Chapter VI: Government of the Right-Hand Party (2)

It is well known how M. de Chateaubriand was dismissed two days after the sitting. From whence proceeded the rudeness of this dismissal? It is difficult to decide. M. de Chateaubriand attributed it to M. de Villele alone. "On Whit Sunday, the 6th of June, 1824," says he, "at half-past ten in the morning I repaired to the palace. My principal object was to pay my respects to _Monsieur_. The first saloon of the Pavillon Marsan was nearly empty; a few persons entered in succession, and seemed embarrassed. An aide-de-camp of _Monsieur_ said to me, 'Viscount, I scarcely hoped to see you here; have you received no communication?' I answered, 'No; what am I likely to receive?' He replied, 'I fear you will soon learn.' Upon this, as no one offered to introduce me to _Monsieur_, I went to hear the music in the chapel. I was quite absorbed in the beautiful anthems of the service, when an usher told me some one wished to speak with me. It was Hyacinth Pilorge, my secretary. He handed to me a letter and a royal ordinance, saying at the same time, 'Sir, you are no longer a minister.' The Duke de Rauzan, Superintendent of Political Affairs, had opened the packet in my absence, and had not ventured to bring it to me. I found within, this note from M. de Villele; 'Monsieur le Vicomte,--I obey the orders of the King, in transmitting without delay to your Excellency a decree which his Majesty has just placed in my hand:--The Count de Villele, President of our Ministerial Council, is charged, _ad interim_, with the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, in place of the Viscount de Chateaubriand.'"

The friends of M. de Villele assert that it was the King himself, who in his anger dictated the rude form of the communication. "Two days after the vote," say they, "as soon as M. de Villele entered the royal cabinet, Louis XVIII. said to him: 'Chateaubriand has betrayed us like a----; I do not wish to receive him after Mass; draw up the order for his dismissal, and let it be sent to him in time; I will not see him.' All remonstrances were useless; the King insisted that the decree should be written at his own desk and immediately forwarded. M. de Chateaubriand was not found at home, and his dismissal was only communicated to him at the Tuileries, in the apartments of _Monsieur_."

Whoever may have been the author of the measure, the blame rests with M. de Villele. If it was contrary to his desire, assuredly he had credit enough with the King to prevent it. Contrary to his usual habit, he exhibited more temper on this occasion than coolness or foresight. There are allies who are necessary, although extremely troublesome; and M. de Chateaubriand, despite his pretensions and his whims, was less dangerous as a rival than as an enemy.

Although without connection in the Chambers, and with no control as an orator, he immediately became a brilliant and influential leader of the Opposition, for opposition was his natural bent as well as the excitement of the moment. He excelled in unravelling the instincts of national discontent, and of continually exciting them against authority by supplying them with powerful motives, real or specious, and always introduced with effect. He also possessed the art of depreciating and casting odium on his adversaries, by keen and polished insults constantly repeated, and at the same time of bringing over to his side old opponents, destined soon to resume their former character, but for the moment attracted and overpowered by the pleasure and profit of the heavy blows he administered to their common enemy. Through the favour of the MM. Bertin, he found on the instant, in the 'Journal des Debats,' an important avenue for his daily attacks. As enlightened and influential in politics as in literature, these two brothers possessed the rare faculty of collecting round themselves by generous and sympathetic patronage, a chosen cohort of clever writers, and of supporting their opinions and those of their friends with manly intelligence. M. Bertin de Veaux, the more decided politician of the two, held M. de Villele in high esteem, and lived in familiar intimacy with him. "Villele," said he to me one day, "is really born for public business; he has all the necessary disinterestedness and capacity; he cares not to shine, he wishes only to govern; he would be a Minister of Finance in the cellar of his hotel, as willingly as in the drawing-rooms of the first story." It was no trifling matter which could induce the eminent journalist to break with the able minister. He sought an interview with M. de Villele, and requested him, for the preservation of peace, to bestow on M. de Chateaubriand the embassy to Rome. "I shall not risk such a proposition to the King," replied M. de Villele. "In that case," retorted M. Bertin, "you will remember that the 'Debats' overthrew the ministries of Decazes and Richelieu, and will do the same by the ministry of Villele."--"You turned out the two first to establish royalism," said M. de Villele; "to destroy mine you must have a revolution."

