on their old foes surpassed the cries of the revolutionists in the Reign of Terror.  France was again convulsed with passions, which especially raged in the bosoms of the Royalists.  They shot Marshal Ney, the bravest of the brave, and Colonel Labedoyen; they established courts-martial for political offences; they passed a law against seditious cries and individual liberty.  There were massacres at Marseilles, and atrocities at Nismes; the Catholics of the South persecuted the Protestants.  The king himself was almost the only man among his party that was inclined to moderation, and he found a bitter opposition from the members of his own family.  Added to these discords, the finances were found to be in a most disordered state, and the annual deficit was fifty or sixty millions.

All this was taking place while one hundred and fifty thousand foreign soldiers were quartered in the towns and garrisons at the expense of the government.  The return of Napoleon had cost the lives of sixty thousand Frenchmen and a thousand millions of francs, besides the indemnities, which amounted to fifteen hundred millions more.  No language of denunciation could be stronger than that which went forth from the mouth of the whole nation in view of Napoleon’s selfishness and ambition.  But one voice was listened to, and that was the cry for vengeance; prudence, moderation, and justice were alike disregarded.  All attempts to stem the tide of ultra-royalist violence were in vain.  The king was obliged to dismiss Talleyrand because he was not violent enough in his measures; at the same time he was glad to get rid of his sagacious minister, being jealous of his ascendency.

So the throne of Louis XVIII. was anything but a bed of roses, amid the war of parties and the perils which surrounded it.  All his tact was required to steer the ship of state amidst the rocks and breakers.  Most of the troubles were centred in the mutual hostilities, jealousies, and hatreds of the Royalists themselves, at the head of whom were the king’s brother the Comte d’Artois, and the Vicomte de Chateaubriand.  So vehement were the passions of the deputies, nearly all Royalists, that the president of the Chamber, the excellent and talented Laine, was publicly insulted in his chair by a violent member of the extreme Right; and even Chateaubriand the king was obliged to deprive of his office on account of the violence of his opinions in behalf of absolutism,—­a greater royalist than the king himself!  The terrible reaction was forced by the nation upon the sovereign, who was more liberal and humane than the people.

Of course, in the embittered quarrels between the Royalists themselves, nothing was done during the reign of Louis XVIII. toward useful and needed reforms.  The orators in the chambers did not discuss great ideas of any kind, and inaugurated no grand movements, not even internal improvements.  The only subjects which occupied the chambers were proscriptions, confiscations, grants to the royal family, the restoration of the clergy to their old possessions, salaries to high officials, the trials of State prisoners, conspiracies and crimes against the government,—­all of no sort of interest to us, and of no historical importance.