Chapter XX: And Last (2)

"A regiment of infantry of the Old Guard kept the ground, from
the Pont Neuf to Notre Dame, along the Quai des Orfures. I
do not believe that human figures ever expressed anything so
menacing and so terrible. These grenadiers, covered with wounds,
so long the terror of Europe, who had seen so many thousand
bullets fly over their heads, who seemed to smell of fire and
powder--these very men, deprived of their leader, were forced
to salute an old king, enfeebled by time and not combats,
guarded by an army of Russians, Austrians, and Prussians, in the
conquered capital of Napoleon! Some, shaking their heads, made
their huge bearskins fall down over their eyes, so as not to
see what was passing: others lowered the extremities of their
mouths, to express their contempt and rage: others, through
their mustaches, let their teeth be seen, which they gnashed
like tigers. When they presented arms, it was with a gesture
of fury, as if they brought them down to the charge. The sound
they made with the recover was like thunder. Never, it must be
admitted, had men been subjected to such a trial, or suffered
such a punishment. If, in that moment, they had been called
to vengeance, they would have exterminated the last man, or
perished in the attempt.

"At the extremity of the line was a young hussar on horseback,
with his drawn sabre in his hand; his whole body literally
quivered with a convulsive movement of wrath. He was deadly
pale; his eyes rolled round in the most frightful manner; he
opened his mouth alternately and shut it, grinding his teeth,
and uttering inarticulate cries of rage. He cast his eyes on a
Russian officer: no words can express the look which he gave
him. When the carriage of the King passed before him, he made
his horse leap forward, it was easy to see that he withstood
with difficulty the temptation to precipitate himself on his
sovereign.[3]

"The Restoration, at its very outset, committed an irreparable
fault. It should have disbanded the army, preserving only the
marshals, generals, military governors, and officers, in their
rank, pay, and appointments. The soldiers, in this manner, would
have gradually re-entered their ranks, as they have since done
into the Royal Guard; but they would have done so isolated from
each other. The legitimate monarch would no longer have had
arrayed against him the soldiers of the empire in regiments and
brigades, as they had been during the days of their glory, for
ever talking to each other of times past, and comparing the
conquests of Napoleon with their inglorious inactivity under
their new master.

"The miserable attempt to reconstruct the _Maison Rouge_, that
mixture of the military men of the old monarchy and the soldiers
of the new empire, only augmented the evil. To suppose that
veterans famous on a hundred fields of battle should not be
shocked at seeing young men--brave without doubt, but for the
most part unaccustomed to the use of arms--to see them wear,
without having earned or deserved, the marks of high military
rank, was to be ignorant of the first principles of human
nature."--Vol. vi. p. 311-313.

[3] Having ourselves seen the Old Guard on this trying occasion,
we can vouch for the general fidelity of Chateaubriand's
narrative.

These observations of Chateaubriand's are well founded, and the last, in particular, is very important; but it may well be doubted whether, by any measures that could have been adopted, the support of the army could have been secured, or the dynasty of the Bourbons established on a secure foundation. It was the fact of their having been replaced by the bayonets of the stranger which was the insurmountable difficulty; it was national subjugation, the capture of Paris, which had for ever stained the white flag. This original sin in its birth attended the Restoration through every subsequent year of its existence: it was the main cause of the revolution of 1830, and operated with equal force in bringing about the still more fatal one of 1848. Impatience of repose--a desire to precipitate themselves on foreign nations--an aversion to the employments and interests of peace, were the secret but principal causes of these convulsions. If either Louis XVIII. or Louis Philippe had been young and warlike princes, and the recollection of Leipsic and Waterloo, of the invasions of France, and the double capture of its capital, had not prevented them from engaging in the career of foreign warfare; if they had been enterprising and _victorious_, they would have secured the unanimous suffrages of the nation, and continued the honoured possessors of the throne of France. But this dazzling though perilous career was denied to Louis XVIII. To him there was left only the difficult, perhaps the impossible task, of reconciling irrevocable enmities, of closing irremediable wounds, of appeasing inextinguishable mortifications. They have been thus set forth in the eloquent words of genius:--

"The house of Bourbon was placed in Paris at the Restoration
as a trophy of the European confederation. The return of the
ancient princes was inseparably associated, in the public mind,
with the cession of extensive provinces, with the payment of an
immense tribute, with the occupation of the kingdom by hostile
armies, with the emptiness of those niches in which the gods of
Athens and Rome had been the objects of a new idolatry, with
the nakedness of those walls on which the Transfiguration had
shone with a light as glorious as that which overhung Mount
Thabor. They came back to a land in which they could recognise
nothing. The Seven Sleepers of the legend, who closed their
eyes when the Pagans were persecuting the Christians, and woke
when the Christians were persecuting the Pagans, did not find
themselves in a world more completely new to them. Twenty years
had done the work of twenty generations. Events had come thick;
men had lived fast. The old institutions and the old feelings
had been torn up by the roots. There was a new church founded
and endowed by the usurper; a new nobility, whose titles were
taken from the fields of battle, disastrous to the ancient line;
a new chivalry, whose crosses had been won by exploits which
seemed likely to make the banishment of the Emigrants perpetual;
a new code, administered by a new magistracy; a new body of
proprietors, holding the soil by a new tenure; the most ancient
local distinctions effaced, the most familiar names obsolete.
There was no longer a Normandy, a Brittany, or a Guienne. The
France of Louis XVI. had passed away as completely as one of the
Preadamite worlds. Its fossil remains might now and then excite
curiosity; but it was as impossible to put life into the old
institutions as to animate the skeletons which are imbedded in
the depths of primeval strata. The revolution in the laws and
the form of government was but an outward sign of that mightier
revolution which had taken place in the minds and hearts of men,
and which affected every transaction and feeling of life. It was
as absurd to think that France could again be placed under the
feudal system, as that our globe could be overrun by mammoths.
Louis might efface the initials of the Emperor, but he could not
turn his eyes without seeing some object which reminded him he
was a stranger in the palace of his fathers."[4]

[4] MACAULAY'S _Essays_, ii. 230.

