er the event, for Louis XVII was
a possible king, while Louis XVIII, for the moment, was not.

It was the Comte de Provence, brother of Louis XVI, who succeeded to
the claim. He {233} was one of the old Court; he had learned nothing
in exile; he was associated with the detested _emigres_, the men who
had fought in Conde's battalions against the armies of the Republic.
And as if all this were not enough to make public opinion hostile, he
issued proclamations on the death of his nephew announcing his
assumption of the title of King of France and his determination to
restore the old order. Within a few days, a royalist expedition,
conveyed on English ships, landed at Quiberon on the Breton coast, and
fanned to fresh flame the embers of revolt still smouldering in
Brittany and the Vendee.

Hoche had been placed in charge of Western France some months before
this, and by judicious measures had fairly succeeded in pacifying the
country. He met the new emergency with quick resource. Collecting a
sufficient force, with great promptness he marched against the
royalists, who had been joined by three or four thousand Breton
peasants. He fought them back to Quiberon, cooped them up, stormed
their position, gave no quarter, and drove a remnant of less than 2,000
back to their ships.

That was almost the end of the trouble in the west of France. There
was still a little {234} fighting in the Vendee, but after the capture
and execution of Charette and Stofflet in the early part of 1796, Hoche
was left master of the situation.

While the royalists were being shot down at Quiberon the Convention was
debating a new constitution for France, a constitution no longer
theoretical, no longer a political weapon with which to destroy the
monarchy, but practical, constructive, framed by the light of vivid
political experience, intended to maintain the Republic and to make of
it an acceptable, working machine. What was decided on was this. The
franchise which the Legislative had extended to the working classes
after the 10th of August, was to be withdrawn from them, and restricted
once more to the middle class. There were to be two houses; the lower
was to be known as the _Corps Legislatif_, or Council of Five Hundred;
the upper was to be chosen by the lower, was to number only two hundred
and fifty, and was to be known as the Ancients. The lower house was to
initiate legislation; the upper one was to do little more than to
exercis