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ling this tendency to disorder, seemed inclined, by their words and actions, to foster it. It was more than once necessary to have recourse to military aid; and an Englishman, who should have spent the first week of June in Paris, would have been surprised to witness bodies of cavalry patrolling through the streets at full gallop, and dispersing every group of people that curiosity or accident might have drawn together. Some of the deputies mingled now and then with the mob, and of course met with the same treatment from the military, as any private individual. Conceiving, however, that their legislatorial character should, by its sanctity, exempt them from all the consequences of their own folly, rashness, or mischievous intentions, they never failed on such occasions to make their complaints in due form to the Chamber, as if the government had violated in their persons the most sacred rights of the legislature, and as if they themselves were martyrs in the cause of national freedom. During these tumults, the military in the discharge of their duty were exposed to much insult, and in one of the riots, a student of law, Lallemand by name, was shot by one of the soldiers. His funeral was made a pretext for fresh disturbances. The body was attended to the grave by a numerous concourse of people, to whom no less than three funeral orations were addressed. These disturbances, however, were confined to the lowest rabble, wrought upon by political emissaries. The troops displayed the best dispositions, and the better classes of society were strenuous in the preservation of order.

Amid all this opposition, both in the chamber and out of it, the ministry thought it expedient to yield somewhat to public prejudice, and to be contented with a little, where, if they persisted in aiming at all that was desirable, they ran the risk of effecting nothing. Accordingly M. de Serre, who had been reappointedto his former post of keeper of the seals, intimated to the chamber, that he and his colleagues were willing to abandon the proposed plan, so far as it put an end to the present system of direct election, provided that an additional number of deputies, chosen by the more wealthy part of the voters, were introduced into the legislature. Even after this moderate proposal, the côté gauche continued for some time steady in their opposition; and the first clause of the project, which esta blished in each department an electoral college of the department, and also electoral colleges of the districts, was carried by a majority of five only. After this trial of strength, the Liberals de termined to avail themselves of the terms, to which the govern◄ ment had professed its willingness to accede; and two of their own members proposed an amendment of the law then under consideration. The purport of the amendment was, that, while 258 members (the actual number of the chamber as it was then) were to be returned by the colleges of the districts, composed of all persons of 30 years of age or upwards, who paid 300 francs of direct taxes or upwards, 172 additional deputies should be chosen by departmental colleges, which were to be composed of one-fourth of the electors, that

fourth being made up of those who paid the largest public contributions. The ministers having agreed to the amendment, it was carried, though not without keen discussion, by a majority of 59 in the Chamber of Deputies, and of 85 in the Chamber of Peers. This alteration in the electionlaw had clearly two very different tendencies. As the 172 new deputies were to be chosen by the more opulent classes, the introduction of them weakened the democratical influence on the legislature. On the other hand, the transference of the election of the then existing number of deputies to the colleges of the dis tricts, made it more easy for the poorer voters to avail themselves of their privilege, and thereby added some weight to the democratical scale..

The budget had been brought forward early in the session, and before the murder of the due de The estimated expenditure for the yeaf, consisted of the following particulars :--

Civil-list

Administration of Justice..
Foreign Affairs.......
Home Department

Francs.

34,000,000 18,000,000 8,000,000 104,343,000 181,850,000 Navy 50,000,000 Pensions, Annuities, &c... 115,181,000

Army, &c.....

511,371,550

which this expenditure was to be provided for, we refer to the Ap pendix to the Chronicle, page 715.

The session of the two Chambers terminated on the 22nd of July.

The trial of the assassin Louvel had been long delayed, in the hope that he might reveal his accomplices, if any such there were. But though often examined, he continued steady in the same story-that he had long brooded over this deed, without having ever communicated it to a single human being, and that he had perpetrated it, because he thought it necessary for the good of France. On the 5th of June he was brought to trial before the Chamber of Peers. The trial concluded on the 6th, when he was condemned to be beheaded. The sentence was executed on the following day. The particulars of the trial, and of the execution, as well as of the assassination, will be found in the Chronicle (page 209).

The duchess of Berri was pregnant at the time of her husband's murder; and the unborn child was the only hope of the zealous royalists of France. Should any accident happen to the mother, or should the child prove a daughter, there would no longer be any chance of lineal male issue of Louis XIV., and the crown would devolve upon the family of Orleans, which had sinned too heavily against the Bourbons, to be much liked by their ardent partisans. Those, on the other hand, who were hostile to the royal family, were not displeased at the probability, that the duchess would sink overwhelmed by her misfortunes, and that grief, For the ways and means by terror, and anxiety, might so work

To this must be added the
Charge of collecting the
Revenue, estimated (in.
cluding) allowances for
Deficiencies at... ... 138,388,430

There must be added also
the annual Charge of the
Public Debt and Sink-
ing Fund, amounting to 228,341,200

878,101,180

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upon her, as to prevent the fruit of her womb from being brought into the world alive. Contrary to the general expectation, her bodily frame withstood her mental agony. Perhaps the very circumstance which rendered her situation more critical, contributed to her safety: the hopes of the mother may have soothed the sufferings of the widow. With a degree of brutal cruelty, which it is scarcely conceivable that the · deepest personal injuries and much less political faction could engender in any human heart, attempts were made, first on the 28th of April, and afterwards on the 6th of May, to bring about an event which now did not seem likely to happen in the ordinary course of nature, by placing lighted petards so near the apart ment of the princess, that the explosion would be likely to throw her into sudden alarm, and by that means occasion a miscarriage. Both attempts failed, and in the second the culprit was seized. His name was Gravier, and he had formerly been an officer under Buonaparte. He and an accomplice were both condemned to death; but their punishment was afterwards, at the intercession of the princess, commuted into hard labour for life.

