ay the comedy. It would have been thought that
France, satiated with glory and misfortunes, France, which, on the
whole, seemed to have accepted without enthusiasm, but with a sort of
resigned indifference, the new regime, was about to breathe again, to
relax herself, to repose. She is wearied with herself. She is nervous,
discontented. It might be said that she endured with less patience the
blunders, the littleness, the errors of the royalty, than she had the
tragic massacres, and the ruins, and the invasions, and the bloodshed,
and the tears. Everywhere, anxiety and disquietude, the royalists not
completely satisfied, the generals humiliated, the army without glory
and its best officers retired on half-pay, the liberal bourgeoisie
suspicious and disposed to join the opposition, the small land-owners
anxious for their property which they had received from the
Revolution...."

Louis XVIII, with all his inherent faults, was a prudent and moderate
ruler in comparison with his brother, the Comte d'Artois, who succeeded
him as Charles X in September, 1824, and in six years brought the
Bourbon dynasty to an end. M. Ernest Daudet, in the _Revue des Deux
Mondes_, has recently been publishing some letters in connection with
the ministry of the Duc Decazes, in one of which we find the king
remonstrating with his brother, already the chief of the _ultras_: ...
"You have notified me that, if you do not succeed in persuading me, you
will make your opinions known publicly, and, which unfortunately will
inevitably follow, that you will no longer see me.... There is no doubt
that this resolution will seriously embarrass the government. But, with
consistency and firmness, this obstacle may be overcome, and I hope
that, during my lifetime, there will be no troubles. But I cannot,
without a shudder, look forward to the moment when my eyes will be
closed. You will then find yourself between two parties, one of which
believes itself to be already oppressed by me, and the second of which
will apprehend being so treated by you. (Conclusion: there will be civil
war, and a whole future of divisions, of troubles, and of calamities.)"

This prophecy was but too well realized. The liberal ideas, which were
made responsible, though without any proof, for the assassination of
the Duc de Berri, at the door of the Opera-house on the evening of the
13th of February, 1820, attained a great development in the ensuing
reign. Paris was unanimous in its