girls," as he called them), but would rely
exclusively on Madame de Walmoden, the king's mistress. "The king,"
says a writer in George IV.'s time, "is in our favour, and what is more
to the purpose, the Marchioness of Conyngham is so too." Everybody
knows to what sort of influences several Italian changes of Government
since the unity of Italy have been attributed. These sinister agencies
are likely to be most effective just when everything else is troubled,
and when, therefore, they are particularly dangerous. The wildest and
wickedest king's mistress would not plot against an invulnerable
administration. But very many will intrigue when Parliament is
perplexed, when parties are divided, when alternatives are many, when
many evil things are possible, when Cabinet government must be
difficult.

It is very important to see that a good administration can be started
without a sovereign, because some colonial statesmen have doubted it.
"I can conceive," it has been said, "that a Ministry would go on well
enough without a governor when it was launched, but I do not see how to
launch it." It has even been suggested that a colony which broke away
from England, and had to form its own Government, might not unwisely
choose a governor for life, and solely trusted with selecting
Ministers, something like the Abbe Sieyes's grand elector. But the
introduction of such an officer into such a colony would in fact be the
voluntary erection of an artificial encumbrance to it. He would
inevitably be a party man. The most dignified post in the State must be
an object of contest to the great sections into which every active
political community is divided. These parties mix in everything and
meddle in everything; and they neither would nor could permit the most
honoured and conspicuous of all stations to be filled, except at their
pleasure. They know, too, that the grand elector, the great chooser of
Ministries, might be, at a sharp crisis, either a good friend or a bad
enemy. The strongest party would select some one who would be on their
side when he had to take a side, who would incline to them when he did
incline, who should be a constant auxiliary to them and a constant
impediment to their adversaries. It is absurd to choose by contested
party election an impartial chooser of Ministers.

But it is during the continuance of a Ministry, rather than at its
creation, that the functions of the sovereign will mainly interest most
persons,