Chapter X: Book X: 262 (1)

I collect my former adversaries around myself--My public charges--Extract from my polemics after my fall--Visit to Lausanne--Return to Paris--The Jesuits--Letter from M. de Montlosier and my reply--Continuation of my polemics--Letter from General Sébastiani--Death of General Foy--The Law of Justice and Love--Letter from M. Étienne--Letter from M. Benjamin Constant--I attain the highest pitch of my political importance--Article on the King's saint's-day--Withdrawal of the law on the police of the press--Paris illuminated--Note from M. Michaud--M. de Villèle's irritation--Charles X. proposes to review the National Guard on the Champ de Mars--I write to him: my letter--The review--The National Guard disbanded--The Elective Chamber is dissolved--The new Chamber--Refusals to co-operate--Fall of the Villèle Ministry--I contribute towards forming the new ministry and accept the Roman Embassy--Examination of a reproach.

Paris had seen its last festivals: the period of indulgence, reconciliation and favours was past; the sad truth alone remained before us.

When, in 1820, the censorship put an end to the _Conservateur_, I scarcely expected, four years later, to recommence the same polemics under another form and through the medium of another press. The men who fought by my side in the _Conservateur_, like myself, demanded the restoration of the liberty of the press and the pen; they were in opposition like myself, in disgrace like myself, and they called themselves my friends. On attaining power in 1820, through my labours even more than their own, they turned against the liberty of the press: the persecuted became persecutors; they ceased to be and to call themselves my friends; they maintained that the license of the press had begun only on the 6th of June 1824, the day of my dismissal from office; their memory was short: had they re-read the opinions which they pronounced, the articles which they wrote against another ministry and in favour of the liberty of the press, they would have been obliged to acknowledge that they, at least in 1818 or 1819, were the submanagers of license.

On the other hand, my former adversaries were drawing closer to me. I tried to connect the partisans of independence with the Legitimate Royalty, with more success than when I rallied the servants of the throne and the altar to the Charter. My public had changed. I was obliged to warn the Government of the dangers of absolutism, after having cautioned it against popular enthusiasm. Accustomed as I was to respect my readers, I did not give them a line which I had not written with all the care of which I was capable: many of those opuscules of a day have cost me more pains, in proportion, than the longest works that have come from my pen. My life was incredibly full. Honour and my country recalled me to the battle-field. I had reached an age at which men have need of rest; but, if I had judged my years by the ever-increasing hatred with which oppression and meanness inspired me, I might have believed myself restored to youth.

I collected a society of writers around me to give uniformity to my combats. Among them were peers, deputies, magistrates, young authors commencing their career. To my house came Messieurs de Montalivet[263], Salvandy[264], Duvergier de Hauranne[265], many others who were my pupils and who retail to-day, as new things under the Representative Monarchy, things which I taught them and which occur on every page of my writings. M. de Montalivet has become Minister of the Interior and a favourite of Philip's; men who care to follow the variations of a destiny will find this note rather curious:

"MONSIEUR LE VICOMTE,

"I have the honour to send you the statement of the mistakes
which I found in the table of judgments of the Royal Court
that has been communicated to you. I have verified them
again, and I think I may answer for the correctness of the
list enclosed.

"Pray, monsieur le vicomte, accept the homage of the profound
respect with which I have the honour to be,

"Your very devoted colleague and sincere admirer,

"MONTALIVET."

This did not prevent my "respectful colleague and sincere admirer," M. le Comte de Montalivet, in his day so great a partisan of the liberty of the press, from making me, as an abettor of that liberty, enter M. Gisquet's[266] prison.

An abstract of my new war of polemics, which lasted five years but ended by triumphing, will prove the strength of ideas against facts even when supported by the power. I was thrown on the 6th of June 1824; on the 21st, I had descended into the arena; I remained there till the 18th of December 1826[267]: I entered alone, stripped and bare, and I emerged victorious. I am making history here in making an extract from the arguments which I employed.

[Sidenote: My polemical warfare.]

"We have had the courage and the honour to wage a dangerous
war in presence of the liberty of the press, and it was
the first time that this noble spectacle was given to the
monarchy. We soon repented of our honesty. We had set the
newspapers at naught when they could injure only the success
of our soldiers and our captains; it became necessary to
reduce them to servitude when they dared to speak of the
clerks and ministers....

"If those who administer the State seem completely ignorant
of the genius of France in serious matters, they are no less
foreign to it in those graceful and ornamental matters which
are mingled with and beautify the life of civilized nations.

"The bounties which the Legitimate Government lavishes upon
the arts surpass the aids awarded to them by the Usurping
Government; but how are they dispensed? Vowed by nature and
taste to oblivion, the distributors of those bounties seem
to have an antipathy to renown; so invincible is their
obscurity that, when they approach lights, they make them
turn pale; one would say that they pour money on the arts to
extinguish them, as on our liberties to stifle them...[268]

"If even the narrow mechanism within which France is pinched
resembled those finished models which one examines through
the magnifying-glass in the collector's cabinet, the delicacy
of that curiosity might interest one for a moment; but not at
all: it is a small thing badly constructed.

"We have said that the system followed nowadays by the
administration offends against the genius of France: we
will try to prove that it also disregards the spirit of our
institutions.

