he had opposed
acknowledged itself incapable. Yet the new Cabinet was not strong enough
for the enterprise it undertook; with the centre completely shaken and
divided, it had to contend against the right-hand party more irritated
than ever, and the left evidently inimical, although through decency it
lent to Government a precarious support. The Cabinet of M. Decazes, as
a ministerial party, retained much inferior forces to those which had
surrounded the Duke de Richelieu, and had to contest with two bitter
enemies, the one inaccessible to peace or truce, the other sometimes
appearing friendly, but suddenly turning round and attacking the
Ministry with eager malevolence, when an opportunity offered, and with
hesitating hostility when compelled to dissemble.

The doctrinarians, who, in co-operation with M. Decazes, had defended
the law of elections, energetically supported the new Cabinet, in which
they were brilliantly represented by M. de Serre. Success was not
wanting at the commencement. By a mild and active administration, by
studied care of its partisans, by frequent and always favourably
received appeals to the royal clemency in behalf of the exiles still
excepted from amnesty, even including the old regicides, M. Decazes
sought and won extensive popularity; Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr satisfied
the remnants of the old army, by restoring to the new the ablest of its
former leaders; M. de Serre triumphantly defended the Ministry in the
Chambers; his bills, boldly liberal, and his frank opposition to
revolutionary principles, soon acquired for him, even with his
adversaries, a just reputation for eloquence and sincerity. In the
parliamentary arena it was an effective and upright Ministry; with the
country it was felt to be a Government loyally constitutional. But it
had more brilliancy than strength; and neither its care of individual
interests, nor its successes in the tribune, were sufficient to rally
round it the great Government party which its formation had divided.
Discord arose between the Chambers themselves. The Chamber of Peers, by
adopting the proposition of the Marquis Barthelemy, renewed the struggle
against the electoral law. In vain did the Chamber of Deputies repel
this attack; in vain did the Cabinet, by creating sixty new Peers, break
down the majority in the palace of the Luxembourg; these half triumphs
and legal extremes decided nothing. Liberal governments are condemned to
see the great questions per