Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

for the opening of the legislative

session.

:

The ministry of marshal Gerard had lasted three months; that of the duke of Bassano lasted only three days. The men it contained were not popular; the greater number of them were un known they represented no party; they possessed no influence; they were not distinguished by any uncommon degree of ability to raise them above the crowd. The duke, too, had scarcely entered his office, when he found that, if he intended to remain, he must consent to be guided by the king. He had declared that, under his ministry, "the revolution of July would be restored," and in the political confession of faith of the new cabinet to be put forth, according to custom, in the Moniteur, he announced that revolution as the intended guide of his policy. But to this creed the king decidedly objected, having probably expected different language and more subservient habits in a minister trained under the abso lute obedience of the empire. The duke immediately resigned, and along with him all his colleagues, most of whom had been anything but flattered by the reception given by the public to the announcement of their appointments. The king turned once more to the army list for a premier, and found him in Mortier, duke of Treviso, who accepted the offices of president of the council, and minister at war. The old ministers, too, who had retired after the resignation of marshal Gerard, were summoned back to their offices, and obeyed the call. Admiral de Rigny returned to the foreign office, M. Thiers to the home office, M. Humann to the ministry of

finance, M. Duchatel to the mi nistry of trade, and M. Guizot to that of public instruction. Admiral de Rigny held pro tempore the portefeuille of the marine department.

The control which the king was believed to exercise over the deliberations and policy of his ministers, involved the government still more deeply with the press; for the opposition journals, on the allegation that he acted as a minister, treated him as one. The editor of the National was brought to trial for having been guilty of making guilty of making a direct attack upon the king in observations on the royal speech at the opening of the session. He pleaded not guilty, defending himself on the ground that the active and personal share taken by the king in the adminis tration of the government, laid his acts and conduct open to examination and censure, as much as those of any responsible and ostensible minister. It was his bu siness" to reign," not "to govern;" and so soon as he became himself the real and substantial minister, he forfeited the protection of the maxim that the king can do no wrong. The jury pronounced a verdict of acquittal. The ministerial journals having attacked the verdict, contending that it had been made clear that the object of the journalist was to bring about a change of govern ment, the National repeated its doctrines-avowed that such was its aim-declared that it would labour incessantly to attain this object by the only means at the disposal of the press, discussionand maintained that to attempt to restrain such discussion, was not only to crush the liberty of the press, but to deny the great prin

ciple that all power is only an emanation from the sovereign people. For this article the paper was again brought before a jury, who found a verdict of guilty. The editor was sentenced to six months imprisonment, and a fine of 2401. He had gone out of the way to avoid the imprisonment; but he soon returned and notified by a letter to the prefect of police (which he published) that he was ready to undergo his sentence. Some expressions in this letter were construed into a new endeavour to bring the government into contempt, and the paper was again seized. The editor of the Tribune was prosecuted for a libel on the king, connected with the events of Lyons. He offered to prove, by the testimony of Lafitte, Lafayette, and other public characters, that the matters which he had stated were true;

but the court held that such evidence could not legally be received. He was convicted, and was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment, and a fine of 2401. This was the 104th time that the Tribune had been seized. The duke of Orleans gave to a mare the name of a favourite actress on one of the Parisian stages. A journal published an imaginary letter from the lady in which she declined the honour for reasons by no means complimentary to the prince. The paper was seized by the police. M. Cabet, an opposition deputy was editor of an opposition journal called the Populaire. Being convicted of having published a libel on the king, he was sentenced to two years imprisonment, deprivation of all civil rights for two years longer, and a fine of 801.

CHAP. XII.

SPAIN. State and Measures of the Government-Remonstrances to the Regent against the Ministry-Change of Ministry-Disturbances in the Interior-Dissatisfaction excited by the Regulations of the new Ministry regarding the Urban Guards-Military operations against the Insurgents in Navarre and Biscay-Decrees against Religious Bodies assisting the Carlists-Royal Statute appointing the Convocation of the General Cortes-Constitution of the Cortes -Ecclesiastical Commission for the Reform of the Church-Decrees regulating the Press-Spain acknowledges the Queen of Portugal -Treaty between the two Queens and France and Great Britain to expel Don Miguel and Don Carlos from the Peninsula—A Spanish Army enters Portugal Don Carlos embarks for England, and arrives there-Leaves England, and joins his Army, in Navarre— Disturbances and Massacre of Priests in Madrid.

IN Spain, the history of the pre- cree. To, obviate the obj

sent year opens with a continuance of the same contests for the succession to the crown, which had marked the close of 1833, and a repetition of the same scenes of civil war, which, though neither interesting as military operations, nor productive of any marked effect in the course of the struggle itself, exasperated party feelings, and tended to loosen the bonds of society. The will of Ferdinand VII. was the title of his infant daughter Donna Isabella II. to the throne, and of his widow to the regency. That will, again, his brother Don Carlos treated as a violation of the fundamental laws of the monarchy, by which female succession was excluded; and he maintained that this constitutional rule could not be abrogated by a mere royal de

objection, Ferdinand, before his death, as has been recorded in our annals of last year, had assembled the cortes to acknowledge his daughter's title, and do homage to their future sovereign. But competitors for crowns do not decide their differences by the maxims of law, or the dialectics of the schools. The dying hour of Ferdinand saw Don Carlos and his adherents armed in the field. The young queen had the great advantages of being in possession of all the powers of government, and of having been immediately recognized by the leading European powers: the kingdom did not betray any general willingness to throw off her authority; and the army, with the exception of the Royalist volunteers, manifested no tokens of dis

