Page:Coubertin - France since 1814, 1900.djvu/45

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TWO BEGINNINGS OF ONE PERIOD
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Charter." Notwithstanding, banishment was unanimously voted for with but three dissenting voices, and the Ministers considered themselves obliged to support this manifestation of the will of the Chamber. They had forced the King's hand.

The religious question was no less a cause of trouble. The King was besieged with petitions for the abrogation of Article V. of the Charter, promising liberty to every form of worship. Restitution of the property of the clergy confiscated during the Revolution was also demanded, and on this he put his veto. Private committees were formed for the purpose of laying information. They required the reform of the army, the administration, the prefecture system; professors, magistrates, academicians, soon became the objects of denunciations, and the Ministry more than once was weak enough to yield, and punished functionaries whose chief fault was that they did not share the passions of the ultras. The King exercised his prerogative of pardon in favour of several of the military, but the famous conspiracy of Didier, at Grenoble, exaggerated as it was by General Donnadieu, who wished to take credit for putting it down,