The assassination of the Duke de Berry might with much more propriety be called an accident. On the trial it was proved by evidence that Louvel had no accomplices, and that he was alone in the conception as in the execution of his crime. But it was also evident that hatred against the Bourbons had possessed the soul and armed the hand of the murderer. Revolutionary passions are a fire which is kindled and nourished afar off; the orators of the right obtained credit with many timid and horror-stricken minds, when they called this an accident;—as it is also an accident if a diseased constitution catches the plague when it infects the air, or if a powder-magazine explodes when you strike fire in its immediate neighbourhood.

M. Decazes endeavoured to defend himself against these two heavy blows. After the election of M. Gregoire, he undertook to accomplish alone what at the close of the preceding year he had refused to attempt in concert with the Duke de Richelieu. He determined to alter the law of elections. It was intended that this change should take place in a great constitutional reform meditated by M. de Serre, liberal on certain points, monarchical on others, and which promised to give more firmness to royalty by developing representative government. M. Decazes made a sincere effort to induce the Duke de Richelieu, who was then travelling in Holland, to return and reassume the presidency of the Council, and to co-operate with him in the Chambers for the furtherance of this bold undertaking. The King himself applied to the Duke de Richelieu, who positively declined, more from disgust with public affairs and through diffidence of his own power, than from any remains of ill-humour or resentment. Three actual members of the Cabinet of 1819, General Dessoles, Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, and Baron Louis, declared that they would not co-operate in any attack on the existing law of elections. M. Decazes determined to do without them, as he had dispensed with the Duke de Richelieu, and to form a new Cabinet, of which he became the president, and in which M. Pasquier, General Latour-Maubourg, and M. Roy replaced the three retiring ministers. On the 29th of November the King opened the session. Two months passed over, and the new electoral system had not yet been presented to the Chamber. Three days after the assassination of the Duke de Berry, M. Decazes introduced it suddenly, with two bills to suspend personal liberty, and re-establish the censorship of the daily press. Four days later he fell, and the Duke de Richelieu, standing alone before the King and the danger, consented to resume power. M. Decazes would have acted more wisely had he submitted to his first defeat, and induced the King after the election of M. Gregoire, to take back the Duke de Richelieu as minister. He would not then have been compelled to lower with his own hand the flag he had raised, and to endure the burden of a great miscarriage.

The fall of the Cabinet of 1819, brought on a new crisis, and a fresh progress of the evil which disorganized the great Government party formed during the session of 1815, and by the decree of the 5th of September, 1816. To the successive divisions of the centre, were now added the differences between the doctrinarians themselves. M. de Serre, who had joined the Cabinet with M. Decazes to defend the law of elections, now determined, although sick and absent, to remain there with the Duke de Richelieu to overthrow it, without any of the compensations, real or apparent, which his grand schemes of constitutional reform were intended to supply. I tried in vain to dissuade him from his resolution.[15] In the Chamber of Deputies, M. Royer-Collard and M. Camille Jordan vehemently attacked the new electoral plan; the Duke de Broglie and M. de Barante proposed serious amendments to it in the Chamber of Peers. All the political ties which had been cemented during five years appeared to be dissolved; every one followed his own private opinion, or returned to his old bias. In the parliamentary field, all was uncertainty and confused opposition; a phantom appeared at each extremity, revolution and counter-revolution, exchanging mutual menaces, and equally impatient to come to issue.

Those who wish to give themselves a correct idea of parliamentary and popular excitement, pushed to their extreme limit, and yet retained within that boundary by legal authority and the good sense of the public,—sufficient to arrest the country on the brink of an abyss, although too weak to block up the road that leads to it,—should read the debate on the new electoral bill introduced into the Chamber of Deputies on the 17th of April, 1820, by the second Cabinet of the Duke de Richelieu, and discussed for twenty-six days in that Chamber, accompanied with riotous gatherings without, thoughtlessly aggressive and sternly repressed. If we are to believe the orators of the left, France and her liberties, the Revolution and its conquests, the honour of the present, and the security of the future, were all lost if the ministerial bill should pass. The right, on the other hand, looked upon the bill as scarcely strong enough to save the monarchy for the moment, and declared its resolution to reject every amendment which might diminish its powers. On both sides, pretensions and claims were equally ungovernable. Attracted and excited by this legal quarrel, the students, the enthusiastic young Liberals, the old professional disturbers, the idlers and oppositionists of every class, were engaged daily with the soldiers and the agents of police, in conflicts sometimes sanguinary, and the accounts of which redoubled the acrimony of the debate withindoors. In the midst of this general commotion, the Cabinet of 1820 had the merit of maintaining, while repressing all popular movement, the freedom of legislative deliberation, and of acting its part in these stormy discussions with perseverance and moderation. M. Pasquier, their Minister for Foreign Affairs, endowed with rare self-command and presence of mind, was on this occasion the principal parliamentary champion of the Cabinet; and M. Mounier, Director-General of the Police, controlled the street riots with as much prudence as active firmness. The charge so often brought against so many ministers, against M. Casimir Perrier in 1831, as against the Duke de Richelieu in 1820, of exciting popular commotions only to repress them, does not deserve the notice of sensible men. At the end of a month, all these debates and scenes, within and without, ended in the adoption, not of the ministerial bill, but of an amendment which, without destroying in principle the bill of the 5th of February, 1817, so materially vitiated it, to the advantage of the right, that the party felt themselves bound to be satisfied. The greater portion of the centre, and the more moderate members of the left, submitted for the sake of public peace. The extreme left and the extreme right, M. Manuel and M. de la Bourdonnaye entered a protest. The new electoral system was clearly destined to shift the majority, and, with the majority, power, from the left to the right; but the liberties of France, and the advantages gained by the Revolution, were not endangered by the change.