As a parallel to this splendid passage, though in an entirely different style, we gladly give place to a noble burst of Chateaubriand, on that most marvellous of marvellous events, the return of Napoleon from Elba. It was natural that so memorable a revolution should strongly impress his imaginative mind; but he seems to have exceeded himself in the reflections to which it gives rise. We know not whether to award the prize to the Englishman or the Frenchman, in these parallel passages. They are both masterpieces in their way. Perhaps the correct view is, that Macaulay is superior in graphic force and the accumulation of sarcastic images; Chateaubriand in lofty thought and imaginative images.

"On the 1st March, at three o'clock in the morning, Napoleon
approached the coast of France in the Gulf of Juan; he
disembarked, walked along the shore, gathered a few violets, and
bivouacked in an olive wood. The inhabitants withdrew in a state
of stupefaction. He left Antibes to his left, and threw himself
into the Mountains of Grasse in Dauphiny. At Sisterone the road
passes a defile where twenty men might have stopped him; he did
not meet a living soul. He advanced without opposition among the
inhabitants who the year before had wished to murder him. Into
the void which was formed around his gigantic shade, if a few
soldiers entered, they straightway yielded to the attraction of
his eagles. His fascinated enemies seek him and find him not; he
shrowds himself in his glory, as the lion in the Sahara desert
conceals himself in the rays of the sun to dazzle the eyes of
his pursuers. Enveloped in a burning halo, the bloody phantoms
of Arcola, Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Eylau, the
Moskwa, Lützen, and Bautzen, form his cortege amidst a million
of the dead. From the midst of that column of smoke and flame,
issue at the gates of towns some trumpet-notes mingled with
tricolor standards, and the gates fly open. When Napoleon passed
the Niemen, at the head of four hundred thousand foot, and a
hundred thousand horse, to blow into the air the palace of the
Czars at Moscow, he was less wonderful than when, breaking his
ban, casting his fetters as a gauntlet in the face of kings,
he came alone from Cannes to Paris, to sleep peaceably in the
palace of the Tuileries."--Vol. vi. p. 359, 360.

To a mind like that of Chateaubriand, reposing in solitude when Napoleon was acting with such marvellous effect in the world, the character and qualities of that wonderful man could not fail to be a constant object of solicitude and observation. It has been already noticed that he braved the Emperor in the plenitude of his power, and essentially contributed, in the crisis of his fate, to his dethronement, and the re-establishment of the ancient line of princes. But, as is not unusual with persons of his highly wrought and generous temper of mind, his hostility to the Emperor declined with the termination of his authority, and his admiration for his genius rose with the base desertion of the revolutionary crowd who had fawned upon him when on the throne. The following observations on the style of his writings, indicate the growth of this counter feeling, and are in themselves equally just and felicitous:--

"His partisans have sought to make of Buonaparte a perfect
being; a model of sentiment, of delicacy, of morality, and of
justice--a writer like Cæsar and Thucydides, an orator like
Demosthenes, a historian like Tacitus. The public discourses of
Napoleon, his sonorous phrases in the tent and at the council
board, are the less inspired by the spirit of prophecy, that
many of the catastrophes which he announced have not been
accomplished, while the warlike Isaiah himself has disappeared.
Prophecies of doom which follow without reaching states become
ridiculous. It is their accomplishment which renders them
sublime. During sixteen years, Napoleon was the incarnation
of destiny. Destiny now is mute, and he, too, should be
so. Buonaparte was not a Cæsar; his education had neither
been learnedly nor carefully conducted: half a stranger, he
was ignorant of the first rules of our language, and could
hardly spell it; but what did it signify, after all, that his
expression was defective?--he gave the law to the universe. His
bulletins have the most thrilling of all eloquence--that of
victory. Sometimes, during the intoxications of success, they
affected to be written on a drum-head: in the midst of the most
lugubrious accents, something emerged which excites a smile. I
have read all that Napoleon has written--the first manuscripts
of his infancy, his love-letters to Josephine, the five volumes
of his discourses, bulletins, and orders; but I have found
nothing which so truly portrays the character of that great
man, when in adversity, as the following autograph note left at
Elba:--

"'My heart refuses to share in ordinary joys as ordinary sorrows.

"'Not having given myself life, I am not entitled to take it
away.

"'My bad genius appeared to me and announced my end; which I
found at Leipsic.

"'I have conjured up the terrible spirit of innovation, which
will overrun the world.'

"Certes, there is Napoleon to the very life. His bulletins and
discourses have often great energy; but it was not his own;
it belonged to the age; he only adopted it. It sprang from
the revolutionary energy, which he only weakened by moving in
opposition to it. Danton said, 'The metal is fused; if you do
not watch over the furnace, you will be consumed.' St Just
replied, '_Do it if you dare_.' These words contain the whole
secret of our Revolution. Those who make revolutions by halves,
do nothing but dig their own graves."--Vol. vii. p. 101.

Certes, there is Chateaubriand to the very life.

