This melancholy incoherence between the apparent and actual state of French society revealed itself suddenly in 1815. The reaction provoked by the Hundred Days destroyed in the twinkling of an eye the work of social reconciliation carried on in France for sixteen years, and caused the abrupt explosion of all the passions, good or evil, of the social system, against all the works, beneficial or mischievous, of the Revolution.

Attacked also by another difficulty, the party which prevailed at the opening of the session, in the Chamber of 1815, fell into another mistake. The aristocratic classes in France, although generously devoted, in public dangers, to the king and the country, knew not how to make common cause either with the crown or the people; they have alternately blamed and opposed, royal power and public liberty. Isolating themselves in the privileges which satisfied their vanity without giving them real influence in the State, they had not assumed, for three centuries, either with the monarch, or at the head of the nation, the position which seemed naturally to belong to them. After all they had lost, and in spite of all they ought to have learned at the Revolution, they found themselves in 1815, when power reverted to their hands, in the same undefined and shifting position. In its relations with the great powers of the State, in public discussion, in the exercise of its peculiar rights, the Chamber of 1815 had the merit of carrying into vigorous practice the constitutional system, which, in 1814, had scarcely emerged from its torpor under the Empire; but in its new work it lost sight of equity, moderation, and the favourable moment. It wished at the same time to control France and the King. It was independent and haughty, often revolutionary in its conduct towards the monarch, and equally violent and contra-revolutionary as regarded the people. This was to attempt too much; it ought to have chosen between the two, and to have declared itself either monarchical or popular. The Chamber of 1815 was neither the one nor the other. It appeared to be deeply imbued with the spirit of the old system, envenomed by the ideas or examples of the spirit of the revolution; but the spirit of government, even more essential under constitutional than under absolute power, was wanting altogether.

Thus, an opposition was seen to spring up quickly within its own bosom,—an opposition which became at once popular and monarchical, for it equally defended against the ruling party, the crown they had so rashly insulted, and the country they had profoundly disturbed. After some sharp contests, sustained with acrimonious determination on both sides, this opposition, strong in the royal support as in public sympathy, frequently obtained a majority, and became the party of the Government.

I had no seat at that time in the Chamber of Deputies. It has often been said that I took a more important share in the Government of the day than could be attributed to me with truth. I have never complained of this, nor shall I complain now. I accept the responsibility, not only of my own actions, but of those of the friends I selected and supported. The monarchical and constitutional party formed in 1815, became on the instant my own. I shall acknowledge frankly what experience has taught me of their mistakes, while I feel proud of having been enrolled in their ranks.

This party was formed abruptly and spontaneously, without premeditated object, without previous or personal concert, under the simple necessity of the moment, to meet a pressing evil, and not to establish any particular system, or any specific combination of ideas, resolutions, or designs. Its sole policy was at first confined to the support of the Restoration against the reaction: a thankless undertaking, even when most salutary; for it is useless to contend with a headlong counter-current. While you are supporting the power whose flag serves as a cloak to reaction, it is impossible to arrest the entire mischief you desire to check; and you seem to adopt that which you have been unable to subdue. This is one of the inevitable misconstructions which honest men, who act conscientiously, in stormy days, must be prepared to encounter.

Neither in its composition nor plans had the new Royalist party any special or decided character. Amongst its rising leaders, as in its more undistinguished ranks, there were men of every origin and position, collected from all points of the social and political horizon. M. de Serre was an emigrant, and had been a lieutenant in the army of Conde; MM. Pasquier, Beugnot, Simeon, Barante and St. Aulaire, had possessed influence under Napoleon; MM. Royer-Collard and Camille Jordan were opposed to the Imperial system. The same judgment, the same opinion upon the events of the day and the chances of the morrow, upon the rights and legitimate interests of the throne and country, suddenly united these men, hitherto unknown to each other. They combined, as the inhabitants of the same quarter run from all sides and, without acquaintance and never having met before, work in concert to extinguish a great fire.

A fact, however, disclosed itself, which characterized already the new royalist party in the impending struggle. Equally disturbed by the pretensions of the old aristocrats, the monarchy and the citizens formed a close league for mutual support. Louis XVIII. and young France resumed together the policy of their fathers. It is fruitless for a people to deny or forget the past; they cannot either annihilate or abstract themselves from it; situations and emergencies will soon arise to force them back into the road on which they have travelled for ages.

Selected as President by the Chamber itself, and also by the King, M. Laine, while preserving, with a dignity at the same time natural and slightly studied, the impartiality which his situation required, inclined nevertheless towards the opinions of the moderate minority, and supported them by his moral influence, sometimes even by his words. The ascendency of his character, the gravity of his manners, and, at certain moments, the passionate overflowing of his soul, invested him with an authority which his abilities and knowledge would scarcely have sufficed to command.

The Session had not been many days open, and already, from conversation, from the selection of the officials, from the projects of interior movement which were announced, the Deputies began to know and arrange themselves, but still with doubt and confusion; as, in a battalion unexpectedly called together, the soldiers assemble in disorder, looking for their arms and colours. The Government propositions soon brought the different parties to broad daylight, and placed them in contest. The Session commenced, as might be expected, with measures arising from incidental circumstances. Of the four bills evidently bearing this character, two—the suspension of personal liberty, and the establishment of prevotal courts—were proposed as exceptional and purely temporary; the others—for the suppression of seditious acts, and for a general amnesty—were intended to be definitive and permanent.

Measures of expediency, and exceptional laws, have been so often and so peremptorily condemned in France, that their very name and aspect suffice to render them suspicious and hateful,—a natural impression, after so much and such bitter experience! They supply notwithstanding, and particularly under a constitutional government, the least dangerous as well as the most efficacious method of meeting temporary and urgent necessities. It is better to suspend openly, and for a given time, a particular privilege, than to pervert, by encroachment and subtlety, the fixed laws, so as to adapt them to the emergency of the hour. The experience of history, in such cases, confirms the suggestions of reason. In countries where political liberty is finally established, as in England, it is precisely after it has obtained a signal triumph, that the temporary suspension of one or more of its special securities has, under pressing circumstances, been adopted as a Government measure. In ruder and less intelligent times, under the dominion of momentary danger, and as an immediate defence, those rigorous and artful statutes were enacted in perpetuity, in which all tyrannies have found arms ready made, without the odium of forging them, and from which a more advanced civilization, at a later period, has found it so difficult to escape.

It is necessary, I admit, to enable these exceptional laws to accomplish their end without too much danger, that, beyond the scope of their operation and during their continuance, the country should retain enough general liberty, and the authorities sufficient real responsibility, to confine these measures within their due limits, and to control their exercise. But, in spite of the blindness and rage of the beaten parties, we have only to read the debates in the Chambers of 1815, and the publications of the time, to be convinced that at that epoch liberty was far from having entirely perished; and the history of the ministers who were then in power unanswerably demonstrates that they sustained the weight of a most effective responsibility.

Of the two temporary bills introduced into the Chamber in 1815, that respecting the prevotal courts met with the least opposition. Two very superior men, MM. Royer-Collard and Cuvier, had consented to become its official advocates, in the character of Royal Commissioners; and during the discussion, M. Cuvier took the lead. The debate was a very short one; two hundred and ninety members voted for the bill, ten only rejected it. The division may create surprise. The bill, in principle, comprised the heaviest possible infringement on common right, and the most formidable in practical application, by the suppression, in these courts, of the greater part of the privileges accorded in the ordinary modes of jurisdiction. A clause in the bill went almost to deprive the King of his prerogative of pardon, by ordering the immediate execution of the condemned criminals, unless the prevotal court itself assumed the functions of grace by recommending them to royal clemency. One of the most enthusiastic Royalists of the right-hand party, M. Hyde de Neuville, objected energetically, but without effect, to a clause so harsh and anti-monarchical. The two most intractable of passions, anger and fear, prevailed in the Chamber; it had its own cause, as well as that of the King, to defend and avenge, and persuaded itself that it could neither strike too soon nor too strongly when both were attacked.