"The Monarchy has been restored in France without effort,
because it has the strength of our whole history, because the
crown is worn by a family which has almost seen the nation
born, which has formed it, civilized it, which has given it
all its liberties, which has made it immortal; but time has
reduced that monarchy to its realities. The age of fictions
in politics is past: one can no longer have a government of
adoration, of cult and of mystery; each one knows his rights;
nothing is possible without the limits of reason; and,
down to favour, the last illusion of absolute monarchies,
everything is weighed, everything valued to-day.

"Let us make no mistake; a new era is commencing for the
nations; will it be a happier one? Providence knows. As for
us, it is given to us only to prepare ourselves for the
exigencies of the future. Let us not imagine that we can go
back: our only safety lies in the Charter.

"The Constitutional Monarchy was not born among us of a
written system, even though it has a printed Code; it is the
daughter of time and of events, like the Old Monarchy of our
fathers.

"Why should not liberty maintain herself in the edifice
raised by despotism and filled with its traces? Victory,
still so to speak decked with the three colours, has taken
refuge in the tent of the Duc d'Angoulême; the Legitimacy
inhabits the Louvre, even though the eagles be still seen
there.

"In a constitutional monarchy, the public liberties are
respected; they are considered as the safeguard of the
Sovereign, the people and the laws.

"We understand representative government otherwise. A company
is being formed (they say even two rival companies, for
competition is needful) to corrupt the newspapers with
bribes of money. They are not afraid to maintain scandalous
prosecutions against proprietors who have refused to sell
themselves; they would like to force them to be stigmatized
by the sentence of the tribunals. This trade being repugnant
to men of honour, they enlist, to support a Royalist
ministry, libellers who have persecuted the Royal Family
with their calumnies. They recruit all who served in the
former police and in the imperial ante-chamber, even as our
neighbours, when they wish to procure sailors, send the
press-gang into the taverns and disorderly houses. Those
convict-crews of free writers are embarked on five or six
bought newspapers, and what they say is called 'public
opinion' at the Ministers[269]'."

There, very greatly abridged, and still perhaps at too great length, is a specimen of my polemical warfare in my pamphlets and in the _Journal des Débats_: in it will be found all the principles that are being proclaimed to-day.

[Sidenote: I refuse my pension.]

When I was turned out of the ministry, my pension as a minister of State was not restored to me; I did not claim it; but M. de Villèle, upon an observation of the King's, thought of sending me a new warrant for that pension through M. de Peyronnet[270]. I refused it. Either I was entitled to my former pension, or else I was not entitled to it: in the first case I had no need for a new warrant; in the second, I did not wish to become the pensioner of the President of the Council.

The Hellenes threw off the yoke: a Greek Committee was formed in Paris, of which I was a member. The committee came together at M. Ternaux'[271] on the Place des Victoires. The members used to arrive one after the other at the meeting-place. M. le Général Sébastiani declared, when he had sat down, that it was a "big affair;" he made it a long one: this displeased our practical chairman, M. Ternaux, who would certainly have made a shawl for Aspasia, but who would not have wasted his time with her. The committee suffered from the dispatches of M. Fabvier; he scolded us roundly; he held us responsible for whatever did not go according to his views, us, who had not won the Battle of Marathon. I devoted myself to the liberty of Greece: it seemed to me that I was fulfilling a duty towards a mother. I wrote a _Note_; I addressed myself to the successors of the Tsar of Russia, as I had addressed myself to him at Verona. The _Note_ was printed and subsequently reprinted at the head of the _Itinéraire._

I laboured to the same purpose in the House of Peers, to set a political body going. The following note from M. Molé shows the obstacles which I encountered and the circuitous methods which I was obliged to employ:

"You will find us all at the opening to-morrow, ready to fly
in your footsteps: I shall write to Lainé if I do not see
him. He must be allowed only to expect a few sentences about
the Greeks; but take care that you are not kept strictly
within the limits of all amendments, and that, relying on
the rules, they do not refuse to hear you. Perhaps they will
tell you to lay your motion on the table: you might then do
so subsidiarily and after having said all that you have to
say. Pasquier has been rather unwell, and I fear that he will
not be on his legs by to-morrow. As for the ballot, we shall
have it. What is worth more than all this is the arrangement
which you have made with your publishers. It is a fine thing
to recover by one's talent all that which the injustice and
ingratitude of men have taken from us.

"Yours while life lasts,

"MOLÉ."

Greece has become free from the yoke of Islamism; but, instead of a federal republic, as I wished, a Bavarian monarchy[272] has been set up at Athens. Now, as kings have no memory, I, who had in some small way served the cause of the Greeks, have not heard speak of them since, except in Homer. Greece delivered has not said, "Thank you" to me. She is as ignorant of my name and more so than on the day when I wept on her ruins when crossing her deserts.

Hellas, not yet royal, had been more grateful. Among a few children whom the committee brought up was young Canaris: his father[273], a worthy descendant of the sailors of Mycale[274], wrote him a note which the child translated into French on the blank space at foot. Here is the translation:

"MY DEAR CHILD,

"None of the Greeks has had the same good fortune as
yourself: that of being selected by the benevolent society
which interests itself in us to learn the duties of man. I
gave you birth; but these commendable persons will give you
an education which really makes a man. Be very docile to
these new fathers, if you wish to give comfort to him who
gave you the light. Farewell.

"Your father,

"C. CANARIS."

"NAUPLIA, 5 _September_ 1825.

[Sidenote: The Greek Committee.]

I have kept the dual text as the reward of the Greek Committee.

