ible for others besides himself.
While he endeavoured to escape from the character assigned to him, by
silence and inaction,--his friends, his functionaries, his writers, his
entire party, masters and servants, spoke and moved noisily around him.
He expressed his anger when they discussed, as an hypothesis, the
collection of taxes not voted by the Chambers; and at that same moment
the Attorney-General of the Royal Court at Metz, M. Pinaud, said, in a
requisition, "Article 14 of the Charter secures to the King a method of
resisting electoral or elective majorities. If then, renewing the days
of 1792 and 1793, the majority should refuse the taxes, would the King
be called upon to deliver up his crown to the spectre of the Convention?
No; but in that case he ought to maintain his right, and save himself
from the danger by means respecting which it is proper to keep silence."
On the 1st of January, the Royal Court of Paris, who had just given a
proof of their firm adherence to the Charter, presented themselves,
according to custom, at the Tuileries; the King received and spoke to
them with marked dryness; and when arriving in front of the Dauphiness,
the first President prepared to address his homage to her, "Pass on,
pass on," exclaimed she brusquely; and while complying with her words,
M. Seguier said to the Master of the Ceremonies, M. de Rochemore, "My
Lord Marquis, do you think that the Court ought to inscribe the answer
of the Princess in its records?" A magistrate high in favour with the
Minister, M. Cotta, an honest but a light and credulous individual,
published a work entitled, 'On the Necessity of a Dictatorship.' A
publicist, a fanatical but sincere reasoner, M. Madrolle, dedicated to
M. de Polignac a memorial, in which he maintained the necessity of
remodelling the law of elections by a royal decree. "What are called
_coups d'etat_," said some important journals, and avowed friends of the
Cabinet, "are social and regular in their nature when the King acts for
the general good of the people, even though in appearance he may
contravene the existing laws." In fact France was tranquil, and legal
order in full vigour; neither on the part of authority nor on that of
the people had any act of violence called for violence in return; and
yet the most extreme measures were openly discussed. In all quarters
people proclaimed the imminence of revolution, the dictatorship of the
King, and the legitimacy of _coups d'etat_.