On this occasion, as well as on others, the memory of M. Cuvier has been unjustly treated. He has been accused of pusillanimity and servile ambition. The charge indicates little knowledge of human nature, and insults a man of genius on very slight grounds. I lived much with M. Cuvier. Firmness in mind and action was not his most prominent quality; but he was neither servile, nor governed by fear in opposition to his conscience. He loved order, partly for his own personal security, but much more for the cause of justice, civilization, the advantage of society, and the progress of intellect. In his complaisance for power, he was more governed by sincere inclination than egotism. He was one of those who had not learned from experience to place much confidence in liberty, and whom the remembrance of revolutionary anarchy had rendered easily accessible to honest and disinterested apprehensions. In times of social disturbance, men of sense and probity often prefer drifting towards the shore, to running the risk of being crushed, with many dear objects, on the rocks upon which the current may carry them.

In the debate on the bill which suspended for a year the securities for personal liberty, M. Royer-Collard, while supporting the Government, marked the independence of his character, and the mistrustful foresight of the moralist with regard to the power which the politician most desired to establish. He demanded that the arbitrary right of imprisonment should be entrusted only to a small number of functionaries of high rank, and that the most exalted of all, the Ministers, should in every case be considered distinctly responsible. But these amendments, which would have prevented many abuses without interfering with the necessary power, were rejected. Inexperience and precipitation were almost universal at the moment. The Cabinet and its most influential partisans in the Chambers had scarcely any knowledge of each other; neither had yet learned to conceive plans in combination, to settle the limits or bearing of their measures, or to enter on a combat with preconcerted arrangements.

A combined action and continued understanding, however, between the Government and the moderate Royalists, became every day more indispensable; for the divergence of several new parties which began to be formed, and the extent of their disagreements, manifested themselves with increasing strength from hour to hour. In proposing the act intended to repress sedition, M. de Marbois, a gentle and liberal nature, inclined to mild government, and little acquainted with the violent passions that fermented around him, had merely looked upon these acts as ordinary offences, and had sent the criminals before the tribunals of correctional police, to be punished by imprisonment only. Better informed as to the intentions of a portion of the Chamber, the committee appointed to examine the bill, of which M. Pasquier was the chairman, endeavoured to restrain the dissentients, while satisfying them to a certain extent. Amongst seditious acts, the committee drew a line between crimes and offences, assigning crimes to the Court of Assizes, to be punished by transportation, and prescribing for simple offences fine and imprisonment. This was still too little for the ultra-members of the party. They demanded the penalty of death, hard labour, and confiscation of property. These additions were refused, and the Chamber, by a large majority, passed the bill as amended by the committee. Undoubtedly there were members of the right-hand party who would not have dared to contest the propositions of MM. Piet and de Salaberry, but who rejoiced to see them thrown out, and voted for the bill. How many errors would men escape, and how many evils would they avoid, if they had the courage to act as they think right, and to do openly what they desire!

All these debates were but preludes to the great battle ready to commence, on the most important of the incidental questions before the Chamber. It is with regret that I use the word question. The amnesty was no longer one. On returning to France, the King, by his proclamation from Cambray, had promised it; and, with kings, to promise is to perform. What sovereign could refuse the pardon, of which he has given a glimpse to the condemned criminal? The royal word is not less pledged to a nation than to an individual. But in declaring, on the 28th of June, 1815, that he would only except from pardon "the authors and instigators of the plot which had overturned the throne," the King had also announced "that the two Chambers would point them out to the punishment of the laws;" and when, a month later, the Cabinet had, upon the report of the Duke of Otranto, arrested the individuals excepted in the two lists, the decree of the 24th of July again declared that "the Chambers should decide upon those amongst them who should be expatriated or brought to trial." The Chambers were therefore inevitably compromised. The amnesty had been declared, and yet it still remained a question, a bill was still considered necessary.

Four members of the Chamber of Deputies hastened to take the initiative in this debate, three of them with extreme violence, M. de la Bourdonnaye being the most vehement of the three. He had energy, enthusiasm, independence, political tact as a partisan, and a frank and impassioned roughness, which occasionally soared to eloquence. His project, it was said, would have brought eleven hundred persons under trial. Whatever might be the correctness of this calculation, the three propositions were tainted with two capital errors: they assumed, in fact, that the catastrophe of the 20th of March had been the result of a widely-spread conspiracy, the authors of which ought to be punished as they would have been in ordinary times, and by the regular course of law, if they had miscarried; they assigned to the Chambers the right of indicating, by general categories, and without limit as to number, the conspirators to be thus dealt with, although the King, by his decree of the 24th of July preceding, had merely conferred on them the power of deciding, amongst the thirty-eight individuals specially excepted by name, which should be banished and which should be brought to trial. There was thus, in these projects, at the same time, an act of accusation under the name of amnesty, and an invasion of the powers already exercised, as well as of the limits already imposed, by the royal authority.

The King's Government by no means mistook the bearing of such resolutions, and maintained its rights, its acts, and promises with suitable dignity. It hastened to check at once the attempt of the Chamber. The bill introduced by the Duke de Richelieu on the 8th of December, was a real act of amnesty, with no other exceptions than the fifty-six persons named in the two lists of the decree of the 24th of July, and belonging to the family of the Emperor Napoleon. A single additional clause, the fatal consequences of which were assuredly not foreseen, had been introduced into the preamble: the fifth article excepted from the amnesty all persons against whom prosecutions had been ordered or sentences passed before the promulgation of the law,—a lamentable reservation, equally contrary to the principle of the measure and the object of its framers. The character and essential value of an amnesty consist in assigning a term to trials and punishments, in arresting judicial action in the name of political interest, and in re-establishing confidence in the public mind, with security in the existing state of things, at once producing a cessation of sanguinary scenes and dangers. The King's Government had already, by the first list of exceptions in the decree of the 24th of July, imposed on itself a heavy burden. Eighteen generals had been sent before councils of war. Eighteen grand political prosecutions, after the publication of the amnesty, would have been much even for the strongest and best-established government to bear. The Duke de Richelieu's Cabinet, by the fifth article of the bill, imposed on itself, in addition, the prospective charge of an indefinite number of political prosecutions, which might rise up in an indefinite time; and no one could possibly foresee in what part of the kingdom, or under what circumstances. The evil of this short-sightedness continued, with repeated instances rapidly succeeding each other, for more than two years. It was the prolonged application of this article which destroyed the value and almost the credit of the amnesty, and compromised the royal Government in that reaction of 1815 which has left such lamentable reminiscences.

A member of the right-hand party, who was soon destined to become its leader, and who until then had taken no share in the debate, M. de Villele, alone foresaw the danger of the fifth article, and hesitated not to oppose it. "This article," said he, "seems to me too vague and expansive; exceptions to amnesty, after such a rebellion as that which has taken place in our country, deliver over inevitably to the rigour of the laws all the excepted individuals. Now rigorous justice demands that, in such cases, none should be excepted but the most guilty and the most dangerous. Having no pledge or certain proof that the individuals attainted by the fifth article have deserved this express exception, I vote that the article be struck out." Unfortunately for the Government, this vote of the leader of the opposition passed without effect.

Independently of the question itself, this discussion produced an important result: it settled the division of the Chamber into two great parties, the right-hand side and the centre; the one the opponent, and the other the ally of the Cabinet. The differences of opinion which manifested themselves on this occasion were too keen, and were maintained on both sides with too much animosity, not to become the basis of a permanent classification. The right-hand party persisted in requiring several categories of exceptions to the amnesty, confiscations under the name of indemnity for injuries done to the State, and the banishment of the regicides who had been implicated during the Hundred Days. The centre, and the Cabinet in union, firmly resisted these propositions. M. Royer-Collard and M. de Serre, amongst others, exhibited in the course of this debate as much political intelligence as moral rectitude and impassioned eloquence. "It is not always the number of executions that saves empires," said M. Royer-Collard; "the art of governing men is more difficult, and glory is acquired at a loftier price. If we are prudent and skilful, we shall find that we have punished enough; never, if we are not so." M. de Serre applied himself chiefly to oppose the confiscations demanded under the title of indemnities. "The revolutionists have acted thus," said he; "they would do the same again if they could recover power. It is precisely for this reason that you ought not to imitate their detestable example; and by a distorted interpretation of an expression which is not open and sincere, by an artifice scarcely worthy of the theatre.... Gentlemen, our treasury may be low, but let it be pure." The categories and the indemnities were definitively rejected. At the last moment, and in the midst of almost universal silence, the banishment of the regicides was alone inscribed upon the act. Under the advice of his ministers, the King felt that he could not, in obedience to the will of Louis XVI., refuse his sanction to the amnesty, and leave this formidable question in suspense. There are Divine judgments which human authority ought not to forestall; neither is it called upon to reject them when they are declared by the course of events.

