ureur-general at Limoges, was elected a deputy in 1821, and
distinguished himself in the tribune. He was Minister of the Interior
from January, 1828, to August, 1829, and his name was given to the
ministry of which he was a member. He had for colleagues enlightened
and moderate men, such as Count Auguste de La Ferronnays, M. Roy, Count
Portalis. He tried to reconcile the different parties, and to preserve
the throne from the double danger of reaction and revolution. Taken
between two fires, the extreme Right and the extreme Left, he was
destined to fail in his generous effort.

The royalist sentiment was becoming constantly more feeble. The 24th of
January, 1828, some days after the formation of the Martignac ministry,
the Viscount Sosthenes de La Rochefoucauld wrote, in a report to the
King:--

"In going to Saint-Denis, the 21st of January (the anniversary of the
death of Louis XVI.), and seeing the lightness with which the court
itself conducted itself there, it was impossible for me not to make
many reflections on the futility of an age in which no memory is
sacred. And by what right can the people be asked to have a better
memory when such an example is given to them? No cortege, no coaches
draped, none of the pomp that strikes the imagination and the eye. Some
isolated carriages, passing rapidly over the route, as if every one
longed to be more promptly rid of whatever is grave and mournful in
this day of cruel memory."

The ultras were thinking much less of the real interests of the
monarchy than of their own spites and their personal ambitions.

These pretended supports of the throne were digging the abyss in which
the throne was to be swallowed up. Charles X., blinded, was already
thinking of calling the Prince de Polignac to power, and regarded the
Martignac ministry as a provisional expedient. To the despair of the
members of this ministry, he maintained relations with M. de Villele,
whose fall he regretted. After the opening of the session, he wrote to
his former minister, February 6, 1828:--

"What do you think of my discourse? I did my best; but as it was a
success with some persons of doubtful opinions, I am afraid that it is
not worth much. Everything appears to me so confused, that I know not
what to count upon. The eulogies of the Debats and the Constitutionnel
make me fear I have said stupid things. Yet I hope not, and I shall
continue to arrest with firmness what may lead to dangerous
concession