Chateaubriand, as all the world knows, was Minister for Foreign Affairs to Louis XVIII. at Ghent; adhering thus to his ruling maxim throughout life, "Fidelity to misfortune." So great were the services rendered by him to the cause of European freedom, by the energetic series of papers which he poured forth with unwearied vigour every week, that there were serious thoughts, after the battle of Waterloo, of promoting him to the dignity of Prime Minister. Louis XVIII. openly inclined to it; and if his advice had prevailed, the catastrophe which fifteen years afterwards befel his family, would probably have been prevented. But the insuperable difficulty lay here: the pure and honourable mind of Chateaubriand revolted from the idea of forming a Ministry in conjunction with Talleyrand and Fouché; and yet their influence was such that the monarch, in the first instance at least, was compelled to court their assistance. Expedience, at least immediate expedience, seemed to counsel it; but Chateaubriand, animated by higher principles, and gifted with a more prophetic mind, anticipated no lasting advantage, but rather the reverse, from an alliance with the arch-regicide of Nantes, and the arch-traitor who had sworn allegiance to and betrayed _twelve_ Governments in succession. But the chorus of "_base unanimities_," as he expresses it, with which the monarch was surrounded, proved too strong for any single individual, how gifted soever. Fouché and Talleyrand were taken into power, and Chateaubriand retired. Of the conversation with Louis XVIII., when this vital change was resolved on, he gives the following interesting account, which proves that that sagacious monarch at least was well aware of the consequences of the step to which he was thus involuntarily impelled:--

"Before quitting St Denis, on our way back to Paris, I had an audience of the King, and the following conversation ensued:

"'Well?' said Louis XVIII., opening the dialogue by that
exclamation.

"'Well, sire, you have taken the Duke of Otranto,' (Fouché.)

"'I could not avoid it; from my brother to the bailie of
Crussol, (and he at least is not suspected,) all said that we
could not do otherwise--what think you?'

"'Sire! the thing is done; I crave permission to remain silent.'

"'No, no--speak out; you know how I resisted at Ghent.'

"'In that case, sire, I must obey my orders. Pardon my fidelity:
I think it is all over with the monarchy.'

"The King remained some time silent. I began to tremble at my
boldness, when his Majesty rejoined:--

"'In truth, M. de Chateaubriand, I am of your opinion.'

"I bowed and withdrew; and thus ended my connection with the
Hundred Days."--Vol. vii. 70.

Manzoni has written an ode, known over all Europe, on the double fall of Napoleon: "The last poet," says Chateaubriand, "of the country of Virgil, sang the last warrior of the country of Cæsar.

Tutte ei provo, la gloria
Maggior dopo il periglio,
La fuga e la Vittoria,
La reggia e il triste esiglio:
Due volte nella polvere,
Due volte sugli altar.

Ei se nomo: due secoli,
L'un contro l'altro armato,
Sommessi a lui se volsero,
Come aspettando il fato:
Ei fe silenzio ed arbitro
S'assise in mezzo a loro.

"He proved everything; glory greater after danger, flight, and
victory: Royalty and sad exile, twice in the dust, twice on the
altar.

"He announced himself: two ages, armed against each other,
turned towards him, as if awaiting their fate; he proclaimed
silence, and seated himself as arbiter between them."

Notwithstanding the vehemence of Chateaubriand's dissension with Napoleon, it cannot be expected that a man of his romantic and generous temperament would continue his hostility after death. No one, accordingly, has awarded a more heartfelt or magnanimous tribute to his memory.

"The solitude of the exile and of the tomb of Napoleon has shed
an extraordinary interest, a sort of prestige, over his memory.
Alexander did not die under the eyes of Greece, he disappeared
amidst the distant wonders of Babylon. Buonaparte has not died
under the eyes of France: he has been lost in the gloomy edge
of the southern horizon. The grandeur of the silence which
now surrounds him equals the immensity of the noise which his
exploits formerly made. The nations are absent: the crowd of men
has retired: the bird of the tropics, 'harnessed,' in Buffon's
words, 'to the chariot of the sun,' has precipitated itself from
the star of light--where does it now repose? It rests on the
ashes of which the weight has all but subverted the globe."

"Imposuerunt omnes sibi diademata post mortem ejus; et multiplicata sunt mala in terrâ."[5] "They all assumed diadems after his death, and evils were multiplied on the earth." Twenty years have hardly elapsed since the death of Napoleon, and already the French and Spanish monarchies are no more. The map of the world has undergone a change: a new geography is required: severed from their legitimate rulers, nations have been thrown against nations: renowned actors on the scene have given place to ignoble successors: eagles from the summits of the loftiest pines have plunged into the ocean, while frail shellfish have attached themselves to the sides of the trunk, which still stands erect.

[5] MACHABIES.

"As in the last result everything advances to its end, '_the
terrible spirit of innovation which overruns the world_', as
the Emperor said, and to which he had opposed the barrier of
his genius, has resumed its course. The institutions of the
conqueror fail: he will be the last of great existences on the
earth. Nothing hereafter will overshadow society, parcelled
out and levelled: the shadow of Napoleon alone will be seen
on the verge of the old world which has been destroyed, like
the phantom of the deluge on the edge of its abyss. Distant
posterity will discern that spectre through the gloom of passing
events still erect above the gulf into which unknown ages
have fallen, until the day marked out by Providence for the
resurrection of social man."--Vol. vii. 169-171.

Assuredly no one can say that Chateaubriand's genius has declined with his advanced years.

