unding the city, the liberal expenditure of
money for public improvements, and the maintenance of the colony of
Algeria. The first measure was postponed on account of the violent
opposition of the Republicans, and the second was carried out with
popular favor through the influence of Thiers. The Arc de l'Etoile was
finished at an expense of two million francs; the Church of the
Madeleine, at a cost of nearly three millions; the Pantheon, of
1,400,000; the Museum of Natural History, for which 2,400,000 francs
were appropriated; the Church of St. Denis, 1,350,000; the Ecole des
Beaux Arts, 1,900,000; the Hotel du Quay d'Orsay, 3,450,000; besides
other improvements, the chief of which was in canals, for which
forty-four millions of francs were appropriated,--altogether nearly one
hundred millions of francs, which of course furnished employment for
discontented laborers. The retention of the Colony of Algeria resulted
in improving the military strength of France, especially by the
institution of the corps of Zouaves, which afterward furnished effective
soldiers. It was in Africa that the ablest generals of Louis Napoleon
were trained for the Crimean War.

In 1834 Marshal Soult retired from the ministry, and a series of prime
ministers rapidly succeeded one another, some of whom were able and of
high character, but no one of whom made any great historical mark, until
Thiers took the helm of government in 1836,--not like a modern English
prime minister, who is supreme so long as he is supported by Parliament,
but rather as the servant of the king, like the ministers of George III.

Thiers was forty years of age when he became prime minister, although
for years he had been a conspicuous and influential member of the
Chamber of Deputies. Like Guizot he sprang from the people, his father
being an obscure locksmith in Marseilles. Like Guizot, he first became
distinguished as a writer for the "Constitutional," and afterward as
its editor. He was a brilliant and fluent speaker, at home on all
questions of the day, always equal to the occasion, yet without striking
originality or profundity of views. Like most men who have been the
architects of their own fortunes, he was vain and consequential. He was
liberal in his views, a friend of order and law, with aristocratic
tendencies. He was more warlike in his policy than suited either the
king or his rival Guizot, who had entered the cabinet with him on the
death of Casimir Perier. No