es, either judging them to be insurmountable,
or to demand too much time for removal. I find, in a letter which he
wrote on the 31st of October, 1824, to Prince Julius de Polignac, at
that time ambassador in London, on the projected re-establishment of the
law of primogeniture, the strong expression of his inward thought, and
of his clear-sighted prudence in an important act. "You would be wrong
to suppose," said he, "that it is because entailed titles and estates
are perpetual, we do not create any. You give us too much credit; the
present generation sets no value on considerations so far removed from
their own time. The late King named Count K---- a peer, on the proviso
of his investing an estate with the title; he gave up the peerage,
rather than injure his daughter to the advantage of his son. Out of
twenty affluent families, there is scarcely one inclined to place the
eldest son so much above the rest. Egotism prevails everywhere. People
prefer to live on good terms with all their children, and, when
establishing them in the world, to show no preference. The bonds of
subordination are so universally relaxed, that parents, I believe, are
obliged to humour their own offspring. If the Government were to propose
the re-establishment of the law of primogeniture, it would not have a
majority on that question; the difficulty is more deeply seated; it lies
in our habits, still entirely impressed with the consequences of the
Revolution. I do not wish to say that nothing can be done to ameliorate
this lamentable position; but I feel that, in a state of society so
diseased, we require time and management, not to lose in a day the
labour and fruit of many years. To know how to proceed, and never to
swerve from that path, to make a step towards the desired end whenever
it can be made, and never to incur the necessity of retreat,--this
course appears to me to be one of the necessities of the time in which I
have arrived at power, and one of the causes which have led me to the
post I occupy."

M. de Villele spoke truly; it was his rational loyalty to the interests
of his party, his patient perseverance in marching step by step to his
object, his calm and correct distinction between the possible and
impossible, which had made and kept him minister. But in the great
transformations of human society, when the ideas and passions of nations
have been powerfully stirred up, good sense, moderation, and cleverness
will not long suffice t