To a man viewing Napoleon with the feelings expressed in these eloquent words, the translation of his remains from their solitary resting-place under the willow at St Helena could not but be an object of regret. He thus expresses himself on that memorable event, and future ages will probably confirm his opinion:--

"The removal of the remains of Napoleon from St Helena was a
fault against his renown. A place of sepulchre in Paris can
never equal the Valley of Slanes. Who would wish to see the
Pillar of Pompey elsewhere than above the grave dug for his
remains by his poor freedman, aided by the old legionary? What
shall we do with those magnificent remains in the midst of
our miseries? Can the hardest granite typify the everlasting
duration of Napoleon's renown? Even if we possessed a Michael
Angelo to design the statue on the grave, how should we fashion
the mausoleum? Monuments are for little men, for the great
a stone and a name. At least they should have suspended the
coffin from the summit of the triumphal arch which records his
exploits: nations from afar should have beheld their master
borne aloft on the shoulders of his victories. Was not the urn
which contained the ashes of Trajan placed at Rome, beneath
his column? Napoleon at Paris will be lost amidst the crowd
of unknown names. God forbid he should be exposed to the
vicissitudes of our political changes, surrounded though he is
by Louis XIV., Vauban, and Turenne. Let a certain section of our
revolutionists triumph, and the ashes of the conqueror will be
sent to join the ashes which our passions have dispersed. The
conqueror will be forgotten in the oppressor of our liberties.
The bones of Napoleon will not reproduce his genius; they will
only teach his despotism to ignoble soldiers."--Vol. vii. 184,
185.

The Restoration did not immediately employ Chateaubriand. His anticipations were realised. The chorus of baseness and selfishness with which the court was surrounded, kept him at a distance. They were afraid of his genius: they were jealous of his reputation. Above all, they dreaded his independence. He was not sufficiently manageable. They were actuated, perhaps not altogether without reason, by the same feeling which made Lord North say, when urged to bring Dr Johnson into Parliament, whose great powers in the political warfare of pamphlets had been so signally evinced on the side of Government, "No, sir, he is an elephant, but a wild one, as likely to trample under foot his friends as his enemies." The veteran statesman, so well versed in the ways of men, was right. Genius is the fountain of thought: it ultimately rules the councils and destinies of men; but it generally requires to be tempered by time before it can be safely introduced into practice.

Chateaubriand enlivens this period of his memoirs, which is neither signalised by political event nor remarkable literary effort, by a sort of biography of Madame Recamier, with whom he was on terms of intimate friendship. This remarkable person, who was beyond all question the most beautiful and attractive woman of her age in France, or perhaps in Europe, is now no more; and he appears to have obtained from her relatives, or perhaps from herself prior to her decease, not only many curious and highly interesting details concerning her early years and subsequent history, but a great variety of original letters from the most eminent men of the age, who were successively led captive by her charms, but none of whom appear to have impaired her reputation. In this country, where the lines of severance between the sexes are much more rigidly drawn, it would be impossible for a young and beautiful married woman to be in the habit of receiving the most ardent love-letters from a great variety of distinguished and fascinating admirers, without the jealousy of rivals being excited, and the breath of scandal fastening upon her as its natural prey. But it is otherwise on the Continent, where, although there is doubtless abundance of dissoluteness of manners in certain circles, yet in others such intimacies may exist, which are yet kept within due bounds, and cast no reflection on the fortunate fair one who sees all the world at her feet.

Such, at least, appears to have been the case with Madame Recamier, the intimate friend of Madame de Stael, who said "She would willingly give all her talents for one half of her beauty;" and whose powers of fascination were such, that she not only inspired a vehement passion nearly at the same time, in La Harpe, Lucien Buonaparte, Murat, Moreau, Bernadotte, Marshal Massena, Benjamin Constant, Prince Augustus of Prussia, Prince Metternich, Chateaubriand, and a vast many others, but attracted the particular notice of Napoleon, and did not escape the vigilant and practised eye of the Duke of Wellington. The Prince of Prussia would have married her, if he could have effected her divorce from M. Recamier. It is one of the worst traits of the Emperor Napoleon's character, that he was not only so envious of the celebrity of her beauty that he banished her from Paris to extinguish its fame, but was inspired with such malignant feelings towards her, from her having rejected his advances, that he got a law passed which rendered the wives of persons engaged in commerce responsible in their separate estates for their husbands' debts; the effect of which was to involve Madame Recamier, whose husband, a great banker in Paris, failed, in almost total ruin, in the latter years of her life.

Madame Recamier, whose birth, though respectable, gave her none of the advantages of rank or opulence, was bred up at the abbey of the _Desert_, near the confluence of the Rhone and the Saone at Lyons. Her parents, however, resided at Paris; and they having brought her home at the age of twelve years, she was at that tender age married to M. Recamier, a rich banker, almost four times her own age, whose immense transactions, which entirely absorbed his time and attention, left him no leisure to attend either to the education or occupations of his infantine and beautiful wife. But though thus left to herself, surrounded by admirers, and with every luxury which wealth could purchase at her command, she was never led astray. Benjamin Constant, who knew her well from her earliest years, has left the following interesting portrait of what may be called her infantine married life:--

"She whom I paint emerged pure and brilliant from that corrupted
atmosphere, which elsewhere withered where it did not actually
corrupt. Infancy was at first her safeguard. Libertinism shrunk
from approaching the asylum of so much innocence. Removed from
the world in a solitude embellished by the arts, she spent her
time in the sweet occupation of those charming and poetical
studies which usually constitute the delight of a more advanced
age.

