right of sending representatives might be lodged with some bodies at present unrepresented; in particular, he expressed a desire that those learned men who belonged to the university, and were intrusted with the important office of superintending the public education, and that the members of the Chambers of Commerce should be united into an electoral college, and have the privilege of sending deputies from their body. In addition to the speech of which we have been giving a short account, M. Lainé published the opinion which he adopted with regard to the renewal of the Chamber, viz. that a fifth of the members should be renewed, and not the whole, as the majority, in opposition to the text of the charter, seemed anxious to procure. The transmission of that law by the Chamber of Peers to that of the Deputies, where it must receive a new discussion, gave rise to a second report, with which M. de Villele was entrusted; and the president, after having called to order a member who gave him the lie, and perceiving that the assembly had substituted for the subject of debate intimated by the order of the day the reading of the election report, announced that, from the state of his health, it was no longer in his power to fill the chair of president. Accordingly he gave up the chair to M. de Bonville, and left the house. Two days afterwards, however, he again made his appearance there, and opened the proceedings by reading a letter from the Duke of Richelieu, in the name of the king, requesting M.Lainé, and, in case it should be necessary, commanding him to continue to preside in the Chamber, at least to the conclusion of the discussion regarding

the budget. This letter," said M. Lainé," explains to you the reason of my being in the chair." The honours of the office of president were indeed held during this session in circumstances somewhat disagreeable; for, by a very singular fatality, the minister and the president had scarcely ever the satisfaction of being on the side of the majority. On the 29th of April, M. Lainé, after the royal ordonnance, commanding the close of the session, was read by the minister, contented himself with reading two articles in regard to the immediate separation of the Deputies, without accompanying them, as in the preceding years, with a recapitulation of the business which had come before them during the session.

Next month he was appointed minister of the interior, and in that character signed, on the 5th of September, the royal ordinance dissolving the Chamber of Deputies of 1815, and abrogating a prior act of the crown, which permitted the revisal of certain parts of the charter.

On the 4th of October, the French Academy, of which he was a member, in virtue of a royal ordonnance, named him its director for the trimestre.

During the next session, in which the majority of 1815 became in its turn the opposition, M. Lainé frequently appeared at the tribune as a minister and as a deputy.

In the former character, he brought forward, in the name of the government, the bills for the formation of the electoral colleges, and for authorising the ecclesiastical establishments to purchase certain possessions, &c.

M. Lainé is the only one of the king's ministers who has not been dignified with a title.

The Baron Louis, or, to give him a name by which he is more generally known, the Abbé Louis, was born at Toul about the year 1755, and was in holy orders at the time when the Revolution broke out. He appeared at the provincial assembly of the Orleanais in 1788, and on that occasion shewed himself friendly to the political changes which were in agitation. During the first federation, on the 14th of July, 1790, the Abbé Louis, acting in the character of a deacon, assisted the Bishop of Autun in cele brating the mass on the altar which was raised on the middle of the Champ de Mars. From his connection with that prelate, the Abbé Louis was afterwards employed to transact diplomatic business of importance, and, in particular, was dispatched several times to Brussels. His sentiments in favour of the Revolution were changed when it was proposed by the republicans to bring Louis XVI. to trial, or, in other words, to dethrone him. During the stormy period which ensued, M. Louis retired to England, whence he did not return until the year 1800. The place which he then obtained was that of "Chef de Bureau de Liquidation" for the war department. He was afterwards appointed Master of Requests to the Council of State, and was sent to Holland in 1810 to preside over the "Conseil de Liquidation" established in that country.

Under the ministry of M. Moliere, he obtained the vacant situation of one of the managers of the public treasure, which he filled with much advantage to the revenue. In the month of March, 1813, he was appointed, along with Messrs Bcgouen

and Molé, to present to the Legisla tive Body the law of finance. The exposé of the law referred to was read by M. Molé, and contained a high eulogium upon Buonaparte, for the order and economy which he had introduced into the department of finance.

After the fall of Buonaparte, in April 1814, the Abbé Louis, having definitively obtained the portfeuille of the finance, with which the provisional government had at first entrusted him, made a report to the Legislative Body on the 22d of July, upon the state of the finances of the country, and upon the budgets for the years 1814 and 1815. "The system," he observed," which was pursued by the old government, had the appearance of much order and exactness. During the last months of each year, the ministers were obliged to make known to the minister of finance the sums which were requisite to meet the exigencies of each department in the following year; and, from the statements thus laid before him, he was enabled to form a general idea of the whole expence.

