "He would not," he said, "speak of the 7th of July-he would not speak of the sending of chests of money, or cases of fusils, to the north of Spain-he would not call attention to the coincidence between the revolt at Madrid and the appearance of Quesada's bands on the frontiers. Other facts would furnish him with a proof, that the ministers of France were responsible for the blood which

had been shed in the capital and on the frontiers of Spain. Under the false and ridiculous pretext of a cordon sanitaire they have assembled a real army. If the yellow fever had been the cause of this movement, would the precautions have been multiplied exactly eight months after the fever had ceased? Why do we receive every day, for several months past, from officers and soldiers of the cordon sanitaire, letters which announce that the order for passing the frontier is hourly expected? Do you believe that the mutineers of the Prado would have executed their criminal projects, if they had not been promised assistance from France?"

It was expected that M. Montmorency, the foreign minister, would have disclaimed the threatening character of these military movements, and would have given an official assurance, that the force was employed merely to prevent the introduction of disease; this expectation, however, was far from being answered. On the contrary, the speech of M. Montmorency was throughout, an indirect avowal of those views of political interference, which, if they did not exclusively cause this armament, yet mingled themselves, according to the. declaration of the minister, with less offensive motives for assembling the force upon the Pyrennees. His defence was, that the king had pledged himself to maintain the cordon sanitaire, which was a protection, not only against pestilence, but against insults, which might be the fruit of frequent conflicts on the frontier; that although none could wish more earnestly than the French ministers for the welfare of Spain, that welfare could not be found except in the support of a strong mo

narchical authority; that if new circumstances should call upon the French government to discharge the duties of a faithful ally, the government would know how to perform those duties; that, in a season of misfortune, "all their measures would tend to preserve those great attributes inseparable from monarchies the inviolability and safety of kings."

This stormy session was closed on the 17th of August. Some of the last sittings were scenes of disgraceful clamour. Whatever the faults of the ministers might be, the language and conduct of the liberals was that of fretful, peevish, self-willed children, indignant at wrongs real or supposed, but conscious of their weakness and inability to resist. They exhibited much of the bitterness of faction, much of the fury of disappointed ambition; but nothing of the cool and stern firmness of patriots. If the language in which they indulged was at all justifiable,-if the policy of their government was in any degree such as they represented it to be, then it was time for all who loved their country to use other weapons than words: the hour which made resistance a virtue had approached; and they who would declaim like B. Constant, were bound to do more, than delineate the present evils, and predict those which were approaching.

The internal state of France during this year was far from tranquil. The public mind was kept in constant agitation by the discovery of a succession of conspiracies, and by the prosecutions and punishments which followed. The end of the preceding year was marked by an insane attempt to seize the castle of Saumur: the

commencement of the present, by an equally foolish plot to seduce the garrison and occupy the town of Belfort, in Alsace. The conspiracy was to have taken effect on the 2nd of January, when the tri-coloured cockade was to be mounted. The king's lieutenant having received information of the design, drew out, under arms, the battalion of the 29th regiment of the line, which formed the garrison of the place, and proceeded immediately to the barracks, to arrest an adjutant sub-officer, who was supposed to be the principal agent in this criminal intrigue. Persons of the name of Brue, Pegulu, Desbordes, and Delacombe, who had been concerned in the conspiracy of the 19th of August, 1820, were also arrested at the moment when they commenced their flight from the town. The guarding of these four prisoners was provisionally intrusted to the officer who commanded the neighbouring post; but, soon after, this officer himself fled along with his prisoners. Three other officers subsequently disappeared. On arriving at one of the squares of the town, the king's lieutenant fell in with a numerous group of the disaffected, who dispersed on his approach, but from the midst of whom a pistol-shot was fired, which wounded him in the breast.

In the course of the night, quiet was completely re-established. On the 2nd of May, a serjeant was shot, on account of having been concerned in this plot; nineteen of the suspected conspirators succeeded in making their escape, and were outlawed; and upwards of twenty others, mostly young men, under 25 years of age, and consisting of officers, subalterns, and students of law and medicine, were brought to

trial at Colmar, in the month of July.* Four of the prisoners, viz.

