form, to the practices established among civilized nations; horribly injurious to the Spanish nation, to its most distinguished members, to its Cortes, to its government, to the throne even of your Majesty, which resting in the constitution, suffers not less from the attacks of which it is the object; lastly, to your sacred person, whose good faith and love for your subjects are attempted, with an impious temerity, to be made the subject of doubt." They approved the noble disdain with which ministers had not even deigned to refute accusations of such notorious falsehood. They "proclaimed, in the face of the nation, of the world, and of posterity, their fixed resolution to support the lustre and independence of the throne and constitutional authority of your Majesty, the sovereignty and the rights of the heroic nation whom they represent, and the constitution by which they exist."

The foreign ministers, on seeing that the delivery of their notes had produced results very contrary, if not to their expectation, at least to any chance of the fulfilment of their demands, immediately and unanimously demanded their passports. The demands were also accompanied with embittered expressions, particularly that of Russia, which said, that" as to the decisions which might be formed, all the responsibility would rest on the heads of the persons who ought to be considered as the sole authors of them, when the same persons deprive their legitimate sovereign of his liberty, deliver Spain to all the evils of a bloody anarchy, and by means of a criminal correspondence, seek to cause other nations to feel the calamities which they have drawn on their own country. Russia can preserve no relations with authorities which tolerate and excite these disorders." The replies of San Miguel were in the same

style of indignant retort as those to the notes. The minister of Russia was charged as having strangely abused the law of nations; and a hope was expressed, that he would take his departure as speedily as possible. To the Austrian minister, it was declared indifferent to the Spanish government whether it maintained or not relations with the court of Vienna. The demand of the Prussian minister, however, being respectfully made, was answered in a similar tone.

These tidings reached Paris in an evil hour. The meeting of the Chambers was to take place in a few days, and it then behoved the French go. vernment to announce some decided course. It was on this critical moment that the news from Spain acted. The scales of peace and war, which had been suspended and fluctuating, with even a leaning to the former side, were instantly reversed. Such a weight thrown into the side of war, caused the upper scale at once to kick the beam. It was determined that the royal speech should make a positive and decided announcement of war-of a war founded on the highest principles of the despotic confederacy. We have without hesitation condemned as imprudent the words and actions of the Spanish ministry; but they were imprudent only. They might afford a cause, but not any reason or justifi cation of the criminal resolution of France. A measure of such awful moment, and so iniquitous, and pregnant with evils of such magnitude to Spain and to France, could never be justified by a few rash words extorted by the most manifest provocation.

It was on the 28th January, that the King, in opening the Chamber, announced his purpose in the following extraordinary terms:

"Divine justice permits, that after having long made other nations experience the terrible effects of revolution,

we should be ourselves exposed to the dangers arising from similar calamities in a neighbouring people.

"I have attempted everything to secure the safety of my people, and to preserve Spain herself from the extreme of misfortune. The blindness with which the representations made at Madrid have been repelled, leaves little hope of preserving peace.

"I have ordered the recall of my minister; a hundred thousand Frenchmen, commanded by a prince of my family, by him whom my heart takes pleasure in calling my son, are ready to march, invoking the God of St Louis, to preserve a throne of Spain to a descendant of Henry IV., to save this fine kingdom from ruin, and to reconcile it to Europe.

"Let Ferdinand VII. be free to give to his people the institutions which they can hold only from him, and which, in securing their repose, may dissipate the just inquietudes of France; from that moment hostilities will cease; I come, in your presence, gentlemen, under this solemn engagement."

Such was the basis on which Louis, who had once displayed somewhat of a moderate and liberal character, had been so wrought upon by the bigots who surrounded him, as to found this iniquitous war. The Spaniards were to have no institutions, except what they held from the free gift of their monarch. In Mr Canning's language, to which nothing can be added, "The free institutions of the Spanish people could only be legitimately held from the spontaneous gift of the sovereign, first restored to his absolute power, and then divesting himself of such portion of that power as he might think proper to part with."

We have already brought under review this famous gloss of the Holy Alliance. It has appeared, that in

every possible instance, with the exception, perhaps, of one in a hundred, the issue must be not a mere absolute monarchy, in the European sense of the word, but simple, unmixed, oriental despotism. Under the circumstances of the present case, every doubt as to this issue vanished. Ferdinand had been fully tried. He had reigned for six years uncontrolled, either from without or within. He had been seen to subvert all the institutions of his country, without introducing a single institution in their place. He had driven into the depth of exile and of dungeons, those who had been his chief champions in calamity, because they had attempted to assign some limits to his power. The present undertaking, therefore, was manifestly destined to trample upon every right of humanity to establish a despotism, second only to the Turkish in its bloody and bigotted character; a government alike fatal to the industry, the intelligence, and the happiness of its people.

Painful, however, as this declaration was, it did not form the worst feature in the transaction. France prepared for Europe a more humbling spectacle.

