The war was decided upon, and the Duke of Angouleme, nephew of the king, was sent across the Pyrenees with one hundred thousand troops to put down the innumerable factions, and reseat Ferdinand.  The Duke was assisted, of course, by all the royalists of Spain, by all the clergy, and by all conservative parties; and the conquest of the kingdom was comparatively easy.  The republican chiefs were taken and hanged, including Diego, the ablest of them all.  Ferdinand, delivered by foreign armies, remounted his throne, forgot all his pledges, and reigned on the most despotic principles, committing the most atrocious cruelties.  The successful general returned to France with great eclat, while the government was pushed every day by the triumphant Royalists into increased severity,—­into measures which logically led, under Charles X., to his expulsion from the throne, and the final defeat of the principle of legitimacy itself,—­another great step toward republican institutions, which were finally destined to triumph.

Among the extreme measures was the Septennial Bill, which passed both houses against the protest of liberal members, some of whom afterward became famous,—­such as General Foy, General Sebastiani, Dupont (de l’Eure), Casimir Perier, Lafitte, Lanjuinais.  This law was a coup d’etat against electoral opinions and representative government.  It gave the king and his government the advantage of fixing for seven years longer the majority which was secured by the elections of 1822, and of closing the Chamber against a modification of public opinions.  Villele and Chateaubriand were the authors of this act.

Another bill was proposed by Villele, not so objectionable, which was to reduce the interest on the loans contracted by the State; in other words, to borrow money at less interest and pay off the old debts,—­a salutary financial measure adopted in England, and later by the United States after the Civil War.  But this measure was bitterly opposed by the clergy, who looked upon it as a reduction of their incomes.  Here Chateaubriand virtually abandoned the government, in his uniform support of the temporalities of the Church; and the measure failed; which so deeply exasperated both the king and the prime minister that Chateaubriand was dismissed from his office as minister of foreign affairs.

The fallen minister angrily resented his disgrace, and thenceforward secretly took part against the government, embarrassing it by his articles in the journals of the day.  He did not renounce his conservative opinions; but he became the personal enemy of Villele.  Chateaubriand had no magnanimity.  He retired to nurse his resentments in the society of Madame Recamier, with whom he had formed a friendship difficult to be distinguished from love.  He had been always her devoted admirer when she reigned a queen of society in the fashionable salons of Paris, and continued his intimacy with her until his death.  Daily did