Star.
London, England, 1829-11-23 00:00:00

At a juncture so eventful as the present; when th
diaanitents, generated by the unpopularity of the
French Cabinet, and the incapability of our own, are
hourly gaining ground in both kingdoms, it is some satis-
faction to ns to have our views of the Poi. tow AD Ad-
ministration so fully and ably corroborated, as we find
them in the following animated and faithful picture of
" the PROGRESS AND PROJECTS Or THE COUNTER-
REVOLUTIONARY FACTION," which we extract from a
recent number of the Constitutionnel. The whole arti-
cle will be found deeply interesting ; but the closing
paragraph has claims upon the most serious attention of
our- countrymen, in whose name we may well ask,
" Shall the REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM be to us
reality, or a mere delusion? Shall it be our safeguard,
or shall it be the mask beneath which absolute power
may conceal itself? For many years we ought to have
possessed it—but in which of those years has ENGLAND
been really represented Our future condition is in
the bands of the electors ;—may the past be a warning
to them ! !"

From Of Constitutionisel.
Shall the representailve form of Government really Mg In
France. or shell we only possess its usubstantiil semblance? Shell
the assembly which was caostkotod to express the whin and the
wants el the people, be rutty their egos,—or shall it only uprose
the wishes and the wants of power? Is a word, shall cued-
'utiles' foil's be our meal guarantees; oe shall they be but a de-
ceit—an Mid cheat—nub( only as the mash tithe athitrarr to
subvert the very safeguard, of the people 7—Such are the "mimes
that opting from the projects which are sow avowed by the
Ministerld Journals. By look* back upon past mete, we may
form stem notion of the coodities now preparing for se by that
faction of width Minis ors have become the representatives.
Tbe Int act of Loom ;XVIII. on his Mont to Frame, was
to declare that be would accept a Constitution; and that, that
Constitution should guarantee the existence of a representative
government. The charter having been progulpted, the Webs
five body, established under the imperial government. was re-
tained, (although the powers of the fifth of its meabets had ex-
pired,) and formed the first legislature of the restoratioa. Of that
body, Ministers demanded the saspeoilop of the liberty of the
press ; it complied :—the restoration of such et the confiscated
property of the emigrant, as bad not been sold; k granted the
boon :—the payment of the foreign debts contracted by the
Priam: it gave thirty millions :—the prohibition diabetic an 13om
days and festival days; it assented :—in a word. that legislative
body refused nothing that Ministers asked :—lt rejected all peti-
tions that they opposed; granted them the budget without discus-
sion ; and gave them the tobacco monopoly almost without In-
vestigation.
That first assembly was anciently sulimbeive to power; bus
it tree not cessilsr-rereintimosu s sad ens of the first acts of the
second Restoration was to &woke it, without requiring any law
for proceeding to the new elections. The faction, which has fee
fifteen years Anted France, was then in an admirable position to
possess itself of power. Our soil was covered with foreign sol-
diers. and these soldiers were at the disposal of the Aristocrasiss of
Europe. who bad most inveterately opposed all the Reforms of
our Revolution. The Prefects chosen under the influence of that
faction, were ordered to Dominate a certain number of electors by
the Ordinance of the 15th of Jell, 1113, which pronounced the
dissolution of the Chamber. On the fist of the same month, a
second Ordinance commanded them to Deminste new electors M
eider to complete the Electoral Collegee—We know how the
elections were managed at that period. The electors chosen by the
Prefects, enjoy eulogise protectiso ;—frands, violence, and la
some pieces assassination. removed those who wesid not sanction
the system of terror that then prevailed.
Then came the ceishrited Chamber of 1815—which instantly
suspended personal security by a new Law of " Suspicion ;".--
impressed the Liberty of the Press ; establithed housed Coons;
proscribed a considerable number of deism, without either um
'ednatioe, or judgment ; called to order those of Its owe Members
who dared to sande its conentiseratiao for the persecuted Pro.
testants of the South ; enacted a Law by which the most innocent
words might be perverted Into the aim of sedition; added one
million to the awn Lent of the Princes; voted all the supplies that
Ministers demanded ; and at length abolished the Act of Divorce
by animation. We shall not panes to Inquire whether that As.
mobly represented the French Nadu : the direct poetised.° of
a majority of the electors by the Prefects, and the frauds sad acts
of violence that accompanied the elections, ruder such se brig
superfluous.
That Assembly became directly. and baldly, counter-meletlet.
ary ; it threatened to crush every obstacle that opposed its pros
areas. Men, justly alarmed by its proceedings. sod seeing that
it compromised the very existence of the Ilsouchy, became
anxious to dissolve the Chamber. The Meteors' College*, sub as
the Prefects had rendered them, were again convoked; end a
Chamber demanded of them more tractable than the former—sod
they sent it. Personal security was still suspended for a year ;it
was decreed that no journal should be published without the an-
chanty of the King. TM Minister, however. proposed some
good laws, and they accepted them. bet not without repugnance.
The Law of Elections, of the 17th of February, was carried.
Boise of those men under whose influence that law was made
calculated that the new Electoral Colleges would always return
such deputies as Ministers required, and according to their esti-
mate, the number of independent members sent to the Chamber
would Dever exceed eighteen or twenty. Neverthellse, they were
not sufficiently confident la their calculations to try the experiment
by a general dissolution;—the renewal by fifths of the amber
dimmed by those elected of the Prefects, was first tried. On the
bat renewal, they reshaped in the Chamber about seventeen &-
pada, who were independent of the Minister ; and at the second,
warty seventy.
That part of the faction which sought to attain absolute power
17 following the Constitutional forms, announced, that if the lint
,Iposesals effected by' the law of the Mb of february, 1817, were
_pat favourable to them, they would still have a majority to report
die New Laws true to that declivities. No wester had the us-
newel of the third fifth been dated, than the signal of attack was
given, and vociferailans against the Elected and the Maws began.
At that moment, France enjoyed profound tranquillity ; the taxes
were regularly paid; the Adatheistratioe of the Laws aseountered
no obstacle ; yet, nevertheless, the faction exclaimed against the
Revolutiou and Revoludenists, es if we had been aa the eve of a
general overthrow. The law of the 15th of February was modified
after a long and violent discussion—the shaniefol mans by which
the Meister obtained a majority of five voices, are net unknown
they could not Mood them in the shades of eight.
The vest Colleges, and the double vote being instituted,the
faction fancying it could contrail *east:Mos, obtained the dim-
lotion of the Chamber ; sod by this measure gm rid of the bade-
pendent Deputies that had entered the Legislature on the mews'
of the two first fifths. A snood dim:Anti= took place oo the Berk
of December, 1813, after the Spanish war. TM elections of the
fallowing year resembled those of ISIS and 1810: freed and M.
Mee prevailed in almost all the Collegesousd produced that Ad-
ministration which the actual Chamber bas Weeded with the name
of 'e the deplorable Administrates."
We know the consequeoces of the six years daring which the
faction ruled in the Chamber of Deputies ;—the taw of seer leilve"
the thousand millions of indemnity ; the four Modred ofillooses-
peeled in overthrowing the Cowhides, of Spain, the Censorthill,
tho MUM" of the July lo trials fir political Weans, the Fel"'
of low for resestabliehlog the right of prbseguiturt sad fatal i