This question once settled, the Cabinet had to pay its debts to the right-hand party,—rewards to those who had supported it, and punishments to its opposers. In spite of old friendships, the doctrinarians figured of necessity in the last category. If I had desired it, I might have escaped. Not being a member of either Chamber, and beyond the circle of constrained action, I could in my capacity of State Councillor have maintained reserve and silence after giving my advice to the Government; but on entering public life, I had resolved on one uniform course,—to express my true thoughts on every occasion, and never to separate myself from my friends. M. de Serre included me, with good reason, in the measure which removed them from the Council; on the 17th of June, 1820, he wrote to MM. Royer-Collard, Camille Jordan, Barante, and myself, to inform us that we were no longer on the list. The best men readily assume the habits and style of absolute power. M. de Serre was certainly not deficient in self-respect or confidence in his own opinions; he felt surprised that in this instance I should have obeyed mine, without any other more coercive necessity, and evinced this feeling by communicating my removal with unqualified harshness. "The evident hostility," he said to me, "which, without the shadow of a pretext, you have lately exhibited towards the King's Government, has rendered this step inevitable." My answer was simply this:—"I expected your letter. I might have foreseen, and I did anticipate it, when I openly evinced my disapprobation of the acts and speeches of the Ministry. I congratulate myself that I have nothing to alter in my conduct. Tomorrow, as yesterday, I shall belong only and entirely to myself."[16]

The decisive step was taken; power had changed its course with its friends. After having turned it to this new direction, the Duke de Richelieu and his colleagues made sincere efforts during two years to arrest its further progress. They tried all methods of conciliation or resistance; sometimes they courted the right, at others the remains of the centre, and occasionally even the left, by concessions of principle, and more frequently of a personal nature. M. de Chateaubriand was sent as Ambassador to Berlin, and General Clauzel was declared entitled to the amnesty. M. de Villele and M. Corbiere obtained seats in the Cabinet, the first as minister without a portfolio, and the other as president of the Royal Council of Public Instruction; they left it, however, at the expiration of six months, under frivolous pretexts, but foreseeing the approaching fall of the Ministry, and not wishing to be there at the last moment. They were not deceived. The elections of 1821 completed the decimation of the weak battalion which still endeavoured to stand firm round tottering power. The Duke de Richelieu, who had only resumed office on a personal promise from the Count d'Artois of permanent support, complained loudly, with the independent spirit of a nobleman of high rank and of a man of honour, that the word of a gentleman, pledged to him, had not been kept. Vain complaints, and futile efforts! The Cabinet obtained time with difficulty; but the right-hand party alone gained ground. At length, on the 19th of December, 1821, the last shadow of the Government of the Centre vanished with the ministry of the Duke de Richelieu. The right and M. de Villele seized the reins of power. "The counter-revolution is approaching!" exclaimed the left, in a mingled burst of satisfaction and alarm. M. de Villele thought differently; a little before the decisive crisis, and after having, in his quality of vice-president, directed for some days the deliberations of the Chamber of Deputies, he wrote as follows to one of his friends:—"You will scarcely believe how my four days of presidency have succeeded. I received compliments on every side, but particularly, I own it to my shame, from the left, whom I have never conciliated. They expected, without doubt, to be eaten up alive by an ultra. They are inexhaustible in eulogium. Finally, those to whom I never speak, now address me with a thousand compliments. I think in this there is a little spite against M. Ravez. But, be that as it may, if a president were just now to be elected, I should have almost every vote in the Chamber.... For myself, impartiality costs me nothing. I look only to the success of the affairs I have undertaken, and have not the slightest prejudice against individuals. I am born for the end of revolutions."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 14: I have recapitulated amongst the "Historic Documents" the chief measures of general administration, which were adopted by M. Laine, M. Decazes and Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, in their respective departments, during this period. These short tables clearly exhibit the spirit of improvement and the rational care of public interests which animated the Cabinet. (Historic Documents, No. IX.)]

[Footnote 15: I insert in the "Historic Documents" the letter I addressed to him, with this object, on the 12th of April, 1820, to Nice, whither he had repaired towards the middle of the month of January, to seek relief from a crisis of the chest complaint which finally caused his death. I am struck today, as undoubtedly all will be who read this letter with attention, by the mixture of truth and error, of foresight and improvidence therein contained. Subsequent events alternately verified and disproved what I then wrote. (Historic Documents, No. X.)]

[Footnote 16: I insert at length amongst the "Historic Documents" the correspondence interchanged on this occasion between M. de Serre, M. Pasquier, and myself. (Historic Documents, No. XI)]



CHAPTER VI.

GOVERNMENT OF THE RIGHT-HAND PARTY.

1822-1827.

