THE ordinances of July 1830 did not surprise M. Casimir Perier. But what would be the conduct of France with respect to them? That was the question with him-and he was resolved not to be the leader of the Opposition. Was resistance legitimate? Did not the 14th article of the Charta of 1830 fully enable the King to resort to the measures he had enacted? And, were not the intentions of the coalition such as to compel Charles X. to avail himself of the special powers conferred by that article? Why did Charles X. make the ordinances in question? To gratify an inordinate love of power and domination? His worst enemies do not accuse him of that. To carry into effect a long premeditated attack on the Charta of 1814, and on the constitutional liberties thereby conferred? There is no evidence to establish such a presumption. To gratify the Ultra Romanists and the Court? Charles X. was not the dupe of that party, though, to avoid the infidelity and irreligion of the popular leaders, he preferred the Roman Catholic ascendency. Did he make the ordinances in question with the intention of establishing permanently a new form of Government in France? This is not probable; and, indeed, to the end of his days, the monarch declared that he was friendly to the constitutional form established by the Charta. Why, then, did he make the ordinances of July? It was because he was satisfied that the Chamber of Deputies and the Press had formed a coalition to overthrow the principle of a constitutional government-viz., that of three powers in the state, intending to usurp for the representative power in the Government the rights which belonged to the Chamber of Peers, as well as those which belonged to the Crown. It was because the monarch believed that France sincerely desired a constitutional monarchy, aud not a sham republic because he believed that France was attached to her princes; and because he thought that by taking this decision to stand against the encroachments of the representative, or

the hereditary and royal powers of the state, he should succeed in restoring that equilibrium which even Casimir Perier could not but feel had been deranged. M. Casimir Perier resolved, when the ordinances appeared, on remaining a spectator. He could not believe that a Government, making such ordinances, and committing such measures, was unprepared to defend them; and he had too great a horror of civil war to encourage, even by a look, any other than what he termed a legal resistance. The ordinances appeared on Monday. He remained at home the whole day, and took no part at the meetings of political clubs, or even private assemblies. On the evening of the second day, Tuesday, some young men waited upon him at his house and asked him to give them a signal, a drapeau, a word, a sign. "What would you do?" he replied; "do you think, then, that the Government, when it made such ordinances as these, did not propose, first of all, the forces to defend them? And have we the thunderbolts of Heaven at our command to strike them? No; those who made the ordinances have, doubtless, large forces to defend them; our resistance can only be a legal, before the Chambers, the Tribunals, and at the Electoral Colleges." Thus, from the testimony of Casimir Perier himself, it is evident that if the Prince de Polignac and his coadjutors had taken those steps which it was expected they would have done, to defend the ordinances they counselled the King to make, the ordinances would not have been overthrown by an unarmed populace, and an arrangement would have been made which would have secured to the Crown its hereditary and legal rights, and to the Chambers their just but defined privileges. But the Ministry that counselled the ordinances did not dare to tell the King that it was probable they would be resisted by brute force. Thus all military precautions were omittedthe command of the city and the troops was left in inefficient hands-a few "proletaires" and "gamins" swelled their ranks-and a mere emeute of

journeymen printers became a revolution !

As soon as the ordinances appeared, Lafitte and his party sent to all the environs of Paris, twenty leagues round, agents charged to ascertain the number and names of the regiments marching to the capital, or within its reach. These reports were transmitted, by various means, to the headquarters of the Rue Lafitte-then the Rue d'Artois! These reports were favourable to the Revolution. They communicated the astounding fact that no troops of any importance were to be found that the Government had left itself to the mercy and sympathy of the most democratical populace in the world-and that the precautions taken by the Government were not more than those which would have been taken in the event of some serious strike among workmen, or of some mobs on account of a scarcity of work, or a rise in the price of bread.

From that moment, i. e. from Tuesday evening, when these reports arrived from many and sure agents, the Revolution party resolved on attempting a physical resistance. Up to that moment it was purely moral. But M. Casimir Perier was no party to a physical resistance. On the contrary, he waited on the Ministers on Wednesday, endeavoured to prevail on the Cabinet to counsel the King to withdraw the ordinances, and resorted to every wise and honourable measure to prevent, if possible, the effusion of blood. Wednesday was a day of doubt to all parties. The Deputies at Paris vainly met, and vainly protested. In the evening, some faithful servants of the Royal Family waited on Casimir Perier, and endeavoured to prevail on him to raise his voice to quell the tumult. He consented to do so, on one condition, viz. that the ordinances were withdrawn. The next day his wishes were complied with, and he was appointed Prime Minister. But the mob had defeated the troops-the paving stones had triumphed over the cannon, and the race of Hugues Capet was dethroned by the fatal word of the chief of the Revolution, Lafayette, who replied to Count D'Argout, “ It is too late.”