Republican Greece had testified her particular regret when I left the ministry. Madame Récamier wrote to me from Naples, on the 29th of October 1824:

"I have received a letter from Greece which has made a long
round before reaching me. In it I find some lines on yourself
which I want you to see; here they are:

"'The decree of the 6th of June has come to our ears; it
has produced the liveliest sensation on our leaders. Their
best-founded hopes lying in the generosity of France, they
are anxiously asking themselves what the removal may forebode
of a man whose character promised them a support.'

"If I am not mistaken, this testimony ought to please you. I
enclose the letter: the first page concerned only myself."

Soon you will read the life of Madame Récamier: you will know how sweet it was to me to receive a remembrance of the land of the Muses through a woman who would have adorned it.

As for the note from M. Molé, given above, it alludes to the bargain which I had made relating to the publication of my Complete Works. This arrangement ought, in fact, to have ensured the peace of my life; it nevertheless turned badly for me, although it was profitable to the publishers to whom M. Ladvocat, after his bankruptcy, left my Works[275]. In point of Plutus or Pluto (the mythologists confound the two), I am like Alcestes: I always see the fatal bark; like William Pitt, and that is my excuse, I am a spendthrift, a _panier percé_: but I do not myself make the hole in the basket.

At the conclusion of the General Preface to my Works, 1826, vol. I., I address France in these words:

"O France, 'my dear country and my first love,' one of thy
sons, at the end of his career, is collecting beneath thy
eyes the claims which he may have to thy good-will. If he can
do no more for thee, thou canst do all for him, by declaring
that his attachment for thy religion, for thy King, for thy
liberties has been pleasing to thee. Fair and illustrious
mother-land, I would have desired a little glory only to
augment thine own."

Madame de Chateaubriand, being ill, made a journey in the South of France, derived no benefit from it, and returned to Lyons, where Dr. Prunelle[276] condemned her. I went to join her; I took her to Lausanne, where she proved M. Prunelle in the wrong. At Lausanne I stayed in turn with M. de Sivry and with Madame de Cottens, a warm-hearted, witty and unhappy woman. I saw Madame de Montolieu[277]: she was living in retirement on a high hill; she died in the illusions of romance, like Madame de Genlis, her contemporary. Gibbon[278] had composed his History of the Roman Empire:

"It was ... as I sat musing among the ruins of the Capitol,"
he writes at Lausanne, on the 27th of June 1787, "while the
barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of
Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the
city first started to my mind."

[Sidenote: Death of Madame de Custine.]

Madame de Staël had appeared at Lausanne with Madame Récamier. The whole Emigration, a whole finished world had stopped for some short moments in that sad and smiling town, a sort of false city of Granada. Madame de Duras has recalled its memory in her Memoirs, and the following note reached me there to tell me of the new loss which I was condemned to suffer:

"BEX, 13 _July_ 1826.

"It is all over, monsieur, your friend[279] exists no more;
she gave up her soul to God, without pain, at a quarter to
eleven this morning. She was out driving as late as yesterday
evening. Nothing announced her end to be so near; what am I
saying? we did not think that her illness was to end in this
way. M. de Custine[280], whose sorrow does not permit him to
write to you himself, had been on one of the mountains around
Bex only yesterday morning, to order mountain-milk to be sent
down every morning for the dear sufferer.

"I am too much overcome with grief to be able to enter into
longer details. We are getting ready to return to France with
the precious remains of the best of mothers and friends.
Enguerrand[281] will lie at rest between his two mothers.

"We shall pass through Lausanne, where M. de Custine will
come to see you so soon as we arrive.

"Receive, monsieur, the assurance of the respectful
attachment with which I am, etc.,

"BERSTŒCHER[282]."

See above and below what I have had the happiness and the unhappiness to recall touching the memory of Madame de Custine.

Madame de Charrière's work, the _Lettres écrites de Lausanne_, well describes the scene which I had daily before my eyes, and the feelings of grandeur which it inspires:

"I am sitting alone," says the mother of Cécile, "opposite to
a window which looks upon the lake. I am grateful to you, ye
mountains, snow, and sun, for the pleasure which you afford
me. Above all, I am grateful to Thee, Thou Author of all the
things which I contemplate, for having created objects so
lovely to the sight.... O ye amiable and affecting beauties
of nature! My eyes are daily employed in contemplating you,
and ye fill my heart with perpetual rapture[283]."

At Lausanne I commenced the _Remarques_ on the first work of my life, the _Essai sur les révolutions anciennes et modernes._ From my windows I saw the rocks of Meillerie:

"Rousseau," I wrote in one of those _Remarques_, "is
decidedly not above the authors of his time, except in some
sixty letters of the _Nouvelle Héloïse_ and in a few pages of
his _Rêveries_ and of his _Confessions._ There, placed in the
real nature of his talent, he attains an eloquence of passion
unknown before him. Voltaire and Montesquieu found models
of style in the writers of the age of Louis XIV.; Rousseau,
and even Buffon to some extent, in another manner, created a
language which was unknown to the Grand Century[284]."

On my return to Paris, my life was occupied between my installation in the Rue d'Enfer, my renewed combats, in the House of Peers and in my pamphlets, against the different Bills opposed to the public liberties, my speeches and writings in favour of the Greeks, and my labours in connection with the complete edition of my Works. The Emperor of Russia died[285], and with him died the only royal friendship remaining to me. The Duc de Montmorency had become governor to the Duc de Bordeaux. He did not long enjoy that weighty honour: he expired on Good Friday 1826[286], in the Church of Saint-Thomas d'Aquin; at the hour when Jesus expired on the Cross, he went with Christ's last sigh to God.

