FORE:Buonaparte endeavoured to man?uvre so as to get into Kutusoff's rear, and thus to have the way into the fertile provinces beyond him open. He sent forward Delzon to occupy Maloi-Jaroslavitz, a very strong position; but Kutusoff penetrated his design, made a rapid march, and encountered Delzon in the very streets of Maloi-Jaroslavitz. A severe battle took place, and the French finally recovered Maloi-Jaroslavitz, but only to find it, like Moscow, in flames, and to lose Delzon and his brother, as well as some thousands of men. Beyond the burning town they also saw Kutusoff and one hundred thousand men drawn up in a position which the French generals declared impregnable. Buonaparte received this information with expressions of consternation unusual to him. He determined the next morning to examine this position for himself, and in so doing was very nearly captured by a band of Cossack cavalry. A council of war was held in a wretched weaver's hut, and he reluctantly concluded to forego this route, and take that by Vereiva and Viasma, the same by which he had advanced on Moscow. This was, in fact, to doom his army to perdition; for all the way by Borodino, Smolensk, and Vitebsk, the country had been ravaged and desolated in coming; there was nothing in it to keep alive an army. Had he waited only a few hours, he would have found[50] Kutusoff himself retreating from his strong defiles from fear of being outflanked by the French, and their making their way beyond him to the fertile provinces. Thus the two armies were each in retreat at the same moment, but Buonaparte's was a retreat upon death and horror.

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FORE:Napoleon, however, called his Champ-de-Mai together for the electors to this anomalous document; but, to add to the incongruity, the assembly was held in the Champ-de-Mars, and not in May at all, but on the 1st of June. There he and his brothers, even Lucien, who had been wiled back to his assistance, figured in fantastic robes as emperor and princes of the blood, and the electors swore to the Constitution; but the whole was a dead and dreary fiasco. On the 4th the two Chambers, that of Peers and that of Representatives, met. The Peers, who were his own officers and picked men, readily agreed to the Constitution; but not so the Chamber of Representatives. They chose Lanjuinais president, who had been a zealous advocate of Louis XVI., and who had drawn up the list of crimes under which Buonaparte's forfeiture had been pronounced in 1814. They entered into a warm discussion on the propriety of abolishing all titles of honour in that Chamber. They rejected a proposition to bestow on Napoleon the title of Saviour of his Country, and they severely criticised the "additional Act," declaring that "the nation would entertain no plans of aggrandisement; that not even the will of a victorious prince should lead them beyond the boundaries of self-defence." In this state of things Buonaparte was compelled to depart, leaving the refractory chamber to discuss the articles of his new Constitution.

FORE:[See larger version]

FORE:On the 13th of August, 1836, an Act was passed establishing the Ecclesiastical Commissioners permanently as "one body politic and corporate, by the name of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England." The number of Commissioners incorporated was thirteen, of whom eight were ex officio members��namely: the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishop of London, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord President of the Council, the First Lord of the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and one of the Principal Secretaries of State, who was to be nominated by the sign-manual. There were five other Commissioners, including two bishops, who were to be removable at the pleasure of the Crown. The lay members were required to sign a declaration that they were members of the united Church of England and Ireland by law established. A subsequent Act, passed in August, 1840, considerably modified the constitution of this Commission. The following were added to the list of ex officio members: all the Bishops of England and Wales; the Deans of Canterbury, St. Paul's, and Westminster; the two Chief Justices; the Master of the Rolls; the Chief Baron; and the Judges of the Prerogative and Admiralty Courts. By this Act the Crown was empowered to appoint four laymen, and the Archbishop of Canterbury two, in addition to the three appointed under the former Act; and it was provided that, instead of being removable[409] at the pleasure of the Crown, the non ex officio members should continue so long as they should "well demean themselves" in the execution of their duties.