"Often, also, surrounded by her young companions, she abandoned
herself to the amusements suited to her tender years. 'Swift as
Atalanta in the race,' she outran all her companions: often,
in playing Hide-and-seek, she bandaged those eyes which were
destined one day to fascinate every beholder. Her look, now
so expressive and penetrating, and which seems to indicate
mysteries of which she herself is unconscious, then shone only
with the animated and playful gaiety of childhood. Her beautiful
hair, which could not be undone without causing emotion, fell
in natural curls on her shoulders. A hearty and prolonged laugh
often burst from these infantine circles, but already you
could perceive in her that fine and rapid observation which
seizes the salient points of ridicule--that sportive raillery
which diverted itself without injuring any one: above all,
that exquisite sense of elegance and propriety, of purity and
taste, that true nobility of mind, which are given only to a few
privileged beings.

"Nevertheless Madame Recamier emerged occasionally from her
retreat, to go to the theatre or to the public promenades; and
in those places of general resort her rare appearance was quite
an event. Every other object in those immense assemblages was
forgotten: every one precipitated himself upon her steps. The
fortunate cavalier who attended her could scarcely make his way
through the crowds which she collected: her steps were at every
instant impeded by the spectators who crowded around her. She
enjoyed that success with the gaiety of an infant combined with
the timidity of a young woman; but the gracious dignity which
at home restrained the overflowing gaiety of her companions,
inspired respect in public in the admiring crowd with which she
was constantly environed. You would say that her air imposed
restraint equally on her companions and on the public. Thus
passed the first years of the married life of Madame Recamier,
between poetical occupation, infantine amusements, and the
triumph of beauty in the world.

"But her expanding mind and capacious genius soon required other
aliment. The instinctive love of the beautiful with which she
was inspired from her earliest years, made her long for the
society of men distinguished for the reputation of their talents
or genius. M. de La Harpe was one of the first who appreciated
the young woman, around whom were one day to be grouped all
the celebrated characters of her age. The conversation of that
young woman of fifteen had a thousand attractions for a man of
his great acquirements, and whose excessive vanity, with the
habit of conversing with the ablest men in France, had rendered
exceedingly difficult to please. He delighted in being her
guide: he was astonished at the rapidity with which her talent
supplied the want of experience, and comprehended everything
which he revealed to her of the world and of men. This was at
the moment of his celebrated conversion to Christianity. The
Revolution having rendered infidelity all-powerful, scepticism
had lost the merit of being opposed to authority, and those whom
vanity alone had rendered such could in good faith, and without
compromising their reputation, avow their secret belief."--Vol.
ix. 118, 121.

Of the unbounded devotion which Madame Recamier in a few years came to inspire in the breasts of the most distinguished men of her day, abundant proof is furnished in Chateaubriand's Memoirs. To give only a few examples, among a host of others which might be cited, Marshal Massena--a roturier by birth, and certainly not inheriting by descent any of the feelings of chivalry--yet even he asked a ribbon from Madame Recamier before he set out for the army of Italy, to take the command in Genoa, in the siege since so celebrated; and, having obtained it, he wrote to her the following note some weeks after:--

"The charming ribbon given by Madame Recamier has been borne by
General Massena in the battles and the blockades of Genoa: it
has never left him, and been, in every instance, the harbinger
of victory."--Vol. viii. 167.

"There," as Chateaubriand justly observes "the ancient manners
reappeared athwart the modern manners of which they formed the
base. The gallantry of the noble chevalier shone forth in the
plebeian soldier; the memory of the tournaments and of the
crusades was concealed amidst the blaze of glory with which
modern France has crowned its old victories."

Lucien Buonaparte, one of her first adorers, addressed her early in life in these terms:--

"Till within these few days, I knew you only by renown. I had
seen you sometimes at church and in the theatres. I knew you
were the most beautiful: a thousand voices repeated it; and
your charms had struck without dazzling me. Why has the peace
rendered me captive? it reigns in our families, but sorrow is in
my heart.

"I have seen you since: Jove seemed to smile on your steps.
Seated on the edge of a fountain, motionless and dreamy, you
gathered a rose. I addressed you alone: I thought I heard
a sigh. Vain illusion! I soon saw the tranquil front of
indifference seated between us. The passion which devoured me
expressed itself in my words; while yours bore the cruel yet
amiable stamp of infancy and sport.

"Be severe, I implore you, for pity's sake. Banish me from your
presence. Desire me to withdraw from your enchanting society:
and if I can obey the order, remember only that my heart is for
ever your own; that no one ever reigned over it as Juliette;
and that he will ever live with her, at least in memory."--Vol.
viii. 130.

"For a man of _sangfroid_," says Chateaubriand, "all that is a little ridiculous." He is right: it is gallantry without passion which always appears _fade_ and contemptible. It is vehemence and sincerity which makes sentiment interesting. The Buonapartes had nothing chivalrous in their breasts: Lucien's letter is very different from Massena wearing Madame Recamier's ribbon next his heart amidst the fire of the Austrian cannon. But Chateaubriand himself had the true spirit of chivalry in his bosom. He thus recounts one of the last moments which he spent in 1832, late in life, with Madame Recamier on the banks of the Lake of Constance:--

"We wandered as chance guided our steps, and sat down beside
the lake. From a pavilion in the woods arose a concert of the
harp and the German horns, which ceased as we began to listen
to them. It was a scene in a fairy tale. As the music did not
recommence, I read to Madame Recamier my description of the St
Gothard. She asked me to write something in her pocket-book.
Immediately below the last words of Rousseau, which were there
inscribed, 'Open the windows, that I may again see the light
of the sun,' I wrote, 'What I felt the want of on the Lake of
Lucerne I have found on the Lake of Constance--the charm and the
intelligence of beauty. I no longer wish to die like Rousseau; I
wish, on the contrary, to live long, and behold the sun, if it
is near you that I am to finish my life. May my days expire at
your feet, as the waves of which you hear the murmur.' The azure
light of the setting sun coloured the lake; on the horizon, to
the south, the snowy alps of the Grisons reflected the ruddy
glow; the breeze which swept the waves harmonised with their
ceaseless murmur. We knew not where we were."--Vol. x. 246, 247.

