of April
on Kennington Common, from which they were to march to the Houses of
Parliament to present a petition signed by nearly six million names, in
order by this imposing display of numbers to secure the enactment of the
six points. Probably some of the more violent members of the party
thought to imitate the Parisian mob by taking power entirely into their
own hands. The announcement of the procession excited great alarm, and
the most decided measures were taken by the authorities to prevent a
rising. The procession was forbidden. The military were called out under
the command of the duke of Wellington, and by him concealed near the
bridges and other points where the procession might attempt to force its
way. Even the Bank of England and other public buildings were put in a
state of defence, and special constables, to the number, it is said, of
170,000, were enrolled, one of whom was destined shortly after to be the
emperor of the French. After all these gigantic preparations on both
sides the Chartist demonstration proved to be a very insignificant
affair. Instead of half a million, only about 50,000 assembled on
Kennington Common, and their leaders, Feargus O'Connor and Ernest
Charles Jones, shrank from the responsibility of braving the authorities
by conducting the procession to the Houses of Parliament. The monster
petition was duly presented, and scrutinized, with the result that the
number of signatures was found to have been grossly exaggerated, and
that the most unheard-of falsification of names had been resorted to.
Thereafter the movement specially called Chartism soon died out. It
became merged, so far as its political programme is concerned, with the
advancing radicalism of the general democratic movement.

CHARTRES, a city of north-western France, capital of the department of
Eure-et-Loir, 55 m. S.W. of Paris on the railway to Le Mans. Pop. (1906)
19,433. Chartres is built on the left bank of the Eure, on a hill
crowned by its famous cathedral, the spires of which are a landmark in
the surrounding country. To the south-east stretches the fruitful plain
of Beauce, "the granary of France," of which the town is the commercial
centre. The Eure, which at this point divides into three branches, is
crossed by several bridges, some of them ancient, and is fringed in
places by remains of the old fortifications, of which the Porte
Guillaume (14th century), a gateway flanked by towers, is the most
complete sp