To the differences on the questions of expediency, every day were added the disagreements on the questions of principle. The Government itself excited but few. A bill on elections, introduced by the Minister of the Interior, M. de Vaublanc, was the only one which assumed this character. The debate was long and animated. The leading men on the opposite sides of the Chamber, MM. de Villele, de la Bourdonnaye, de Bonald, Royer-Collard, Pasquier, de Serre, Beugnot, and Laine, entered into it anxiously. But the ministerial plan was badly conceived, based upon incompatible foundations, and giving to the elections more of an administrative than of a political character. The principal orators of the Centre rejected it, as well as a counter-project proposed by the committee, in which the right-hand party prevailed, and which the Cabinet also disapproved. The last proposal was ultimately carried, but with important amendments, and vehemently opposed to the last. The Chamber of Deputies passed it by a weak majority, and in the Chamber of Peers it was thrown out. Although the different parties had clearly indicated their impressions and desires on the electoral system, the details were as yet obscure and unsettled. The question remained in abeyance. From the Chamber itself emanated the other propositions which involved matters of principle; they sprang from the right-hand party, and all tended to the same point—the position of the Church in the State. M. de Castelbajac proposed that the bishops and ministers should be authorized to receive and hold in perpetuity, without requiring the sanction of Government, all donations of property, real or personal, for the maintenance of public worship or ecclesiastical establishments. M. de Blangy demanded that the condition of the clergy should be materially improved, and that the married priests should no longer enjoy the pensions which had been given to them in their clerical character. M. de Bonald called for the abolition of the law of divorce. M. Lacheze-Murel insisted that the custody of the civil records should be given back to the ministers of religion. M. Murard de St. Romain attacked the University, and argued that public education should be confided to the clergy. The zeal of the new legislators was, above all other considerations, directed towards the re-establishment of religion and the Church, as the true basis of social power.

At the outset, the uneasiness and opposition excited by these proposals were less animated than we can at present imagine. More immediate dangers occupied the adversaries of Government and the public mind. A general sentiment in favour of religion as a necessary principle of order and morality, prevailed throughout the country; a sentiment revived even by the crisis of the Hundred Days, the moral wounds which that crisis had revealed, and the social dangers it had partially disclosed. The Catholic Church had not yet become the mark of the reaction which a little later was raised against it. The clergy took no direct part in these debates. The University had been, under the Empire, an object of suspicion and hostility on the part of the Liberals. The movement in favour of religious influences scarcely astonished those whom it displeased. But in the very bosom of the Chamber whence this movement emanated, there were enlightened understandings, who at once perceived its full range, and I foresaw the angry dissensions which sooner or later would be stirred up in the new social system by some of these propositions, so utterly opposed to its most fundamental and cherished principles. They applied themselves, with resolute good sense, to extract from the measures introduced, a selection conformable to the true interests of society and the Church. The law of divorce was abolished. The position of the parish priests, of the assistant ministers, and of several ecclesiastical establishments received important amelioration. The scandal of married clergymen still receiving official pensions ceased. But the proposal of assigning to the clergy the care of the civil records, and the control of public instruction, fell to the ground. The University, well defended and directed by M. Royer-Collard, remained intact. And with regard to the privilege demanded for the clergy, of receiving every kind of donation without the interference of the civil authorities, the Chamber of Peers, on a report, as judicious as it was elegantly composed, by the Abbe de Montesquiou, reduced it to these conditions,—that none but religious establishments recognized by law should exercise this right, and that in every individual instance the authority of the King should be indispensable. The Chamber of Deputies adopted the measure thus amended, and from this movement, which threatened to disturb so completely the relations of the Church and State, nothing eventuated to infringe seriously either on the old maxims or the modern principles of French society.

The Cabinet co-operated loyally in these debates and wise resolutions, but with less decision and ascendency than that evinced by the moderate Royalists in the Chambers. It brought into the question neither the depth of thought, nor the power of eloquence, which give a Government the control over legislative assemblies, and raise it, even in spite of its deficiencies, in public estimation. The Duke de Richelieu was universally respected. Amongst his colleagues, all men of high character and loyalty, there were several who were endowed with rare knowledge, ability, and courage. But the Cabinet wanted unity and brilliant reputation; important conditions under any system, but pre-eminently so under a free government.

Outside the Chambers, the Ministry had to sustain a still more weighty load than the pressure from within, and one which they were not better able to encounter. France had become a prey, not to the most tyrannical or the most sanguinary, but to the most vexatious and irritating of all the passing influences which the vicissitudes of frequent revolutions impose upon a nation. A party long vanquished, trampled on, and finally included in a general amnesty, the party of the old Royalty, suddenly imagined that they had become masters, and gave themselves up passionately to the enjoyment of a new power which they looked upon as an ancient right. God forbid that I should revive the sad remembrances of this reaction! I only desire to explain its true character. It was, in civil society, in internal administration, in local affairs, and nearly throughout the entire land of France, a species of foreign invasion, violent in certain places, offensive everywhere, and which occasioned more evil to be dreaded than it actually inflicted; for these unexpected victors threatened and insulted even where they refrained from striking. They seemed inclined to indemnify themselves by arrogant temerity, for their impotence to recover all that they had lost; and to satisfy their own consciences in the midst of their revenge, they tried to persuade themselves that they were far from inflicting on their enemies the full measure of what they had themselves suffered.

Strangers to the passions of this party, impressed with the mischief they inflicted on the Royal cause, and personally wounded by the embarrassments they occasioned to the Government, the Duke de Richelieu and the majority of his colleagues contended with honest sincerity against them. Even by the side of the most justly condemned proceedings during the reaction of 1815, and which remained entirely unpunished, we find traces of the efforts of the existing authorities either to check them, prevent their return, or at least to repel the sad responsibility of permitting them. When the outrages against the Protestants broke out in the departments of the south, and more than six weeks before M. d'Argenson spoke of them in the Chamber of Deputies, a royal proclamation, countersigned by M. Pasquier, vehemently denounced them, and called upon the magistrates for their suppression. After the scandalous acquittal, by the Court of Assize at Nismes, of the assassin of General Lagarde, who had protected the free worship of the Protestants, M. Pasquier demanded and obtained, from the Court of Appeal, the annulment of this sentence, in the name of the law, and as a last protestation of discarded justice. In spite of every possible intervention of delay and impediment, the proceedings commenced at Toulouse, and ended in a decree of the prevotal court at Pau, which inflicted five years' imprisonment on two of the murderers of General Ramel. Those of Marshal Brune had never been seriously pursued; but M. de Serre, being appointed Chancellor, compelled justice to resume its course; and the Court of Assize at Riom condemned to death, in default of appearance, the assassins they were unable to apprehend. Tardy and insufficient amends, which reveal the weakness of authority, as well as the resistance with which it was opposed! Even the ministers most subservient to the extreme royalist party endeavoured to check while supporting them, and took care to contribute less assistance than they had promised. At the very time when the Government divided the old army into classes, to get rid of all the suspected officers, the Minister of War, the Duke of Feltri, summoned to the direction of the staff of his department General de Meulan, my brother-in-law, a brave soldier, who had entered the service as a private in 1797, and had won his promotion on the field of battle by dint of wounds. M. de Meulan was a royalist, but extremely attached to the army and his comrades, and deeply grieved by the severities with which they were oppressed. I witnessed his constant efforts to obtain justice for them, and to secure the continuance in the ranks, or re-admission, of all those whom he believed to be disposed to serve the King with honest loyalty. The undertaking was difficult. In 1816, one of our most able and distinguished officers of engineers, General Bernard, had been placed on half-pay, and lived in exile at Dole. The United States of America offered him the command of that branch of service in the Republic, with considerable advantages. He accepted the proposal, and asked the permission of his minister. The Duke of Feltri summoned him to his presence, and tried to induce him to abandon this design, by offering to appoint him to any situation in France which he considered suitable. "You promise me," said Bernard, "what you are unable to perform; place me as you intend, and in a fortnight I shall be so denounced that you will have no power to support me, and so harassed that I should voluntarily resign. While the Government has no more strength than at present, it can neither employ nor protect me. In my corner, I am at the mercy of a sub-prefect and police magistrate, who can arrest and imprison me; who sends for me every day, and compels me to wait in his ante-chamber to be ill received at last. Suffer me to go to America. The United States are the natural allies of France. I have decided, and, unless imprisoned, I shall certainly take my departure." His passport was then given to him. The Duke de Berry complained to General Haxo of the course adopted by General Bernard. "After the manner in which he has been treated," replied Haxo, "I am only surprised that he has not gone before; it is by no means certain that I shall not some day follow his example."

