Palmerston's Government, apparently one of the most popular that had ever been formed, had to bow under the adverse influence of events beyond its control. In addition to the commotion radiating from the centre of disturbance in India, there had been widespread commercial disaster at home, following on a period of excited speculation. On November 12 the Bank Charter Act had been suspended, and the Bank of England received authority to exceed the statutory limits in meeting demands for discount and advances, because of the numerous failures and prevailing money-panic. [Sidenote: The Orsini Plot.] [Sidenote: Government Defeat and Resignation.] But the squall that was to overturn the Ministry came from a quarter which nobody could have foreseen. On January 14 a murderous attack was made on the Emperor and Empress of the French in Paris. An Italian refugee, Felice Orsini, well known in England, waited, with a number of fellow-ruffians, at the door of the Opera House in the Rue Lepelletier, and threw three bombs, charged with a powerful explosive, at the Imperial carriage as it drew up. The effect was appalling: the intended victims escaped unhurt, but ten persons were blown to death among the bystanders, and no less than 156 were wounded, of whom Orsini himself was one. All this was dreadful enough, and yet the connection thereof with the stability of Palmerston's Administration might seem exceedingly remote. It was established in the following way. Orsini, a man of good birth and attractive exterior, had been very well received in English society, and his appeals on behalf of the Italian provinces of Austria had received polite attention, and, among enthusiastic advocates of freedom, a great deal of sympathy. London was then, as it remains to this day, a sanctuary for political refugees from all the ends of the earth. Palmerston, however, had enough common-sense and honesty to recognise that it was one thing to allow fugitives to shelter in England, and quite another to take no precautions as to their good behaviour, and he prepared and introduced a Bill to strengthen the law dealing with conspiracy to murder. This was vehemently opposed on the first reading by Lord John Russell, but Disraeli and the Conservatives helped to carry that stage by a large majority. In the interval, however, before the second reading, public opinion had undergone a marked change. The tone of the French Press had become intensely insulting towards Great Britain; people in London had got it in their heads that the Conspiracy to Murder Bill had been prepared at the dictation of the French Ambassador, and Palmerston was suspected of being at his old game of truckling to Louis Napoleon. The suspicion was fatal to him. An amendment to the second reading, moved by Mr. Milner Gibson, was supported by Disraeli and 146 Conservatives, and carried against the Government by a majority of nineteen. Palmerston resigned at