of right to be brought speedily and methodically before competent
tribunals. Just before the opening of the new session, in order to close
the campaign, a new and formal banquet was being prepared in Paris, to
which all the Deputies and Peers who had taken part in any of the
preceding banquets were to be invited. This manifestation was to take
place in the Twelfth Arrondissement of Paris. It was therefore agreed
between the opposition delegates and those of the ministerial majority
that the Deputies invited should go to the place appointed for the
meeting and take their places, so as to avoid any disturbance in the
streets or the hall, and that on the police commissary declaring that
there was an order against it the guests should protest and withdraw, to
lay the question before the tribunals. The agreement thus concluded was
communicated by Duchatel to the council, which approved of it.

Meanwhile the Chamber met, the session was opened, and from the very
first the Government could perceive a wavering in the majority. Even
among those who blamed and feared the agitation out-of-doors, several
believed in the urgent necessity of a concession to remove all pretext
for clamors and intrigues. On the ministers being informed of it Guizot
said: "Withdraw the question from the hands of those who now hold it,
and let it be brought back to the Chamber. Let the majority take a step
in the direction of the concessions indicated; however small it be, I am
certain it will be understood, and that you will have a new Cabinet,
which will do what you think necessary." It was in the same spirit that
the Ministry, during the discussion on the address, rejected an
amendment tending to impose upon them immediate engagements with
reference to reform.

"The maintenance of the unity of the Conservative party," said Guizot,
"the maintenance of conservative policy and power, will be the fixed
idea and rule of conduct in the Cabinet. They will make sincere efforts
to maintain or restore the unity of the Conservative party upon that
question, in order that it may be the Conservative party itself in its
entirety that undertakes and gives to the country its solution. If such
an operation in the midst of the Conservative party is possible, it will
take place. If that is not possible--if by the question of reforms the
Conservative party cannot succeed in making a common arrangement and
maintaining the power of the Conservative policy, the Cabinet wil