f certain functions with the office
of Deputy, might and must be the natural and legitimate consequences of
the upward movement of society and political liberty. They did not think
the reforms necessary or well-timed, and were therefore justified in
delaying them as much as possible, provided they should one day allow to
be accomplished by others what they thought themselves still strong
enough to refuse." "We have too much and too long maintained a good
policy," said Guizot afterward.

A frequent and formidable sign that men's minds are secretly agitated is
the anxiety by which they are seized with reference to intrigues and
vices which they suppose around them. It would be a serious error to see
always a symptom of moral improvement in the clamors against electoral
or parliamentary corruption. Immediately after the ministerial success
in the general elections of 1846, this precursory indication of storms
appeared on the horizon. Guizot raised the question to its proper point
of view. "Leave to countries which are not free," said he, "leave to
absolute governments, that explanation of great results by small,
feeble, or dishonorable human acts. In free countries, when great
results are produced it is from great causes that they spring. A great
fact has been shown in the elections just completed; the country has
given its adhesion, its earnest and free adhesion, to the policy
presented before it. Do not attribute this fact to several pretended
electoral manoeuvres. You have no right to come to explain, or qualify
by wretched suppositions, a grand idea of the country thus grandly and
freely manifested." The rumors of electoral corruptions were soon
followed by rumors of parliamentary corruptions; but the majority of the
Chamber declared themselves "content" with the ministerial explanations.
The "Contents" figured in the opposition attacks by the side of the
"Pritchardists."

Several improper abuses of long standing existed in certain branches of
the Administration; some posts in the Treasury had been the object of
pecuniary transactions between those who held the posts and were
resigning, and the candidates who presented themselves to replace them.
A bill proposed on January 20, 1848, by Hebert, who had become keeper of
the seals, formally forbade any such transaction, under assigned
penalties. Several months previously (June, 1847) M. Teste, formerly
Minister of Public Works, and then president of the Cour de Cassation