POSITION OF M. DE VILLELE ON ASSUMING POWER.—HE FINDS HIMSELF ENGAGED WITH THE LEFT AND THE CONSPIRACIES.—CHARACTER OF THE CONSPIRACIES.—ESTIMATE OF THEIR MOTIVES.—THEIR CONNECTION WITH SOME OF THE LEADERS OF THE PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION.—M. DE LA FAYETTE.—M. MANUEL.—M. D'ARGENSON.—THEIR ATTITUDE IN THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.—FAILURE OF THE CONSPIRACIES, AND CAUSES THEREOF.—M. DE VILLELE ENGAGED WITH HIS RIVALS WITHIN AND BY THE SIDE OF THE CABINET.—THE DUKE DE MONTMORENCY.—M. DE CHATEAUBRIAND AMBASSADOR AT LONDON.—CONGRESS OF VERONA.—M. DE CHATEAUBRIAND BECOMES MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS.—SPANISH WAR.—EXAMINATION OF ITS CAUSES AND RESULTS.—RUPTURE BETWEEN M. DE VILLELE AND M. DE CHATEAUBRIAND.—FALL OF M. DE CHATEAUBRIAND.—M. DE VILLELE ENGAGED WITH AN OPPOSITION SPRINGING FROM THE RIGHT-HAND PARTY.—THE "JOURNAL DES DEBATS" AND THE MESSRS. BERTIN.—M. DE VILLELE FALLS UNDER THE YOKE OF THE PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY.—ATTITUDE AND INFLUENCE OF THE ULTRA-CATHOLIC PARTY.—ESTIMATE OF THEIR CONDUCT.—ATTACKS TO WHICH THEY ARE EXPOSED.—M. DE MONTLOSIER.—M. BERANGER.—ACUTENESS OF M. DE VILLELE.—HIS DECLINE.—HIS ENEMIES AT THE COURT.—REVIEW AND DISBANDING OF THE NATIONAL GUARD OF PARIS.—ANXIETY OF CHARLES X.—DISSOLUTION OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.—THE ELECTIONS ARE HOSTILE TO M. DE VILLELE.—HE RETIRES.—SPEECH OF THE DAUPHINISTS TO CHARLES X.

I now change position and point of view. It was no longer as an actor within, but as a spectator without, that I watched the right-hand party, and am enabled to record my impressions,—a spectator in opposition, who has acquired light, and learned to form a correct judgment, from time.

In December 1821, M. de Villele attained power by the natural highroad. He reached his post through the qualities he had displayed and the importance he had acquired in the Chambers, and at the head of his party, which he brought in with himself. After a struggle of five years, he accomplished the object prematurely conceived by M. de Vitrolles in 1815,—that the leader of the parliamentary majority should become the head of the Government. Events are marked by unforeseen contradictions. The Charter conducted to office the very individual who, before its promulgation, had been its earliest opponent.

Amongst the noted men of our time, it is a distinctive feature in the career of M. de Villele, that he became minister as a partisan, and retained that character in his official position, while at the same time endeavouring to establish, amongst his supporters, general principles of government in preference to the spirit of party. This moderator of the right was ever strictly faithful to the interests of that side. Very often unacquainted with the ideas, passions, and designs of his party, he opposed them indirectly and without positive disavowal, resolved never to desert his friends, even though he might be unable to control their course. Not from any general and systematic conviction, but from a sound practical instinct, he readily perceived the necessity of a strong attachment from the leader to his army, to secure a reciprocal feeling from the army to its chief. He paid dearly for this pertinacity; for it justly condemned him to bear the weight of errors which, had he been unfettered, he would never in all probability have committed; but through this sacrifice he held power for six years, and saved his party, during that period, from the extreme mistakes which, after his secession, led rapidly to their ruin. As minister of a constitutional monarchy, M. de Villele has furnished France with one of the first examples of that fixity of political ties which, in spite of many inconveniences and objections, is essential to the great and salutary effects of representative government.

When M. de Villele was called on to form a Cabinet, he found the country and the Government under the influence of a violent excitement. There were not alone storms in the Chamber and tumults in the streets; secret societies, plots, insurrections, and a strong effort to overthrow established order, fermented and burst forth in every quarter,—in the departments of the east, west, and south, at Befort, Colmar, Toulon, Saumur, Nantes, La Rochelle, and even at Paris itself, under the very eyes of the Ministers, in the army as well as in the civil professions, in the royal guards as in the regiments of the line. In less than three years, eight serious conspiracies attacked and endangered the Restoration.

Today, after the lapse of more than thirty years, after so many events of greater importance, when an honest and rational man asks himself what motives could have excited such fierce anger and rash enterprises, he can find none either sufficient or legitimate. Neither the acts of power nor the probabilities of the future had so wounded or threatened the rights and interests of the country as to justify these attempts at utter subversion. The electoral system had been artfully changed; power had passed into the hands of an irritating and suspected party; but the great institutions were still intact; public liberty, though disputed, still displayed itself vigorously; legal order had received no serious blow; the country prospered and regularly advanced in strength. The new society was disturbed, but not disarmed; it was in a condition to wait and defend itself. There were just grounds for an animated and public opposition, but none for conspiracy or revolution.

