Chapter XI: Book X: 262 (2)

M. de Chabrol and the Bishop of Hermopolis remained temporarily in the ministry. The bishop, before retiring, came to see me; he asked me if I would replace him as Minister of Public Instruction:

"Take M. Royer-Collard," said I to him, "I have no desire to be a minister; but if the King wished absolutely to recall me to the Council, I would come back only through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in reparation of the affront which I received. And I can have no claim on that office, which is very well placed in the hands of my noble friend."

After the death of M. Mathieu de Montmorency, M. de Rivière[328] had become governor to the Duc de Bordeaux; from that time he worked for the overthrow of M. de Villèle, for the devout Court Party had risen against the Minister of Finance. M. de Rivière met me by appointment in the Rue de Taranne, at M. de Marcellus', to make the same useless proposal to me which the Abbé de Frayssinous made later. M. de Rivière died, and M. le Baron de Damas succeeded him about the person of the Duc de Bordeaux. The question remained therefore to find successors to M. de Chabrol and M. the Bishop of Hermopolis. The Abbé Feutrier[329], Bishop of Beauvais, was installed at the Ministry of Public Worship, which was separated from the Public Instruction, the latter falling to M. de Vatimesnil[330]. Remained the Ministry of Marine: it was offered to me; I declined it. M. le Comte Roy asked me to tell him some one who would be acceptable to me and whom I would select, in my shade of opinion. I mentioned M. Hyde de Neuville. The tutor of the Duc de Bordeaux had also to be found; the Comte Roy spoke of it to me: M. de Chéverus[331] at once occurred to my mind. The Minister of Finance hastened to Charles X.; the King said to him:

"I have no objection: Hyde for the Navy; but why cannot Chateaubriand take that office himself? As for M. de Chéverus, it would be an excellent choice; I am sorry not to have thought of it; two hours earlier, and the thing would have been done: tell Chateaubriand so; but M. Tharin[332] is appointed."

M. Roy came to inform me of the success of his negociation; he added:

"The King wishes you to accept an embassy; if you like, you shall go to Rome."

[Sidenote: Ambassador to Rome.]

That word "Rome" had a magic effect upon me; I felt the temptation to which the anchorites were exposed in the desert. Charles X., in accepting for the Navy the friend whom I had suggested, was making the first advances; I could no longer refuse what he expected of me: I therefore consented once more to go away. This time, at least, the place of exile attracted me: _Pontificum veneranda sedes, sacrum solium._ I felt myself seized with the desire to settle for good, with the longing to disappear (even with some calculated idea of fame) in the city of funerals, at the very moment of my triumph. I should no longer have raised my voice, unless like Pliny's prophetic bird, to say _Ave_ every morning to the Capitol and the dawn. It may be that it was useful to my country to get rid of me: by the weight which I feel to myself, I can guess the burden which I must be to others. Minds of some power which prey upon themselves and turn upon themselves are tiring. Dante places tortured souls, in the Inferno, on a bed of fire. M. le Duc de Laval, whom I was going to replace in Rome, was appointed to the Embassy in Vienna.

Before changing my subject, I beg leave to retrace my steps and relieve myself of a burden. I did not enter without suffering into the details of my long difference with M. de Villèle. I have been accused of contributing to the fall of the Legitimist Monarchy; it is right that I should examine that reproach.

The events which happened under the ministry of which I formed part have an importance which binds it to the common fortune of France: there is no Frenchman but his lot has been affected by the good which I may have done, the ill which I have undergone. Through whimsical and inexplicable affinities, through secret relations which sometimes entwine lofty and vulgar destinies, the Bourbons prospered so long as they deigned to listen to me, although I am far from believing, with the poet, that "my eloquence gave alms to the Royalty[333]." So soon as it was thought right to break the reed that grew at the foot of the throne, the crown leant over, soon to fall: often, by plucking a blade of grass, one causes a great ruin to crumble into dust.

These incontestable facts you may explain as you will; if they give to my political career a relative value which it does not possess of itself, I shall get no vainer, I feel no evil joy at the chance which connects my short-lived name with the events of the centuries. Whatever the variety of the accidents of my adventurous course, wherever names and facts may have led me, the last horizon of the picture is always threatening and sad.

