petually revived which revolutions bequeath
to society, and which even glorious despotism suspends without solving.
The right-hand party was passionately bent on repossessing the power
which had recently escaped them. The left defended, at any cost, the
Revolution, more insulted than in danger. The centre, dislocated and
doubtful of the future, wavered between the hostile parties, not feeling
itself in a condition to impose peace on all, and on the point of being
confounded in the ranks of one side or the other. The Cabinet, ever
victorious in daily debate, and supported by the King's favour, felt
itself nevertheless feebly surrounded and precariously placed, with the
air of expecting a favourable or a hostile incident, to bring the
security it wanted, or to overthrow it altogether.

The events which men call accidents are never wanting in such
situations. During the space of a few months the Cabinet of 1819
experienced two,--the election of M. Gregoire, and the assassination of
the Duke de Berry; and these two decided its fate.

It is difficult to look upon the election of M. Gregoire as an accident;
it was proposed and settled beforehand in the central committee
established at Paris to superintend elections in general, and which was
called the managing committee. This particular election was decided on
at Grenoble in the college assembled on the 11th of September, 1819, by
a certain number of votes of the right-hand party, which at the second
round of balloting were carried to the credit of the left-hand
candidate, and gave him a majority which otherwise he could not have
obtained. To excuse this scandal, when it became known, some apologists
pretended that M. Gregoire was not in fact a regicide, because, even
though he had approved of the condemnation of Louis XVI. in his letters
to the Convention, his vote at least had not been included in the fatal
list. Again, when the admission of the deputy was disputed in the
Chamber, the left-hand party, to get rid of him, while eluding the true
cause of refusal, eagerly proposed to annul the election on the ground
of irregularity. When improvident violence fails, men gladly shelter
themselves under pusillanimous subtlety. It was unquestionably in the
character of a Conventional regicide, and with premeditated reflection,
not by any local or sudden accident, that M. Gregoire had been elected.
No act was ever more deliberately arranged and accomplished by party
feelings. Since