flag serves as
a cloak to reaction, it is impossible to arrest the entire mischief you
desire to check; and you seem to adopt that which you have been unable
to subdue. This is one of the inevitable misconstructions which honest
men, who act conscientiously, in stormy days, must be prepared to
encounter.

Neither in its composition nor plans had the new Royalist party any
special or decided character. Amongst its rising leaders, as in its more
undistinguished ranks, there were men of every origin and position,
collected from all points of the social and political horizon.
M. de Serre was an emigrant, and had been a lieutenant in the army of
Conde; MM. Pasquier, Beugnot, Simeon, Barante and St. Aulaire, had
possessed influence under Napoleon; MM. Royer-Collard and Camille Jordan
were opposed to the Imperial system. The same judgment, the same opinion
upon the events of the day and the chances of the morrow, upon the
rights and legitimate interests of the throne and country, suddenly
united these men, hitherto unknown to each other. They combined, as the
inhabitants of the same quarter run from all sides and, without
acquaintance and never having met before, work in concert to extinguish
a great fire.

A fact, however, disclosed itself, which characterized already the new
royalist party in the impending struggle. Equally disturbed by the
pretensions of the old aristocrats, the monarchy and the citizens formed
a close league for mutual support. Louis XVIII. and young France resumed
together the policy of their fathers. It is fruitless for a people to
deny or forget the past; they cannot either annihilate or abstract
themselves from it; situations and emergencies will soon arise to force
them back into the road on which they have travelled for ages.

Selected as President by the Chamber itself, and also by the King,
M. Laine, while preserving, with a dignity at the same time natural and
slightly studied, the impartiality which his situation required,
inclined nevertheless towards the opinions of the moderate minority, and
supported them by his moral influence, sometimes even by his words. The
ascendency of his character, the gravity of his manners, and, at
certain moments, the passionate overflowing of his soul, invested him
with an authority which his abilities and knowledge would scarcely have
sufficed to command.

The Session had not been many days open, and already, from conversation,
from the selection of the off