A petty riot, concerning precedence, had arisen in a church called Durnac, between the seigneur of the parish, and the mayor of the commune. The mayor brought the affair before the Chamber of Deputies by a violent petition, in which he generalized his complaint against the whole body of emigrants, whom he accused of desiring to place themselves above the constituted authorities, and to treat France as a conquered country. The Chamber, 20th November, 1814, treated the language of the petition as calumnious, and the squabble as unworthy of their notice. But the debate called forth expressions which intimated a suspicion that there existed a dark and secret system, which tended to sow the seeds of discord and anarchy among the citizens, and to resuscitate pretensions incompatible with the laws. "It was," said the member[78] who made this statement, "important to impress every class of Frenchmen with the great idea, that there was no safety for France, for the King, for every member of society, but in the maintenance of those constitutional principles on which were founded the laws for protecting the whole." [Sidenote: EMIGRANT-CLAIMS.] The claims of the emigrants for restoration of their forfeited property, were, abstractedly, as just and indubitable as that of the King to the throne. But the political considerations in which they were involved, rendered any general attempt to enforce those claims the sure signal of civil war; a civil war almost certain to end in a second expatriation, both of the royal family and their followers. In this dilemma, government seems to have looked anxiously for some means of compromise which might afford relief to the emigrants, without innovating on that article of the charter which ratified the sale of national domains. M. Ferrand brought forward in the Chamber of Delegates, a motion [Dec. 3] for the restoration of such estates of emigrants as yet remained unsold. But this involved a question respecting the rights of the much more numerous class whose property had been seized upon by the state, and disposed of to third parties, to whom it was guaranteed by the charter. Since these gentlemen could not be restored _ex jure_, to their estates, as was proposed towards their more fortunate brethren, they had at least a title to the price which had been surrogated in place of the property, of which price the nation had still possession.