ovinces. Wherefore, every
Tribunal of First Instance and every Court-Royal is sharply divided
in two. The first section has given up hope, and is either torpid or
content; content with the excessive respect paid to office in a country
town, or torpid with tranquillity. The second section is made up of
the younger sort, in whom the desire of success is untempered as yet
by disappointment, and of the really clever men urged on continually
by ambition as with a goad; and these two are possessed with a sort of
fanatical belief in their order.

At this time the younger men were full of Royalist zeal against the
enemies of the Bourbons. The most insignificant deputy official was
dreaming of conducting a prosecution, and praying with all his might for
one of those political cases which bring a man's zeal into prominence,
draw the attention of the higher powers, and mean advancement for King's
men. Was there a member of an official staff of prosecuting counsel
who could hear of a Bonapartist conspiracy breaking out somewhere
else without a feeling of envy? Where was the man that did not burn to
discover a Caron, or a Berton, or a revolt of some sort? With reasons of
State, and the necessity of diffusing the monarchical spirit throughout
France as their basis, and a fierce ambition stirred up whenever party
spirit ran high, these ardent politicians on their promotion were lucid,
clear-sighted, and perspicacious. They kept up a vigorous detective
system throughout the kingdom; they did the work of spies, and urged
the nation along a path of obedience, from which it had no business to
swerve.

Justice, thus informed with monarchical enthusiasm, atoned for
the errors of the ancient parliaments, and walked, perhaps, too
ostentatiously hand in hand with religion. There was more zeal than
discretion shown; but justice sinned not so much in the direction of
machiavelism as by giving the candid expression to its views, when those
views appeared to be opposed to the general interests of a country which
must be put safely out of reach of revolutions. But taken as a whole,
there was still too much of the bourgeois element in the administration;
it was too readily moved by petty liberal agitation; and as a result,
it was inevitable that it should incline sooner or later to the
Constitutional party, and join ranks with the bourgeoisie in the day
of battle. In the great body of legal functionaries, as in other
departments of the administrat