l be poor enough; but we must
support it, and endeavour to suppress all alarm. It has already reached
me here, that the elections have produced great apprehensions; if I am
not deceived, this terror is nothing more than a danger of the moment.
If, after the fall of the present Ministry, we are able to get through
the year quietly, we shall have won the victory."

When the Ministry of M. de Villele fell, and the Cabinet of
M. de Martignac was installed, a new attempt at a Government of the
Centre commenced, but with much less force, and inferior chances of
success, than that which in 1816 and 1821, under the combined and
separate directions of the Duke de Richelieu and M. Decazes, had
defended France and the crown against the supremacy of the right and
left-hand parties. The party of the centre, formed at that time under a
pressing danger of the country, had drawn much strength from that very
circumstance, and either from the right or the left had encountered
nothing but animated opposition, but still raw and badly organized, and
such as in public estimation was incapable of government. In 1828, on
the contrary, the right hand-party, only just ejected from power, after
having held it for six years, believed that they were as near recovering
as they were capable of exercising office, and attacked with exuberant
hope the suddenly created successors who had stepped into their places.
In other quarters, the left and the left centre, brought into contact
and almost confounded by six years of common opposition, reciprocated
mutual understanding in their relations with a Cabinet which they were
called on to support, although not emanating from their ranks. As it
happens in similar cases, the violent and extravagant members of the
party, paralyzed or committed the more moderate and rational to a much
greater extent than the latter were able to restrain and guide their
troublesome associates. Thus assailed in the Chambers by ambitious and
influential rivals, the rising power found there only lukewarm or
restrained allies. While from 1816 to 1821 the King, Louis XVIII., gave
his sincere and active co-operation to the Government of the Centre, in
1828 the King, Charles X., looked upon the Cabinet which replaced
immediately round him the leaders of the right-hand party as an
unpleasant trial he was doomed to undergo; but to which he submitted
with uneasy reluctance, not believing in its success, and fully
determined to endure it no