governed by sincere inclination than egotism. He was one of
those who had not learned from experience to place much confidence in
liberty, and whom the remembrance of revolutionary anarchy had rendered
easily accessible to honest and disinterested apprehensions. In times of
social disturbance, men of sense and probity often prefer drifting
towards the shore, to running the risk of being crushed, with many dear
objects, on the rocks upon which the current may carry them.

In the debate on the bill which suspended for a year the securities for
personal liberty, M. Royer-Collard, while supporting the Government,
marked the independence of his character, and the mistrustful foresight
of the moralist with regard to the power which the politician most
desired to establish. He demanded that the arbitrary right of
imprisonment should be entrusted only to a small number of functionaries
of high rank, and that the most exalted of all, the Ministers, should in
every case be considered distinctly responsible. But these amendments,
which would have prevented many abuses without interfering with the
necessary power, were rejected. Inexperience and precipitation were
almost universal at the moment. The Cabinet and its most influential
partisans in the Chambers had scarcely any knowledge of each other;
neither had yet learned to conceive plans in combination, to settle the
limits or bearing of their measures, or to enter on a combat with
preconcerted arrangements.

A combined action and continued understanding, however, between the
Government and the moderate Royalists, became every day more
indispensable; for the divergence of several new parties which began to
be formed, and the extent of their disagreements, manifested themselves
with increasing strength from hour to hour. In proposing the act
intended to repress sedition, M. de Marbois, a gentle and liberal
nature, inclined to mild government, and little acquainted with the
violent passions that fermented around him, had merely looked upon these
acts as ordinary offences, and had sent the criminals before the
tribunals of correctional police, to be punished by imprisonment only.
Better informed as to the intentions of a portion of the Chamber, the
committee appointed to examine the bill, of which M. Pasquier was the
chairman, endeavoured to restrain the dissentients, while satisfying
them to a certain extent. Amongst seditious acts, the committee drew a
line between crimes and of