re in the perverse extravagancies of his mind, and
faithful to his avowed principles, although forgetful and weak in their
application, openly a Christian, and preaching tolerance under the
Convention, while he sanctioned the most unrelenting persecution of the
priests who refused to submit to the yoke of its new church; a
republican and oppositionist under the Empire, while consenting to be a
senator and a Count, this old man, as inconsistent as obstinate, was
the instrument of a signal act of hostility against the Restoration, to
become immediately the pretext for a corresponding act of weakness. A
melancholy end to a sad career!

The assassination of the Duke de Berry might with much more propriety be
called an accident. On the trial it was proved by evidence that Louvel
had no accomplices, and that he was alone in the conception as in the
execution of his crime. But it was also evident that hatred against the
Bourbons had possessed the soul and armed the hand of the murderer.
Revolutionary passions are a fire which is kindled and nourished afar
off; the orators of the right obtained credit with many timid and
horror-stricken minds, when they called this an accident;--as it is also
an accident if a diseased constitution catches the plague when it
infects the air, or if a powder-magazine explodes when you strike fire
in its immediate neighbourhood.

M. Decazes endeavoured to defend himself against these two heavy blows.
After the election of M. Gregoire, he undertook to accomplish alone what
at the close of the preceding year he had refused to attempt in concert
with the Duke de Richelieu. He determined to alter the law of elections.
It was intended that this change should take place in a great
constitutional reform meditated by M. de Serre, liberal on certain
points, monarchical on others, and which promised to give more firmness
to royalty by developing representative government. M. Decazes made a
sincere effort to induce the Duke de Richelieu, who was then travelling
in Holland, to return and reassume the presidency of the Council, and to
co-operate with him in the Chambers for the furtherance of this bold
undertaking. The King himself applied to the Duke de Richelieu, who
positively declined, more from disgust with public affairs and through
diffidence of his own power, than from any remains of ill-humour or
resentment. Three actual members of the Cabinet of 1819, General
Dessoles, Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, and Ba