There was nothing in this prospect to inspire M. de Villele with confidence, as the event proved; but thirteen years later, M. Bertin de Veaux remembered the caution. When, in 1837, under circumstances of which I shall speak in their proper place, I separated from M. Mole, he said to me with frankness, "I have certainly quite as much friendship for you as I ever had for M. de Chateaubriand, but I decline following you into Opposition. I shall not again try to sap the Government I wish to establish. One experiment of that nature is enough."

At Court, as in the Chamber, M. de Villele was triumphant; he had not only conquered, but he had driven away his rivals, M. de Montmorency and M. de Chateaubriand, as he had got rid of M. de La Fayette and M. Manuel. Amongst the men whose voices, opinions, or even presence might have fettered him, death had already stepped in, and was again coming to his aid. M. Camille Jordan, the Duke de Richelieu, and M. de Serre were dead; General Foy and the Emperor Alexander were not long in following them. There are moments when death seems to delight, like Tarquin, in cutting down the tallest flowers. M. de Villele remained sole master. At this precise moment commenced the heavy difficulties of his position, the weak points of his conduct, and his first steps towards decline.

In place of having to defend himself against a powerful opposition of the Left, which was equally to be feared and resisted by the Right and the Cabinet, he found himself confronted by an Opposition emanating from the right itself, and headed, in the Chamber of Deputies, by M. de la Bourdonnaye, his companion during the session of 1815; in the Chamber of Peers and without, by M. de Chateaubriand, so recently his colleague in the Council. As long as he had M. de Chateaubriand for an ally, M. de Villele had only encountered as adversaries, in the interior of his party, the ultra-royalists of the extreme right, M. de la Bourdonnaye, M. Delalot, and a few others, whom the old counter-revolutionary spirit, intractable passions, ambitious discontent, or habits of grumbling independence kept in a perpetual state of irritation against a power, moderate without ascendency, and clever without greatness. But when M. de Chateaubriand and the 'Journal des Debats' threw themselves into the combat, there was then seen to muster round them an army of anti-ministerialists of every origin and character, composed of royalists and liberals, of old and young France, of the popular and the aristocratic throng. The weak remains of the left-hand party, beaten in the recent elections, the seventeen old members of the Opposition, liberals or doctrinarians, drew breath when they looked on such allies; and, without confounding their ranks, while each party retained its own standard and arms, they combined for mutual support, and united their forces against M. de Villele. M. de Chateaubriand has gratified himself by inserting in his Memoirs the testimonies of admiration and sympathy proffered to him at that time by M. Benjamin Constant, General Sebastiani, M. Etienne, and other heads of the liberal section. In the Parliamentary struggle, the left-hand party could only add to the opposers of the right a very small number of votes; but they brought eminent talents, the support of their journals, their influence throughout the country; and, in a headlong, confused attack,--some under cover of the mantle of Royalism, others shielded by the popularity of their allies,--they waged fierce war against the common enemy.

In presence of such an Opposition, M. de Villele fell into a more formidable danger than that of the sharp contests he had to encounter to hold ground against it: he was given over without protection or refuge to the influence and views of his own friends. He could no longer awe them by the power of the left-hand party, nor find occasionally in the unsettled position of the Chamber a bulwark against their demands. There had ceased to be a formidable balance of oppositionists or waverers; the majority, and a great majority, was ministerial and determined to support the Cabinet; but it had no real apprehension of the adversaries by whom it was attacked. It preferred M. de Villele to M. de la Bourdonnaye and M. de Chateaubriand, believing him more capable of managing with advantage the interests of the party; but if M. de Villele went counter to the wishes of that majority, if it ceased to hold a perfect understanding with him, it could then fall back on MM. de Chateaubriand and de la Bourdonnaye. M. de Villele had no resource against the majority; he was a minister at the mercy of his partisans.

Amongst these were some of opposite pretensions, and who lent him their support on very unequal conditions. If he had only had to deal with those I shall designate as the politicals and laymen of the party, he might have been able to satisfy and govern in concert with them. Notwithstanding their prejudices, the greater part of the country-gentlemen and royalist citizens were neither over-zealous nor exacting; they had fallen in with the manners of new France, and had either found or recovered their natural position in present society, reconciling themselves to constitutional government, since they were no longer considered as the vanquished side. The indemnity to the emigrants, some pledges of local influence, and the distribution of public functions, would have long sufficed to secure their support to M. de Villele; but another portion of his army, numerous, important, and necessary, the religious department, was much more difficult to satisfy and control.