With the accession of a more Liberal Administration under M. de Martignac, Chateaubriand was taken into power. In 1822 he was sent as ambassador to London; in 1823 he was made minister of foreign affairs, and directed the expedition into Spain in that year, which had so successful a result; and in 1824 he represented France at the Congress of Verona. He was again, however, chased from the helm by the jealousy of the Royalists, whose imbecility was rebuked by his genius; and it was not till 1828 that he was again taken into power, and appointed to the embassy at Rome. He was there when the Polignac Administration was appointed.

We must hasten to the most brilliant and honourable period of Chateaubriand's life, that in which he stood almost alone amidst a nation's defection, and singly opposed the revolutionary torrent by which nearly all others had been swept away. The spectacle is at once animating and mournful: animating as evincing of what high resolves, of what heroic constancy, noble minds are capable even in the extremity of disaster: mournful, as exhibiting so bright a contrast to the tergiversation of later times, and suggesting the mournful reflection that, in these days of economists and material enjoyment, the days of chivalry are gone for ever.

It is well known that Chateaubriand was esteemed not only a Liberal, but an ultra-Liberal, by the extreme Royalist party whom Charles X. summoned to his councils on his accession to the throne; and that, in consequence of his disagreement with Polignac and the leaders of that party, he retired from the ministry, and resigned his appointment as ambassador at Rome. His consternation was great on perceiving the extreme measures which the Polignac party were preparing to carry into execution, and the feeble preparations made for supporting them by military force, in the midst of a warlike and excited people. Of his first intelligence of the appointment of the Polignac Administration by the sovereign whom they were destined so soon to overthrow, he gives the following account:--

"Rumours of a change of Administration had already reached us
at Rome. Well-informed persons had even gone so far as to speak
of Prince Polignac, but I could not credit the reports. At
length the journals arrive; I open them, and my eyes rest on
the official ordinance calling him to the head of the ministry.
I had experienced many vicissitudes of fortune in my journey
through life, but never had I fallen from such an elevation.
My evil destiny had again blown over my chimeras: that breath
of fate had not only destroyed my illusions, but it had swept
away the monarchy. The blow was fearful: for a moment I was in
despair, but my part was soon taken. I felt that I must retire
from power. The post brought me a multitude of letters; all
recommended me to send in my resignation. Even persons to whom I
was almost a stranger thought themselves obliged to counsel me
to retire. I was in secret mortified at the officious interest
thus evinced in my reputation. Thank God, I have never needed
nor waited for counsels when the paths of honour and of interest
lay before me. Falls from station have ever been to me ruin,
for I possessed through life nothing but debts; so that when I
resigned my appointments, I was reduced to live by my wits. In a
word, I resigned a situation of 200,000 francs (£8000) a-year,
and was reduced to nothing; but my choice was not doubtful. Cast
to the winds, said I to myself, 200,000 francs (£8000) a-year
of income, an appointment entirely suited to your taste, a high
and magnificent office, the empire of the fine arts at Rome, the
felicity, in fine, of having at length received the recompense
for your long and laborious struggles. Honour is to be won,
esteem preserved, at no other price."--Vol. ix. 141, 142.

On arriving at Paris after he had resigned his appointment as ambassador at Rome, Chateaubriand found that many of the kind and officious friends who had so strongly urged _him_ to resign, had themselves quietly accepted appointments under the Polignac Administration! He withdrew, however, in pursuance of his resolution, into private life; and in order to avoid the expenses of Paris, which exceeded what his reduced income could bear, he retired to Dieppe in June 1830. When there he received the stunning intelligence of the Ordinances of July. His part was immediately taken. He returned with the utmost expedition to Paris, resolved to share the fate of his country whatever it might be, and to exert himself to the utmost to mitigate the calamities which he foresaw awaited it. His first step on arriving in the capital was to write a letter to the King, making a tender of his services to negotiate with the popular leaders who had got the command in the capital. The only answer he received was a verbal one, that M. de Montemart had been appointed to the head of the Ministry, and a reference to him. But M. de Montemart could not be found; and even if he had been, affairs had gone too far to admit of any remedy by individual efforts, how powerful soever. The nation would have a Revolution with its consequences, and it was doomed to have a Revolution with its consequences. But although Louis Philippe was successful, Chateaubriand foresaw that his throne was established on a rotten foundation: that the _juste milieu_, resting neither on the attachment of a loyal, nor the passions of a conquering people, could not be of lasting endurance; and that, in default of all principles of honour whereon to rest a Government, those of interest alone remained. He has left the following memorable prophecy of the fate awaiting a monarchy cradled in treason and fostered by selfishness:--

"Louis Philippe, his Government, the whole of that impossible
and contradictory combination, _will perish in a time more
or less retarded by fortuitous events_, by complications of
interests interior and exterior, by the apathy or corruption of
individuals, by the levity of disposition, the indifference and
want of nerve in characters. But be its duration long or short,
the present dynasty will not exist long enough for the House of
Orleans to strike its roots in the soil of France."--Vol. ix.
333.[6]

[6] M. de Chateaubriand died in 1847, before the Revolution of 1848.