It was also the practice of the same minister to present during the year the budget of receipts; which, had it been done fairly and accurately, might have been of advantage; but never was there laid before the Legislative Body an accurate budget. The expenditure was uniformly diminished, and the receipts exaggerated. "We have presented you," said he in conclusion, " with a gloomy, but faithful statement of our finances; but we trust that, by a faithful discharge of our duty, we shall be able to fulfil all

our engagements, and have the pleasure of seeing credit re-established, and prosperity re-appear, after so long an absence.'

The observations which this speech contained in reference to the mode in which the financial department was conducted under Napoleon, appeared to M. Gaudin to reflect upon his management; and a warm debate ensued between that ex-minister and his successor in office. Several pamphlets were also published on the occasion, which, although now totally for. gotten, produced no small sensation at the time when they appeared.

At the unfortunate period when the king retired to Ghent, M. Louis attended him thither; and when his majesty returned in the month of July, M. Louis was again appointed minis

ter of finance, a situation which had been occupied by M. Gaudin during the 100 days.

In September following he gave up his office. So successful had his managemént been, that in place of the two millions which he found in the treasure when he entered upon his functions, he left in it no less than 22 millions. He was elected successively a member of the Chamber of Deputies in 1815 and 1816, by the colleges of the departments of the Seine and the Meurthe, During 1815, he voted with the minority, but after the ordinance of the 5th September, 1816, he voted with the majority.

The Abbé Louis lives in the neighbourhood of Melun, where he has lately purchased a fine estate.

This nobleman was born in the year 1747, and was for a long time known under the name of Duke of Liancourt. At the Restoration in 1,814, he took the title which he at present holds, and which had devolved upon him by the death of his cousin german, who was assassinated at Gisons in the year 1792. When the Revolution broke out, M. de Liancourt was grand-master of the wardrobe of the king, an appointment which had been held by his father, the Duke of Estissac. In the year 1789, he was sent as deputy to the Assembly of the States General, by the noblesse of the bailliage of Clermont, in Beauvaisis, where he brought forward some schemes of reform in the department of finance and police, and professed the revolutionary opinions then in vogue. Nevertheless, his name is not to be found in the

list of those nobles who left their own order, and united themselves to the third estate, before the royal ordinance commanded them to do so.

But the Duke of Liancourt became more an object of notice than he had hitherto been by the advice which he gave to the king on the morning of the 15th of July, 1789. At that period, the populace of Paris had already obtained possession of the old Bastille-horrible assassinations were frequently committed; the national colours had been destroyed by the infuriated multitude, and persons of rank proscribed;-nay, it had even been publicly avowed that Louis the XVI. must quit the throne. Mirabeau was generally looked to as the principal agent of the party which wished to bring about that catastrophe, and in the name of the Assembly he gave the most insolent in

structions to the commissioners who "were sent to his majesty. At that time the Duke of Liancourt was with the unfortunate monarch, and fearing, no doubt, that he would see him stripped of his crown, and perhaps deprived of his life, he entreated him to recal Necker, for whose return the 'Parisians exhibited so much eager ness, and to send off the troops which were quartered in the environs of Paris and Versailles.

The king yielded to the persuasion of the duke, and at the moment when the commissioners were leaving the Assembly to repair to the castle, he made his appearance there; told them that Necker was recalled, and that orders had been issued for the removal of the troops.

Many are of opinion, that, to this act of weakness, ought to be attributed the misfortunes which afterwards happened to the king.

It is reported, that it was after a grand dinner given by the Duke of Liancourt to the leading members of the Assembly, that the decree passed on the night of the 4th of August, for taking away all the privileges of the nobility. Be that as it may, it is certain that he afterwards proposed that a medal should be struck for preserving the remembrance of that remarkable sitting, and returned to the king the insignia of the order of the Holy Ghost,

On the 1st of September of the same year, he delivered a speech, in which he insisted upon the necessity of the royal sanction, or, to speak in the language of the time, of the absolute veto of the king, to all acts of the legislature which he might consider as adverse to the interests of his subjects and the crown. He appeal ed to the instructions which the deputies had received from their superiors. By these, he said, they were authorised to improve the ancient

VOL. IX PART II.

monarchial constitution, but not to destroy it. The Assembly appeared to him to have no right to destroy it by taking away the royal sanction, to which the laws had at all times been subject, and which indeed formed the essence of the monarchy.