I am not disposed to revive any of the particular expressions which were then used as weapons of war, and have now become almost insulting. I shall neither speak of the _priestly_, nor of the _congregational party_, nor even of the _Jesuits_. I should reproach myself for reviving by such language and reminiscences the evil, heavy in itself, which France and the Restoration were condemned at that time, the one to fear, and the other to endure.

This evil, which glimmered through the first Restoration, through the session of 1815, and still exists, in spite of so many storms and such increasing intelligence, is, in fact a war declared by a considerable portion of the Catholic Church of France, against existing French society, its principles, its organization, political and civil, its origin and its tendencies. It was during the ministry of M. de Villele, and above all when he found himself alone and confronted with his party, that the mischief displayed its full force.

Never was a similar war more irrational or inopportune. It checked the reaction, which had commenced under the Consulate, in favour of creeds and the sentiment of religion. I have no desire to exaggerate the value of that reaction; I hold faith and true piety in too much respect to confound them with the superficial vicissitudes of human thought and opinion. Nevertheless the movement which led France back towards Christianity was more sincere and serious than it actually appeared to be. It was at once a public necessity and an intellectual taste. Society, worn out with commotion and change, sought for fixed points on which it could rely and repose; men, disgusted with a terrestrial and material atmosphere, aspired to ascend once more towards higher and purer horizons; the inclinations of morality concurred with the instincts of social interest. Left to its natural course, and supported by the purely religious influence of a clergy entirely devoted to the re-establishment of faith and Christian life, this movement was likely to extend and to restore to religion its legitimate empire.

But instead of confining itself to this sphere of action, many members and blind partisans of the Catholic clergy descended to worldly questions, and showed themselves more zealous to recast French society in its old mould, and so to restore their church to its former place there, than to reform and purify the moral condition of souls. Here was a profound mistake. The Christian Church is not like the pagan Antaeus, who renews his strength by touching the earth; it is on the contrary, by detaching itself from the world, and re-ascending towards heaven, that the Church in its hours of peril regains its vigour. When we saw it depart from its appropriate and sublime mission, to demand penal laws and to preside over the distribution of offices; when we beheld its desires and efforts prominently directed against the principles and institutions which constitute today the essence of French society; when liberty of conscience, publicity, the legal separation of civil and religious life, the laical character of the State, appeared to be attacked and compromised,--on that instant the rising tide of religious reaction stopped, and yielded way to a contrary current. In place of the movement which thinned the ranks of the unbelievers to the advantage of the faithful, we saw the two parties unite together; the eighteenth century appeared once more in arms; Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and their worst disciples once more spread themselves abroad and recruited innumerable battalions. War was declared against society in the name of the Church, and society returned war for war:--a deplorable chaos, in which good and evil, truth and falsehood, justice and injustice, were confounded together, and blows hurled at random on every side.

I know not whether M. de Villele thoroughly estimated, in his own thoughts, the full importance of this situation of affairs, and the dangers to which he exposed religion and the Restoration. His was not a mind either accustomed or disposed to ponder long over general facts and moral questions, or to sound them deeply. But he thoroughly comprehended, and felt acutely, the embarrassment which might accrue from these causes to his own power; and he tried to diminish them by yielding to clerical influence in the government, imposing though limited sacrifices, flattering himself that by these means he should acquire allies in the Church itself, who would aid him to restrain the overweening and imprudent pretensions of their own friends. Already, and shortly after his accession to the ministry, he had appointed an ecclesiastic in good estimation, and whom the Pope had named Bishop of Hermopolis, the Abbe Frayssinous, to the head-mastership of the University. Two months after the fall of M. de Chateaubriand, the Abbe Frayssinous entered the Cabinet as Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs and Public Instruction--a new department created expressly for him. He was a man of sense and moderation, who had acquired, by Christian preaching without violence, and conduct in which prudence was blended with dignity, a reputation and importance somewhat superior to his actual merits, and which he had no desire to compromise. In 1816 he had been a member of the Royal Commission of Public Education, over which M. Royer-Collard at that time presided; but soon retired from it, not wishing either to share the responsibility of his superior or to act in opposition to him. He generally approved of the policy of M. de Villele; but although binding himself to support it, and while lamenting the blind demands of a portion of the clergy, he endeavoured, when opportunity offered, to excuse and conceal rather than reject them altogether. Without betraying M. de Villele, he afforded him little aid, and committed him repeatedly by his language in public, which invariably tended more to maintain his own position in the Church than to serve the Cabinet.

