f any journals excepting such
as were authorized by the Government.

The second dissolved the new Chamber of Deputies, or Legislature,
because the members were too liberal in their political opinions,
assuming that the electors had been deceived by the popular clamor,
and had chosen such persons as they ought not to have chosen.

The third reduced the number of deputies from three hundred and
ninety-five to two hundred and twenty-eight, and so altered the
electoral franchise, in order to secure the return of members
favorable to the Government, as to deprive a large number of the
right of suffrage who had heretofore exercised it.

Such, in brief, were the ordinances which overthrew the throne of
Charles X. and drove the elder branch of the Bourbons into exile.
There were others issued at the same time, but which were of no
material importance.

Frivolous as was the character of Charles X., he had sagacity enough
to know that such decrees could not be issued in France without
creating intense agitation. His ministers also, though the advocates
of the despotic principles of the old regime, were men of ability.
They recognized the measures as desperate. Popular discontent had
reached such a crisis that it was necessary either to silence it by
despotic power or yield to it, introducing reforms which would
deprive the ministers of their places.

Prince Polignac was at this time prime minister. His mother had been
the bosom-friend of Maria Antoinette. Through his whole life he was
the unswerving friend of the Bourbons. Implicated in the plot of
Georges for the overthrow of the First Consul, he was condemned to
death. Napoleon spared his life, and finally liberated him, upon
which he followed Count d'Artois (Charles X.) into exile. Returning
with the Bourbons, in the rear of the Allied armies, he was rewarded
for his life-long fidelity to the ancient regime by the highest
honors.

The sorrows of life had left their impress upon his pensive features.
He was well-read, very decided in his views that the people were made
to _be governed_, not to govern. He was energetic, but possessed of
so little worldly wisdom that he thought that the people, however
much exasperated, could be easily subdued by determined action.

M. de la Bourdonnaye, Minister of the Interior, like Polignac, was an
ultra Royalist. He had been one of the most violent of the Vendeans
in their opposition to the Revolution, and is represented, even by
th