It is not in public documents and actions that the real opinions of the actors on the stage of public events are to be discerned. It is their private conversation or correspondence that reveals their real sentiments; it is there that the mental struggles which preceded the most decisive steps, and the secret views by which they were actuated in adopting or rejecting them, are in truth disclosed. In this view, the following conversation between Chateaubriand and the Duchess of Orleans, immediately after the triumph of the Barricades, is peculiarly interesting--

"M. Arago spoke to me in the warmest terms of the intellectual
superiority of Madame Adelaide; and the Count Analde de
Montesquieu, having met me one morning at Madame Recamier's,
informed me that the Duke and Duchess of Orleans would be
charmed to see me. I went, accordingly, to the Palais Royal with
the Chevalier d'Honneur of the future queen. I found the Duchess
of Orleans and Madame Adelaide in their private boudoirs. I had
previously had the honour of being presented to the duchess. She
made me sit down near her, and immediately said--

"'Ah! M. de Chateaubriand, we are very unfortunate. If all
parties would unite we might perhaps be saved, what think you of
that?'

"'Madame,' I replied, 'nothing is so easy. Charles X. and the
Dauphin have both abdicated; Henry V. is now king; the Duke
of Orleans is now Lieutenant-general of the kingdom; let him
be Regent during the whole minority of Henry V., and all is
accomplished.'

"'But, M. de Chateaubriand, the people are extremely agitated;
we should fall into anarchy.'

"'Madame, may I venture to ask you what is the intention of the
Duke of Orleans? will he accept the throne if it is offered to
him?'

"The two princesses hesitated to answer. After a short pause the
Duchess of Orleans replied,--

"'Consider, M. de Chateaubriand, the disasters which may
ensue--you and all other men of honour require to unite to save
us from a republic. At Rome, M. de Chateaubriand, you might
render us essential service--or even here, if you did not wish
to quit France.'

"'Madame is not ignorant of my devotion to the young king and to
his mother.'

"'Ah! M. de Chateaubriand, how well they have rewarded your
fidelity.'

"'Your Royal Highness would not wish me to give the lie to my
whole life.'

"'M. de Chateaubriand, you do not know my niece; she is so
inconsiderate, poor Caroline. I will send for the Duke of
Orleans; I hope he may succeed in persuading you better than me.'

"The princess gave her orders, and in a quarter of an hour
Louis Philippe arrived. He was dressed in disorder, and
looked extremely fatigued. I rose as he entered, and the
Lieutenant-general of the kingdom said,--

"'The duchess has doubtless informed you how unfortunate we
are.' And upon that he began a speech on the felicity which
he enjoyed in the country, and the life, in the midst of his
children, which was entirely according to his taste. I seized
the opportunity of a momentary pause to repeat what I had said
to the princess.

"'Ah!' he exclaimed, 'that is just what I desire. How happy
should I be to become the tutor and support of that infant! I
think exactly as you do, M. de Chateaubriand: to take the Duke
of Bordeaux would unquestionably be the wisest course that could
be adopted. I only fear events are too strong for us.'

"'Stronger than us, my Lord Duke! Are you not invested with all
powers? Let us hasten to join Henry V. Summon the Chambers and
the army to meet you out of Paris. At the first intelligence of
your departure all that effervescence will subside, and all the
world will seek shelter under your enlightened and protecting
government.'

"While I yet spoke, I kept my eyes fixed on Louis Philippe. I
saw that my counsels gave him annoyance: I saw written on his
forehead the desire to be king. 'M. de Chateaubriand,' said he,
_without looking me in the face_, 'the thing is not so easy as
you imagine: things do not go as you imagine. A furious mob may
assail the Chambers, and we have, as yet, no military force on
which we can rely for its defence.'

"The last expression gave me pleasure, because it enabled me
to bring forward a decisive reply. 'I feel the difficulty you
mention, my Lord Duke; but there is a sure mode of obviating
it. If you cannot rejoin Henry V., as I have just proposed,
you may embrace another course. The session is about to open:
on the first proposition made by the deputies, declare that
the Chamber of Deputies has not the power to determine the
form of government for France; that the _whole nation must be
consulted_. Your Royal Highness will thus place yourself at the
head of the popular party: the Republicans, who now constitute
your danger, will laud you to the skies. In the two months which
must elapse before the new legislature can assemble, you can
organise a national guard; all your friends, and the friends
of the young king, will exert themselves in the provinces. Let
the deputies assemble, and let the cause I espouse be publicly
pleaded before them. That cause, favoured in heart by you,
supported by the great majority of the country electors, will
be certain of success. The moment of anarchy being past, you
will have nothing to fear from the violence of the Republicans.
I even think you might win over, by such a course, General
Lafayette and M. Lafitte to your side. What a part for you to
play, my Lord Duke! You will reign fifteen years in the name of
your young pupil; at the expiration of that time, repose will
be a blessing to us all. You will earn the glory, unique in
history, of having had the power to ascend the throne, and of
having left it to the lawful heir. At the same time, you will
have enjoyed the means of educating that heir abreast of the
ideas of his age: you will have rendered him capable of reigning
over France. One of your daughters may aid him to bear the
weight of the crown.'

"Louis Philippe looked around with a wandering eye and an absent
air. 'I beg your pardon, M. de Chateaubriand,' said he; 'I left
a deputation to converse with you, and I must return to it.'
With these words, he bowed and withdrew.

