"As for
the other," said the Journal des Debats disdainfully, "on what
field of battle did he win his epaulets? There are services by
which one may profit, which may even be liberally paid for, but
which no people ever dreamed of honoring." And, as if the allusion
was not sufficiently transparent, "I see," added the same writer,
"but one kind of discussion in which the minister can engage with
credit--that of the military code, and the chapter relating to
desertion to the enemy. There are among our new ministers those
who understand the question to perfection." As for the Figaro, it
confined itself to quoting this line from a proclamation of the
General during the Hundred Days: "The cause of the Bourbons is
forever lost! April, 1815.--BOURMONT."
Despite the virulent attacks of the journals, General de Bourmont,
who had distinguished himself on so many battle-fields, had
authority with the troops, and the Expedition of Algiers the next
year was to show him to be a military man of the first order. If
Charles X. committed an error in naming him as minister, he
committed a greater one in sending him away from Paris before the
"ordinances," for no one was more capable of securing the success
of a coup d'etat. M. de Chateaubriand remarks:--
"If the General had been in Paris at the time of the catastrophe,
the vacant portfolio of war would not have fallen into the hands
of M.
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