affection when interested leaders did not use threats of revolt to forward their own political views, or their personal ambition. Each party, however, trusted less to arms than to the support which might be conciliated by professing certain principles of government. Carlos, even during the life-time Don of his despotic brother, had been considered to be still more attached to the unmitigated rights of absolute power, and the undiminished predominance of the Romish hierarchy, in its jurisdiction as well as in its wealth. The religious bodies, therefore, wished success to his cause; and though the dignified clergy did not join his standard, because they had large possessions, which might be confiscated, the ecclesiastical corporations and the monastic congregations supported him with their influence: and in Spain, the influence of the priest hood had been able, during the lifetime of Ferdinand himself, to disturb the repose of their un doubted monarch. On the other hand, all who favoured the introduction of a more liberal form of government, whether their wishes rested on a love of rational liberty for its own sake, or on personal ambition and vanity, which always find a more easy path to notoriety under popular institutions, deemed it to be their interest to adhere to the young queen, because her necessities held forth a promise that she might be induced to purchase security for herself by adopting their policy. Her government was in the difficult situation of being unable to conciliate either party without disgusting the other.

These difficulties occasioned the downfall of the prime minister, M. Zea. He had followed a policy which directed against him the inVOL. LXXVI.

fluence of the liberals as well as of the Carlists.

tained the cause of the queen, the As he openly mainpartisans of her rival laboured for much that his probable successors his removal, without reflecting might be still more hostile to their Carlos to fly from the kingdom, schemes. He had compelled Don and take refuge in Portugal; he had even prince's head, if he should again set a price on that be found on Spanish ground: with that party, therefore, he had broken irreconcileably. Neither was he a fit minister for the liberals, for he had stopped short of what even the most moderate amongst them demanded. king, he had been the author of Since the death of the several royal ordinances, all of which effected salutary changes; but in the manifesto issued by the queen regent on the accession of her daughter, he had declared his determination to maintain the old forms and instruments of governwith the catholic church; and had ment, and admit no interference held out no hope of convoking a representative body to modify the prerogative, or control any of the great functions of the state. old provinces formed divisions of The the kingdom extremely unequal in population and extent, in which the captains-general ruled with irregular and ill-defined authority; in one part of the kingdom, a very strict, and in another, a comparatively mild spirit might exist in the administration. M. Zea introduced a new division of the provinces into forty-nine sub-delegations or prefectures, each of them verument of its own sub-delegate, being placed under the civil goand containing about 250,000 inhabitants. break up ancient distinctions of He did not uselessly [2 B]

character and manners, or longconfirmed local associations, for the sake of geographical or statistical proportions, an error into which both Napoleon and the Cortes, of 1822, had fallen, when they sub-divided the kingdom, in total disregard of the old distribution of provinces and vice-royalties. He contented himself with a subdivision of the existing provinces, without otherwise disturbing the ancient landmarks. The only effect of this measure seemed to be to excite against the minister the jealousy of the captains-general, from whom it took the civil administration, and who, therefore, deemed it a vexatious interference with their discretionary authority. His administrative appointments, under the regency, had hitherto been uniformly of a liberal character. He had abolished many of the absurd restrictions which discouraged the sale of several of the most important productions of Spanish industry: he had relieved many manufactures from various privileges and monopolies with which they were burdened: he had mitigated the rigour of the censorship; the Spanish journals began to devote themselves to the discussion of public interests; they laboured industriously on topics of political economy; and day after day the liberals insisted more and more carnestly on the necessity of giving the country "constitutional guaran

The Asturias, Murcia, and Navarre,

the three smallest provinces, were still to remain, each of them, under the charge of a single civil functionary; Estremadura and the Islands, were to have, each two sub-delegates; Arragon, Valencia, and Vascongadas, three each; Catalonia

and Gallicia, four each; Leon, five; each of the two Castilles, six; and Andalusia, eight.

tees," and assembling a representative Cortes. To such demands the reply of the minister was, that all the measures of his government were so many securities against future abuses of power. The exist ence of the irremoveable council of regency, which had been named by the king, increased the difficulties of his situation. There was little harmony between that council and the proper cabinet of the queen regent. Some of the most influential members of the former were attached to the cause of liberalism; by its resistance it could always embarrass the march of the government, and diminish the consideration in which it was held. By the Carlists, M. Zea was treated as a declared enemy; the hierarchy regarded him as a protector only from views of temporary expediency; and to the liberals of all shades, he was an obstacle in the way of their farther progress.

A minister, who was thus unable to unite, in defence of his policy, any considerable body of influence, could not be an useful minister, when the crown of his royal mistress depended on the unanimity with which the country might be induced to maintain it on her head. If the liberals could not force their politics into the cabinet, it was not beyond the reach of possibility that they might attempt to make better terms with her rival: they might even excite a movement directed against both the competitors by which her dependence upon them would only be increased; and, at all events, attacked as she was by a civil war, their very indifference might inflict a fatal wound. The necessity of changing her minister and her principles of intended policy was now spoken out to the queen regent in language which

« ElőzőTovább »