Juga cœpta moveri
Silvarum, visæque canes ululare per umbram[334].

But, if the scene has changed in a deplorable manner, I must, they say, accuse only myself: to avenge what appeared to me an injury, I divided everything, and this division in the last result produced the overthrow of the Throne. Let us see.

[Sidenote: The Comte de Villèle.]

M. de Villèle has declared that it was impossible to govern either with me or without me. With me, there he was wrong; without me, at the time when M. de Villèle said that, he was saying the truth, for the most varied opinions made up a majority for me.

M. the President of the Council has never known me. I was sincerely attached to him; I had made him enter his first ministry, as is proved by M. le Duc de Richelieu's note of thanks and the other notes which I have quoted. I had sent in my resignation as Plenipotentiary to Berlin when M. de Villèle retired. They persuaded him that, on his second entrance into office, I desired his place. I had no such desire. I do not belong to the fearless race, deaf to the voice of devotion and reason. The truth is that I have no ambition; that is precisely the passion which I lack, because I have another that governs me. When I asked M. de Villèle to take some important dispatch to the King, to save me the trouble of going to the Palace, in order to leave me at leisure to visit a Gothic chapel in the Rue Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, he might have felt assured against my ambition, if he had judged better of my puerile candour or of the loftiness of my disdain.

Nothing attracts me in practical life, except, perhaps, the Foreign Office. I was not insensible to the idea that the country would owe to me its liberty at home, its independence abroad. Far from seeking to overthrow M. de Villèle, I had said to the King:

"Sire, M. de Villèle is a most enlightened President; Your Majesty must keep him for evermore at the head of your Councils."

M. de Villèle did not notice it: my mind might lean towards domination, but it was subject to my character; I found pleasure in my obedience, because it rid me of my will. My capital fault is weariness, distaste for everything, perpetual doubt. Had a sovereign been found who, understanding me, had kept me at work by force, he would perhaps have turned me to some account: but Heaven rarely causes to be born together the man who will and the man who can. When all is said and done, is there a thing to-day for which one would take the trouble to get out of bed? We fall asleep to the sound of the kingdoms which fall during the night and which are swept up each morning before our door.

Besides, since M. de Villèle parted from me, politics had become deranged: the ultraism against which the wisdom of the President of the Council still struggled had gone beyond him. The annoyance which he experienced at the hands of opinion at home and of the movement of opinion abroad rendered him irritable: hence the fettering of the press, the suppression of the National Guard of Paris, and so forth. Was I to allow the Monarchy to perish, in order to acquire the reputation of an hypocritical moderation on the look-out? I believed myself most sincerely to be fulfilling a duty in fighting at the head of the Opposition, paying too much attention to the peril which I beheld on one side, not enough struck with the contrary danger. When M. de Villèle was overthrown, I was consulted on the nomination of a new ministry. If they had, as I suggested, taken M. Casimir Périer, General Sébastiani and M. Royer-Collard, things might have held out. I would not accept the department of the Navy and I made them give it to my friend M. Hyde de Neuville; I also twice refused the Ministry of Public Instruction; never would I have entered the Council unless I were the master. I went to Rome to seek my other self among the ruins, for there are in my person two distinct beings, having no communication one with the other.

I will, however, make a loyal admission: my excessive resentment does not justify me according to the rule and the time-honoured word of virtue; but my whole life serves as my excuse.

An officer in the Navarre Regiment, I had returned from the forests of America to join the fleeing Legitimacy, to fight in its ranks against my own judgment, all without conviction, from sheer soldierly duty. I remained eight years on foreign soil, overwhelmed with every wretchedness.

This generous tribute paid, I returned to France in 1800. Bonaparte sought me out and placed me; on the death of the Duc d'Enghien, I devoted myself once more to the memory of the Bourbons. My words on the tomb of Mesdames at Trieste revived the wrath of the dispenser of empires; he threatened to have me cut down on the steps of the Tuileries. The pamphlet _De Bonaparte et des Bourbons_ was worth to Louis XVIII., on his own confession, as much as a hundred thousand men.

