During the Duke's second ministry the great European powers met at Laybach, to agree upon a vast repressive system to be pursued against the insurrection rising in arms around. The Richelieu cabinet was resolved upon a firm resistance against all the tumults and disorders that were disturbing the peace of Europe. Agitation had also arisen in the East, and the Greeks had raised the standard of the cross. But Russia, which under Catherine had supported the Hellenic emancipation, was now too fully occupied with her own affairs to be able to follow up the system she had then commenced. France, therefore, determined upon sending a naval force into the Grecian seas for the protection of commerce, and, while observing a generous neutrality, assistance was still afforded to all who implored it from the French flag. But now the Richelieu cabinet, entirely occupied with its foreign relations, was threatened with danger to itself. Its very feeble parliamentary combination rested upon a false basis in the chamber. The ministry only existed by the will of the _côté droit_; and that party with its chiefs, MM. de Villèle and Corbière, would not fail, sooner or later, to assume the direction of affairs, because they possessed the majority. The _droite_ and the _gauche_ were both distinct from the cabinet, and the former was evidently impatient to seize the reins of government. These two fractions of the chamber were desirous of concluding with a _coup d'éclat_; and the reply to the speech from the throne in 1821 became the arena for the great political struggle. The commission under the direction of the _côté droit_ insisted that in the plan of the address presented to the chamber these words should be inserted: "We congratulate you, sire, upon your friendly relations with foreign powers, feeling a just confidence that so valuable a peace has not been purchased by sacrifices incompatible with the honour of the nation and the dignity of the crown." So offensive an expression was an open rupture with the cabinet. M. de Richelieu declared such an insinuation was an insult to the crown, and the ministers tendered their resignation. The chamber persisted, and voted the address, which was, in fact, a declaration that they did not wish the ministry to stand: the cabinet, therefore, retired in a mass, and were succeeded by MM. de Montmorency and de Villèle.