Nothing can explain, better than this simple fact, the situation of the King's ministers at that time, and the sincerity as well as the timidity of their wishes to be prudent and just.

A great act, resolutely conceived and accomplished, on a great occasion, was necessary to raise the executive authority from the reputation as well as the actual mischief of this weakness, and to emancipate it from the party under which it succumbed while resisting. Today, so long removed as we are from that time, the more I reflect on it in the calm freedom of my judgment, the more I am convinced that the trial of Marshal Ney afforded a most propitious opportunity for such an act as that to which I now allude. There were undoubtedly weighty reasons for leaving justice to its unfettered course. Society and the royal power both required that respect for, and a salutary dread of, the law should repossess men's minds. It was important that generations formed during the vicissitudes of the Revolution and the triumphs of the Empire, should learn, by startling examples, that all does not depend on the strength and success of the moment; that there are certain inviolable duties; that we cannot safely sport with the fate of governments and the peace of nations; and that, in this momentous game, the most powerful and the most eminent risk their honour and their lives. In a political and moral sense these considerations were of the greatest importance. But another prominent truth, equally moral and political, ought to have weighed heavily in the balance against an extreme decision. The Emperor Napoleon had reigned long and brilliantly, acknowledged and admired by France and Europe, and supported by the devotion of millions of men,—by the people as well as by the army. Ideas of right and duty, sentiments of respect and fidelity, were confused and antagonistic in many minds. There were two actual and natural governments in presence of each other; and many, without perversity, might have hesitated which to choose. The King, Louis XVIII. and his advisers might in their turn, without weakness, have taken into consideration this moral confusion, of which Marshal Ney presented the most illustrious example. The greater his offence against the King, with the more safety could they place clemency by the side of justice, and display, over his condemned head, that greatness of mind and heart which has also its full influence in establishing power and commanding fidelity. The very violence of the reaction in favour of royalty, the bitterness of party passions, their thirst for punishment and vengeance, would have imparted to this act a still greater brilliancy of credit and effect; for boldness and liberty would have sprung from it as natural consequences. I heard at that time a lady of fashion, usually rational and amiable, call Mademoiselle de Lavalette "a little wretch," for aiding her mother in the escape of her father. When such extravagancies of feeling and language are indulged in the hearing of kings and their advisers, they should be received as warnings to resist, and not to submit. Marshal Ney, pardoned and banished after condemnation, by royal letters deliberately promulgated, would have given to kingly power the aspect of a rampart raising itself above all, whether friends or enemies, to stay the tide of blood; it would have been, in fact, the reaction of 1815 subdued and extinguished, as well as that of the Hundred Days.

I do not pretend to have thought and said then, all that I say and think at present. I was sorrowful and perplexed. The King's ministers were in a similar predicament. They believed that they neither could nor ought to recommend clemency. In this momentous contingency, power knew not how to be great, sometimes the only method of becoming strong. Controlled but not overthrown, and irritated while defeated, by these alternations of concession and resistance, the Right-hand party, now become decidedly the Opposition, sought, while complaining and hesitating, some channel of escape from their position at once powerful and impotent,—some breach through which they might give the assault to the Government, enter the citadel, and establish themselves firmly there. A man of mind and courage, ambitious, restless, clever, and discontented, as well on his own account as for the sake of his party, ventured an attack extremely daring in reality, but circumspect in form, and purely theoretical in appearance. M. de Vitrolles, in a short pamphlet entitled 'Of the Ministry under a Representative Government,' said:—"France in every quarter expresses the necessity, profoundly acknowledged, of sterner action in the Government. I have examined the causes of this universal feeling, and the reasons which could explain why the different Administrations that have succeeded each other within the last eighteen months have not given the King's Cabinet the character of strength and unity which the Ministers themselves feel to be so essential. I believe that I have found them in the incoherence which existed between the nature of the adopted government and the ministerial organization, which it had not been considered necessary to modify, while at the same time we received a new division of power, and that power assumed an entirely new character of action." Appealing at every sentence to the practice and example of England, M. de Vitrolles argued that the Ministry, which he called an institution, should have perfect unity in itself, a predominant majority in the Chambers, and an actual responsibility in the conduct of affairs, which would ensure for it, with the Crown, the requisite influence and dignity. On these three conditions alone could the Government be effective. A strange reminiscence to refer to at the present day! By the most confidential intimate of the Count d'Artois, and to establish the old royalist party in power, parliamentary legislation was for the first time recommended and demanded for France, as a necessary consequence of representative government.

I undertook to repulse this attack by unmasking it.[11] I explained, in reply, the essential principles of representative government, their true meaning, their real application, and the conditions under which they could be usefully developed, in the state in which France had been plunged by our revolutions and dissensions. Above all, I endeavoured to expose the bitterness of party spirit which lay behind this polished and erudite tilting-match between political rhetoricians, and the underhand blows which, in the insufficiency of their public weapons, they secretly aimed at each other. I believe my ideas were sound enough to satisfy intelligent minds who looked below the surface and onwards to the future; but they had no immediate and practical efficacy. When the great interests of nations and the contending passions of men are at stake, the most ingenious speculative arguments are a mere war of display, which has no influence on the course of events. As soon as the budget was voted, and on the very day of its announcement, the session was closed, and the Chambers of 1815 retired, having strenuously exercised, both in defence and attack, the free privileges conferred on France by the Charter; but divided into two Royalist parties: the one wavering and uneasy, although in the possession of power; the other full of expectation, and looking forward, with the opening of the next session, to a more decisive success, and both in a state of mutual irritation.

Notwithstanding their doubts and weaknesses, the advantage remained with the Cabinet and its adherents. For the first time since France had been a prey to the Revolution, the struggles of liberty assisted the advocates of a moderate policy, and essentially checked, if not completely subdued, their opponents. The waves of reaction murmured, but rose no more. The Cabinet, strongly supported in the Chambers, possessed the confidence of the King, who entertained a high esteem for the Duke de Richelieu, and a friendly disposition, becoming daily more warm, towards his young Minister of Police, M. Decazes. Eight days after the closing of the session, the Cabinet gained an important accession to its internal strength, and an eloquent interpreter of its public policy. M. Laine replaced M. de Vaublanc as Minister of the Interior. As a slight compensation to the right-hand party, M. de Marbois, who had rendered himself very objectionable to them, was dismissed from the Ministry of Justice, and the Chancellor, M. Dambray, resumed the seals. M. de Marbois was one of those upright and well-informed men, but at the same time neither quick-sighted nor commanding, who assist power by opinion rather than force. He had opposed the reaction with more integrity than energy, and served the King with dignity, without acquiring personal influence. In October 1815, at a moment of the most violent agitation, the King expressed much anxiety for the introduction of the bill respecting the prevotal courts. It was settled in council that the Chancellor and the Minister of War should prepare it together. A few days after, the King asked for it rather impatiently. "Sire," answered M. de Marbois, "I am ashamed to tell your Majesty that it is ready." He resigned office honourably, although with some regret. At the same time I left the post of Secretary-General to the Ministry of Justice. While there, M. de Marbois had treated me with confidence inspired by sympathy. Finding it disagreeable to remain under M. Dambray, to whom my Protestant extraction and opinions were equally unsuited, I re-assumed the place of Master of Requests in the State Council.

The Chambers had scarcely adjourned, when the conspiracy of Grenoble, planned by Didier, and that called the plot of the patriots, at Paris, in 1816, came, one upon the other, to put the moderation of the Cabinet to the proof. The details forwarded by the magistrates of the department of the Isere were full of exaggeration and declamatory excitement. The mode of repression ordered by the Government was precipitately rigorous. Grenoble had been the cradle of the Hundred Days. It was thought expedient to strike Bonapartism heavily, in the very place where it had first exploded. A natural opportunity presented itself here of dealing firmly with the abettors of treason, while in another quarter strong resistance was opposed to the advocates of reaction. Moderation sometimes becomes impatient of its name, and yields to the temptation of forgetting it for the moment.

