The short reign of Charles X. was not marked by a single event of historical importance, except the conquest of Algiers; and that was undertaken by the government to gain military eclat,—­in other words, popularity,—­and this at the very time it was imposing restrictions on the Press.  There were during this reign no reforms, no public improvements, no measures of relief for the poor, no stimulus to new industries, no public encouragement of art or literature, no triumphs of architectural skill; nothing to record but the strife of political parties, and a systematic encroachment by the government on electoral rights, on legislative freedom, on the liberty of the Press.  There was a senseless return to mediaeval superstitions and cruelties, all to please the most narrow and intolerant class of men who ever traded on the exploded traditions of the past.  The Jesuits returned to promulgate their sophistries and to impose their despotic yoke; the halls of justice were presided over by the tools of arbitrary power; great offices were given to the most obsequious slaves of royalty, without regard to abilities or fitness.  There was not indeed the tyranny of Spain or Naples or Austria; but everything indicated a movement toward it.  Those six years which comprised the reign of Charles X. were a period of reaction,—­a return to the Middle Ages in both State and Church, a withering blast on all noble aspirations.  Even the prime minister Villele, a legitimatist and an ultra-royalist, was too liberal for the king; and he was dismissed to make room for Martignac, and he again for Polignac, who had neither foresight nor prudence nor ability.  The generals of the republic and of the empire were removed from active service.  An indemnity of a thousand millions was given by an obsequious legislature to the men who had emigrated during the Revolution,—­a generous thing to do, but a premium on cowardice and want of patriotism.  A base concession was made to the sacerdotal party, by making it a capital offence to profane the sacred vessels of the churches or the consecrated wafer; thus putting the power of life and death into the hands of the clergy, not for crimes against society but for an insult to the religion of the Middle Ages.

But the laws passed against the Press were the most irritating of all.  The Press had become a power which it was dangerous to trifle with,—­the one thing in modern times which affords the greatest protection to liberty, which is most hated by despots and valued by enlightened minds.  A universal clamor was raised against this return to barbarism, this extinction of light in favor of darkness, this discarding of the national reason.  Royalists and liberals alike denounced this culminating act of high treason against the majesty of the human mind, this death-blow to civilization.  Chateaubriand, Royer-Collard, Dupont (de l’Eure), even Labourdonnais, predicted its fatal consequences; and their impassioned eloquence from the tribune became in a few days the