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270 GUIZOT country than whilst he filled this office of secondary rank but of primary importance in the department of public instruction. The duties it imposed on him were entirely congenial to his literary tastes, and he was master of the subjects they concerned. He applied himself in the first instance to carry a large measure for the education of the people, and to a great extent founded the existing educational establishments of the people of France. In fifteen years, under the influence of this law, the number of primary schools rose from ten to twenty-three thousand ; norm il schools for teachers, and a general system of inspec tion, were introduced; and boards of education, under mixed lay and clerical authority, were created. The second ary class of schools and the university of France were equally the subject of his enlightened protection and care, and a prodigious impulse was given to philosophical study and historical research. The branch of the Institute of France known as the " Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques," which had been suppressed by Napoleon, was revived by Guizot. Some of the old members of this learned boiy Talleyrand, Sieyes, Roederer, and Lakanal again took their seats there, and a host of more recent celebrities were added by election for the free discussion of the great problems of political and social science. The "So3i6te de 1 Histoire de France" was founded for the publication of historical works ; and a vast publicatian of msliieval chronicles and diplomatic papers was undertaken at the expense of the state. The object of the cabinet of October 1832 was to organize a conservative party, and to carry on a policy of resistance to the republic in faction which threatened the existence of the monarchy. It was their pride and their boast that their measures never exceeded the limits of the law, and by the exercise of legal power alone they put down an insur rection amounting to civil war in Lyons and a sanguinary revolt in Paris. The real strength of the ministry lay not in its nominal heads, but in the fact that in this Govern- in3nt and this alone Guizot and Thiers acted in cordial cooperation. The two great rivals in French parliamentary eloquence followed for a time the same path ; but neither of them could submit to the supremacy of the other, and cir cumstances threw Thiers almost continuously on a course of opposition, whilst Gaizot bore the graver responsibilities of power. Onca again indeed, in 1839, they were united, but it was in opposition to M. Mole, who had formed an inter mediate Government, and this coalition between Guizot and the leaders of the left centre and the left, Thiers and Odilon Barrot, is justly regarded as one of the chief inconsistencies of his life. Victory was secured at the expen 53 of principle ; but none of the three chiefs of that alliance took ministerial office, and Guizot was not sorry to accept the post of ambassador in London, which withdrew him for a time from parliamentary contests. This was in the spring of 1840, and Thiers succeeded shortly after wards to the ministry of foreign affairs. Guizot was received with marked distinction by the queen and by the society of London. His literary works were highly esteemed, his character was respected, and France was never more worthily represented abroad than. by on a of her greatest orators. He was known to be well-versed in the history and the literature of England, and sincerely attached to the alliance of the two nations and the cause of peace. But, as he himself remarked, he was a stranger to England and a novice in diplomacy ; and unhappily the embroiled state of the Syrian question, on which the French Government had separated itself from the joint policy of Europe, and possibly the absence of entire confidence between the ambassador and the minister of foreign affairs, placed him in an embarrassing and even | false position. The warnings he transmitted to Thiers were not believed. The warlike policy of Thiers was opposed to his own convictions. The treaty of the 15th July was signed without his knowledge and executed in the teeth of his remonstrances. For some weeks Europe seemed to be on the brink of war, until the king put an end to the crisis by refusing his assent to the military pre parations of Thiers, and by summoning Guizot from Lon don to form a ministry and to aid his Majesty in what h-e termed "ma lutte tenace centre 1 anarchie." Thus began, under dark and adverse circumstances, on the 29th October 1840, the important administration in which Guizot remained the master-spirit for nearly eight years. He himself took the office of minister for foreign affairs, to which he added some years later, on the retirement of Marshal Soult, the ostensible rank of prime minister. His first care was the maintenance of peace and the restoration of amicable relations with the other powers of Europe. If he succeeded, as he did succeed, in calming the troubled elements and healing the wounded pride of France, the result was due mainly to the indomitable courage and splendid eloquence with which he faced a raging opposition, gave unity and strength to the conservative party, who now felt that they had a great leader at their head, and appealed to the thrift and prudence of the nation, rather than to their vanity and their ambition. In his pacific task he was fortunately seconded by the formation of Sir Robert Peel s administration in England, in the autumn of 1841. Between Lord Palmerston and Guizot there existed unhappily an incompatibility of character exceedingly dangerous in the foreign ministers of two great and in some respects rival countries. With Lord Palmerston in office, Guizot felt that he had a bitter and active antag onist in every British agent throughout the world ; the combative element was strong in his own disposition ; and the result was a system of perpetual conflict and counter- intrigues. Lord Palmerston held (as it appears from his own letters) that war between England and France was, sooner or later, inevitable. Guizot held that such a war would be the greatest of all calamities, and certainly never contemplated it. In Lord Aberdeen, the foreign secretary of Sir Robert Peel, Guizot found a friend and an ally perfectly congenial to himself. Their acquaintance in London had been slight, but it soon ripened into mutual regard and confidence. They were both men of high principles and honour; the Scotch Presbyterianism which had moulded the faith of Lord Aberdeen was reflected in the Huguenot minister of France ; both were men of ex treme simplicity of taste, joined to the refinement of scholar ship and culture ; both had an intense aversion to war and felt themselves ill-qualified to carry on those adventurous operations which inflamed the imagination of their respec tive opponents. In the eyes of Lord Palmerston and Thiers their policy was mean and pitiful; but it was a policy which secured peace to the world, and united the two great and free nations of the West in what was termed the entente cordiale. Neither of them would have stooped to snatch an advantage at the expense of the other ; they held the common interest of peace and friendship to be paramount ; and when differences arose, as they did arise, in remote parts of the world, in Tahiti, in Morocco, on the Gold Coast, they were reduced >y this principle to their proper insignificance. The opposition in France denounced Guizot s foreign policy as basely subservient to England. He replied in terms of unmeasured contempt, " You may raise the pile of calumny as high as you will ; vous n arriverez jamaisa la hauteur de mon declain !" The opposition in England attacked Lord Aberdeen with the same reproaches, but in vain. King Louis Philippe visited

Windsor. The queen of England (in 184;!) stayed at the