The Government nevertheless continued to be moderate, and the public were not deceived as to the course adopted. Although M. Decazes, from the nature of his department, was the minister on whom measures of inquiry and suppression devolved, he was at the same time looked upon, and truly, as the protector of the oppressed, and of all who were suspected without cause. By natural disposition and magisterial habit, he loved justice in his heart. A stranger to all party antipathies, penetrating, fearless, indefatigably active, and as prompt in benevolence as in duty, he exercised the power which the special laws conferred on him with measure and discretion; enforcing them as much against the spirit of reaction and persecution as against detected conspiracy, and continually occupied himself in preventing or repairing the abuses in which the inferior authorities indulged. Thus he advanced equally in the good opinion of the country and the favour of the King. People and parties have an infallible instinct by which they recognize, under the most complicated circumstances, those who attack and those who defend them, their friends and their enemies. The ultra-royalists soon began to look upon M. Decazes as their chief adversary, and the moderates to regard him as their most valuable ally.

At the same time, and during the silence of the tribune, the chief representatives of moderate policy in the Chambers eagerly sought opportunities of bringing their views before the public, of proclaiming their principles, and of rallying, round the King and the constitutional government, the still hesitating support of the nation at large. It affords me much gratification to recall here the words, perhaps forgotten, of three justly celebrated men, all personal friends of my own; they demonstrate (as I think, with some brilliancy) the spirit of the monarchical party attached to the state of society which the times had engendered in France, and the opinions and sentiments they were anxious to disseminate.

On the 6th of July, 1816, M. de Serre, in establishing, as first President, the Royal Court at Colmar, spoke as follows:—"Liberty, that pretext of all seditious ambition,—liberty, which is nothing more than the reign of law, has ever been the first privilege buried with the laws under the ruins of the throne. Religion itself is in danger when the throne and laws are attacked; for everything on earth is derived from heaven, and there is perfect harmony between all divine and human institutions. If the latter are overturned, the former cannot be respected. Let all our efforts, then, be exerted to combine, purify, and strengthen that monarchical and Christian spirit which inspires the sentiment of every sacrifice to duty! Let our first care be to obtain universal respect for the Charter which the King has granted to us. Undoubtedly our laws, our Charter, may be improved; and we neither require to interdict regret for the past nor hope for the future. But let us commence by submitting heartily and without reserve to the laws as they exist; let us place this first check on the impatient restlessness to which we have been surrendered for twenty-five years; let us teach ourselves this primary conviction, that we know how to adopt and to be satisfied with a defined system. The rest may be left to time."

Six weeks later, on the 19th of August, M. Royer-Collard, when presiding over the distribution of prizes at the general meeting of the University, addressed these words to the young students:—"Today, when the reign of falsehood has ceased, and the legitimacy of power, which is truth in government, permits a more unshackled play to all salutary and generous doctrines, public instruction beholds its destinies elevated and expanded. Religion demands from it pure hearts and disciplined minds; the State looks for habits profoundly monarchical; science, philosophy, and literature expect new brilliancy and distinction. These will be the benefits bestowed by a prince to whom his people already owe so much gratitude and love. He, who has made public liberty flourish under the shadow of his hereditary throne, will know well how to base, on the tutelary principles of empires, a system of teaching worthy of the enlightened knowledge of the age, and such as France demands from him, that she may not descend from the glorious rank she occupies amongst nations."

At the expiration of eight days more, in an assembly exclusively literary, a man who had never held public office, but for half or more than half a century a sincere and steady friend to liberty, M. Suard, perpetual secretary of the French Academy, in giving an account to that body of the examination in which he had decreed the prize to M. Villemain for his 'Panegyric on Montesquieu,' expressed himself in these terms:—"The instability of governments generally proceeds from indecision as to the principles which ought to regulate the exercise of power. A prince enlightened by the intelligence of the age, by experience, and a superior understanding, bestows on royal authority a support which no other can replace, in that Charter which protects the rights of the monarch, while it guarantees to the nation all those that constitute true and legitimate liberty. Let us rally under this signal of alliance between the people and their king. Their union is the only certain pledge for the happiness of both. Let the Charter be for us what the holy ark that contained the tables of the law was for the Hebrews of old. If the shade of the great publicist who has shed light on the principles of constitutional monarchies could be present at the triumph which we now award him, he would confirm with his sanction the sentiments I venture to express."

An assembly so unanimous in opinion and intention, composed of such men, representing so many important sections of society, and voluntarily grouped round the King and his ministers, constituted in themselves a great political fact. A certain index was supplied, that, in the opinion of the moderate party, enlightened minds were not wanting to comprehend the conditions of the new system, or serious dispositions for its support. As yet, however, they only formed the scattered elements and seeds of a great conservative party under a free government. Time was necessary for this party to unite, to consolidate its natural strength, and to render itself acceptable to the country. Would time be given for this difficult undertaking? The question was doubtful. A formidable crisis approached; the Chamber of 1815 was on the point of re-opening, and undoubtedly still more ardent and aggressive than during the preceding session. The party which prevailed there had not only to retrieve their checks, and pursue their designs, but they had also recent insults to avenge. During the recess they had been the objects of animated attack. The Government everywhere opposed their influence; the public loudly manifested towards them mistrust and antipathy; they were alternately charged with fanaticism and hypocrisy, with incapacity and vindictive obstinacy. Popular-anger and ridicule assailed them with unrestrained license. From notes collected at the time, I quote literally a few specimens of the sarcastic hostility with which they were pursued:—

"April 10th, 1816.—Before adjourning, the Chamber of Deputies has organized itself into a chapel. Treasurer and secretary, M. Laborie. Contractor for burials, M. de La Bourdonnaye. Grave-digger, M. Duplessis-Grenedan. Superintendent, M. de Bouville, and in his capacity of vice-president—rattlesnake. Dispenser of holy water (promise-maker), M. de Vitrolles. General of the Capuchins, M. de Villele; and he deserves the post for his voice. Grand almoner, M. de Marcellus, who gives a portion of his own estate to the poor. Bellringers, M. Hyde de Neuville," etc. etc.

"May, 1816.—Here is the Charter which a majority of the Chamber proposes to confer upon us.—Article. The fundamental principles of the constitution may be changed as often as we wish; nevertheless, seeing that stability is desirable, they shall not be changed more than three times a year.—Art. Every law emanates from the King; this is the first evidence of the right of petition accorded to all frenchmen.—Art. The laws shall be executed according to the pleasure of the Deputies, each in their respective departments.—Art. Every representative shall have the nomination to all posts within his district."

"July 1816.—They say the King is slightly indisposed. He will be very ill indeed if he is obliged to keep his Chamber for five years."

Such were the public expressions respecting this assembly, one of the most honourable members of which, M. de Kergorlay, said, a few months before, "The Chamber had not yet whispered when the former Ministry already fell; let it speak, and the present Government will scarcely last eight days."

The Ministry, however, had held its ground, and still continued to do so; but it was evidently impossible that it could stand firm against the Chamber, once more assembled with redoubled animosity. They well knew that the Opposition was determined to renew the most violent attacks upon the existing authorities. M. de Chateaubriand printed his 'Monarchy according to the Charter;' and although this able pamphlet was not yet published, everybody knew the superior skill with which the author could so eloquently blend falsehood with truth, how brilliantly he could compound sentiments and ideas, and with what power he could entangle the blinded and unsettled public in this dazzling chaos. Neither the Ministry nor the Opposition attempted to deceive themselves as to the nature and consequences of the struggle about to commence. The question of persons was merely the symbol and cloak of the great social and political topics in dispute between the two parties. The point to be decided was, whether power should pass over to the Right-hand party, such as it had exhibited itself during the session lately terminated; that is, whether the theories of M. de Bonald and the passions of M. de La Bourdonnaye, feebly qualified by the prudence and influence, as yet unripened, of M. de Villele, should become the rule of the King's policy.