The atrocities of such wretches increased the interest which France, and indeed all Europe, took in the fate of the widowed princess. The anxious wishes of the country accompanied her through her pregnancy, till, between two and three o'clock on the morning of the 29th of Sep tember, she was delivered of a

son.

This event was hailed in the metropolis, and in the provinces, with every species of fes

tival, by which joy could be expressed. The young prince received the title of Duke of Bourdeaux.

Not long before this joyful addition to the royal family, the public mind had been alarmed by the discovery of a fresh plot. The persons engaged in it were principally officers in the army, who had not communicated their design to the soldiers, relying chiefly on the co-operation of the sub-officers. Like the Cato-street conspirators, they were to begin the work of revolution by a series of atrocious murders. Fifty persons of the highest rank were to be assassinated, and at the same time the officers who had engaged in the plan, were to join the troops in their respective barracks, and after haranguing them, were to lead them. to the Tuilleries. A regency was then to have been proclaimed in the name of the son of Buonaparte. execution of these schemes was originally intended to have taken place on the festival of St. Louis, but it was afterwards fixed for the 19th of August.

The

In the mean time, the government had received intelligence of all these proceedings, from some of the persons whom it had been attempted to seduce; and measures of precaution were taken. At seven in the evening of Saturday, the 19th of August, all the officers of police assembled at the prefecture. At eleven the conspirators began to be arrested. At one in the morning, the legions of La Meurthe and the lower Rhone, received orders to quit Paris immediately. The barriers were closed, and the arrests continued. About twenty-five officers were taken into custody

on that evening, none of them above the rank of captain. Some of them, when arrested, endeavoured, but without success, to excite the troops in their favour. Among them were several officers of the second regiment of Guards. The plot had extended beyond Paris: for upon the arrival of the news of what had happened in the capital on the night of the 19th, some of the legion of the Seine, then in garrison at Cambray, fled into the Netherlands. In the course of six weeks, not less than seventy-five persons were put under arrest. It was consolatory to find, that these despera

does no where met with any countenance or support from the troops, whom they had hoped to seduce without difficulty from their allegiance.

Towards the end of October, the elections of deputies, according to the new system, began to take place. Upon this occasion, the king addressed a proclamation to the nation, which will be found in the Appendix to the Chronicle, page 827. On the 19th of December, the session of the two Chambers was opened by a speech from the king, for which also we must refer to the Appendix to the Chronicle, page 829.

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CHAP. XIII.

The Netherlands-Sweden-Denmark-Germany: Measures for preventing the Excitement of the public Mind by political Speculations: Suppression of the Weimar Opposition PaperPrussia-Austria: Final Act of the German Confederation: Deliberations of the Diet-Hesse Darmstadt-Baden-Wirtemberg-Bavaria-Saxony-Russia: Expulsion of the Jesuits: Imperial Family-Poland: Commercial Intercourse between Poland and Russia.

THIS year does not present any Occurrence worthy of particular notice in the kingdom of the Netherlands. Next to the financial arrangements, which excited very keen debate in the legislature, that government was occupied chiefly with the regulation of the foreign trade, and of the internal industry of the country. Their possessions in the East Indies involved them in disputes with some of the petty states of the eastern Archipelago, especially with the sultan of Palembang; and they had recourse to military operations, which do not appear to have been attended with much success. Some differences, which arose between them and the British authorities in those distant regions, as to the limits of their respective possessions, and the extent of their several rights, were put in a course of amicable adjustment. Many prosecutions and convictions took place in the course of the year, for offences connected with the abuse of the press.

The same spirit of political discussion, which led to such

offences, and such prosecutions in the Netherlands, extended itself to the north. At Stockholm a plan was digested for the formation of a regular debating society, on a very extended scale. The governor, apprehensive of danger from such an institution, interfered to suppress it, and finally the matter came before the king. After some deliberation, the king and his ministers approved of the proceeding of the governor; declaring, that the proposed institution, however harmless or praiseworthy the intentions of the parties concerned in it might be, was likely to lead to great irregularities.

In Denmark, the taste for political speculation, if less generally diffused, was carried, in some instances, to a much more extravagant height. A young theologian, of the name of Dampe, had been suspended from the exercise of his functions, for publicly denying the divinity of our Saviour. With his visionary notions heightened by the ardour of opposition, and his heart embittered by what would appear

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