extreme measure of an appeal to arms, and a consequent change of
dynasty. When these became inevitable, M. Perier attached himself
firmly to the work of consolidating the new throne of Louis Philippe,
and reassembling those elements of order and stability which the
convulsion of July had scattered, but not annihilated. On the
dissolution of the ministry of M. Lafitte, M. Casimir Perier was
called to the head of the government, and immediately entered into the
system of conservative policy, which he continued until the close of
his career. The last time he took any important part in the debates
of the Chamber of Deputies was on the 20th of March, when he made an
ingenious defence of the conduct of government with respect to the
events of Grenoble. His last appearance in the Chamber was on the 29th
of March, when he merely brought in several private bills. On the
3rd of April he was attacked by the cholera, and, although the
indefatigable care bestowed on him by his medical attendants had more
than once apparently eradicated the disease, his frame, enfeebled by
a long standing internal complaint, as well as by his intense and
incessant application, was unable to resist the violence of the
disease, and, after several relapses, he at length sunk under his
sufferings, on the morning of the 16th of May, 1832.

As an orator M. Perier was energetic and impassioned: the natural
warmth of his temper, added to the irritability produced by illness,
frequently imparted a _brusque_ acerbity to his style, which injured
both the oratorical and moral effect of his eloquence; but his
reasoning was forcible, and his manner commanding and effective. "It
is not our province," says the editor of the Journal, whence these
particulars have been chiefly obtained, "to examine the merits or
demerits of his political system: recorders of, not actors in, the
great political struggle in which France is engaged, we have too
often had occasion to quote the enthusiastic eulogiums and unmeasured
invectives heaped upon him by different parties, to render it
necessary to repeat here, that he possessed the strongest proofs
against the reproach of mediocrity ever being applicable to him."

W.G.C.

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