The first of these famous ordinances suspended the liberty of the press, and prohibited the publication of any journals excepting such as were authorized by the Government.
The second dissolved the new Chamber of Deputies, or Legislature, because the members were too liberal in their political opinions, assuming that the electors had been deceived by the popular clamor, and had chosen such persons as they ought not to have chosen.
The third reduced the number of deputies from three hundred and ninety-five to two hundred and twenty-eight, and so altered the electoral franchise, in order to secure the return of members favorable to the Government, as to deprive a large number of the right of suffrage who had heretofore exercised it.
Such, in brief, were the ordinances which overthrew the throne of Charles X. and drove the elder branch of the Bourbons into exile. There were others issued at the same time, but which were of no material importance.
Frivolous as was the character of Charles X., he had sagacity enough to know that such decrees could not be issued in France without creating intense agitation. His ministers also, though the advocates of the despotic principles of the old régime, were men of ability. They recognized the measures as desperate. Popular discontent had reached such a crisis that it was necessary either to silence it by despotic power or yield to it, introducing reforms which would deprive the ministers of their places.
Character of the ministry.
Prince Polignac was at this time prime minister. His mother had been the bosom-friend of Maria Antoinette. Through his whole life he was the unswerving friend of the Bourbons. Implicated in the plot of Georges for the overthrow of the First Consul, he was condemned to death. Napoleon spared his life, and finally liberated him, upon which he followed Count d'Artois (Charles X.) into exile. Returning with the Bourbons, in the rear of the Allied armies, he was rewarded for his life-long fidelity to the ancient régime by the highest honors.
The sorrows of life had left their impress upon his pensive features. He was well-read, very decided in his views that the people were made to be governed, not to govern. He was energetic, but possessed of so little worldly wisdom that he thought that the people, however much exasperated, could be easily subdued by determined action.
M. de la Bourdonnaye, Minister of the Interior, like Polignac, was an ultra Royalist. He had been one of the most violent of the Vendéans in their opposition to the Revolution, and is represented, even by those who were in sympathy with him, as wishing to govern by a royalist reign of terror.
M. de Bourmont.