The attack against the Jesuits had begun; one heard the trite and threadbare accusations against that famous Order, in which, it must be admitted, reigns something disquieting, for a mysterious cloud always covers the affairs of the Jesuits.

[Sidenote: Letter from M. de Montlosier.]

With regard to the Jesuits, I received the following letter from M. de Montlosier, and I sent him the reply which will be read after the letter:

Forsake not an old friend, for the new will not be like to
him.--ECCLES[287].

"My dear friend, these words are not only of a high
antiquity, they are not only of a high wisdom; for the
Christian they are sacred. In addressing you, I invoke all
the authority that they possess. Never among old friends,
never among good citizens, has the need for drawing together
been greater. To dose up the ranks, to close up all the bonds
between us, to excite with emulation all our wishes, all
our efforts, all our sentiments is a duty commanded by the
eminently deplorable state of king and country. In addressing
these words to you, I know that they will be received by a
heart which has been rent by ingratitude and injustice; and
yet I still address them to you with confidence, certain as
I am that they will make their way through all the clouds.
In this delicate point, I do not know, my dear friend, if
you will be pleased with me; but, in the midst of your
tribulations, if perchance I have heard you accused, I have
not made it my business to defend you: I have not even
listened. I have said to myself, 'And if it were so?' I do
not know that Alcibiades did not display a little too much
humour when he put out of his own house the rhetorician who
could not show him the works of Homer. I do not know that
Hannibal did not display a little too much violence when
he threw from his seat the senator who was talking against
his opinion. If I were allowed to tell my way of thinking
of Achilles, perhaps I should not approve of his leaving
the army of the Greeks for some chit of a girl who had been
carried off from him. After that, it is enough to pronounce
the names of Alcibiades, Hannibal and Achilles to put an end
to all contention. It is the same to-day with the _iracundus,
inexorabilis_ Chateaubriand. When one has pronounced his
name, all is said and done. With that name, when I say to
myself, 'He is complaining,' I feel my affection moved; when
I say to myself, 'France is indebted to him,' I feel myself
penetrated with respect. Yes, my friend, France is indebted
to you. She must be indebted to you still further; she has
recovered from you her love for the religion of her fathers:
this benefit must be preserved to her; and for that, she must
be preserved from the mistakes of her priests, those priests
themselves preserved from the fatal declivity on which they
have placed themselves.

"My dear friend, you and I, for long years, have not ceased
fighting. It remains to us to preserve the King and the State
from ecclesiastical, self-styled religious preponderance.
In the old situations, the evil with its roots lay within
ourselves: we could circumvent and master them. To-day the
branches which cover us within have their roots without.
Doctrines covered with the blood of Louis XVI. and Charles I.
have consented to leave their place to doctrines stained with
the blood of Henry IV. and Henry III. Neither you nor I will
surely suffer this state of things; it is to unite with you,
it is to receive your approval for my encouragement, it is to
offer you as a soldier my heart and my arms, that I write to
you.

"It is with these sentiments of admiration for yourself and
of a true devotion, that I implore you with affection and
also with respect.

"COMTE DE MONTLOSIER.

"RANDANNE, 28 _November_ 1825."

[Sidenote: My reply to M. de Montlosier.]

"PARIS, 3 _December_ 1825.

"Your letter, my dear old friend, is very serious, and yet it
has made me laugh where I am concerned. Alcibiades, Hannibal,
Achilles! You do not say all that to me seriously. As to the
chit of a girl of the son of Peleus, if it is my portfolio
that is in question, I protest to you that I did not love the
faithless one for three days, and that I did not regret her
for a quarter of an hour. My resentment is another matter.
M. de Villèle, to whom I was sincerely, heartily attached,
has not only been lacking towards the duties of friendship,
towards the public marks of affection which I gave him,
towards the sacrifices which I had made for him, but even in
the simplest matters of conduct.

"The King had no further need of my services: nothing more
natural than to remove me from his counsels; but manner is
everything to an honest man and, as I had not stolen the
King's watch from his mantel-piece, I ought not to have been
_turned out_ as I was. I had made the Spanish War alone and
kept Europe in peace during that dangerous period; by that
single fact I had given an army to the Legitimacy and, of
all the ministers of the Restoration, I was the only one
thrust out of my office without any mark of remembrance
from the Crown, as though I had betrayed the Sovereign and
the country. M. de Villèle thought that I would accept that
treatment, and he has made a mistake. I have been a sincere
friend, I shall remain an irreconcilable enemy. I was
unluckily born; the injuries people do me never heal.

"But this is too much about myself: let us speak of
something more important. I fear lest I should not come to
an understanding with you on serious objects, and that would
distress me greatly! I want the Charter, the whole Charter,
the public liberties to their full extent. Do you want them?

"I want religion, like yourself; like you, I hate the
Congregation and those societies of hypocrites who transform
my servants into spies and who seek nothing at the altar but
power. But I think that the clergy, rid of those parasites,
may very well enter into a constitutional system and even
become the stay of our new institutions. Do you not wish
too much to separate it from the political order? Here I am
giving you a proof of my extreme impartiality. The clergy,
which, I venture to say, owes me so much, does not love me
at all, has never defended me nor rendered me any service.
But what matter? It is a question of being just and of seeing
what is good for religion and the monarchy.

