erested or
absurd credulity, repressed with unmitigated rigour, and subsequently
discussed, denied, extenuated, and reduced almost to nothing by
never-ending explanations and counter-charges. From thence arose the
mistakes, prejudices, and false calculations of the local authorities;
while the supreme powers assumed alternately airs of levity or weakness,
which made them lose, in the eyes of the multitude, the credit of that
sound general policy from which they, the masses, experienced little
advantage. The occurrences at Lyons in June 1817, and the long debates
of which they became the subject after the mission of redress of the
Duke of Ragusa, furnish a lamentable example of the evils which France
at this period had still to endure, although at the head of government
the original cause had disappeared.

Things are more easily managed than men. These same Ministers, who were
not always able to compel the prefects and mayors to adopt their policy,
and who hesitated to displace them when they were found to be obstinate
or incapable, were ever prompt and effective when general administration
was involved, and measures not personal were necessary for the public
interest. On this point, reflection tells me that justice has not been
rendered to the Government of the day; religious establishments, public
instruction, hospital and prison discipline, financial and military
administration, the connection of power with industry and commerce, all
the great public questions, received from 1816 to 1820 much salutary
reform and made important advances. The Duke de Richelieu advocated an
enlightened policy and the public good; he took pride in contributing to
both. M. Laine devoted himself with serious and scrupulous anxiety to
the superintendence of the many establishments included in his
department, and laboured to rectify existing abuses or to introduce
salutary limitations. The Baron Louis was an able and indefatigable
minister, who knew to a point how regularity could be established in the
finances of the State, and who employed for that object all the
resources of his mind and the unfettered energy of his will. Marshal
Gouvion St. Cyr had, on every branch of military organization, on the
formation and internal system of the different bodies, on the scientific
schools as well as on the material supplies, ideas at once systematic
and practical, derived either from his general conception of the army or
from long experience; and the