Three months only had elapsed since M. de Villele, separated from his most brilliant colleagues and an important portion of his old friends, had sustained the entire weight of government, when the King Louis XVIII. died. The event had long been foreseen, and M. de Villele had skilfully prepared for it: he was as well established in the esteem and confidence of the new monarch as of the sovereign who had just passed from the Tuileries to St. Denis; Charles X., the Dauphin, and the Dauphiness, all three looked upon him as the ablest and most valuable of their devoted adherents. But M. de Villele soon discovered that he had changed masters, and that little dependence could be placed on the mind or heart of a king, even though sincere, when the surface and the interior were not in unison. Men belong, much more than is generally supposed, or than they believe themselves, to their real convictions. Many comparisons, for the sake of contrast, have been drawn between Louis XVIII. and Charles X.; the distinction between them was even greater than has been stated. Louis XVIII. was a moderate of the old system, and a liberal-minded inheritor of the eighteenth century; Charles X. was a true emigrant and a submissive bigot. The wisdom of Louis XVIII. was egotistic and sceptical, but serious and sincere; when Charles X. acted like a sensible king, it was through propriety, from timid and short-sighted complaisance, from being carried away, or from the desire of pleasing,--not from conviction or natural choice. Through all the different Cabinets of his reign, whether under the Abbe de Montesquiou, M. de Talleyrand, the Duke de Richelieu, M. Decazes, and M. de Villele, the government of Louis XVIII. was ever consistent with itself; without false calculation or premeditated deceit, Charles X. wavered from contradiction to contradiction, from inconsistency to inconsistency, until the day when, given up to his own will and belief, he committed the error which cost him his throne.

During three years, from the accession of Charles X. to his own fall, M. de Villele not only made no stand against the inconsiderate fickleness of the King, but even profited by it to strengthen himself against his various enemies. Too clear-sighted to hope that Charles X. would persevere in the voluntary course of premeditated and steady moderation which Louis XVIII. had followed, he undertook to make him at least pursue, when circumstances allowed, a line of policy sufficiently temperate and popular to save him from the appearance of being exclusively in the hands of the party to whom in fact his heart and faith were devoted. Skilful in varying his advice according to the necessities and chances of the moment, and aptly availing himself of the inclination of Charles X. for sudden measures, whether lenient or severe, M. de Villele at one time abolished, and at another revived, the censorship of the journals, occasionally softened or aggravated the execution of the laws, always endeavouring, and frequently with success, to place in the mouth or in the name of the King, liberal demonstrations and effusions, by the side of words and tendencies which recalled the old system and the pretensions of absolute power. The same spirit governed him in the Chambers. His bills were so conceived and presented, as we may say, to the address of the different parties, that all influential opinions were conciliated to a certain extent. The indemnity to the emigrants satisfied the wishes and restored the position of the entire lay party of the right. The recognition of the Republic of Hayti pleased the Liberals. Judicious reforms in the national budget and an administration friendly to sound regulations and actual services, obtained for M. de Villele the esteem of enlightened men and the general approbation of all public functionaries. The bill on the system of inheritance and the right of primogeniture afforded hope to those who were prepossessed with aristocratic regrets. The bill on sacrilege fostered the passions of the fanatics, and the views of their theorists. Parallel with the spirit of reaction which predominated in these legislative deliberations, as in the enactments of power, an intelligent effort was ever visible to contrive something to the advantage of the spirit of progress. While faithfully serving his friends, M. de Villele sought for and availed himself of every opportunity that offered of making some compensation to his adversaries.

