Page:Coubertin - France since 1814, 1900.djvu/78

 a fifth part of the Chamber was changed every year, and there were obvious disadvantages in a system which kept the country in a permanent state of agitation. On the other hand, seven years was perhaps rather a long interval.

It was in the midst of these events that Louis XVIII. died. Old and ill, but sustained by his intense moral energy, he had continued to reign and to govern. If we try to imagine what France might have been then, not taking into account the Hundred Days, her position in 1824 may leave something to be desired ; but allowing for that event, it strikes us as exceptionally brilliant. We have only to look at the comments which the King's death gave rise to abroad to be convinced of this. Even those who at that time looked backward on the past were astonished at the ground travelled over. But we are in a better position than contemporaries for forming a generalised judgment of that period, and I have no hesitation in forming mine. The King and his Ministers, almost without exception, did their duty by France. The parties failed in theirs. Therein lay the danger for the future.