by us, as tending to keep open wounds which, after a bold incision, might perhaps have closed with speed, and resto: red the patient to comparative ease. So sensible were they, however, not only that the old offenders should be punished, but that the plots of new of fenders should be guarded against, that the first law which they proposed to the acceptance of the Chambers, had for its object the confer. ring of a dictatorial power on the government an equivalent, in short, to a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in England. it was to vest in the prefects of districts the power of detaining persons strongly sus pected of machinations against the government, till such time as proper measures might be fallen upon for the full discovery of their guilt; these judges, however, were to make a report of every case, within four-andtwenty hours of the arrest, to the mi nister of police, whose sanction would thus be required previous to any considerable detention of the suspected individual.

This bill, as we should style it, or projet de loi, was opposed by several members of the Lower House with much pertmacity. M. Tournemine, M. Roger Collard, and others, mounted in succession the tribune, and harangued the assembly in formal speeches, condemnatory of the designs of the ministry. The most energetic oppositionist, however, was M. Voyer d'Argenson, who brought forward a counter bill, declarative of the non-necessity of any extension of the usual law. M. Vaublanc, the minister of the in terior, replied to this last orator in an elaborate speech The chief topics of Argenson had been the very great caution usually observed by the Eng. lish Parliament in any suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and the want, as he alleged, of any symptoms in the present condition of France, so

violently indicative of disaffection, as would be held necessary to justify such a measure in any of the legisla tive assemblies of the neighbouring kingdom. M. Vaublanc justified the present projet on the very ground of its being an exact counterpart of the bill carried through the British Parliament in 1793. That bill, he observed, had probably been the salvation of the British constitution, because it had enabled the government to cut off, in their early state. threads of guilty connection, just beginning to be extended between the malcontents of England and the revolutionary mob of France." France," said he, "has no longer her revolutionary mob, but she has still her disaffected; and by cutting the ties of communication which they have among themselves, a service may be rendered to her no less valuable than that which was, on the former occasion, derived by England, from the decided conduct of her legisla tors." A tumult of applause from the galleries, such as would not be tolera ted for a moment in the British senate, followed the conclusion of every paragraph in the speech of M. Vaublanc; and when he closed his somewhat florid peroration with these words, "Yes, all France wishes her king ! (oui, toute la France veut son roi!) the thunder of acclamation was such as for several minutes to put a stop to the whole proceedings of the House. Hats were tossed into the air, and handkerchiefs were waved, and flowers were tossed among the deputies, and the words of the orator were resound. ed from every quarter, like the watchword of a party candidate at a poll election in England.

We must beware, however, of allowing ourselves to contemplate, with too much contempt, these, and other somewhat childish manifestations of political inexperience, which are to be found in the early records of the French

Chambers. The whole conduct of the business of these assemblies has indeed a theatrical and affected air, than which nothing can be more averse from the ideas of Englishmen, respecting the proper method of transacting the great and serious affairs of a nation. The members of these houses are clothed in uniforms of office, and the peculiar department of every minister of the crown who enters the house, is in like manner at once recognized by the colour of his coat. This takes away what we conceive to be a very impressive thing in the aspect of the English House of Comnons-the appearance of the national legislators in their own private likeness of citizens. We like to look around the walls of our own senate, and see that variety of dress and demeanour, which is naturally to be expected among a body of men selected from many different walks of life, knights, squires, lawyers, and merchants, all meeting to devote the evening of their busy day to the service of their constituents. The absence of form and finery is thus felt to convey at once the idea of established privileges, which do not require to be kept alive in the memories of their posses sors by any peculiarity of garb. In dike manner, the French manner of debating is wholly remote from our habits and ideas. The formality of one orator ascending a high tribune, after another has descended from it, prepared to recite a recollected, or to read a written harangue-all this has a frigid appearance and effect, which would be utterly intolerable among those accustomed to the hasty, impetuous, and nervous collisions of intellect, which are witnessed in the parliamentary debates in England. We should remember, however, that our own free and unformal method of

transacting parliamentary business, has been the result of many centuries accustomed to the possession of parlia ments. The French have had no such blessed experience; and although they have wisely endeavoured to supply their own defects, by making use of the lessons to be derived from history and our example, we should not expect them to be so careless of all regard for their character of independence and originality, as to adopt at once all those lesser appendages of our system, which they may be so easily excu. sed for not at once discovering to be so intimately connected with the welfare of the system itself, as in reality they are. The entrance upon the free functions of a representative-house, must have been, in the eyes of Frenchmen, so new a thing, that they must necessa rily have encountered it with a feeling of awkwardness; and perhaps, had they endeavoured to conceal this awk. wardness by a more studious assumption of the airs of ease, we might have found only the more reason to smile upon their proceedings. These are all matters of inferior moment, and will, we trust, follow in their season.

After this speech of the minister, and the popular cry, on which the minister himself laid far more stress than his situation should have warranted, there rose M. Pasquier, a distinguished member of the Ultra Royalist party. He also disapproved of the bill, but, unlike its earlier opponents, his complaint was not that it was uncalled for, or injudicious, but that it did not invest the executive with so much power as the circumstances of the times required. This member wished to have the provincial magistrates furnished with a still greater degree of discretionary authority, and he backed his proposal with a statement of several things which had occurred under his

his own eye, in his capacity of pre. fect. The discourse of this gentle man, however, did not produce much effect on the assembly; and the question being shortly after called for, the bill of the minister was carried in its original state by a large majority. Out of three hundred and fifty-six votes, two hundred and forty-eight were with him.