I am not now, neither was I in 1815, amongst those who considered the Right-hand party unfit to govern France. On the contrary, I had already, although less profoundly and clearly than at present, adopted the opinion, that a concurrence of all the enlightened and independent classes, whether old or new, was absolutely necessary to rescue our country from the impending alternations of anarchy or despotism, and that without their union we could never long preserve order and liberty together. Perhaps too I might include this natural tendency amongst the reasons, not absolutely defined, which led me to desire the Restoration. Hereditary monarchy, become constitutional, presented itself to my mind both as a principle of stability, and as a natural and worthy means of reconciliation and conversion amongst the classes and parties who had been so long and continually at war. But in 1816, so soon after the revolutionary shock of the Hundred Days, and before the counter-revolutionary reaction of 1815 had subsided, the accession of the Right-hand party to power, would have been very different from the victory of men capable of governing without social disturbance, although under an unpopular system. It would have been the Revolution and the Counter-revolution once more in active contest, under an attack of raging fever; and thus the Throne and the Charter, the internal peace and security of France as well as her liberties, would be endangered by this struggle, before the eyes of Europe encamped within our territory and in arms around the combatants.

Under these menacing circumstances, M. Decazes had the rare merit of finding and applying a remedy to the gigantic evil. He was the first, and for some time the only one amongst the Ministers, who looked upon the dissolution of the Chamber of 1815 as equally necessary and possible. Undoubtedly personal interest had a share in his bold perspicuity; but I know him well enough to feel convinced, that his devotion to the country and the King powerfully contributed to his enlightened decision; and his conduct at this crisis displayed at least as much patriotism as ambition.

He had a double labour of persuasion to accomplish; first to win over his two principal colleagues, the Duke de Richelieu and M. Laine, and afterwards the King himself. Both sincerely attached to a moderate policy, the Duke and M. Laine were undecided, timid under great responsibility, and more disposed to wait the progress of difficulties and dangers, than to surmount by confronting them. Amongst the Duke's immediate circle were many ultra-royalists, who exercised no influence over him, and whom he even treated rudely when they displayed their violence; but he was unwilling to declare open war against them. M. Laine, scrupulous in his resolves and fearful for their consequences, was sensitive on the point of vanity, and disinclined to any measure not originating with himself.[12] The King's irresolution was perfectly natural. How could he dissolve the first Chamber, avowedly royalist, which had been assembled for twenty-five years,—a Chamber he had himself declared incomparable, and which contained so many of his oldest and most faithful friends? What dangers to himself and his dynasty might spring up on the day of such a decree! and even now, what discontent and anger already existed in his family and amongst his devoted adherents, and consequently what embarrassment and vexation thereby recoiled upon himself.

But Louis XVIII. had a cold heart and an unfettered mind. The rage and ill-temper of his relatives affected him little, when he had once firmly resolved not to be influenced by them. It was his pride and pleasure to fancy himself a more enlightened politician than all the rest of his race, and to act in perfect independence of thought and will. On more than one occasion, the Chamber, if not in direct words, at least in act and manner, had treated him with disrespect almost amounting to contempt, after the fashion of a revolutionary assembly. It became necessary for him to show to all, that he would not endure the display of such feelings and principles either from his friends or enemies. He regarded the Charter as his own work, and the foundation of his glory. The right-hand party frequently insulted and sometimes threatened a direct attack upon the Charter. The defence lay with the King. This gave him an opportunity of re-establishing it in its original integrity. During the administration of M. de Talleyrand he had, reluctantly and against his own conviction, modified several articles, and submitted fourteen others to the revision of the legislative authorities. To cut short this revision, and to return to the pure Charter, was to restore it a second time to France, and thus to establish, for the country and himself, a new pledge of security and peace.

During more than two months, M. Decazes handled all these points with much ability and address; determined, but not impatient, persevering, yet not obstinate, changing his topic according to the tempers he encountered, and day by day bringing before these wavering minds the facts and arguments best adapted to convince them. Without taking his principal friends unconnected with the Cabinet into the full and daily confidence of his labours, he induced them, under a promise of secrecy, to assist him by reasons and reflections which he might bring under the eyes of the King, while they gave variety to his own views. Several amongst them transmitted notes to him with this object; I contributed one also, particularly bearing on the hopes which those numerous middle classes placed in the King, who desired no more than to enjoy the productive repose they derived from him, and whom he alone could secure from the dangerous uncertainty to which the Chamber had reduced them. Different in origin and style, but all actuated by the same spirit and tending to the same end, these argumentative essays became gradually more and more efficacious. Having at last decided, the Duke de Richelieu and M. Laine concurred with M. Decazes to bring over the King, who had already formed his resolution, but chose to appear undecided, it being his pleasure to have no real confidant but his favourite. The three ministers who were known to be friends of the right-hand party, M. Dambray, the Duke of Feltri, and M. Dubouchage, were not consulted; and it was said that they remained in total ignorance of the whole affair to the last moment. I have reason to believe that, either from respect to the King, or from reluctance to enter into contest with the favourite, they soon reconciled themselves to a result which they plainly foresaw.

Be this as it may, on Wednesday, the 14th of August, the King held a cabinet council; the sitting was over, and the Duke of Feltri had already risen to take his departure. The King desired him to resume his place again. "Gentlemen," said he, "there is yet a question of immediate urgency,—the course to be taken with respect to the Chamber of Deputies. Three months ago I had determined to re-assemble it. Even a month since, I retained the same intention; but all that I have seen, and all that comes under my daily observation, proves so clearly the spirit of faction by which that Chamber is governed, the dangers which it threatens to France and to myself have become so apparent, that I have entirely changed my opinion. From this moment, then, you may consider the Chamber as dissolved. Start from that point, gentlemen, prepare to execute the measure, and in the meantime preserve the most inviolable secrecy on the subject. My decision is absolute." When Louis XVIII. had formed a serious resolution and intended to be obeyed, he had a tone of dignity and command which cut short all remonstrance. During three weeks, although the question deeply occupied all minds, and in spite of some returns of hesitation on the part of the King himself, the secret of the resolution adopted was so profoundly kept, that the Court believed the Chamber would re-assemble. It was only on the 5th of September, after the King had retired to bed, that Monsieur received information through the Duke de Richelieu, from his Majesty, that the decree for the dissolution was signed, and would be published in the 'Moniteur' on the following morning.

The surprise and anger of Monsieur were unbounded; he would have hastened at once to the King; the Duke de Richelieu withheld him, by saying that the King was already asleep, and had given peremptory orders that he should not be disturbed. The Princes, his sons, accustomed to extreme reserve in the King's presence, appeared to approve rather than condemn. "The King has acted wisely," said the Duke de Berry; "I warned those gentlemen of the Chamber that they had indulged in too much license." The Court was thrown into consternation, on hearing of a stroke so totally unexpected. The party against whom it was aimed, attempted some stir in the first instance. M. de Chateaubriand added an angry Postscript to his 'Monarchy according to the Charter,' and evinced symptoms of resistance, more indignant than rational, to the measures decreed, in consequence of some infraction of the regulations of the press, to retard the publication of his work.[13] But the party, having reflected a little, prudently stifled their anger, and began immediately to contrive means for re-engaging in the contest. The public, or, I ought rather to say, the entire land, loudly proclaimed its satisfaction. For honest, peaceably disposed people, the measure was a signal of deliverance; for political agitators, a proclamation of hope. None were ignorant that M. Decazes had been its first and most effectual advocate. He was surrounded with congratulations, and promises that all men of sense and substance would rally round him; he replied with modest satisfaction, "This country must be very sick indeed for me to be of so much importance."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 11: In a publication entitled 'Of Representative Government, and the Actual Condition of France,' published in 1816.]

[Footnote 12: I insert amongst the "Historic Documents" a note which he transmitted to the King, in the course of the month of August, on the question of the dissolution of the Chamber; and in which the fluctuations and fantasies of his mind, more ingenious than judicious, are revealed. (Historic Documents, No. VII.)]

[Footnote 13: I have added to the "Historic Documents" the letters exchanged on this occasion between M. de Chateaubriand, M. Decazes, and the Chancellor Dambray, which characterize strongly the event and the individuals. (Historic Documents, No. VIII.)]



CHAPTER V.

GOVERNMENT OF THE CENTRE.

1816-1821.

