ONE:On the evening of the very day that Louis[91] quitted Paris Buonaparte arrived in it. He had slept on the night of the 19th at Fontainebleau, where, in the preceding April, he had signed his abdication. No sooner had the king departed than the Buonapartists, who were all ready for that event, came forth from their hiding-places. Lavalette resumed his position at the post-office, and thus managed to intercept the proclamations of Louis, and to circulate those of Buonaparte. Exelmans took down the white flag from the Tuileries and hoisted the tricolour, and a host of the adherents of the old Imperial Government, hurrying from all quarters, thronged the avenues to the palace, and filled the court of the Carrousel. There were ex-Ministers of Buonaparte, ex-councillors, ex-chamberlains, in imperial costumein short, every species of officers and courtiers, down to cooks, and butlers, and valets, all crushing forward to re-occupy their places.
TWO:
ONE:On the 31st of May, pursuant to notice, Sir Robert Peel brought forward a motion of want of confidence in the Government, in the following words:"That her Majesty's Ministers do not sufficiently possess the confidence of the House of Commons to enable them to carry through the House measures which they deem of essential importance to the public welfare; and that their continuance in office under such circumstances is at variance with the spirit of the Constitution." The right hon. baronet referred to a number of precedents for the course he adoptednamely, the cases of Sir Robert Walpole, Lord North, Mr. Pitt, Lord Sidmouth, Lord Liverpool, the Duke of Wellington, and himself, each of whom resigned, failing the support of a majority of the House of[478] Commons; and he insisted that Lord Melbourne was bound to follow their example. A debate of two nights followed: it was interrupted by the Whitsun holidays, after which it was resumed and lasted three nights more, during which all sorts of topics were discussed, and all the shortcomings of Ministers were dwelt upon, and urged against them with great earnestness. The burden of the charges against them was, that they were causing the greatest public mischief by leaving important questions in doubt, setting party against party, and stirring society to its very foundations. At length the House went to a division, when there appeared for Sir Robert Peel's motion, 312; against it, 311, giving a majority of 1 against the Government. At the meeting of the House on the following Monday the most lively anxiety was manifested as to the course Ministers would pursue. Lord John Russell stated that, after the late division, he felt that in that House of Commons the Government could expect no further majorities, and that they were resolved to appeal to the country. The determination, it is now known, had been opposed by the Premier, but he was overruled by the more sanguine members of the Cabinet.
TWO:Muir and Palmer, on the 19th of December, 1793, had been conveyed on board the hulks at Woolwich, before being shipped off to the Antipodes, and were put in irons; but before they were sent off, the matter was brought before Parliament. It was introduced by Mr. Adams, on the 14th of February, 1794, moving for leave to bring in a bill to alter the enactment for allowing appeals from the Scottish Court of Justiciary in matters of law. This was refused, and he then gave notice of a motion for the revision of the trials of Muir and Palmer. Sheridan, on the 24th, presented a petition from Palmer, complaining of his sentence as unwarranted by law. Pitt protested against the reception of the petition, and Dundas declared that all such motions were too late; the warrant for Palmer's transportation was already signed and issued. Wilberforce moved that Palmer's being sent off should be delayed till the case was reconsidered, but this was also rejected by a large majority. Such was the determined spirit of Pitt and his parliamentary majority against all Reform, or justice to Reformers. On the 10th of March Mr. Adams again moved for a revision of the trials of Muir and Palmer, declaring that "leasing-making" (verbal sedition), their crime by the law of Scotland, was punishable by fine, imprisonment, or banishment, but not by transportation, and that their sentence was illegal. Fox exposed the rancorous spirit with which the trials had been conducted, and to which the judges had most indecently lent themselves; that the Lord Justice Clerk, during Muir's trial, had said, "A government in every country should be just like a corporation; and, in this country, it is made up of the landed interest, which alone has a right to be represented. As for the rabble, who have nothing but personal property, what hold has the nation on them? They may pack up all their property on their backs, and leave the country in the twinkling of an eye!" Lord Swinton said, "If punishment adequate to the crime of sedition were to be sought for, it could not be found in our law, now that torture is happily abolished." The Lord Advocate was in his place to defend his conduct and doctrine, but Pitt and Dundas supported these odious opinions. The House also sanctioned them by a large majority, and Adams's motion was rejected. In the Upper House, similar motions, introduced by Lords Lansdowne and Stanhope, were similarly treated.This open breach of the Royal Family was quickly followed by the death of the queen. Besides the misery of seeing her son and husband so awfully at variance, she had long been struggling with a complaint which, out of false delicacy, she had carefully concealed. "The queen's great secret," says Horace Walpole, "was her own rupture, which, till her last illness, nobody knew but the king, her German nurse, Mrs. Mailborne, and one other person, Lady Sundon."