vability of the judges had been
guaranteed to the nation, and this guarantee was certainly the most
valuable of the rights which we had gained. But on account of its
importance, the government were the more desirous of violating it.

When the proposed "purification" became known, our national
magistrates trembled in their chairs, and they foresaw that they would
be plucked out for the purpose of making way for the antiquated
survivors of the courts of parliament.

The nation was alarmed, and protested against the measure. But the
"purification" was not to be stopped in its swoop. The process began
in the supreme tribunal of the kingdom, the Court of Cassation. And,
to remove all doubts respecting the ulterior object of the government,
it was officially announced that the _elimination_, disguised under
the name of the "installation royale," had been deferred only for the
purpose of "obtaining the information which was necessary to direct or
decide the choice of the judges, and that it would take place
successively in all the courts and tribunals of the kingdom."

The "installation" was felt to be not only a breach of faith, but an
open conspiracy against the security of the person and property of the
subject. We knew that the tribunals would now be filled with
magistrates whose prejudices, principles, and interest, must be in
perpetual hostility against our national laws, and that the new men
would seek to elude or crush our juridical system. The royal
magistrates, as it was but too evident, would be the relations, the
friends, or the creatures of the nobility, the emigrants, and of all
who claimed to be restored to their rights and privileges. Nor could
we hope that judges so constituted would deal out impartial justice
between the ci-devant privileged tribes, whom they would naturally
consider as the victims of revolutionary principles, and the children
of the revolution, who, according to the same mode of reasoning, they
could not fail to consider as the oppressors and robbers of the
privileged tribes.

The owners of national property were most alarmed by the approaching
expulsion of the revolutionary judges. By the charter, the
inviolability of their property had been guaranteed to them. But they
had not forgotten that a violent debate arose on the "redaction" of
this article; and that the ministers had been already accused on
account of the obscurity of the clause, which they refused to correct
into such words