The commencement of the indictment of these unfortunate individuals deserves to be recorded, both as a picture, if not of the real state of France, yet of what the government conceived it to be, and also as a melancholy illustration of the vagueness of allega tion, of the rhetorical flourishes, of the multifarious matter, which our neighbours tolerate and admit in the most solemn of all judicial proceedings-an indictment for high treason. The indictment in this case began in the following manner :-" Some parts of Europe have been tormented by a revolutionary exaltation, which secret societies nourish and propagate, by endeavouring chiefly to mislead the youth. These secret societies have been imported into France, and are come to soil this land of honour with their frightful oaths, their detestable plots, and their poniards-the arms worthy to second their projects. From their bosom have issued numerous emissaries, who, traversing the kingdom, have sought everywhere for support, or rather accomplices. These emissaries formed ties, which united these secret and criminal associations, and by their intervention all the correspondence took place. For some time Strasburgh, New Brisach, Mulhausen, and Belfort, saw men arriving without apparent aim or known affairs, some of whom traversed the surrounding country to recruit adherents, and

to concert the attack. To facilitate the progress of revolt, they had, in the course of last December, spread in the country the most alarming intelligence; they endeavoured to mislead the people respecting the intentions of the government; they spoke not as formerly of tithes and feudal rightsthis ridiculous bugbear was worn out; but bad faith endeavoured to replace the fears which it was calculated to inspire, by reports of increased taxation. Paris was the central point of direction. There revolt was organized, to burst forth at the same time on different fixed points. Saumur was to give the signal: at Toulon and Marseilles agents were seized, at the mo

colonels Teillier, and Pailhes, and Guinand and Dublar, two officers of inferior rank, were found guilty, not of the capital charge, but of not revealing the existence of the conspiracy. They were condemned to imprisonment for five years, to a fine of 500 francs each, and to remain for five years under the special surveillance of the police. All the rest were acquitted.

A few days before the commencement of this trial, another feeble attempt at rebellion broke out in the same quarter. A colonel Caron, already implicated in the conspiracy of August, 1820, and a veteran named Roger, who once superintended the ridinghouse at Colmar, had formed the project of seducing the non-commissioned officers of the 46th regiment of the line, the chasseurs of Allier, and the chasseurs of Charente. They had made, it was said, large distributions of money, continually giving out that they were acting by virtue of orders transmitted from a directing committee established in the capital; and they asserted that many accomplices would join them between Mulhausen and Colmar, as soon as they should have succeeded in seducing some squadrons. Caron had at first announced his intention of beginning by delivering

ment when they were provoking to rebellion. In the west, Thouars, Nantes, and Rochelle; in the east, New Brisach and Strasburgh, were to support the rebels. Belfort had been chosen as the first point to occupy in this part of the kingdom. This fortress, shutting up the routes of the Vosges and of Franche Comte, the last point of defence on the side o Switzerland, might facilitate success or assure retreat in case of a reverse,' &c.

the prisoners at Belfort; but afterwards, changing his plan, he had postponed their liberation until hé should have received the expected reinforcements.

The movement, which had been concerted, took place on the 2nd of July. A squadron of horse chasseurs of the department of Allier, which Caron thought he had seduced, and in the ranks of which were two officers, disguised in the plain uniforms of chasseurs, set out from Colmar at five o'clock in the evening, under the command of the chief quarter-master Thiern. At the same time a squadron of horse chasseurs, from the department of Charente, in the midst of which marched as common chasseurs, a captain Nicol, and four other officers, set out from New Brisach, under the command of quarter-master Gerard.

When mounting, the two squadrons were apprised that they were going to act in the service of the king, and received orders to execute scrupulously all that should be prescribed to them by their subalterns.

On the height of Hastall, Caron ordered his helmet, his sabre, and his uniform to be brought to him. He put them on, and, placing himself at the head of the squadron of Allier, immediately took the command. He passed through Hastall and Roussach, crying' Vive l'Empereur!' the affrighted peasants took flight at his approach.