"I did not, old friend, doubt your courage; you will, I am
convinced, do all that will appear to you to be useful, and
your talent answers for your triumph. I shall expect to hear
from you again, and I embrace my faithful companion in exile
with all my heart.

"CHATEAUBRIAND."

I resumed my controversies. Every day I had skirmishes and van-guard actions with the soldiers of the ministerial hangers-on; they did not always fight with clean weapons. In the two first centuries of Rome, they punished the horse-soldiers who rode badly to the charge, whether because they were too stout or not brave enough, by condemning them to undergo a bleeding: I made the chastisement my affair.

"The universe is changing around us," I said: "new peoples
are appearing upon the world's scene, ancient peoples are
rising again in the midst of ruins; astonishing discoveries
proclaim an approaching revolution in the arts of peace
and war: religion, politics, manners, all is assuming a
different character. Do we take notice of that movement? Are
we marching with society? Are we following the course of the
time? Are we preparing to keep our place in a transmuted or
growing civilization? No: the men who rule us are as foreign
to the state of things in Europe as though they belonged to
the people lately discovered in the interior of Africa. What
do they know then? The stock-exchange: and even that they
know badly. Are we condemned to bear the burden of obscurity
to punish us for having undergone the yoke of glory[288]?"

The transaction relating to San Domingo furnished me with the occasion to develop some points of our public right, of which no one was thinking.

Coming to high considerations and announcing the transformation of the world, I replied to opponents who had said to me, "What! we might be Republicans some day? Senseless chatter! Who dreams of a republic nowadays?" etc. etc.:

"Attached by reason to the monarchical order of things,"
I rejoined, "I regard constitutional monarchy as the best
possible government at this epoch of society.

"But, if they want to reduce everything to personal
interests, if they suppose that, for myself, I think I might
have everything to fear in a Republican State, they are
mistaken.

"Would it treat me worse than the Monarchy has treated me?
Twice or three times have I been stripped bare for or by the
Monarchy: did the Empire, which would have done everything
for me had I been willing, disown me more rudely? I abhor
servitude; liberty pleases my natural independence; I prefer
that liberty in the monarchical order, but I can conceive it
in the popular order of things. Who has less to fear from the
future than I? I have that which no revolution can take from
me: without place, honours, or fortune, any government which
would not be stupid enough to disdain public opinion would
be obliged to reckon me for something. Popular governments,
above all, are composed of individual existences and make for
themselves a general value out of the particular value of
every citizen. I shall always be certain of the esteem of the
public, because I shall never do anything to lose it, and I
should perhaps find more justice among my enemies than among
my pretended friends.

"Therefore, on computation, I should have no fear of
republics, as I should have no antipathy to liberty; I am not
a king; I await no crown; it is not my own cause that I plead.

"I have said under another ministry, and speaking of that
ministry, that one morning we should go to the window to see
the Monarchy pass.

"I say to the actual ministers:

"'If you continue to do as you are doing, the whole
revolution might, within a given time, reduce itself to
_a new edition of the Charter in which they would content
themselves with changing only two or three words._[289]"

I have underlined these last phrases to attract the reader's eyes to that striking prediction. Even to-day, when opinions are in full flight, when every man utters at random all that passes through his brain, those Republican ideas expressed by a Royalist during the Restoration still sound daring. In point of the future, the pretended progressive minds have no initiative in anything.

My last articles stirred up even M. de La Fayette, who, by way of compliment, had a bay-leaf handed to me. The effect of my opinions, to the great surprise of those who had not believed in them, made itself felt from the book-sellers, who came to me in a deputation, to the parliament-men at first least allied to me in politics. The letter given below in proof of what I am putting forward will cause a certain surprise because of its signature. Attention should be given only to the significance of the letter, to the change which had occurred in the ideas and position of the writer and the recipient: as to its composition, I am "Bossuet" and "Montesquieu," that goes without saying; that is the daily bread of us authors, just as ministers are always Sully and Colbert.

[Sidenote: Letter from General Sébastiani.]

"MONSIEUR LE VICOMTE,

"Permit me to participate in the universal admiration: I have
too long entertained this sentiment to resist the need of
expressing it to you.

"You unite the loftiness of Bossuet with the profundity of
Montesquieu: you have revived their pen and their genius.
Your articles are a great education to any statesman.

"In the new method of warfare which you have created, you
recall the mighty hand of him who, in other fights, also
filled the world with his glory. May your successes prove
more enduring: they interest the country and humanity.

"All who, like myself, profess the principles of
constitutional monarchy, are proud to find in you their
noblest interpreter.

"Accept, monsieur le vicomte, a renewed assurance of my high
regard.

"HORACE SÉBASTIANI.

"SUNDAY, 30 _October._"

Thus fell at my feet friends, enemies, adversaries, in the moment of victory. All the pusillanimous and ambitious spirits who had believed me lost began to see me come forth beaming from the whirlwinds of dust in the lists: it was my second Spanish War; I was triumphing over all parties at home as I had triumphed over France's enemies abroad. I had had to discharge my duty in person, in the same way as, with my dispatches, I had paralyzed and rendered useless the dispatches of M. de Metternich and Mr. Canning.