Nations that aspire to be free incur a prominent danger,—the danger of deceiving themselves on the question of tyranny. They readily apply that name to any system of government that displeases or alarms them, or refuses to grant all that they desire. Frivolous caprices, which entail their own punishment! Power must have inflicted on a country many violations of right, with repeated acts of injustice and oppression bitter and prolonged, before revolution can be justified by reason, or crowned with triumph in the face of its inherent faults. When such causes are wanting to revolutionary attempts, they either fail miserably or bring with them the reaction which involves their own punishment.

But from 1820 to 1823 the conspirators never dreamed of asking themselves if their enterprises were legitimate; they entertained no doubt on the subject. Very different although simultaneous passions, past alarms and prospective temptations, influenced their minds and conduct. The hatreds and apprehensions that attached themselves to the words emigration, feudal system, old form of government, aristocracy, and counter-revolution, belonged to bygone times; but these fears and antipathies were in many hearts as intense and vivid as if they were entertained towards existing and powerful enemies. Against these phantoms, which the folly of the extreme right had conjured up, without the power of giving them substantial vitality, war in any shape was considered allowable, urgent, and patriotic. It was believed that liberty could best be served and saved by rekindling against the Restoration all the slumbering revolutionary fires. The conspirators flattered themselves that they could at the same time prepare a fresh revolution, which should put an end, not only to the restored monarchy, but to monarchy altogether, and by the re-establishment of the Republic lead to the absolute triumph of popular rights and interests. To the greater part of these young enthusiasts, descended from families who had been engaged in the old cause of the first Revolution, dreams of the future united with traditions of the domestic hearth; while maintaining the struggles of their fathers, they indulged their own Utopian chimeras.

Those who conspired from revolutionary hatred or republican hope, were joined by others with more clearly defined but not less impassioned views. I have elsewhere said, in speaking of Washington, "It is the privilege, often corruptive, of great men, to inspire attachment and devotion without the power of reciprocating these feelings." No one ever enjoyed this privilege more than the Emperor Napoleon. He was dying at this very moment upon the rock of St. Helena; he could no longer do anything for his partisans; and he found, amongst the people as well as in the army, hearts and arms ready to do all and risk all for his name,—a generous infatuation for which I am at a loss to decide whether human nature should be praised or pitied.

All these passions and combinations would in all probability have remained futile and unnoticed, had they not found exponents and chiefs in the highest political circles and in the bosom of the great bodies of the State. The popular masses are never sufficient for themselves; their desires and designs must be represented by visible and important leaders, who march at their head and accept the responsibility of the means and end. The conspirators of from 1820 to 1823 knew this well; and upon the most widely separated points, at Befort as at Saumur, and at each fresh enterprise, they declared that they would not act unless well-known political leaders and Deputies of reputation were associated with them. Everybody knows, at the present day, that the co-operation they required was not withheld.

In the Chamber of Deputies, the opposition to the Government of the Right was comprised of three sections united against it, but differing materially in their views and in their means of hostility. I shall only name the principal members of this confederacy, and who have themselves clearly defined their respective positions. M. de La Fayette and M. Manuel acknowledged and directed the conspiracies. Without ignoring them, General Foy, M. Benjamin Constant, and M. Casimir Perrier, disapproved of their proceedings and declined association. M. Royer-Collard and his friends were absolutely unacquainted with them, and stood entirely aloof.

When my thoughts revert to M. de La Fayette, I am saddened by affectionate regret. I never knew a character more uniformly sincere, generous, and kind, or more ready to risk everything for his pledged faith and cause; his benevolence, although rather indiscriminate in particular cases, was not the less true and expanded towards humanity in general. His courage and devotedness were natural and earnest, serious under an exterior sometimes light, and as genuine as they were spontaneous. Throughout his life he maintained consistency in sentiments and ideas; and he had his days of vigorous resolution, which would have reflected honour on the truest friend of order and resistance to anarchy. In 1791, he opened fire, in the Champ de Mars, on the revolt set up in the name of the people; in 1792, he came in person to demand, on behalf of his army, the suppression of the Jacobins; and he held himself apart and independent under the Empire. But, taking all points into account, he failed in political judgment, in discernment, in a just estimate of circumstances and men; and he had a yielding towards his natural bent, a want of foresight as to the probable results of his actions, with a constant but indistinct yearning after popular favour, which led him on much further than he intended, and subjected him to the influence of men of a very inferior order, directly against his moral nature and political situation. At the first moment, in 1814, he seemed to be well disposed towards the Restoration; but the tendencies of power, and the persevering rancour of the Royalists, soon threw him back into the ranks of opposition. At the close of the Hundred Days, his hostility to the House of Bourbon became declared and active; a republican in soul, without being sufficiently strong or daring to proclaim the Republic, he opposed as obstinately as vainly the return of royalty; and before the Chamber of 1815, excited but not dismayed, he pledged himself, while the Restoration lasted, to enter and never to desert the ranks of its most inveterate enemies. From 1820 to 1823 he was, not the ostensible head, but the instrument and ornament, of every secret society, of every plot and project of revolution; even of those the results of which he would inevitably have denounced and resisted, had they been crowned with success.

