Right in front of the Speaker's chair, on a lower level, is placed
the tribune, which much resembles the precentor's desk in a Scottish
church. The tribune is occupied only when a Minister makes a Ministerial
declaration, or a Convener of a Committee gives in his Report. An open
space divides the tribune from the seats of the members. These last run
all round the hall, in concentric rows of benches, also covered with
crimson. "There, on the right," said M. Malan, "sit the priest party. In
the front are the Ministerial members; on the left is my seat. There is
an extreme left to which I do not belong: I have not passed the
constitutional line. This lower tier of galleries is for the conductors
of the press and the diplomatic corps; this higher gallery is for ladies
and military men. We are 204 members in all. We have a member for every
twenty-five thousand inhabitants. Our population is four millions and a
half. Our House of Peers contains only ninety members. The King has the
privilege of nominating to it, but peers so created are only for life."

It was, in truth, a marvellous sight;--a free and independent Parliament
meeting in the ancient capital of the bigoted Piedmont, with a free
press and a public looking on, and one of the long proscribed Vaudois
race occupying a seat in it. The more I thought of it, the more I
wondered. The causes which had led to so extraordinary a result seemed
clearly providential. When King Charles Albert in 1848 gave his subjects
a Constitution, no one had asked it, and few there were who could value
it, or even knew what a Constitution meant. One or two public writers
there were who said that public opinion demanded it; but, in sooth,
there was then no public opinion in the country. Soon after this the
campaign in Lombardy was commenced, and the result of that campaign
threatened the Piedmontese Constitution with extinction. The Piedmontese
army was beaten by the Austrians, and had to make a hasty and inglorious
retreat into their own country. Every one then expected that Radetzky
would march upon Turin, put down the Constitution, and seize upon
Sardinia. Contrary to his usual habits, the old warrior halted on the
frontier, as if kept back by an invisible power, and the Constitution
was saved. Then came the death of Charles Albert, of a broken heart, in
Oporto, whither he had fled; and every one believed that the Piedmontese
charter would accompany its author to the tomb. The dispositions a