It was not that the state of his mind was changed in principle, or that he had identified himself with the new and liberally-disposed society which he courted with so much solicitude. After all, M. de Villele continued ever to be a follower of the old system, true to his party from feeling as well as on calculation. But his ideas on the subject of social and political organization were derived from tradition and habit, rather than from personal and well-meditated conviction. He preserved, without making them his sole rule of conduct, and laid them aside occasionally, without renunciation. A strong practical instinct, and the necessity of success, were his leading characteristics; he had the peculiar tact of knowing what would succeed and what would not, and paused in face of obstacles, either judging them to be insurmountable, or to demand too much time for removal. I find, in a letter which he wrote on the 31st of October, 1824, to Prince Julius de Polignac, at that time ambassador in London, on the projected re-establishment of the law of primogeniture, the strong expression of his inward thought, and of his clear-sighted prudence in an important act. "You would be wrong to suppose," said he, "that it is because entailed titles and estates are perpetual, we do not create any. You give us too much credit; the present generation sets no value on considerations so far removed from their own time. The late King named Count K---- a peer, on the proviso of his investing an estate with the title; he gave up the peerage, rather than injure his daughter to the advantage of his son. Out of twenty affluent families, there is scarcely one inclined to place the eldest son so much above the rest. Egotism prevails everywhere. People prefer to live on good terms with all their children, and, when establishing them in the world, to show no preference. The bonds of subordination are so universally relaxed, that parents, I believe, are obliged to humour their own offspring. If the Government were to propose the re-establishment of the law of primogeniture, it would not have a majority on that question; the difficulty is more deeply seated; it lies in our habits, still entirely impressed with the consequences of the Revolution. I do not wish to say that nothing can be done to ameliorate this lamentable position; but I feel that, in a state of society so diseased, we require time and management, not to lose in a day the labour and fruit of many years. To know how to proceed, and never to swerve from that path, to make a step towards the desired end whenever it can be made, and never to incur the necessity of retreat,--this course appears to me to be one of the necessities of the time in which I have arrived at power, and one of the causes which have led me to the post I occupy."

M. de Villele spoke truly; it was his rational loyalty to the interests of his party, his patient perseverance in marching step by step to his object, his calm and correct distinction between the possible and impossible, which had made and kept him minister. But in the great transformations of human society, when the ideas and passions of nations have been powerfully stirred up, good sense, moderation, and cleverness will not long suffice to control them; and the day will soon return when, either to promote good or restrain evil, defined convictions and intentions, strongly and openly expressed, are indispensable to the heads of government. M. de Villele was not endowed with these qualities. His mind was accurate, rather than expanded; he had more ingenuity than vigour, and he yielded to his party when he could no longer direct it. "I am born for the end of revolutions," he exclaimed when arriving at power, and he judged himself well; but he estimated less correctly the general state of society: the Revolution was much further from its end than he believed; it was continually reviving round him, excited and strengthened by the alternately proclaimed and concealed attempts of the counter-principle. People had ceased to conspire; but they discussed, criticized, and contended with undiminished ardour in the legitimate field. There were no longer secret associations, but opinions which fermented and exploded on every side. And, in this public movement, impassioned resistance was chiefly directed against the preponderance and pretensions of the fanatically religious party. One of the most extraordinary infatuations of our days has been the blindness of this party to the fact that the conditions under which they acted, and the means they employed, were directly opposed to the end in view, and leading from rather than conducting to it. They desired to restrain liberty, to control reason, to impose faith; they talked, wrote, and argued; they sought and found arms in the system of inquiry and publicity which they denounced. Nothing could be more natural or legitimate on the part of believers who have full confidence in their creed, and consider it equal to the conversion of its adversaries. The latter are justified in recurring to the discussion and publicity which they expect to serve their cause. But those who consider publicity and free discussion as essentially mischievous, by appealing to these resources, foment themselves the movement they dread, and feed the fire they wish to extinguish. To prove themselves not only consistent, but wise and effective, they should obtain by other means the strength on which they rely: they should gain the mastery; and then, when they have silenced all opposition, let them speak alone, if they still feel the necessity of speaking. But until they have arrived at this point, let them not deceive themselves; by adopting the weapons of liberty, they serve liberty much more than they injure it, for they warn and place it on its guard. To secure victory to the system of order and government to which they aspire, there is but one road;--the Inquisition and Philip II. were alone acquainted with their trade.