No two people could less resemble each other than M. Manuel and M. de La Fayette. While one was open, improvident, and rash in his hostility, the other was in an equal degree reserved, calculating, and prudent even in his violence, although in real character bold and determined. M. de La Fayette was not exactly a high and mighty lord,—that expression does not apply to him,—but a noble gentleman, liberal and popular, not naturally a revolutionist, but one who by enthusiasm or example might be led and would himself lead to repeated revolutions. M. Manuel was the obedient child and able defender of the past revolution, capable of joining Government for its interest—a liberal Government, if animated with revolutionary objects, an absolute Government if unlimited power should be necessary to their supremacy,—but determined to uphold revolution in every case and at any price. His mind was limited and uncultivated, and, either in his general life or in parliamentary debate, without any impress of great political views, or of sympathetic or lofty emotions of the soul, beyond the firmness of his attitude and the lucid strength of his language. Although no advocate, and a little provincial in his style, he spoke and acted as a man of party, calmly persevering and resolved, immovable in the old revolutionary arena, and never disposed to leave it either to become a convert to new measures or to adopt new views. The Restoration, in his opinion, was in fact the old system and the counter-revolution. After having confronted it in the Chambers with all the opposition which that theatre permitted, he encouraged, without, every plot and effort of subversion; less ready than M. de La Fayette to place himself at their head, less confident in their success, but still determined to keep alive by these means hatred and war against the Restoration, watching at the same time for a favourable opportunity of launching a decisive blow.

M. d'Argenson had less weight with the party than either of his colleagues, although perhaps the most impassioned of the three. He was a sincere and melancholy visionary, convinced that all social evils spring from human laws, and bent on promoting every kind of reform, although he had little confidence in the reformers. By his position in society, the generous tone of his sentiments, the seriousness of his convictions, the attraction of an affectionate although reserved disposition, and the charm of a refined and elegant mind, which extracted from his false philosophy bold and original views, he held, in the projects and preliminary deliberations of the conspiring opposition, a tolerably important place; but he was little suited for action, and ready to discourage it, although always prepared for personal engagement. A chimerical but not hopeful fanaticism is not a very promising temperament for a conspirator.

The issue of all these vain but tragical plots is well known. Dogged at every step by authority, sometimes even persecuted by the interested zeal of unworthy agents, they produced, in the space of two years, in various parts of France, nineteen capital condemnations, eleven of which were carried into effect. When we look back on these gloomy scenes, the mind is bewildered, and the heart recoils from the spectacle of the contrast which presents itself between sentiments and actions, efforts and results; we contemplate enterprises at the same time serious and harebrained, patriotic ardour joined to moral levity, enthusiastic devotion combined with indifferent calculation, and the same blindness, the same perseverance, united to similar impotence in old and young, in the generals and the soldiers. On the 1st of January, 1822, M. de La Fayette arrived in the vicinity of Befort to place himself at the head of the insurrection in Alsace. He found the plot discovered, and several of the leaders already in arrest; but he also met others, MM. Ary Scheffer, Joubert, Carrel, and Guinard, whose principal anxiety was to meet and warn him by the earliest notice, and to save him and his son (who accompanied him) by leading them away through unfrequented roads. Nine months later, on the 21st of September in the same year, four young non-commissioned officers, Bories, Raoulx, Goubin, and Pommier, condemned to death for the conspiracy of Rochelle, were on the point of undergoing their sentence; M. de La Fayette and the head committee of the Carbonari had vainly endeavoured to effect their escape. The poor sergeants knew they were lost, and had reason to think they were abandoned. A humane magistrate urged them to save their lives by giving up the authors of their fatal enterprise. All four answered, "We have nothing to reveal," and then remained obstinately silent. Such devotion merited more thoughtful leaders and more generous enemies.

In presence of such facts, and in the midst of the warm debates they excited in the Chamber, the situation of the conspiring Deputies was awkward; they neither avowed their deeds nor supported their friends. The violence of their attacks against the Ministry and the Restoration in general, supplied but a poor apology for this weakness. Secret associations and plots accord ill with a system of liberty; there is little sense or dignity in conspiring and arguing at the same time. It was in vain that the Deputies who were not implicated endeavoured to shield their committed and embarrassed colleagues; it was in vain that General Foy, M. Casimir Perrier, M. Benjamin Constant, and M. Lafitte, while protesting with vehemence against the accusations charged upon their party, endeavoured to cast the mantle of their personal innocence over the actual conspirators, who sat by their sides. This manoeuvre, more blustering than formidable, deceived neither the Government nor the public; and the conspiring Deputies lost more reputation than they gained security, by being thus defended while they were disavowed, in their own ranks. M. de La Fayette became impatient of this doubtful and unworthy position. During the sitting of the 1st of August, 1822, with reference to the debate on the budget, M. Benjamin Constant complained of a phrase in the act of accusation drawn up by the Attorney-General of Poictiers, against the conspiracy of General Berton, and in which the names of five Deputies were included without their being prosecuted. M. Lafitte sharply called upon the Chamber to order an inquiry into transactions "which," said he, "as far as they affect myself are infamous falsehoods." M. Casimir Perrier and General Foy supported the motion for inquiry. The Cabinet and the right-hand party rejected it, while defending the Attorney-General and his statements. The Chamber appeared perplexed. M. de La Fayette demanded to be heard, and, with a rare and happy expression of ironical pride, said, "Whatever may be my habitual indifference to party accusations and enmities, I feel called upon to add a few words to what has been said by my honourable friends. Throughout the course of a career entirely devoted to the cause of liberty, I have constantly desired to be a mark for the malevolence of the adversaries of that cause, under whatever forms, whether despotic, aristocratic, or monarchical, which they may please to select, to contest or pervert it. I therefore make no complaint, although I may claim the right of considering the word proved, which the Attorney-General has thought proper to apply to me, a little free; but I join with my friends by demanding, as far as we can, the utmost publicity, both within the walls of this Chamber and in the face of the entire nation. Thus I and my accusers, in whatever rank they may be placed, can say to each other, without restraint, all that we have had mutually to reproach ourselves with during the last thirty years."