COMPOSITION OF THE NEW CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.—THE CABINET IN A MAJORITY.—ELEMENTS OF THAT MAJORITY, THE CENTRE PROPERLY SO CALLED, AND THE DOCTRINARIANS.—TRUE CHARACTER OF THE CENTRE.—TRUE CHARACTER OF THE DOCTRINARIANS, AND REAL CAUSE OF THEIR INFLUENCE.—M. DE LA BOURDONNAYE AND M. ROYER-COLLARD AT THE OPENING OF THE SESSION.—ATTITUDE OF THE DOCTRINARIANS IN THE DEBATE ON THE EXCEPTIONAL LAWS.—ELECTORAL LAW OF FEBRUARY 5TH, 1817.—THE PART I TOOK ON THAT OCCASION.—OF THE ACTUAL AND POLITICAL POSITION OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES.—MARSHAL GOUVION ST. CYR, AND HIS BILL FOR RECRUITING THE ARMY, OF THE 10TH OF MARCH, 1818.—BILL RESPECTING THE PRESS, OF 1819, AND M. DE SERRE.—PREPARATORY DISCUSSION OF THESE BILLS IN THE STATE COUNCIL.—GENERAL ADMINISTRATION OF THE COUNTRY.—MODIFICATION OF THE CABINET FROM 1816 TO 1820.—IMPERFECTIONS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM.—ERRORS OF INDIVIDUALS.—DISSENSIONS BETWEEN THE CABINET AND THE DOCTRINARIANS.—THE DUKE DE RICHELIEU NEGOCIATES, AT AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, THE ENTIRE RETREAT OF FOREIGN TROOPS FROM FRANCE.—HIS SITUATION AND CHARACTER.—HE ATTACKS THE BILL ON ELECTIONS.—HIS FALL.—CABINET OF M. DECAZES.—HIS POLITICAL WEAKNESS, NOTWITHSTANDING HIS PARLIAMENTARY SUCCESS.—ELECTIONS OF 1819.—ELECTION AND NON-ADMISSION OF M. GREGOIRE.—ASSASSINATION OF THE DUKE DE BERRY.—FALL OF M. DECAZES.—THE DUKE DE RICHELIEU RESUMES OFFICE.—HIS ALLIANCE WITH THE RIGHT-HAND PARTY.—CHANGE IN THE LAW OF ELECTIONS.—DISORGANIZATION OF THE CENTRE, AND PROGRESS OF THE RIGHT-HAND PARTY.—SECOND FALL OF THE DUKE DE RICHELIEU.—M. DE VILLELE AND THE RIGHT-HAND PARTY OBTAIN POWER.

A violent outcry was raised, as there ever has been and always will be, against ministerial interference at the elections. This is the sour consolation of the beaten, who feel the necessity of accounting for their defeat. Elections, taken comprehensively, are almost always more genuine than interested and narrow-minded suspicion is disposed to allow. The desires and ability of the powers in office, exercise over them only a secondary authority. The true essence of elections lies in the way in which the wind blows, and in the impulse of passing events. The decree of the 5th of September, 1816, had given confidence to the moderate party, and a degree of hope to the persecuted of 1815. They all rallied round the Cabinet, casting aside their quarrels, antipathies, and private rancours, combining to support the power which promised victory to the one and safety to the other.

The victory, in fact, remained with the Cabinet, but it was one of those questionable triumphs which left the conquerors still engaged in a fierce war. The new Chamber comprised, in the centre a ministerial majority, on the right a strong and active opposition, and on the left a very small section, in which M. d'Argenson and M. Lafitte were the only names recognized by the public.

The ministerial majority was formed from two different although at that time closely-united elements,—the centre, properly called the grand army of power, and the very limited staff of that army, who soon received the title of doctrinarians.

I shall say of the centre of our assemblies since 1814, what I have just said of M. Cuvier; it has been misunderstood and calumniated, when servility and a rabid desire for place have been named as its leading characteristics. With it, as with others, personal interests have had their weight, and have looked for their gratification; but one general and just idea formed the spirit and bond of union of the party,—the idea that, in the present day, after so many revolutions, society required established government, and that to government all good citizens were bound to render their support. Many excellent and honourable sentiments,—family affection, a desire for regular employment, respect for rank, laws, and traditions, anxieties for the future, religious habits,—all clustered round this conviction, and had often inspired its votaries with rare and trusting courage. I call these persevering supporters of Government, citizen Tories; their defamers are weak politicians and shallow philosophers, who neither understand the moral instincts of the soul, nor the essential interests of society.

The doctrinarians have been heavily attacked. I shall endeavour to explain rather than defend them. When either men or parties have once exercised an influence over events, or obtained a place in history, it becomes important that they should be correctly known; this point accomplished, they may rest in peace and submit to judgment.

It was neither intelligence, nor talent, nor moral dignity—qualities which their acknowledged enemies have scarcely denied them—that established the original character and political importance of the doctrinarians.

Other men of other parties have possessed the same qualities; and between the relative pretensions of these rivals in understanding, eloquence, and sincerity, public opinion will decide. The peculiar characteristic of the doctrinarians, and the real source of their importance in spite of their limited number, was that they maintained, against revolutionary principles and ideas, ideas and principles contrary to those of the old enemies of the Revolution, and with which they opposed it, not to destroy but to reform and purify it in the name of justice and truth. The great feature, dearly purchased, of the French revolution was, that it was a work of the human mind, its conceptions and pretensions, and at the same time a struggle between social interests. Philosophy had boasted that it would regulate political economy, and that institutions, laws, and public authorities should only exist as the creatures and servants of instructed reason,—- an insane pride, but a startling homage to all that is most elevated in man, to his intellectual and moral attributes! Reverses and errors were not slow in impressing on the Revolution their rough lessons; but even up to 1815 it had encountered, as commentators on its ill-fortune, none but implacable enemies or undeceived accomplices,—the first thirsting for vengeance, the last eager for rest, and neither capable of opposing to revolutionary principles anything beyond a retrograde movement on the one side, and the scepticism of weariness on the other. "There was nothing in the Revolution but error and crime," said the first; "the supporters of the old system were in the right."—"The Revolution erred only in excess," exclaimed the second; "its principles were sound, but carried too far; it has abused its rights." The doctrinarians denied both these conclusions; they refused to acknowledge the maxims of the old system, or, even in a mere speculative sense, to adhere to the principles of the Revolution. While frankly adopting the new state of French society, such as our entire history, and not alone the year 1789, had made it, they undertook to establish a government on rational foundations, but totally opposed to the theories in the name of which the old system had been overthrown, or the incoherent principles which some endeavoured to conjure up for its reconstruction. Alternately called on to combat and defend the Revolution, they boldly assumed from the outset, an intellectual position, opposing ideas to ideas, and principles to principles, appealing at the same time to reason and experience, affirming rights instead of maintaining interests, and requiring France, not to confess that she had committed evil alone, or to declare her impotence for good, but to emerge from the chaos into which she had plunged herself, and to raise her head once more towards heaven in search of light.

Let me readily admit that there was also much pride in this attempt; but a pride commencing with an act of humility, which proclaims the mistakes of yesterday with the desire and hope of not repeating them today. It was rendering homage to human intelligence while warning it of the limits of its power, respecting the past, without undervaluing the present or abandoning the future. It was an endeavour to bestow on politics sound philosophy, not as a sovereign mistress, but as an adviser and support.

I shall state without hesitation, according to what experience has taught me, the faults which progressively mingled with this noble design, and impaired or checked its success. What I anxiously desire at present is to indicate its true character. It was to this mixture of philosophical sentiment and political moderation, to this rational respect for opposing rights and facts, to these principles, equally new and conservative, anti-revolutionary without being retrograde, and modest in fact although sometimes haughty in expression, that the doctrinarians owed their importance as well as their name. Notwithstanding the numerous errors of philosophy and human reason, the present age still cherishes reasoning and philosophical tastes; and the most determined practical politicians sometimes assume the air of acting upon general ideas, regarding them as sound methods of obtaining justification or credit. The doctrinarians thus responded to a profound and real necessity, although imperfectly acknowledged, of French minds: they paid equal respect to intellect and social order; their notions appeared well suited to regenerate, while terminating the Revolution. Under this double title they found, with partisans and adversaries, points of contact which drew them together, if not with active sympathy, at least with solid esteem: the right-hand party looked upon them as sincere royalists; and the left, while opposing them with acrimony, could not avoid admitting that they were neither the advocates of the old system, nor the defenders of absolute power.