General Foy[290] and the deputy Manuel[291] died and deprived the Opposition of the Left of its best speakers. M. de Serre[292] and Camille Jordan[293] also sank into the tomb. Even in my arm-chair at the Academy, I was obliged to defend the liberty of the press against the tearful supplications of M. de Lally-Tolendal[294]. The law on the police of the press, which was called the "Law of Justice and Love[295]," owed its fall chiefly to my attacks. My _Opinion_ on this bill is a work of historical curiosity; I received compliments on it; among them occur two names which it is strange to recall:

"MONSIEUR LE VICOMTE,

"I appreciate the thanks which you are kind enough to address
to me. You call obligingness what I regarded as a debt which
I was glad to pay to the eloquent writer. All true friends
of letters participate in your triumph and are bound to
regard themselves as jointly and severally interested in your
success. At all times and places, I shall contribute to it
with all my might, if it be possible that you have need of
efforts so feeble as mine.

"In our enlightened century, genius is the only power that
remains above the blows of disgrace; it falls to you,
monsieur, to furnish a living proof of this to those who
rejoice at it as well as to those who have the misfortune to
deplore it.

"I have the honour to be, with the most distinguished regard,
your, etc. etc.,

"ÉTIENNE.

"PARIS, 5 _April_ 1826."

[Sidenote: Letter from Benjamin Constant.]

"I have delayed very long, monsieur, in thanking you for
your admirable speech. An inflammation of the eyes, my work
for the Chamber and, still more, the terrible scenes in that
Chamber shall serve as my excuse. You know, besides, how my
mind and soul participate in all that you say and sympathize
with all the good that you are trying to do to our unhappy
country. I am glad to add my feeble efforts to your powerful
influence; and the frenzy of a ministry which plagues France
and would like to degrade it, while disquieting me as to
its approaching results, gives me the consoling assurance
that such a state of things cannot last long. You will
have powerfully contributed to put an end to it; and, if I
deserve some day that my name be placed far after yours in
the struggle which we must maintain against so much folly and
crime, I shall consider myself amply rewarded.

"Accept, monsieur, the homage of a sincere admiration, of a
profound esteem and of the highest regard.

"BENJAMIN CONSTANT.

"PARIS, 21 _May_ 1827."

It was at the time of which I am speaking that I attained the highest pitch of my political importance. Through the Spanish War, I had swayed Europe; but a violent opposition was fighting against me in France. After my fall, I became, at home, the acknowledged ruler of public opinion. Those who had accused me of committing an irreparable fault in resuming my pen were obliged to recognise that I had formed for myself an empire mightier than the first. Young France had come over in its entirety to my side and has not left me since. In several of the industrial classes, the workmen were at my orders, and I could no longer take a step in the streets without being surrounded. Whence came this popularity? From the fact that I knew the real spirit of France. I had set out for the combat with one newspaper, and I had become the master of all the rest. My daring came to me from my indifference: as it would have been all one to me had I failed, I advanced towards success without troubling lest I fell on the way. All that remains to me is this satisfaction with myself; for what matters to anybody, to-day, a past popularity which has rightly been effaced from the memory of all?

The King's saint's-day[296] having arrived, I took occasion of it to blaze forth a loyalty which my Liberal opinions have never impaired. I published this article:

"Another royal truce!

"Peace to-day to the ministers!

"Glory, honour, long happiness and long life to Charles X.!
It is St. Charles's Day!

"It is we above all, the old companions in exile of our
Monarch, who should be asked to tell the history of Charles X.

"You others, Frenchmen who have not been forced to leave your
country, you who received one Frenchman the more only to
escape imperial despotism and the foreign yoke, inhabitants
of the great and good town who have seen only the happy
Prince: when you crowded round him, on the 12th of April
1814; when, weeping with emotion, you touched consecrated
hands; when, on a brow ennobled by age and misfortune, you
found again all the graces of youth, as one sees beauty
through a veil, you perceived only virtue triumphant, and you
led the son of kings to the royal couch of his fathers.

"But we, we have seen him sleep on the bare ground, like
ourselves homeless, like ourselves outlawed and despoiled.
Well, the goodness which charms you was the same; he wore
misfortune as he wears the crown to-day, without finding the
burden too heavy, with that Christian mildness which tempered
the vividness of his misfortune as it softens the vividness
of his prosperity.

"To the bounties of Charles X. must be added all the bounties
with which his ancestors loaded us; the feast of a Most
Christian King is for the French a feast of gratitude:
let us therefore give way to the transports of grateful
acknowledgment with which it should inspire us. Let us allow
nothing to enter our souls that can for a moment render our
joy less pure! Woe to the men...! We were about to violate
the truce! God save the King[297]!"

[Sidenote: Article in praise of Charles X.]

My eyes have filled with tears while copying this page of my controversy, and I have not the courage to continue making extracts from it. O my King, you whom I had seen on foreign soil, I have seen you again on that same soil where you were about to die! When I was fighting for you so eagerly, to snatch you from hands which were beginning to undo you, judge, by the words which I have just transcribed, if I was your enemy or, rather, the fondest and sincerest of your servants! Alas, I speak to you, and you no longer hear me!

The Bill relating to the police of the press having been withdrawn, Paris was illuminated at night. I was struck by the public manifestation, an evil prognostication for the Monarchy: the opposition had passed into the people, and the people, by its character, transforms the opposition into a revolution.