With the aid of the popularity which I then enjoyed, anti-Constitutional France understood the institutions of the Legitimate Royalty. During the Hundred Days, the Monarchy saw me by its side in its second exile. Lastly, through the Spanish War, I had contributed to the suppression of the conspiracies, to the union of opinions under one and the same cockade, and to the restoring of its range to our cannon. The rest of my plans are well known: to extend our frontiers, to give new crowns in the New World to the family of St. Louis.

[Sidenote: My difference with him.]

This long perseverance in the same sentiments perhaps merited some consideration. Sensitive to affront, I did not find it possible also to put on one side what I might be worth, to forget entirely that I was the restorer of religion, the author of the _Génie du Christianisme._

My agitation necessarily increased still further at the thought that a paltry quarrel made our country miss an opportunity of greatness which it would not find again. Had they said to me, "Your plans will be followed; what you have taken in hand will be carried out without you," I should have forgotten all for France. Unfortunately, I had the belief that my ideas would not be adopted; the event has proved it.

I was, perhaps, in error, but I was persuaded that M. le Comte de Villèle did not understand the society which he ruled; I am convinced that the solid qualities of that able minister were inadequate at the hour of his ministry: he had come too early under the Restoration. Financial operations, commercial companies, the industrial movement, canals, steamboats, railways, high-roads, a material society which has no passion save that of peace, which dreams only of the comforts of life, which wants to make of the future only a perpetual to-day: in this order of things, M. de Villèle would have been king. M. de Villèle wanted a time which could not be his and, from honour, he will have nothing to do with a time which belongs to him. Under the Restoration, all the faculties of the mind were alive; all parties dreamt of realities or illusions; all, advancing or receding, came into tumultuous collision; none purposed to remain where he was; to no earnest mind did the Constitutional Legitimacy seem to be the last word of the Republic or the Monarchy. We felt stirring in the ground under our feet armies or revolutions which came to offer themselves for extraordinary destinies. M. de Villèle was quite alive to this movement; he saw the wings grow which, sprouting from the nation's shoulders, were about to restore it to its element, to the air, to space, immense and light as it is. M. de Villèle wished to keep this nation to the ground, to fasten it down, but he never had the strength for it. I, on the other hand, wished to occupy the French with glory, to fasten them up above, to endeavour to lead them to reality through dreams: that is what they love.

It would be better to be more humble, more prostrate, more Christian. Unfortunately I am subject to err; I have not the evangelic perfection: if a man struck me on the cheek, I should not turn to him the other also.

Had I conjectured the result, I should certainly have refrained; the majority which voted the phrase of refusal to co-operate would not have voted it, if they had foreseen the consequence of their vote. None seriously desired a catastrophe, except a few men apart. There was at first only a riot, and the Legitimacy alone transformed it into a revolution: when the moment had come, it lacked the intelligence, the prudence, the resolution that could still save it. After all, it is a monarchy fallen; many more will fall: I owed it only my fidelity; it will have that ever.

Devoted to the early adversities of the Monarchy, I have consecrated myself to its final misfortunes: ill-fortune will always have for me a second. I have given back all, places, pensions, honours; and, in order that I might have nothing more to ask of anybody, I have pledged my coffin. O stern and rigid judges, virtuous and infallible Royalists, who mixed an oath with your riches as you mix salt with the meats of your banquets to preserve them, have a little indulgence in respect of my past bitternesses; I am expiating them to-day after my fashion, which is not yours. Do you think that, at the evening hour, at the hour at which the toiler seeks repose, he does not feel the weight of life, when that weight is cast back upon his shoulders? And yet, I need not have borne the burden. I saw Philip in his palace, from the 1st to the 6th of August 1830, as I shall tell when the time comes; it but lay with me to hearken to generous words.

Later, if I had been able to repent of doing right, it was still possible for me to retract the first impulse of my conscience. M. Benjamin Constant, the man so powerful then, wrote to me on the 20th of September[335]:

"I would much rather write to you of yourself than of myself,
the thing would have more importance. I should like to be
able to speak to you of the loss which you are causing all
France to sustain by withdrawing yourself from her destinies,
you who have exercised so noble and wholesome an influence
upon her. But it would be indiscreet of me to treat personal
questions in this way, and I am bound, while groaning like
every Frenchman, to respect your scruples."