Such was their position at the opening of the session of 1816: a little obscure still, but recognized by the Cabinet as well as by the different parties. The Duke de Richelieu, M. Laine, and M. Decazes, whether they liked the doctrinarians or not, felt that they positively required their co-operation, as well in the debates of the Chambers as to act upon public opinion. The left-hand party, powerless in itself, accorded with them from necessity, although their ideas and language sometimes produced surprise rather than sympathy. The right, notwithstanding its losses at the elections, was still very strong, and speedily assumed the offensive. The King's speech on opening the session was mild and somewhat indistinct, as if tending rather to palliate the decree of the 5th of September, than to parade it with an air of triumph: "Rely," said he, in conclusion, "on my fixed determination to repress the outrages of the ill-disposed, and to restrain the exuberance of overheated zeal." "Is that all?" observed M. de Chateaubriand, on leaving the royal presence; "if so, the victory is ours:" and on that same day he dined with the Chancellor. M. de la Bourdonnaye was even more explicit. "The King," said he, with a coarse expression, "once more hands his ministers over to us!" During the session of the next day, meeting M. Royer-Collard, with whom he was in the habit of extremely free conversation, "Well," said he, "there you are, more rogues than last year." "And you not so many," replied M. Royer-Collard. The right-hand party, in their reviving hopes, well knew how to distinguish the adversaries with whom they would have to contend.

As in the preceding session, the first debates arose on questions of expediency. The Cabinet judged it necessary to demand from the Chambers the prolongation, for another year, of the two provisional laws respecting personal liberty and the daily press. M. Decazes presented a detailed account of the manner in which, up to that period, the Government had used the arbitrary power committed to its hands, and also the new propositions which should restrain it within the limits necessary to remove all apprehended danger. The right-hand party vigorously rejected these propositions, upon the very natural ground that they had no confidence in the Ministers, but without any other reasoning than the usual commonplace arguments of liberalism. The doctrinarians supported the bills, but with the addition of commentaries which strongly marked their independence, and the direction they wished to give to the power they defended. "Every day," said M. de Serre, "the nature of our constitution will be better understood, its benefits more appreciated by the nation; the laws with which you co-operate, will place by degrees our institutions and habits in harmony with representative monarchy; the government will approach its natural perfection,—that unity of principle, design, and action which forms the condition of its existence. In permitting and even in protecting legal opposition, it will not allow that opposition to find resting-points within itself. It is because it can be, and ought to be, watched over and contradicted by independent men, that it should be punctually obeyed, faithfully seconded and served by those who have become and wish to remain its direct agents. Government will thus acquire a degree of strength which can dispense with the employment of extraordinary means: legal measures, restored to their proper energy, will be found sufficient." "There is," said M. Royer-Collard, "a strong objection against this bill; the Government may be asked, 'Before you demand excessive powers, have you employed all those which the laws entrust to you? have you exhausted their efficacy?' ... I shall not directly answer this question, but I shall say to those who put it, 'Take care how you expose your Government to too severe a trial, and one under which nearly all Governments have broken down; do not require from it perfection; consider its difficulties as well as its duties.' ... We wish to arrest its steps in the course it pursues at present, and to impose daily changes. We demand from it the complete development of institutions and constitutional enactments; above all, we require that vigorous unity of principles, system, and conduct without which it will never effectually reach the end towards which it advances. But what it has already done, is a pledge for what it will yet accomplish. We feel a just reliance that the extraordinary powers with which we invest it will be exercised, not by or for a party, but for the nation against all parties. Such is our treaty; such are the stipulations which have been spoken of: they are as public as our confidence, and we thank those who have occasioned their repetition, for proving to France that we are faithful to her cause, and neglect neither her interests nor our own duties."

With a more gentle effusion of mind and heart, M. Camille Jordan held the same language; the bills passed; the right-hand party felt as blows directed against itself the advice suggested to the Cabinet, and the Cabinet saw that in that quarter, as necessary supporters, they had also haughty and exacting allies.

Their demands were not fruitless. The Cabinet, uninfluenced either by despotic views or immoderate passions, had no desire to retain unnecessarily the absolute power with which it had been entrusted. No effort was requisite to deprive it of the provisional laws; they fell successively of themselves,—the suspension of the securities for personal liberty in 1817, the prevotal courts in 1818, the censorship of the daily press in 1819; and four years after the tempest of the Hundred Days, the country was in the full enjoyment of all its constitutional privileges.

During this interval, other questions, more and less important, were brought forward and decided. When the first overflowing of the reaction of 1815 had a little calmed down, when France, less disturbed with the present, began once more to think of the future, she was called upon to enter on the greatest work that can fall to the lot of a nation. There was more than a new government to establish; it was necessary that a free government should be imbued with vigour. It was written, and it must live,—a promise often made, but never accomplished. How often, from 1789 to 1814, had liberties and political rights been inscribed on our institutes and laws, to be buried under them, and held of no account. The first amongst the Governments of our day, the Restoration, took these words at their true meaning; whatever may have been its traditions and propensities, what it said, it did; the liberties and rights it acknowledged, were taken into real co-operation and action. From 1814 to 1830, as from 1830 to 1848, the Charter was a truth. For once forgetting it, Charles X. fell.

When this work of organization, or, to speak more correctly, when this effectual call to political life commenced in 1816, the question of the electoral system, already touched upon, but without result, in the preceding session, was the first that came under notice. It was included in the scope of the fortieth article of the Charter, which ran thus:—"The electors who nominate the Deputies can have no right of voting, unless they pay a direct contribution of 300 francs, and have reached the age of thirty,"—an ambiguous arrangement, which attempted more than it ventured to accomplish. It evidently contained a desire of placing the right of political suffrage above the popular masses, and of confining it within the more elevated classes of society. But the constitutional legislator had neither gone openly to this point, nor attained it with certainty; for if the Charter required from the electors who were actually to name the Deputies, 300 francs of direct contribution, and thirty years of age, it did not forbid that these electors should be themselves chosen by preceding electoral assemblies; or rather it did not exclude indirect election, nor, under that form, what is understood by the term universal suffrage.

I took part in drawing up the bill of the 5th of February, 1817, which comprised, at that time, the solution given to this important question. I was present at the conferences in which it was prepared. When ready, M. Laine, whose business it was, as Minister of the Interior, to present it to the Chamber of Deputies, wrote to say that he wished to see me: "I have adopted," he said, "all the principles of this bill, the concentration of the right of suffrage, direct election, the equal privilege of voters, their union in a single college for each department; and I really believe these are the best that could be desired: still, upon some of these points, I have mental doubts and little time to solve them. Help me in preparing the exposition of our objects." I responded, as I was bound, to this confiding sincerity, by which I felt equally touched and honoured. The bill was brought in; and while my friends supported it in the Chamber, from whence my age for the present excluded me, I defended it, on behalf of the Government, in several articles inserted in the 'Moniteur.' I was well informed as to its intent and true spirit, and I speak of it without embarrassment in presence of the universal suffrage, as now established. If the electoral system of 1817 disappeared in the tempest of 1848, it conferred on France thirty years of regular and free government, systematically sustained and controlled; and amidst all the varying influences of parties, and the shock of a revolution, this system sufficed to maintain peace, to develop national prosperity, and to preserve respect for all legal rights. In this age of ephemeral and futile experiments, it is the only political enactment which has enjoyed a long and powerful life. At least it was a work which may be acknowledged, and which deserves to be correctly estimated, even after its overthrow.

A ruling idea inspired the bill of the 5th of February, 1817,—to fix a term to the revolutionary system, and to give vigour to the constitutional Government. At that epoch, universal suffrage had ever been, in France, an instrument of destruction or deceit,—of destruction, when it had really placed political power in the hands of the multitude; of deceit, when it had assisted to annul political rights for the advantage of absolute power, by maintaining, through the vain intervention of the multitude, a false appearance of electoral privilege. To escape, in fine, from that routine of alternate violence and falsehood, to place political power in the region within which the conservative interests of social order naturally predominate with enlightened independence, and to secure to those interests, by the direct election of deputies from the country, a free and strong action upon its Government,—such were the objects, without reserve or exaggeration, of the authors of the electoral system of 1817.

In a country devoted for twenty-five years, on the subject of political elections, whether truly or apparently, to the principle of the supremacy of number, so absurdly called the sovereignty of the people, the attempt was new, and might appear rash. At first, it confined political power to the hands of 140,000 electors. From the public, and even from what was already designated the liberal party, it encountered but slight opposition; some objections springing from the past, some apprehensions for the future, but no declared or active hostility. It was from the bosom of the classes specially devoted to conservative interests, and from their intestine discussions, that the attack and the danger emanated.