Caron, on leaving Roussach, went to Mayenheim, where he found the chasseurs of Charente, who had come from Brisach, drawn out in order of battle. " Soldiers," said he, "you have sworn to your subaltern officers to follow them everywhere. French soldiers will not fail to keep their oaths;

I

come to command you in the name of the emperor-follow me!" This harangue finished, he shaped his course towards Ensisheim, speaking, by the way, with contempt of Berton and other conspirators, who had not succeeded, said he, in raising fifty men, whilst he was already at the head of two squadrons, and had infantry who awaited him at Colmar.

Arrived near Ensisheim, he announced his intention of forcing an entrance, but Thiern and Gerard opposed it, reminding him that it was not what he had promised them, and calling upon him to conduct them to the rendezvous of his trusty companions.

Caron took them then to Battenheim; but, the refusal which he had experienced having alarmed him, Roger and he resumed their common clothes, and endeavoured to effect their escape. They were instantly arrested.

The superior officers, who had accompanied the troops in disguise, resumed the command; and the chasseurs entered Colmar with their prisoners bound.

Caron was subsequently condemned to death; Roger was acquitted.

Many other parts of France, besides her eastern frontier, were in the early part of the year disturbed by intended or attempted insurrections. A plot was discovered at Toulon, and those who were engaged in it being brought to trial, a captain Valle was found guilty and executed; while others, who did not stand in an equal degree of guilt, escaped with a lighter punishment. Similar attempts were made at Rochefort and Brest. At the latter place a fruitless attempt was made to seize the principal fort; and in the same

night 200 of the garrison of Rochefort marched out, and took possession of Soubise, whence they displayed the tri-coloured flag, and dispatched emissaries to different parts of the kingdom.

In February, a plot was discovered and suppressed at Nantes: but of all the rebellious attempts to disturb the public tranquillity, that of general Berton to surprise Saumur and raise the standard of revolt in the south western districts, attracted the most notice, as being in itself the most daring, and as being carried farther towards execution than any of the others. This conspiracy broke out on the 24th of February, in the departments of Deux-Sevres, and of Maine-et-Loire; the head quarters of it were the towns of Saumur, Thouars, and Parthenay. The leader of the enterprise was the ex-general Perton, who, it was said, acted in concert with the members of a secret society, called the Society of the "Chevaliers de la Liberté, or Carbonari," formed for the purpose of overthrowing the government of the king.

The plot had been long in existence. Meetings were held at Saumur, in the house of one of the accused, named Caffe, formerly a surgeon-major, and in the house of Gauchais, formerly a chief of battalion, and also, at Parthenay, in the house of one Moreau, a half-pay officer. The conspiracy extended to the departments of Ille et Vilaine, and Loire Inferieure; at least four of the conspirators belonged to those depart

ments.

When the plot was considered sufficiently ripe, general Berton arrived at Saumur. He had left Paris in the beginning of January, pretending that his only object

was to pay a visit to his son, a sub-lieutenant of dragoons in garrison at Pontivy; and proceeded directly to Brest, whither a colonel Alix had previously repaired, in order, it was believed, to seduce the officers from the army, and to prepare them to assist general Berton in his enterprise. Alix left Brest on the 8th, was at Rennes on the 9th, and re-appeared suddenly at Brest on the 11th; and on the same day had a meeting with Berton, who left Brest on the 15th for Rennes. General Berton afterwards acknowledged that he learned in Rennes that the Chevaliers de la Liberté wished to make a movement in favour of the charter, that he yielded to the solicitations of several persons to place himself at their head, and that the object of the insurrection was, to take possession of the town of Saumur. The conspirators of Saumur sent to general Berton to come to them, and he arrived in that town on the 18th or 19th of February. General Berton proceeded thence to Thouars, where

he had conferences with several of the accused conspirators.

Moreau, who had been at Thouars to meet general Berton on his return to Parthenay, had conferences with Fradin, a physi cian and adjutant to the mayor; Ledem, a physician; and Ricque, a surgeon. He informed them of what had passed, made them acquainted with the intention to march on Saumur, and communicated to them the proclamations intended to be published by the general. These three joined the plot. Several other persons had been induced to take part in the conspiracy, the act of accusation.

At four in the morning, general Berton appeared in full uni