The hatred of M. de Villèle went on increasing; the Royalists, as at the time of the _Conservateur_, had become Constitutionalists again, at the back of me. M. Michaud[298] wrote to me:

"MY HONORABLE MASTER,

"I had the announcement of your work on the censorship
printed yesterday, but the paragraph, consisting of
two lines, was struck out by messieurs the censors. M.
Capefigue[299] will explain to you why we have not left
blanks or dots.

"If God does not come to our aid, all is lost; the Royalty
is like unhappy Jerusalem in the hands of the Turks: its
children can hardly approach it; to what a cause have we then
sacrificed ourselves!

"MICHAUD."

The Opposition had at last communicated irascibility to the cold temperament of M. de Villèle and rendered despotic the malevolent spirit of M. de Corbière. The latter had removed the Duc de Liancourt[300] from seventeen unpaid offices. The Duc de Liancourt was not a saint, but he was a benevolent man, upon whom philanthropy had bestowed the title of venerable; by the softening influence of Time, old Revolutionaries no longer move except with an epithet, like the gods in Homer: it is always the respectable M. This, it is always the inflexible Citizen That, who, like Achilles, has never eaten broth (ἃ-χὺλος). On the occasion of the scandal that happened at M. de Liancourt's funeral, M. de Sémonville[301] said to us, in the Chamber of Peers:

"Be easy, my lords, such a thing shall never happen again; I will myself conduct you to your last resting-place."

The King, in the month of April 1827, proposed to review the National Guard on the Champ de Mars[302]. Two days before this fatal review, prompted by my zeal, and asking no better than to lay down my arms, I addressed a letter to Charles X., which was handed to him by M. de Blacas, who acknowledged its receipt by this note:

"I did not lose a single moment, monsieur le vicomte, in
handing the King the letter which you did me the honour to
send me for His Majesty and, if he deigns to entrust me with
a reply, I shall show no less alacrity in forwarding it to
you.

"Receive, monsieur le vicomte, my most sincere compliments.

"BLACAS D'AULPS.

"27 _April_, 1 P.M."

[Sidenote: My letter to the King.]

TO THE KING

"SIRE,

"Permit a loyal subject, whom moments of agitation will
always find at the foot of the throne, to confide to Your
Majesty a few reflections which he thinks useful both to the
glory of the Crown and the happiness and safety of the King.

"Sire, it is but too true, there is danger within the State,
but it is also certain that this danger is nothing if the
very principles of government be not thwarted.

"A great secret has been revealed to me, Sire: your ministers
have had the misfortune to teach France that the people,
which was said no longer to _exist_, is still quite alive.
Paris, during twice twenty-four hours, has evaded authority.
The same scenes are being repeated throughout France: the
factions will not forget this attempt.

"But popular assemblages, so dangerous under absolute
monarchies, because they take place in presence of the
Sovereign himself, mean little under the representative
monarchy, because they come into contact only with ministers
or laws. Between the monarch and the subjects is fixed a
barrier that stops everything: the two Chambers and the
public institutions. Outside these movements, the King always
finds his authority and his sacred Person sheltered.

"But, Sire, there is one condition indispensable to the
general safety, and that is to act in the spirit of the
institutions: a resistance on the part of your Council to
that spirit would make popular movements as dangerous under
the representatative monarchy as they are under the absolute
monarchy.

"I pass from theory to application:

"Your Majesty is about to appear at the review: you will be
received as you should; but it is possible that, amid the
cries of 'God Save the King!' you will hear other cries which
will express the public opinion of the ministers.

"Furthermore, Sire, it is false to say, as they do, that
there is a Republican faction at present; but it is true
that there are some partisans of an illegitimate monarchy:
now the latter are too clever not to avail themselves of the
opportunity and mingle their voices, on the 29th, with that
of France to impose upon the public.

"What will the King do? Will he yield his ministers to the
popular clamour? That would be to kill the power. Will the
King keep his ministers? Those ministers will make all the
unpopularity that pursues them fall upon the head of their
august master. I am well aware that the King would have the
courage to burden himself with a personal sorrow to avoid
harm befalling the Monarchy; but it is possible, by the
simplest means, to avoid these calamities; permit me, Sire,
to tell it to you: it is possible by remaining within the
spirit of our institutions; the ministers have lost their
majority in the House of Peers and in the nation, the natural
consequences of that critical position is their resignation.
How, with a sense of their duty, could they persist, by
remaining in power, in compromising the Crown? By laying
their resignation at the feet of your Majesty they will calm
everything, they will end everything; it is no longer the
King who yields, it is the ministers who resign in accordance
with all the usages and all the principles of representative
government The King can afterwards take back those among them
whom he will think fit to retain: there are two whom public
opinion honours, M. le Duc de Doudeauville[303] and M. le
Comte de Chabrol[304].

"The review would in this way lose its disadvantages and
be no more than an unmixed triumph. The Session will end
peaceably amid blessings showered on the King's head.

"Sire, to dare to write you this letter, I must be very
firmly persuaded of the necessity for taking a resolution;
a very imperious sense of duty must have prompted me. The
ministers are my enemies; I am theirs; I forgive them as a
Christian; but I shall never forgive them as a man; in this
position, I should never have spoken to the King of their
retiring, if the safety of the Monarchy were not at stake.

"I am, etc.,

"CHATEAUBRIAND."

