Page:Coubertin - France since 1814, 1900.djvu/82

 d’Ainesse," which decreed that the eldest son of wealthy families should have the advantage if the testator had expressed no wish to the contrary. In the existing state of things, seeing that the nation had a passion for equal inheritance as established by the Revolution, such a law came like a blow in its face.

But all these measures, even the consecration of the King in the cathedral at Rheims, the superannuated title of Dauphin bestowed upon the Due d'Angoulême, and other little anachronisms of the kind, were not enough to turn the nation's discontent into downright hostility against the throne. True, the nation was more or less reassured by seeing the magistrature, the Institut, and, above all, the Chamber of Peers — that hereditary and aristocratic power — constituting themselves the defenders of moderation and a wise Liberalism. The Upper Chamber had already mitigated some of the strong measures voted by the Deputies when it forced the Cabinet to withdraw a Draconian law destined to sweep clean, not to say annihilate, the Press. That evening Paris was illuminated amid cries of " Vive le Roi ! Vivent les Pairs ! "

The censure of the Press was restored by