s of the
old system, nor the defenders of absolute power.

Such was their position at the opening of the session of 1816: a little
obscure still, but recognized by the Cabinet as well as by the different
parties. The Duke de Richelieu, M. Laine, and M. Decazes, whether they
liked the doctrinarians or not, felt that they positively required their
co-operation, as well in the debates of the Chambers as to act upon
public opinion. The left-hand party, powerless in itself, accorded with
them from necessity, although their ideas and language sometimes
produced surprise rather than sympathy. The right, notwithstanding its
losses at the elections, was still very strong, and speedily assumed the
offensive. The King's speech on opening the session was mild and
somewhat indistinct, as if tending rather to palliate the decree of the
5th of September, than to parade it with an air of triumph: "Rely," said
he, in conclusion, "on my fixed determination to repress the outrages of
the ill-disposed, and to restrain the exuberance of overheated zeal."
"Is that all?" observed M. de Chateaubriand, on leaving the royal
presence; "if so, the victory is ours:" and on that same day he dined
with the Chancellor. M. de la Bourdonnaye was even more explicit. "The
King," said he, with a coarse expression, "once more hands his
ministers over to us!" During the session of the next day, meeting
M. Royer-Collard, with whom he was in the habit of extremely free
conversation, "Well," said he, "there you are, more rogues than last
year." "And you not so many," replied M. Royer-Collard. The right-hand
party, in their reviving hopes, well knew how to distinguish the
adversaries with whom they would have to contend.

As in the preceding session, the first debates arose on questions of
expediency. The Cabinet judged it necessary to demand from the Chambers
the prolongation, for another year, of the two provisional laws
respecting personal liberty and the daily press. M. Decazes presented a
detailed account of the manner in which, up to that period, the
Government had used the arbitrary power committed to its hands, and also
the new propositions which should restrain it within the limits
necessary to remove all apprehended danger. The right-hand party
vigorously rejected these propositions, upon the very natural ground
that they had no confidence in the Ministers, but without any other
reasoning than the usual commonplace arguments of liberalism. The
doctri