The challenge was as transparent as it was fierce. M. de Villele felt the full range of it, which extended even to the King himself; and taking up the glove at once, with a moderation which in its turn was not deficient in dignity, "The orator I follow," said he, "placed the question on its true footing when he said, in speaking of the Chamber, 'as far as we can.' Yes, it is of the utmost importance that, on the subject under discussion, the truth or falsehood should be correctly known; but do we adopt the true method of ascertaining either? Such is not my opinion; if it were, I should at once vote for the inquiry. The proper mode of proceeding appears to me to be, to leave justice to its ordinary course, which no one has a right to arrest.... If members of this Chamber have been compromised in the act of accusation, do they not find their acquittal in the very fact that the Chamber has not been called upon to give them up to be added to the list of the accused? For, gentlemen, it is maintaining a contradiction to say, on the one hand, 'You have placed our names in the requisition for indictment,' and on the other, 'The minister in office has not dared to prosecute, since the Chamber has not been required to surrender us.' And the demand has not been made, because the nature of the process neither imposed it as a duty nor a necessity on the part of the minister to adopt that course. I declare openly, before France, we do not accuse you, because there was nothing in the process which rendered it either incumbent or essential that we should do so. And we should the more readily have fulfilled that duty, since you cannot suppose us so little acquainted with the human heart as not to know that there would be less danger in subjecting you to direct prosecution than in following simply and openly the line marked out by the ordinary course of justice."

At the close of this sitting, M. de Villele assuredly had good reason to be satisfied with his position and himself. He had exhibited, at the same time, firmness and moderation; by confining himself within the ordinary resources of justice, by disclaiming prosecution to extremity, he had exhibited the arm of power restrained, but ready to strike if necessity should require; he had thus, to a certain extent, defied while he tranquillized the patrons of the conspirators, and had satisfied his own party without irritating their passions. On that day he combined the minister with the tactician of the Chamber.

At the time of which we are speaking, M. de Villele stood in the first and best phase of his power; he defended monarchy and order against conspiracy and insurrection; in the Chamber of Deputies he had to repel the furious attacks of the left-hand party, and in the Chamber of Peers the more temperate but vigilant illwill of the friends of the Duke de Richelieu. The danger and acrimony of the contest united his whole party around him. Before such a situation, the rivalries and intrigues of the Chamber and the Court hesitated to show themselves; unreasonable expectations were held in check; fidelity and discipline were evidently necessary; the associates of the chief could not desert, and dared not to assail him with their importunities.

But during the course of the year 1822 the conspiracies were subdued, the perils of the monarchy dissipated, the parliamentary combats, although always bitter, had ceased to be questions of life and death, and the preponderance of the right-hand party appeared to be firmly established in the country as in the Chambers. Other difficulties and dangers then began to rise up round M. de Villele. He had no longer menacing enemies to hold his friends in check; disagreements, demands, enmities, and intrigues beset him on every side. The first attacks sprang from questions of internal policy, and originated in the bosom of his own Cabinet.

I have no desire to pronounce severe judgment on the revolutions which agitated Southern Europe from 1820 to 1822. It is hard to say to nations badly governed, that they are neither wise nor strong enough to remedy their own evils. Above all, in our days, when the desire for good government is intense, and none believe themselves too weak to accomplish what they wish, unrestrained truth on this subject offends many sincere friends of justice and humanity. Experience, however, has supplied numerous inferences. Of the three revolutions which occurred in 1820, those of Naples and Turin evaporated in a few months, without any blow being struck, before the sole appearance of the Austrian troops. The Spanish revolution alone survived, neither abandoned nor established, pursuing its course by violent but uncertain steps, incapable of founding a regular government and of suppressing the resistance with which it was opposed, but still strong enough to keep alive anarchy and civil war. Spain, under the influence of such commotions, was a troublesome neighbour to France, and might become dangerous. The conspirators, defeated at home, found shelter there, and began to weave new plots from that place of refuge. In their turn, the Spanish counter-revolutionists found an asylum in France, and prepared arms on both sides of the Pyrenees. A sanatory line of troops, stationed on our frontier to preserve France from the contagion of the yellow-fever which had broken out in Catalonia, soon grew into an army of observation. The hostile feeling of Europe, much more decided and systematic, co-operated with the mistrust of France. Prince Metternich dreaded a new fit of Spanish revolutionary contagion in Italy; the Emperor Alexander imagined himself called upon to maintain the security of all thrones and the peace of the world; England, without caring much for the success of the Spanish revolution, was extremely anxious that Spain should continue entirely independent, and that French influence should not prevail in the Peninsula. The French Government had to deal with a question not only delicate and weighty in itself, but abounding with still more important complications, and which might lead to a rupture with some, if not with the whole of her allies.

