Having taken occasion to compliment the Assembly, upon the unanimity of their voices with regard to the civil list, with the true French spirit which they had manifested, he added, "The honour of the country, to borrow the expression of an illustrious individual of whom France is justly proud, will continue those miracles which Heaven performed upon the reappearance of a son of St Louis Let us go in peace, gentlemen, to our firesides."-These words were still sounding as it were in the ears of the deputies, when Buonaparte re-appeared upon the territory of France.

The session which was intimated for the month of May, was by royal ordonnance fixed to take place upon the 11th of March; and accordingly it opened on that day, and M. Lainé with his colleagues, could do nothing but declare unavailing wishes with the dignity which became the circumstances. "Let men of all parties," said he, on the 16th of March, on which occasion the king was present, "forget their animosities, and think only of the ties by which they are united as Frenchmen. There will be time enough for us to settle our disputes afterwards. At present, let us all unite our efforts against the common enemy."

The next day, after having adopted the national proclamation, which was proposed by General Angier, the Assembly separated. M. Lainé took the route of Bourdeaux, where, on the 28th, he published, in his character as president, and in the name of his colleagues, a declaration, in which, after having protested against the dissolution of the Chamber, and against all the decrees which might emanate from Buonaparte, he freed the French people from the double obligation of paying the imposts, and of obeying

the conscriptionary law for the recruiting of the army. "When," said he, "so daring an attack is made upon the rights and liberties of the French, it is their duty to do all they can individually to protect their rights. While history preserves an eternal tribute of gratitude to those men, who in free countries have refused to lend any assistance to tyranny, it covers with eternal disgrace those who, pursuing a different course, have forgotten their character as men, and stooped to submit themselves to their enslavers.". The events which soon rendered the departure of the Duchess of Angouleme necessary, rendered it impossi ble for M. Lainé to make any new efforts which his zeal might suggest. He refused to take the oath which Buonaparte required of him; and being, in consequence of this step, unable to remain longer in the country, he retired to Holland. After his return to Paris, he was, in the month of August following, re-elected member of the Chamber of Deputies by the college of the Gironde; and being again called to perform the functions of president, M. Lainé became distinguished in the debates which occurred relating to the law of elections. He opposed the reduction of the sum necessary to be contributed in order to procure the qualification of an elector from 300 to 50 francs. He declared his preference of assemblies by arrondissement to assemblies by canton; and he supported the title of public functionaries, possessing the requisite qualifications to act as electors. With regard to the age of candidates, while he approved of the regulation of the charter which fixes the age of admission to bachelors at forty years, he voted for the admission of married men at twenty-five years. He did not dissemble his wish that the

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 filed with much advantage to the revenue. In the month of March, 1818, he was appointed, along with Messrs Begouen

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 ma nagement; 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 management 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 neigh bourhood 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 1814, 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 fear ing, 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

YOL. IX PART II.

monarchial constitution, but not tò 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 assemblics, 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 in "The Acts of the Apostles," a journal in which truth was so frequently sacrificed to satire..

During the remainder of the session of 1790, he directed his attention to the military laws, but more particularly to objects of philanthropy. 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

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