My duties not yet seeming to me to be consummated, I have defended the widow and the orphan, I have undergone the trial and the prison which Bonaparte, even in his greatest angers, spared me. I stand forth between my resignation on the death of the Duc d'Enghien and my cry on behalf of the plundered child; I rest upon a prince shot dead and a prince in banishment; they sustain my old arms entwined in their feeble arms: O Royalists, are you so well attended?

[Sidenote: My sacrifices.]

But, the more I have tied down my life with the bonds of devotion and honour, the more have I changed my liberty of action for independence of thought; that thought has resumed its nature. Now, outside everything, I appraise governments at their worth. Can one believe in the kings of the future? Is one to believe in the peoples of the present? The wise and disconsolate man of this century without conviction finds a wretched repose only in political atheism. Let the young generations lull themselves with hopes: before hitting the mark, they will wait long years; the ages are proceeding towards the general levelling, but they do not hasten their speed at the call of our desires. Time is a sort of eternity adapted to mortal things; it counts the races and their sorrows for nothing in the works which it accomplishes.

It follows from what you have just read that, if what I advised had been done, if petty longings had not placed their own satisfaction before the interests of France; if those in power had shown a clearer appreciation of relative capacities; if the foreign Cabinets had, like Alexander, deemed that the safety of the French Monarchy lay in Liberal institutions; if those Cabinets had not maintained the restored authority in defiance of the principles of the Charter, the Legitimacy would still be occupying the throne. Ah, what is past is past! It is useless to turn back, to resume the place which we have quitted; we find nothing of that which we left there: men, ideas, circumstances, all have faded away.

[Footnote 262: This book was written in 1839.--T.]

[Footnote 263: Marthe Camille Bachasson, Comte de Montalivet (1801-1880), inherited the title of peer on the death of his father and his elder brother (22 January and 12 October 1823), but was not admitted to take his seat in the Upper Chamber until 12 May 1826, because of his age. He became, from the first, a defender of constitutional ideas; published in 1827 a pamphlet entitled, _Un jeune pair de France aux Français de son age_; held several offices, from 1830 to 1839; and was Intendant General of the Civil List from 1839 to 1848. In 1879, M. de Montalivet was elected a perpetual senator.--B.]

[Footnote 264: Narcisse Achille Comte de Salvandy (1795-1856), one of the principal writers on the _Journal des Débats_, and author of a large number of political pamphlets published between 1824 and 1827. In 1835, he was elected a member of the French Academy. The Comte de Salvandy was twice Minister of Public Instruction (1837-1839 and 1845-1848).--B.]

[Footnote 265: Prosper Léon Duvergier de Hauranne (1798-1881), author of the _Histoire du gouvernement parlementaire en France_ ( 1857-1872). He was imprisoned by Louis-Napoleon, in 1851, and banished for a short period. Duvergier became a member of the French Academy in 1870.]

[Footnote 266: Henri Joseph Gisquet (1792-1866) was Prefect of Police from 1831 to 1836, and it was under his administration that Chateaubriand was sent to jail, in 1832, as we shall see later. Gisquet's name was subsequently mixed up in more than one scandal, notably that of the inferior muskets supplied, in 1831, by the firm of Périer, in which Gisquet, as well as Casimir Périer, had been a partner. In 1838, he was mulcted in a fine and dismissed from the Council of State for bribery and corruption, in which his family and his mistress were concerned with him.--B.]

[Footnote 267: 21 June 1826 and 18 December 1826 are the dates of Chateaubriand's first and last article in the _Journal des Débats._--B.]

[Footnote 268: Article of 28 June 1824.--B.]

[Footnote 269: Article of 5 July 1824.--B.]

[Footnote 270: Charles Ignace Comte de Peyronnet (1778-1854), Minister of Justice from 1821 to 1828, and Minister of the Interior in 1830.--T.]

[Footnote 271: Louis Guillaume Baron Ternaux (1765-1833), a famous manufacturer of Cashmere shawls. He was created a baron in 1819.--T.]

[Footnote 272: The first King of modern Greece was Otto, second son of Louis I. King of Bavaria. Otto was elected in 1832, declared of age in 1835, and deposed in 1862. In 1863, the Greeks elected William, second son of Christian IX. King of Denmark, as their sovereign, with the title of George I. King of the Hellenes.--T.]