When, on Thursday the 29th July, 1830, Casimir Perier perceived that the army had joined the mob, and that the populace was triumphant, he rush

ed to the public place, he no longer remained at home; "We must save the remains of the monarchy at least," he exclaimed; and by his energy and influence he prevented the continuance of a civil war. He counselled some faithful, but abandoned battalions, no longer to resist, since that resistance would be useless. He spoke of a king, and a monarchy, when no one else dared to mention the words; and when the populace and the revolutionary leaders wished to confer unlimited power on the municipal commission, he refused to accept the offer which was made, and distinctly stated that all he should do would be purely of a municipal character, reserving to the electors and the Chambers the right of establishing a general Government. The last platoon of the royal guards had not left Paris before his mind was filled with apprehension at the then appalling state of the country. It was without a Government-all was anarchy; and but one thought then filled his mind-it was to re-establish order. This thought never abandoned him to the last moment of his life. He had not made the Revolution, and they had not sufficiently trusted him. This want of mutual confidence had been a great evil. Such men as Guizot and Perier might have adorned any Government, and their devotion would have been as sincere as their counsels would have been beneficial.

Casimir Perier was one of the first to recognise the right and the fact of a new royalty. Admitted immediately into the counsels of the Lieutenantgeneral, and then of the King, he took one of the most active parts in the decisive acts of that epoch. President of the Elective Chamber, he presented to Louis Philippe the Constitutional Charta, which he swore to before God and his country. But he felt that this was but the mere commencement of his duties. It was necessary to secure the repeal of the old dynasty. It was necessary to obtain at least the non-resistance of France to the Revolution. It was necessary to re-establish and maintain material order, the authority of the laws, the action of an Administration, and to show to Europe something like the form of a Government. Something yet more difficult was necessary, for it was essential to govern this Revolution. The work was new in France, and it appeared

impossible; but Casimir Perier brought to it all the power of a vigorous and manly mind, and all the energies of a deep and settled, as well as energetic conviction.

The Revolution of 1830 was regarded by Europe not only with suspicion, but with hate. This was just and natural. One Revolution had scarcely been closed, and France had hardly begun to enjoy the benefits of a constitutional and mixed Government, when a new abyss opened, and new horrors presented themselves to the view. The chiefs of that Revolution were well known. Their manœuvres had long attracted the attention of the Northern Powers. The Governments of Europe were not wholly taken by surprise, except as to the moment of the convulsion, and they were prepared at once to decide that the watchword should be "RESISTANCE." This word "resistance" was that of Casimir Perier. He resolved rather to die a victim to order than to live the slave of anarchy. He determined rather to perish on the revolutionary block than be linked to the revolutionary car. He knew France-her first revolution-her public men-her partiesher causes of complaint-her prejudices her aversions. He knew that France was wholly unfitted for republican or popular government, and he had suffered too much himself in his own proud and independent spirit from the despotism of the empire, to desire to see re-established the Imperial regime. He was not, therefore, at all surprised that the first movement of foreign powers should be to distrust the Revolution, distrust all who had been concerned in the Opposition, either in or out of the Chambers, under the Restoration. Yet he knew, as far as he was personally concerned, that he had never desired the overthrow of the dynasty of the Bourbons, and had never conspired with the Orleanist party, from 1820 downwards, to place that Prince upon the throne. He had been a member of the Opposition, it was true, but he had never belonged to a cabal. Casimir Perier, in his early interviews with the Lieutenant-General, always directed the conversation to the necessity of paying more attention to the opinions of Europe, and less to those of the populace. He was, above all, desirous that the Revolution of 1830 should

be unstained with the blood of innocent and unoffending victims. No one had deplored more sincerely than he had done the assassination of Louis XVI. and the butchery of Marie Antoinette, and he had a horror of revolutionary scaffolds. He regarded the Revolution of 1830 as a great necessity, which could only be justified by the moderation of its character, by the abstinence of its agents from all sorts of extravagances-by the wisdom of its measures, and the temperance of its demands; and by, in fact, showing, by its conduct and conversation, that it did not desire to annul treaties, to break through engagements, to disturb neighbours, to plot against thrones, to unsettle the minds of other people and the institutions of other nations, but that its unique object was to establish in France a constitutional monarchy, with a prince on the throne, chosen because he was a Bourbon, and because he was a man of firm character, energetic mind, and resolute habits, having a large family of sons to succeed him, and thus to establish a new and a permanent dynasty.

There can be no doubt that Europe viewed with dismay the Revolution of 1830, and it is as true that nearly all the Governments resolved not only to resist Propagandism in their own states, but likewise to attack and destroy that spirit and party in France. The almost simultaneous movements in Belgium, Poland, Germany, and on the Spanish frontiers, demonstrated to the northern and southern Governments of Europe that, whatever might be the intentions of such men as Louis Philippe, and his servants Casimir Perier, M. Guizot, Baron Louis, and the Duke de Broglio, those who may be said to have made the Revolution of 1830, to have prepared it and conducted it, were also en mesure to carry the fire and the sword into all neighbouring states. They were resolved, coûte qu'il coûte, on maintaining the Revolution the work of their hands, and it was for Europe to decide whether, to avoid and avert the tremendous evils of a general conflagration, it would consent to the independent existence of the new French dynasty. It was clear to Casimir Perier that Europe would consent to no such thing, unless France should first prove by her conduct that she had no desire