M. de Villele on succeeding to office, had no very defined ideas as to foreign affairs, or any decidedly arranged plans beyond an unbiassed mind and sensible predilections. During his short association with the Cabinet of the Duke de Richelieu, he had closely observed the policy adopted towards Spain and Italy,—a peaceful policy of non-intervention, and of sound advice to kings and liberals, to liberals as to kings, but of little efficacy in act, and tending, above all other considerations, to keep France beyond the vortex of revolutions and counter-revolutions, and to prevent a European conflagration. In the main, M. de Villele approved of this policy, and would have desired nothing better than to continue it. He was more occupied with internal government than external relations, and more anxious for public prosperity than diplomatic influence; but, in the accomplishment of his views, he had to contend against the prepossessions of his party, and in this struggle his two principal associates, M. de Montmorency, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, and M. de Chateaubriand, as ambassador at London, contributed more embarrassment than assistance.

On the formation of the Cabinet, he proposed to the King to give M. de Montmorency the portfolio of foreign affairs. "Take care," replied Louis XVIII. "He has a very little mind, somewhat prejudiced and obstinate; he will betray you, against his will, through weakness. When present, he will say he agrees with you, and may perhaps think so at the time; when he leaves you, he will suffer himself to be led by his own bias, contrary to your views, and, instead of being aided, you will be thwarted and compromised." M. de Villele persevered; he believed that, with the right-hand party, the name and influence of M. de Montmorency were of importance. Not long after, he had an opportunity of satisfying himself that the King had judged correctly. M. de Serre having refused to hold office in the new Cabinet, M. de Villele, to remove him with the semblance of a compliment, requested the King to appoint him ambassador at Naples. M. de Montmorency, who wanted this post for his cousin the Duke de Laval, went so far as to say that he should resign if it were refused to him. The King and M. de Villele kept their resolution; M. de Serre went to Naples, and M. de Montmorency remained in the Ministry, but not without discontent at the preponderance of a colleague who had treated him with so little complaisance.

M. de Chateaubriand, by accepting the embassy to London, relieved M. de Villele from many little daily annoyances; but he was not long satisfied with his new post. He wished to reign in a coterie, and to receive adulation without constraint. He produced less effect in English society than he had anticipated; he wanted more success and of a more varied character; he was looked upon as a distinguished writer, rather than as a great politician; they considered him more opinionated than profound, and too much occupied with himself. He excited curiosity, but not the admiration he coveted; he was not always the leading object of attention, and enjoyed less freedom, while he called forth little of the enthusiastic idolatry to which he had been accustomed elsewhere. London, the English court and drawing-rooms, wearied and displeased him; he has perpetuated the impression in his Memoirs:—"Every kind of reputation," he says, "travels rapidly to the banks of the Thames, and leaves them again with the same speed. I should have worried myself to no purpose by endeavouring to acquire any knowledge of the English. What a life is a London season! I should prefer the galleys a hundred times."

An opportunity soon presented itself, which enabled him to seek in another direction more worldly excitement and popularity. Revolution and civil war went on increasing in Spain from day to day; tumults, murders, sanguinary combats between the people and the royal guards, the troops of the line and the militia, multiplied in the streets of Madrid. The life of Ferdinand VII. appeared to be in question, and his liberty was actually invaded.

M. de Metternich, whose importance and influence in Europe had greatly increased ever since he had so correctly foreseen the weakness, and so rapidly stifled the explosion, of the Italian revolutions, applied his entire attention to the affairs of the Spanish Peninsula, and urged the sovereigns and their ministers to deliberate on them in common accord. As soon as it was settled that a Congress should assemble with this object, at Verona, M. de Chateaubriand made powerful applications, directly and indirectly, to M. de Montmorency and M. de Villele, to be included in the mission. M. de Montmorency had no idea of acceding to this, fearing to be opposed or eclipsed by such a colleague. The King, Louis XVIII., who had no confidence either in the capacity of M. de Montmorency or the judgment of M. de Chateaubriand, was desirous that M. de Villele himself should repair to Verona, to maintain the prudent policy which circumstances required. M. de Villele objected. It would be, he said to the King, too decided an affront to his minister of foreign affairs and his ambassador in London, who were naturally called to this duty; it would be better to send them both, that one might control the other, and to give them specific instructions which should regulate their attitude and language. The King adopted this advice. The instructions, drawn up by M. de Villele's own hand, were discussed and settled in a solemn meeting of the Cabinet; M. de Chateaubriand knew to a certainty that he owed the accomplishment of his desires to M. de Villele alone; and eight days after the departure of M. de Montmorency, the King, to secure the preponderance of M. de Villele, by a signal mark of favour, appointed him President of the Council.