[Footnote 273: Constantine Canaris (1790-1877), the famous Greek admiral and politician, distinguished himself in the Greek War of Independence (1821-1825), and was several times Minister of Marine and President of the Cabinet.--T.]

[Footnote 274: The Greeks defeated the Persian naval forces near Mycale in 479 B.C.--T.]

[Footnote 275: Chateaubriand had sold the copyright of his Complete Works to Ladvocat for seven hundred thousand francs. The writer gave almost all the money which he received of this sum to the Hospice de Marie-Thérèse, which Madame de Chateaubriand was founding. Ladvocat's failure caused him to lose nearly all that he had reserved to "ensure the peace of his life."--B.]

[Footnote 276: Clément François Victor Gabriel Prunelle (1777-1853), a distinguished French physician, settled in Lyons and, in 1830, became mayor of that city.--T.]

[Footnote 277: Jeanne Isabelle Pauline Baronne de Montolieu (1751-1832) married, first, M. de Crouzas and, secondly, the Baron de Montolieu. She is the author of _Caroline de Litchfield_ (1786), of the _Robinson suisse_, or _Swiss Robinson Crusoe_(1813), and of a number of translations from the German and English, notably Undine and St. Clair of the Isles.--T.]

[Footnote 278: Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), author of the _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire._ At Lausanne, he was for a time engaged to marry Mademoiselle Suzanne Curchod, who subsequently married M. Necker and became the mother of Madame de Staël.--T.]

[Footnote 279: The Marquise de Custine.--B.]

[Footnote 280: Astolphe de Custine, son of the marchioness.--B.]

[Footnote 281: Louis Philippe Enguerrand de Custine (1823-1826), only son of Astolphe de Custine and his wife, _née_ de Saint-Simon de Courtomer. The child, who died at the age of three years, is buried in the chapel of the Château de Fervacques between his mother and grandmother.--B.]

[Footnote 282: M. Berstœcher was Astolphe de Custine's old tutor.--B.]

[Footnote 283: _Letters written from Lausanne_: Letter XVI.--T.]

[Footnote 284: Pp. 120-123 of the new edition of the _Essai_, published in 1826.--B.]

[Footnote 285: The Tsar Alexander died at Taganrog on the 1st of December 1825.--B.]

[Footnote 286: 24 March 1826.--T.]

[Footnote 287: _Ecclesiasticus_, IX. 14.]

[Footnote 288: Article of 8 August 1825 on the Conversion of the Funds.--B.]

[Footnote 289: Article of 24 October 1825 on the Farewell Speech of the President of the United States to General de La Fayette.--B.]

[Footnote 290: General Maximilien Sébastien Foy (1775-1825), after rendering brilliant service in the army, was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1819 and displayed an unsuspected oratorical talent as a defender of constitutional principles. He died, suddenly, on the 28th of November 1825. An immense concourse of citizens followed his body to the grave, and a public subscription set on foot for the endowment of his children reached the surprisingly large sum of nearly a million francs.--T.]

[Footnote 291: Manuel died on the 20th of August 1827. His funeral also was accompanied by vast crowds, numbering over 100,000 persons.--T.]

[Footnote 292: M. de Serre died on the 21st of July 1824.--B.]

[Footnote 293: Camille Jordan (1771-1821), a zealous member of the Opposition in the Chamber of Deputies and author of a number of literary and philosophical works. His death occurred on the 19th of May 1821.--T.]

[Footnote 294: On the 11th of January 1827, Charles Lacretelle proposed to his colleagues of the Academy to draw up a petition to the King against the suggested Press Law. M. de Lally-Tolendal opposed the motion, and asked why they should make a request which was bound to remain unsuccessful. Chateaubriand replied that conscience is not determined by the more or less probable chances of a useful result. Eighteen of the twenty-nine Academicians present voted in favour of the proposed petition. The King refused to receive the petition, and the Academy decided not to publish it (MESNARD, _Histoire de l'Académie française_).--B.]

[Footnote 295: An article in the _Moniteur_ of 5 January 1827 described the Bill as a "law of justice and love," which words were promptly turned into a nickname of hatred and ridicule for the Bill.--B.]