Madame la Dauphine and Madame la Duchesse de Berry were insulted on going to the review; the King was generally well received; but one or two companies of the 6th Legion cried:

"Down with the ministers! Down with the Jesuits!" Charles X. was offended, and replied:

"I came to receive homage, and not a lesson."

He often had noble words in his mouth which were not always supported by vigorous action: his spirit was bold, his character timid. On returning to the Palace, Charles X. said to Marshal Oudinot[305]:

"The effect as a whole was satisfactory. There were a few marplots, but the bulk of the National Guard is good: express my satisfaction to it."

M. de Villèle arrived. On their way back, some of the legions had passed by the Ministry of Finance and shouted:

"Down with Villèle!"

[Sidenote: The National Guard.]

Irritated by all the previous attacks, the minister was no longer proof against the impulses of a cold anger; he proposed to the Council to disband the National Guard. He was supported by Messieurs de Corbière, de Peyronnet, de Damas[306] and de Clermont-Tonnerre[307] and opposed by M. de Chabrol[308], the Bishop of Hermopolis[309] and the Duc de Doudeauville[310]. A royal decree pronounced the disbanding, the most baleful blow struck at the Monarchy before the last blow of the days of July: if, at that moment, the National Guard had not been dissolved, the barricades would not have gone forward. M. le Duc de Doudeauville sent in his resignation; he wrote the King a letter giving his motives and foretelling the future, which everybody, for the rest, foresaw.

The Government began to be afraid; the newspapers were redoubling in audacity and a plan of censorship was put forward against them, from habit; there was even talk of a La Bourdonnaye[311] Ministry, in which M. de Polignac would have figured. I had had the misfortune to appoint M. de Polignac Ambassador to London, in spite of what M. de Villèle said to me: on this occasion he saw more clearly and further than I. On entering the ministry, I had hastened to do something agreeable to Monsieur. The President of the Council had contrived to reconcile the two brothers, in view of an approaching change of reign: he was successful in that; I, taking it into my head for once in my life to try to be shrewd, was stupid. Had M. Polignac not been an ambassador, he would not have become Minister for Foreign Affairs.

M. de Villèle, beset on one side by the Royalist Liberal Opposition, plagued on the other by the requirements of the bishops, misled by the prefects consulted, who were themselves misled[312], determined to dissolve the Electoral Chamber, despite the three hundred who remained faithful to him. The dissolution was preceded by the revival of the censorship[313]. I attacked more vigorously than ever[314]; the different sections of the Opposition joined hands; the elections of the small colleges all went against the ministry[315]; in Paris, the Left triumphed; seven colleges returned M. Royer-Collard[316], and the two colleges before which M. de Peyronnet[317], a minister, presented himself rejected him. Paris illuminated again; there were scenes of bloodshed; barricades were thrown up[318], and the troops sent to establish order were obliged to fire: thus the way was prepared for the last and fatal days. In the meantime, the news arrived of the Battle of Navarino[319], a success in which I could claim my share. The great misfortunes of the Restoration have been announced by victories; they had difficulty in detaching themselves from the heirs of Louis the Great.

[Sidenote: The Chambers.]

The Chamber of Peers enjoyed the public favour, thanks to its resistance to the oppressive laws; but it did not know how to defend itself: it allowed itself to be gorged with batches[320] against which I was almost the only one to protest. I prophesied to it that those nominations would vitiate its principle and cause it, in the long run, to lose all its strength in public opinion: was I mistaken? Those batches, introduced with the object of breaking up a majority, have not only destroyed the aristocracy in France, but have become the means which will be employed against the English aristocracy; the latter will be stifled under a multitudinous fabrication of togas and will end by losing its hereditary right, even as the distorted peerage has lost it in France.

The new Chamber, on its arrival, pronounced its famous refusal of co-operation. M. de Villèle, reduced to extremities, thought of dismissing part of his colleagues and negociated with Messieurs Laffitte[321] and Casimir Périer[322]. The two leaders of the Opposition of the Left lent an ear; the plot was discovered; M. Laffitte did not dare to take a resolution; the President's hour struck and the portfolio fell from his hands[323]. I had cried out aloud on withdrawing from office; M. de Villèle lay down: he had a feeble desire to remain in the Chamber of Deputies; that was what he ought to have made up his mind to, but he had neither a sufficiently profound acquaintance with representative government nor a sufficiently great authority on outside opinion to play a part of that sort: the new ministers demanded his banishment to the Chamber of Peers and he accepted it. I was consulted as to some substitutes for the cabinet and I invited them to take M. Casimir Périer and General Sébastiani: my words were wasted.

M. de Chabrol, charged with the construction of the new ministry, put me at the head of the list: I was indignantly struck out by Charles X. M. Portalis[324], the most miserable character that ever was, a Federate during the Hundred Days, grovelling at the feet of the Legitimacy, of which he spoke as the most ardent Royalist would have blushed to speak, to-day lavish of his hackneyed adulation to Philip, received the Seals. At the War Office, M. de Caux[325] replaced M. de Clermont-Tonnerre. M. le Comte Roy[326], the skilful artisan of his immense fortune, was given Finance. The Comte de La Ferronnays, my friend, had the Foreign Office. M. de Martignac[327], entered the Ministry of the Interior; the King soon conceived a hatred for him. Charles X. obeyed his tastes rather than his principles: he disliked M. de Martignac because of his love of pleasure, yet he favoured Messieurs de Corbière and de Villèle, neither of whom went to Mass.