On the 6th of October, 1789, the Duke of Liancourt accompanied the royal family to Paris, and followed it to the Hotel de Ville, where the representatives of the people were assembled. At the time when the Duke of Orleans went to England, (22d October, 1789,) one of the deputies enquired what might be the cause of his departure, but the Duke of Liancourt made them pass to the order of the day, On the 16th of January, 1790, he spoke along with Malonet, in the defence of the naval commander, Albert de Rioms, against whom the people of Toulon had risen. On the 28th of June he opposed Messrs Noailles and Lameth, who wished that the military employed in active service might be eligible as members of the deliberative assemblies, that is to say, of the clubs which were established under the patronage of the Assembly in almost every town of the kingdom. It has been reported that the Duke of Liancourt was one of those who patronized the burlesque embassy of the human race, of which Clootz, the Prussian, was the spokesman, and in consequence several jokes were passed at his expense "The Acts of the Apostles," a journal in which truth was so frequently sacrificed to satire.

in

During the remainder of the session of 1790, he'directed his attention to the military laws, but more particularly to objects of philan thropy. Being named President of the Committee of Mendicity, he produced a number of reports on the subject of hospitals, and on the methods of assisting paupers; his views

S

on the latter subject are considered as peculiarly enlightened. During the following year he pursued the same course, and succeeded in having a law passed, by which the expense incurred in supporting foundlings and hospitals for the poor, and which had hitherto been defrayed by the towns or provinces to which they belonged, was henceforth to be defrayed out of the public treasure.

The Duke of Liancourt voted against the re-union of Avignon to France, and although favourable to reform, seldom ranged himself in the ranks of the revolutionary party. In the month of April he proposed that the Assembly should assist at the funeral obsequies of Mirabeau, alleging as a ground for that honour, that the celebrated orator in question had, some days before his death, declared his determination to oppose all factions whatsoever.

On the 2d of May he supported the Viscount of Noailles in the complaint which he made against the conduct of Monmorin, the minister for Foreign Affairs, in not informing the Assembly of the entrance of the Austrian troops into Porentrui.

On the 23d of June he reclaimed against the insertion of his name among the signatures attached to a declaration of fidelity to the principal articles of the constitution, and declared, in his turn, that he had sworn to maintain the constitution entire as it was, and not merely certain articles which could not be separated from it.

On the 14th of July he combatted the mysterious distinction which Petion proposed to establish between the constitutional inviolability, and the personal inviolability of the king, a perfidious sophisin, which it was easy for him to expose, but which, nevertheless, formed the chief basis of the attack, which was at a later period

directed by the Philosopher Condorçet against the unfortunate Louis XVI. At the time when the king set off for Montmedi, the Duke of Liancourt, defended him. "The truth cannot be concealed," said he, "the king has only the factious for his enemies, and their plan is evidently to have royalty overthrown."

At the end of the session of 1792, the Duke proposed to substitute in the room of the ancient academies, an institute very much resembling that which was afterwards established in the year 1795.

After the events of the Champ de Mars, he became a member of the constitutional assembly of the Feuillans, and continued to frequent its meetings for some time. After the unsuccessful, but daring attempt which was made on the 20th of June, 1792, the safety of the king appearing to be more than ever at stake, the duke proposed that his majesty should retire with his family to Normandy, where he would at first find a secure retreat at the castle of Gaillon, which belonged to the Cardinal of La Rochefoucauld, (uncle to the subject of this memoir,) and he might afterwards reside at Rouen, in which town the friends of the Revolution had at that period very few partisans. In order to persuade his majesty to agree to this proposal, the Duke engaged to secure his safe retreat; but the king did not approve of it, and when the memorable 10th of August arrived, the Duke of Liancourt was obliged instantly to fly for his life. At Havre he found a vessel which conveyed him to England, from whence he went to America. There he remained until 1799, and travelled much. He made it his study to acquaint himself with the arts, the agriculture, the commerce, and the institutions of America; those especially whose object it is to