[Footnote 296: St. Charles's Day, 4 November.--T.]

[Footnote 297: Article of 3 November 1825.--B.]

[Footnote 298: Joseph Michaud was, in 1827, manager of the _Quotidienne._--B.]

[Footnote 299: Jean Baptiste Honoré Raymond Capefigue (1802-1872), a noted French historian and publicist, author of over a hundred volumes treating of the history of France. He was, in 1827, a leading member of the staff of the _Quotidienne._--B.]

[Footnote 300: General François Alexandre Frédéric Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt (1747-1827) and a peer of France, had been a member of the Constituent Assembly of 1789. He was at the head of a number of charitable institutions, founder of the first savings-bank in France and other benevolent schemes, and extremely popular. He died on the 27th of March 1827, and his funeral coincided with the agitation produced by the Press Law and was marked by painful incidents. The pupils of the Châlons School of Arts and Crafts wanted themselves to carry the coffin, in spite of the prohibition of the police, and a scuffle ensued between the students and the soldiers of the military escort to which, as a general officer, the duke was entitled. In the midst of the riot, the coffin fell into the mud, and the peer's insignia, which lay upon it, were trodden under foot.--B.]

[Footnote 301: The Grand Referendary de Sémonville was 73 years of age in 1827.--T.]

[Footnote 302: The review took place on the 29th of April 1827.--B.]

[Footnote 303: Ambroise Polycarpe de La Rochefoucauld, Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Doudeauville (1765-1841), created a peer of France (1814), Postmaster-general (1822) and Minister of the King's Household (1824). After his resignation, in 1827, the Duc de Doudeauville occupied himself exclusively with philanthropical works.--T.]

[Footnote 304: André Jean Comte de Chabrol de Crouzol (1771-1836), Intendant-general of the Illyrian Provinces (1810), Prefect of the Rhône (1814), Under-secretary of the Interior (1817), a peer of France and Minister of Marine (1824), Minister of Finance (1829-1830). Chabrol was a consistent adherent of the Elder Branch from 1814 onwards.--T.]

[Footnote 305: Nicolas Charles Oudinot, Maréchal Duc de Reggio (1767-1847), one of Napoleon's bravest generals, rallied to the Restoration and was created a peer of France in 1814. He remained loyal during the Hundred Days and, under the Second Restoration, became Major-general of the Royal Guard (September 1815) and Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard (October 1815). Louis-Philippe made him Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour (1839) and Governor of the Invalides (1842).--T.]

[Footnote 306: The Comte de Corbière was Minister of the Interior, the Comte de Peyronnet Keeper of the Seals and Minister of Justice, the Baron de Damas Minister of Foreign Affairs.--T.]

[Footnote 307: General Aimé Marie Gaspard Marquis, later Duc de Clermont-Tonnerre (1779-1865), Minister of War.--T.]

[Footnote 308: The Comte de Chabrol de Crouzol was Minister of Marine.--T.]

[Footnote 309: Denis Comte de Frayssinous, Bishop of Hermopolis (1765-1841), Minister of Worship and Public Instruction.--T.]

[Footnote 310: The Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Doudeauville was Minister of the Royal Household.--T.]

[Footnote 311: François Régis Comte de La Bourdonnaye (1767-1839) was a member of the Extreme Right of the Chamber of Deputies. He was Minister of the Interior for a few months, in 1829, in the Polignac Ministry and, in January 1830, was raised to the peerage, six months before the revolution which put an end to his political career.--B.]

[Footnote 312: Chateaubriand is here himself misled and unconsciously calumniates the poor prefects. M. de Villèle, better informed than he, wrote on the 8th of August 1827:

"The prefects are alarmed at the mere idea of a general
election. They say that, if it were held this year, the
result would be detestable."--B. ]

[Footnote 313: The censorship was revived by an ordinance dated 24 June 1827 and countersigned by Messieurs de Villèle, de Corbière and de Peyronnet.--B.]

[Footnote 314: _Cf. Du Rétablissement de la censure par l'ordonnance du 24 juin 1827._ Paris: Ladvocat, 1827.--B.]

[Footnote 315: The Chamber of Deputies was dissolved on the 5th of November 1827. The elections took place on the 17th and 24th.--B.]