In the House of Peers, the same bill was discussed at some length, although with less keenness, and in the end it was carried through by a majority of about the same extent. One circumstance occurred, however, in consequence of this debate, which gave rise to much discussion among the politicians of Paris. All the speeches delivered in course of the debate were ordered to be printed by the House, excepting one only, that of M. Lanjuinaisa member more averse to any even temporary extension of the royal power, than the great majority of the Chamber to which he belonged. This gentleman took this mark of neglect in high disgust, and printed his speech of his own authority. A cry was raised against him by some of those whose opinions he had controverted, on the ground, that his publication of his own speech implied a want of proper deference for the judgment of the majority of his peers. But although this argument was sufficient to excite a great deal of warmth in Paris for some days, it is in reality one, the strength of which we, in this country, cannot well understand. There is no technical law in the charter against a peer publishing his speech, and if there were, it is difficult to see of what use it could be, since, unless the press were deprived of every shadow of liberty, the peer might still publish his sentiments in a pamphlet, his name on the

title page of which would be a sufficient indication to the public on what occasion those sentiments had been thrown into the form of a speech. This, too, was only another instance of the inexperience of the French politicians in regard to the practical detail of a representative system. But even as such, it is worthy of being mentioned.

The next motion made in the Chamber of Peers was one of the Duke of Fitz-James, which had for its object the conferring of some mark of public gratitude on the Duke of Angouleme, for his services in the south of France, at the period of the usurper's return from Elba. His Royal Highness was certainly entitled to respect for his behaviour on that occasion; but his father, Monsieur, with much propriety, resisted the motion of the Duke of Fitz-James, on the ground that his son's exertions had been made, not against a foreign enemy, but deluded Frenchmen, and that he could therefore derive no pleasure from any thing calculated to keep their memory alive.

In the Lower House, in the meantime, a question of greater moment was already begun to be discussed. On the 16th of October, M. BarbeMarbois, the keeper of the seals; and the Count Portalis, one of the council of state, brought down from his majesty the projet of a new law; intended to operate in the repression of seditious cries. The evil proposed to be repressed by the provisions of this new statute, had indeed, it would ap pear, arrived at a point at which it was altogether intolerable. The mob of the Fauxbourgs of Paris, which, as we have seen, was always attached to the cause of Napoleon, and which had been, in the course of the whole revo lutionary period, too well accustomed

the permanent one should be matured for operation.

These proposals one party of the House treated without ceremony, as so many indications of imbecility and absurd jealousy on the part of the ministry. The mere ebullitions of vulgar folly, said they, should be overlooked and despised; while, for the more serious evils complained of, remedies have already been abundantly provided in the general laws against treason and sedition. The erection of other tribunals than those of Assize, was, according to these gentlemen, a sin against the spirit, if not against the letter of the charter.

The ultra-royalists, on the other hand, were equally hostile to the proposals of the ministry, as being, in their opinion, not too much, but too little for the necessities of the occasion. Instead of the punishments of labour and confinement, banishment, or loss of political privileges merely, this party were loud in declaring their anxiety to see every indication of disloyalty and sedition treated with the same rigour which might be due to actual rebellion; and they did not disguise their belief, that death was the proper puDishment for all such offenders. This sanguinary proposal was treated, however, with no great respect by the Chamber, and, after some little discussion, the bill was carried through both Houses. The consequence of this was, the immediate erection of Prevotal and Departmental Courts, with powers of summarily trying all persons guilty of the offences above described; and the energy of the proceedings of these courts produced, almost instantaueously, a total cessation of the crimes which had called for their establishment. Among the offenders whom they were instructed to visit with the greatest rigour, were "persons who had been guilty of insinuating any sus picions of design on the part of the king to restore the property of emi

grants, feudal rights, and tythes ;” and the broad declaration, which was thus, in effect, repeated by the government, of its intention to hold sacred the provisions of the charter respecting these points, was not without its effect upon the public mind. In the mean time, the government, armed with the new authority conveyed in these two enactments of the legislature, began to feel itself more confirmed and secure ; and ministers, being again pressed by an address of the Lower Chambers to proceed in their judicial investigation of the conduct of the persons exempted in the ordinances published after the return of the king, gave orders for the immediate trial of the only other great criminal, whose rank and offences seemed to render it likely that he would share the fate of Ney. This was the Count Lavalette, whose subsequent story excited so great an interest both in his own country and in ours, that we shall preface it with a few words concerning his early fortunes.

Marie Chamans de Lavalette was originally destined for the bar, but, like many others of the same profession, became a soldier in the opening period of the Revolution. After serving with honour in the first campaigns of the Republic, he was so fortunate as to attract the peculiar notice of Buonaparte at the battle of Arcolo, and, on the morning after, was appointed one of his aides-de-camp În this situation his early education enabled him to render himself extremely useful to his employer, insomuch that he was by degrees entrusted with the whole management of his cabinet ; and shortly after, when the purposes of the young adventurer required that he should have a confidential agent residing in Paris to transact his business with the Directory, Lavalette was chosen by him for this important species of embassy. The zeal with which he discharged the duties of his trust,