As might naturally be expected, the resistance provoked by the attempts of the fanatical party soon transformed itself into an attack. One royalist gentleman raised the flag of opposition against the policy of M. de Villele; another assailed the religious controllers of his Cabinet, and not only dragged them before public opinion, but before the justice of the country, which disarmed and condemned them, without inflicting any other sentence than that of its disapprobation in the name of the law.

No one was less a philosopher of the eighteenth century, or a liberal of the nineteenth, than the Count de Montlosier. In the Constituent Assembly he had vehemently defended the Church and resisted the Revolution; he was sincerely a royalist, an aristocrat, and a Catholic. People called him, not without reason, the feudal publicist. But, neither the ancient nobility nor the modern citizens were disposed to submit to ecclesiastical dominion. M. de Montlosier repulsed it, equally in the name of old and new France, as he would formerly have denied its supremacy from the battlements of his castle, or in the court of Philip the Handsome. The early French spirit re-appeared in him, free, while respectful towards the Church, and as jealous of the laical independence of the State and crown, as it was possible for a member of the Imperial State Council to show himself.

At the same moment, a man of the people, born a poet and rendered still more poetical by art, celebrated, excited, and expanded, through his songs, popular instincts and passions in opposition to everything that recalled the old system, and above all against the pretensions and supremacy of the Church. M. Beranger, in his heart, was neither a revolutionist nor an unbeliever; he was morally more honest, and politically more rational, than his songs; but, a democrat by conviction as well as inclination, and carried away into license and want of forethought by the spirit of democracy, he attacked indiscriminately everything that was ungracious to the people, troubling himself little as to the range of his blows, looking upon the success of his songs as a victory achieved by liberty, and forgetting that religious faith and respect for things holy are nowhere more necessary than in the bosom of democratic and liberal associations. I believe he discovered this a little too late, when he found himself individually confronted by the passions which his ballads had fomented, and the dreams he had transformed to realities. He then hastened, with sound sense and dignity, to escape from the political arena, and almost from the world, unchanged in his sentiments, but somewhat regretful and uneasy for the consequences of the war in which he had taken such a prominent part. Under the Restoration, he was full of confidence and zeal, enjoying his popularity with modesty, and more seriously hostile and influential than any sonneteer had ever been before him.

Thus, after six years of government by the right-hand party, and three of the reign of Charles X., matters had arrived at this point--that two of the chief royalist leaders marched at the head of an opposition, one against the Cabinet, and the other against the Clergy, both becoming from day to day more vigorous and extended, and that the Restoration enumerated a ballad-maker in the first rank of its most dangerous enemies.

This entire mischief and danger was universally attributed to M. de Villele; on the right or on the left, in the saloons and the journals, amongst the Moderates and the extreme Radicals, he became more and more an object of attack and reproach. As the judicial bodies had acted in affairs which regarded religion, so the literary institutions, on questions which concerned their competence, eagerly seized the opportunity of manifesting their opposition. The University, compressed and mutilated, was in a state of utter discontent. The French Academy made it a duty of honour to protest, in an address which the King refused to receive, but which was nevertheless voted, against the new bill on the subject of the press, introduced to the Chamber in 1826, and withdrawn by the Cabinet three months afterwards. In his own Chamber of Peers, M. de Villele found neither general goodwill nor a certain majority. Even at the Palais Bourbon and the Tuileries, his two strongholds, he visibly lost ground; in the Chamber of Deputies, the ministerial majority declined, and became sad even in triumph; at the court, several of the King's most trusty adherents, the Dukes de Riviere, de Fitz-James, and de Maille, the Count de Glanderes, and many others,--some through party spirit, and some from monarchical uneasiness,--desired the fall of M. de Villele, and were already preparing his successors. Even the King himself, when any fresh manifestation of public feeling reached him, exclaimed pettishly, on entering his closet, "Always Villele! always against Villele!"