[Footnote 316: Royer-Collard was elected at Vitry, Châlons, Paris, Lyons, Neufchâteau, Melun and Béziers.--B.]

[Footnote 317: M. de Peyronnet was rejected at Bourges and at Bordeaux.--B.]

[Footnote 318: 19 November 1827.--B.]

[Footnote 319: 20 October 1827.--T.]

[Footnote 320: An ordinance creating seventy-six new peers was issued simultaneously with that dissolving the Chamber of Deputies.--B.]

[Footnote 321: Jacques Laffitte (1767-1844), the banker and statesman, Governor of the Bank of France (1814), Minister of Finance and Premier (1830-1831).--T.]

[Footnote 322: Casimir Périer (1777-1832) was elected President of the Chamber of Deputies, after the Revolution of 1830, and succeeded Laffitte as Prime Minister in 1831. He was the grandfather of M. Jean Paul Pierre Casimir-Périer, who was President of the French Republic from June 1894 to January 1895.--T.]

[Footnote 323: M. de Villèle resigned office on the 2nd of December 1827.]

[Footnote 324: Joseph Marie Comte Portalis (1778-1858), a count of the Empire (1810), peer of France (1819), Keeper of the Seals (1828), Minister of Foreign Affairs (1829), First President of the Court of Appeal (1829-1852).--B.]

[Footnote 325: Lieutenant-general Louis Victor Vicomte de Caux (1775-_circa_ 1845), raised to the peerage by Louis-Philippe in 1832.--T.]

[Footnote 326: Antoine Comte Roy (1764-1847) was three times Minister of Finance (1818, 1819-1821 and 1828-1829). In 1798, the Duc de Bouillon made over the greater part of his property to M. Roy, in return for an annuity of 300,000 francs; the duke died a few months later, and M. Roy found himself one of the richest landed proprietors in France.--B.]

[Footnote 327: Jean Baptiste Silvère Gaye, Vicomte de Martignac (1776-1832), the well-meaning but unfortunate minister. He defended the Prince de Polignac on his trial in 1831 and died within the following year.--T.]

[Footnote 328: Charles François Riffardeau, Duc de Rivière (1763-1828). As a personal friend of the Comte d'Artois and his aide-de-camp during the Emigration, he was implicated in the trial of Georges Cadoudal, in 1804, and sentenced to death. The Empress Joséphine's intervention caused this penalty to be commuted, and he was imprisoned for four years in the fortress of Joux and subsequently transported. Louis XVIII. made him a peer of France and Ambassador to Constantinople. Charles X. created him an hereditary duke (1825) and, in 1826, made him governor to the Duc de Bordeaux. In 1822, the Duc de Rivière presented Louis XVIII. with the Venus of Milo, which he had discovered during his embassy to the Sultan.--B.]

[Footnote 329: François Jean Hyacinthe Comte Feutrier (1785-1830), Bishop of Beauvais since 1826.--B.]

[Footnote 330: Antoine François Henri Lefebvre de Vatimesnil (1789-1860) played a prominent part later in the struggle for religious liberty and the liberty of the press.--B.]

[Footnote 331: Jean Louis Anne Madeleine Lefébure, Comte de Chéverus (1768-1836), Bishop of Boston in Massachusetts (1808), Bishop of Montauban ( 1823), Archbishop of Bordeaux (1826), a peer of France (1826) and a cardinal (1836). He refused a peerage at the hands of the Government of July.--B.]

[Footnote 332: Claude Marie Paul Tharin (1787-1843), Bishop of Strasburg (1823), resigned his see on receiving his appointment as tutor to the Duc de Bordeaux in 1826. He quitted the Court before the end of the Restoration and lived in profound retirement throughout the Orleanist Usurpation.--T.]

[Footnote 333: BÉRANGER, _À M. de Chateaubriand_ (September 1831), 37-40:

Son éloquence à ces rois fit l'aumône:
Prodigue fée, en ses enchantements,
Plus elle voit de rouille à leur vieux trône,
Plus elle y sème et fleurs et diamants.--T.

]

[Footnote 334: _Æneid_, VI, 256-257.--B.]

[Footnote 335: 20 September 1830.--B.]