That such language and such principles should emanate from a monarch, was less to be wondered at, than deplored. But that a constitutional body, boasting itself the representative of one of the most enlightened nations in the world, a nation which had done and suffered so much for liberty; that they should utter a redoubled echo of maxims framed in a conclave of despots; that they should disown the principles on which they themselves existed; should cheer on Louis in a war destined to subvert the very foundations of national independ ence; and should lay prostrate at his feet all the resources and well-being of the nation, to be employed in so unhallowed a contest ;-this is a scene

restorer, the arbiter, the universal legislator. Rejecting of the revolution only its errors and crimes, he acknowledged all the rights of Frenchmenhe admitted the legitimate vows of the nation--imposed not a single sacrifice on the new interests of France, and was wounded by none of her agreeable recollections. He adopted the glory acquired in a war almost as long as the Revolution; he made it the ornament of his throne. This war was purely national; it was inspired by a deep and general sentiment, the horror of foreign dominion. It was not for the Directory or the Committee of Public Safety, that France had conquered; in the cause of her independence, and in no other, had she triumphed over all Europe. "But if the war which we are to make against the independence of the Spanish nation be just, that which the foreigner made against us thirty years ago was just also; he had a right to ravage our fields, and to overrun our provinces, and we had not a right to defend ourselves; we did wrong to beat the Austrians. Do not be astonished that the war in Spain is so deeply unpopular; it is not only the sacrifices which it exacts, that sadden this generous nation; it could well support them; it would meet them gladly in a cause which was its own; but it feels instinctively that the war is made against itself, and that at every victory it will lose the battles which it gains." After professing, finally, his strong attachment to the legitimate monarchy, he added, "Of all the duties which I could fulfil towards it, none appeared to me more sacred, more pressing, than this. Can I be silent, when blind counsels hurry it on to its ruin? As it has been the thought, the wish, the hope, I might almost say, the action, of all my life, it is now the first of my interests."

General Foy espoused the same side with his accustomed ardour. He pro

tested against the aspersions thrown upon those who embraced his view of the question. In the British Par-liament, the greatest geniuses had always opposed war. Lord Chatham, whose administration threw so great a lustre on the empire, declared in full Parliament, that he rejoiced at the resistance of the Americans. How could it be wondered, that the nation should dread an event which would close its ports-its work-shops-its manufactories-would make its industry perish

its commerce disappear-its wealth pass into other hands? Was this a time to meet new loans and new taxes, when it was already overwhelmed with so enormous a weight? How cruel to recall those old soldiers, who had paid their debt to their country, and had just touched their paternal hearths. The orator insisted that government itself did not wish for war; if it had done so, would it have withdrawn the portfolio of Montmorency, the Duke of Verona! (Violent conflict of applauses and hisses from opposite sides

Mechin" The word is happyit will adhere.") Even now government only half wished for war. M. de Villele was of the same opinion with himself and his honourable friends; but he had a portfolio to keep or to lose. An occult power ruled, pressed upon ministers. This power had dictated to them, during six months, a crooked policy; an attitude conciliatory on one side, hostile on the other; "it is this occult power, which, during these last days, has inspired a deceitful declaration. It matters little to me, if this power has mendicated, as is said, from the foreign sovereigns met at Verona, permission to attack, beginning with Spain, the constitutional governments, the fruits of the progress of human reason; or rather, if it is not foreigners that press us-that wish us to be for them what the army of the Faith is to be for us-with this

difference, that we pay Quesada and the Trappist, and that we will for certain never receive any money from the foreigner."

General Foy then proceeded to draw a picture of the obstacles to success in the Spanish war, and to make predic. tions, which events, it must be confessed, did not fulfil. He represented the difficulties of the country, the strength of the national spirit, the numerous guerillas which would harass even a successful invader, the position of Portugal behind, with a population of three millions, and a veteran army; lastly, the difficulty of finding the numerous recruits which would be necessary. He concluded: "As an old soldier, I cannot but put up wishes for the glory and success of our arms, even in a war disavowed by the national feelings. As a citizen, I shall weep over a war of faction, a war which compels to be false to their destiny, both my ancient military comrades, and that young and noble generation, which, bred in the love of liberty, was worthy to combat the real enemies of France."

Ministers from another quarter were attacked on grounds of which we on this side of the channel can scarcely conceive the possibility. It was alleged that they were too favourable to liberty-too little determined to put down everything which bore the appearance of revolution. "Shall I," said M. La Bourdonnaye, "grant subsidies to ministers who wish them only as new means to pursue their fatal system--to modify the constitution of the Cortes-to make faction triumph, by imposing on a captive king and a subdued nation, a charter which they equally repel, a charter, the odious guarantee of interests sprung from revolt-of places, of honours, of fortune, created by revolution, and which cannot be maintained without making its spirit triumph, without perpetuating its moral

interests, without sanctioning by a dangerous success those fatal doctrines of the sovereignty of the people and of insurrection, the fruitful germs of new revolutions?" The question, however, was complicated. To refuse subsidies, was to vote against war; and to delay war, was to make revolution triumph. In such a peril, a faithful deputy could not refuse to government the means sought to save endangered civilization.

Villele, president of the council, rose on the side of government. He complained that the opposition had entirely turned aside from the real question at issue. M. Royer Collard had involved himself in mere philosophical discussions and abstract theories, quite foreign to the real question. This was, whether the actual state of Spain was compatible with the honour of the crown of France, with the honour and safety of the country. The government said, that it was not; and the opposition had been able to say nothing in support of their denial of this assertion. He allowed to General Foy, that ministers had wished peace; they had made every effort, had thought nothing too costly, to spare to their country and to Spain, the miseries inseparable from war. As to yielding, however, to an occult influence for the sake of preserving his place, he did not fear that such a charge could be believed. We lived in a time, and in circumstances such as to render great places little desirable. The strongest proof he could give of his conviction that war was necessary, was the remaining in his place, and taking upon himself its moral responsibility. If, in such painful circumstances, a base feeling of personality could find its way into his heart, his secret wish, his true ambition, would have been to take refuge in private life. Peace appeared to him an hundred times preferable even to the most-fortunate war; but