In truth, the injustice was shameful. If the right-hand party had held office for six years, and had used power so as to maintain it, if Charles X. had not only peaceably succeeded Louis XVIII., but had ruled without trouble, and even with some increase of popularity, it was to M. de Villele, above all others, that they were indebted for these advantages. He had accomplished two difficult achievements, which might have been called great had they been more durable: he had disciplined the old royalist party, and from a section of the court, and a class which had never been really active except in revolutionary contests, he had established during six years a steady ministerial support; he had restrained his party and his power within the general limits of the Charter, and had exercised constitutional government for six years under a prince and with friends who were generally considered to understand it little, and to adopt it with reluctance. If the King and the right-hand party felt themselves in danger, it was themselves, and not M. de Villele, whom they ought to have accused.

Nevertheless M. de Villele, on his part, had no right to complain of the injustice to which he was exposed. For six years he had been the head of the Government; by yielding to the King and his partisans when he disapproved their intentions, and by continuing their minister when he could no longer prevent what he condemned, he had admitted the responsibility of the faults committed under his name and with his sanction, although in spite of himself. He endured the penalty of his weakness in the exercise of power, and of his obstinacy in retaining it under whatever sacrifices it might cost him. We cannot govern under a free system, to enjoy the merit and reap the fruit of success, while we repudiate the errors which lead to reverse.

Justice to M. de Villele requires the acknowledgment that he never attempted to withdraw himself from the responsibility of his government, whether as regarded his own acts or his concessions to his friends. He was never seen to reproach the King or his party with the errors to which he became accessory. He knew how to preserve silence and endure the blame, even while he had the power of justification. In 1825, after the Spanish war, and during the financial debates to which it had given rise, M. de la Bourdonnaye accused him of having been the author of the contracts entered into in 1823, with M. Ouvrard, at Bayonne, for supplying the army, and which had been made the subject of violent attacks. M. de Villele might have closed his adversary's mouth; for on the 7th of April, 1823, he had written to the Duke d'Angouleme expressly to caution him against M. Ouvrard and his propositions. He took no advantage of this, but contented himself with explaining to the King in a Council, when the Dauphin was present, the situation in which he was placed.

The Dauphin at once authorized him to make use of his letter. "No, Monseigneur," replied M. de Villele; "let anything happen to me that Heaven pleases, it will be of little consequence to the country; but I should be guilty towards the King and to France, if, to exculpate myself from an accusation, however serious it may be, I should give utterance, beyond the walls of this cabinet, to a single word which could compromise the name of your Royal Highness."

When, notwithstanding his obstinate and confiding disposition, he saw himself seriously menaced, when the cries of "Down with the Ministers! Down with Villele!" uttered by several battalions of the National Guard, both before and after the review by the King in the Champ-de-Mars on the 29th of April, 1827, had led to their disbanding, and had equally excited the public and disturbed the King himself,--when M. de Villele felt distinctly that, both in the Chambers and at the Court, he was too much attacked and shaken to govern with efficiency, he resolutely adopted the course prescribed by the Charter and called for by his position; he demanded of the King the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies, and a new general election, which should either re-establish or finally overthrow the Cabinet.

Charles X. hesitated; he dreaded the elections, and, although not disposed to support his Minister with more firmness, the chance of his fall, and doubt in the selection of his successors, disturbed him, as much as it was possible for his unreflecting nature to be disturbed. M. de Villele persisted, the King yielded, and, in defiance of the electoral law which, in 1820, M. de Villele and the right-hand party had enacted, in spite of their six years of power, in spite of all the efforts of Government to influence the elections, they produced a result in conformity with the state of general feeling,--a majority composed of different elements, but decidedly hostile to the Cabinet. After having carefully examined this new ground, and after having received from various quarters propositions of accommodation and alliance, M. de Villele, having clearly estimated his chances of strength and durability, retired from office, and recommended the King to return towards the centre, and to call together a moderate Ministry, which he assisted him to construct. Charles X. received his new councillors as he quitted his old ones, with sadness and apprehension, not acting as he wished, and scarcely knowing whether what he did would tend to his advantage. More decided, not through superiority of mind, but by natural courage, the Dauphiness said to him, when she ascertained his resolution, "In abandoning M. de Villele, you have descended the first step of your throne."

The political party of which M. de Villele was the head, and which had its own peculiar destinies, with which those of royalty had never been closely allied, might indulge in more gloomy anticipations on their own account; they had employed and lost the only man, belonging to their own ranks, who was capable of showing them legitimately how to acquire and how to exercise power.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 17: On the 17th October, and the 22nd of November, 1822.]