The advice thus given at the decisive moment by Chateaubriand was that of honour and loyalty; it dictated by the spirit of the chevalier _sans peur et sans reproche_. But it was not that of immediate or apparent interest; and therefore it was not adopted. The event has now proved, however, that in this, as in so many other instances in this world, the path of honour and duty would have been that of expedience. What Chateaubriand recommended to Louis Philippe was substantially what Louis Napoleon _did_; and the result proved that the great majority of the nation, differing widely from the revolutionary rabble of Paris, was not only Conservative, but Royalist in its dispositions. Had Louis Philippe followed this course, and taken only the regency till the majority of the Duke of Bordeaux, the two branches of the house of Bourbon would have been cordially united: no discord or jealousies would have weakened the Royalist party; the national will would have been decidedly pronounced for the monarchy before it had been rendered an object of contempt; the Revolution of 1848, with all its disastrous consequences, would probably have been prevented; and as the Duke de Bordeaux has no family, the Orleans dynasty, as the next heirs, would have ascended the throne in the natural order of succession--and not only without the bar sinister of treason on their escutcheon, but with a deed of unexampled magnanimity and honour to illustrate their accession!

Louis Philippe, bent on the immediate possession of the throne, made another attempt to gain M. de Chateaubriand; and for this purpose the Duchess of Orleans and Madame Adelaide again sent for him.

"Madame Adelaide was present as on the former occasion; and
the duchess now described more specifically the favours with
which the Duke of Orleans proposed to honour me. She dwelt on
what she called my sway over public opinion; the sacrifices I
had made, and the aversion which Charles X. and his family had
always shown to me in spite of my services. She said to me, that
if I would accept the portfolio of foreign affairs, his Royal
Highness would be too happy to replace me in that situation; but
that possibly I would prefer returning to Rome, and that she
would greatly rejoice at that appointment, for the interests of
our holy religion.

"'Madam,' I answered with some degree of vivacity, 'I see that
his Royal Highness has taken his line; that he has weighed the
consequences; that he is prepared to meet the years of misery
and perils he will have to traverse. I have therefore nothing
to say on that head--I come not here to fail in respect to the
blood of the Bourbons; I owe besides nothing but gratitude
and respect to _Madame_. Leaving apart, then, those great
objections, founded on reason and principle, I pray her Royal
Highness to allow me to explain what personally concerns myself.

"'She has had the condescension to speak of what she calls
my power over general opinion. Well, if that power is well
founded, on what is it founded? Is it on anything else but the
public esteem: and should I not lose it the moment I changed my
colours? The Duke of Orleans supposes he would in me acquire a
support: instead of that he would gain only a miserable maker
of phrases, whose voice would no longer be listened to--a
renegade, on whom every one would have a right to throw dust
and to spit in his face. To the hesitating words which he could
pronounce in favour of Louis Philippe, they would oppose the
entire volumes he had written in favour of the fallen family. Is
it not I, Madam, who have written the pamphlet of _Buonaparte
and the Bourbons_; the articles on the arrival of Louis XVIII.
at Compiègne; the relation of the Royal Council at Ghent, and
the _History of the Life and Death of the Duke de Berri_? I
know not that I have written a single page where the name of
our ancient kings is not either mentioned or alluded to, and
where they are not environed by the protestations of my love and
fidelity--a thing which marks strength of principle the more
strongly, as _Madame_ knows that, as an individual, I put no
faith in princes. At the thought even of desertion, the colour
mounts to my cheeks. The day after my treachery, I should go to
throw myself into the Seine. I implore _Madame_ to forgive the
vehemence of my language: I am penetrated with her goodness: I
shall ever preserve a profound and grateful remembrance of it;
but she would not wish me to be dishonoured. Pity me, madam,
pity me.'"

"I was still standing; and bowing, I retired. Mademoiselle de
Orleans, (the Princess Adelaide,) had not yet said anything.
She rose up, and retiring said, '_I do not pity you, M. de
Chateaubriand; I do not pity you_.' I was forcibly struck
with the mournful accent with which she pronounced these
words."--Vol. ix. 361, 362.

"Pity not me," said the dying Chevalier Bayard to the traitor Constable de Bourbon; "pity those who fight against their king, their country, and their oath." The feelings of honour are the same in all ages.

We shall close this long line of honourable acts with an extract from Chateaubriand's noble speech in favour of Henry V., in the Chamber of Peers, on July 7, 1830.

"'Charles X. and his sons are dethroned or have abdicated; it
signifies not which. The throne is _not vacant_--after them
comes an infant; will you condemn the innocent?

"'What blood now cries out against him? Can you say it is
that of his father? That orphan educated in the school of his
country, in attachment to a constitutional throne, and in
the ideas of his age, will become a king in harmony with the
cravings of the future. It is to the guardian of his infancy
that you would first tender the oath to be faithful to it.
Arrived at mature years, he would himself renew it. The king
at this moment, the real king for a time, would be the Duke of
Orleans, the regent of the kingdom; a prince who has lived near
the people, and who knows that the monarchy now can only be a
monarchy of concession and reason. That combination, so natural,
so obvious, appears a main element in reconciliation, and would
save France from the convulsions which are the consequence of
violent changes in a state.

"'To say that this infant, separated from his masters, would not
have leisure to forget their precepts before becoming a man: to
say that he would remain infatuated by certain dogmas of his
birth, after a long popular education, after the terrible lesson
which has discrowned two kings in two nights: is that reasonable?