The instructions were strictly defined; they prescribed to the French plenipotentiaries to abstain from appearing, when before the Congress, as reporters of the affairs of Spain, to take no initiative and enter into engagement as regarded intervention, and, in every case, to preserve the total independence of France, either as to act or future resolve. But the inclinations of M. de Montmorency accorded ill with his orders; and he had to treat with sovereigns and ministers who wished precisely to repress the Spanish revolution by the hand of France,—in the first place, to accomplish this work without taking it upon themselves, and also to compromise France with England, who was evidently much averse to French interference. The Prince de Metternich, versed in the art of suggesting to others his own views, and of urging with the air of co-operation, easily obtained influence over M. de Montmorency, and induced him to take with the other Powers the precise initiative, and to enter into the very engagements, he had been instructed to avoid. M. de Chateaubriand, who filled only a secondary post in the official negotiation, kept at first a little on the reserve: "I do not much like the general position in which he has placed himself here," wrote M. de Montmorency to Madame Recamier;[17] "he is looked upon as singularly sullen; he assumes a stiff and uncouth manner, which makes others feel ill at ease in his presence. I shall use every effort, before I go, to establish a more congenial intercourse between him and his colleagues." M. de Montmorency had no occasion to trouble himself much to secure this result. As soon as he had taken his departure, M. de Chateaubriand assumed a courteous and active demeanour at the Congress. The Emperor Alexander, alive to the reputation of the author of the 'Genius of Christianity,' and to his homage to the founder of the 'Holy Alliance,' returned him compliment for compliment, flattery for flattery, and confirmed him in his desire of war with the Spanish revolution, by giving him reason to rely, for that course of policy and for himself, upon his unlimited support. Nevertheless, in his correspondence with M. de Villele, M. de Chateaubriand still expressed himself very guardedly: "We left," said he, "our determination in doubt; we did not wish to appear impracticable; we were apprehensive that, if we discovered ourselves too much, the President of the Council would not listen to us."

I presume that M. de Villele fell into no mistake as to the pretended doubt in which M. de Chateaubriand endeavoured to envelop himself. I also incline to think that he himself, at that epoch, looked upon a war with Spain as almost inevitable. But he was still anxious to do all in his power to avoid it, if only to preserve with the moderate spirits, and the interests who dreaded that alternative, the attitude and reputation of an advocate for peace. Sensible men are unwilling to answer for the faults they consent to commit. As soon as he ascertained that M. de Montmorency had promised at Verona that his Government would take such steps at Madrid, in concert with the three Northern Powers, as would infallibly lead to war, M. de Villele submitted to the King in council these premature engagements, declaring at the same time that, for his part, he did not feel that France was bound to adopt the same line of conduct with Austria, Prussia, and Russia, or to recall at once, as they wished to do, her Minister at Madrid, and thus to give up all renewed attempts at conciliation. It was said that, while using this language, he had his resignation already prepared and visible in his portfolio. Powerful supporters were not wanting to this policy. The Duke of Wellington, recently arrived in Paris, had held a conversation with M. de Villele, and also with the King, on the dangers of an armed intervention in Spain, and proposed a plan of mediation, to be concerted between France and England, to induce the Spaniards to introduce into their constitution the modifications which the French Cabinet itself should indicate as sufficient to maintain peace. Louis XVIII. placed confidence in the judgment and friendly feeling of the Duke of Wellington; he closed the debate in the Council by saying, "Louis XIV. levelled the Pyrenees; I shall not allow them to be raised again. He placed my family on the throne of Spain; I cannot let them fall. The other sovereigns have not the same duties to fulfil. My ambassador ought not to quit Madrid, until the day when a hundred thousand Frenchmen are in march to replace him." The question thus decided against the promises he had made at Verona, M. de Montmorency, on whom a few days before, and at the suggestion of M. de Villele, the King had conferred the title of Duke, suddenly tendered his resignation. The 'Moniteur,' in announcing it, published a despatch which M. de Villele, while holding ad interim the portfolio of foreign affairs, addressed to Count de Lagarde, the King's minister at Madrid, prescribing to him an attitude and language which still admitted some chance of conciliation; and three days later M. de Chateaubriand, after some display of appropriate hesitation, replaced M. de Montmorency as Foreign Minister.

Three weeks had scarcely passed over, when the Spanish Government, controlled by a sentiment of national dignity more magnanimous than enlightened, by popular enthusiasm, and by its own passions, refused all constitutional modification whatever. The ambassadors of the three Northern Powers had already quitted Madrid. The Count de Lagarde remained there. On the refusal of the Spaniards, M. de Chateaubriand recalled him, on the 18th of January, 1823, instructing him at the same time, in a confidential despatch, to suggest the possibility of amicable measures; and of this he also apprised the English Cabinet. These last overtures proved as futile as the preceding ones. At Madrid they had no confidence in the French Ministry; and the Government of London placed too little dependence either on the power or discretion of that of Madrid, to commit itself seriously by engaging the latter, through the weight of English influence, to submit to the concessions, otherwise reasonable, which France required. Affairs had reached the point at which the ablest politicians, without faith in the efficacy of their own views, were unwilling to adopt decided measures.

On the 28th of January, 1823, M. de Villele determined on war, and the King announced this decision in his speech on opening the session of both Chambers. Nevertheless eight days later, M. de Chateaubriand declared to Sir Charles Stuart, the English ambassador at Paris, that, far from dreaming of establishing absolute power in Spain, France was still ready to entertain the constitutional modifications she had proposed to the Spanish Government, "as sufficient to induce her to suspend hostile preparations, and to renew friendly intercourse between the two countries on the old footing." At the very moment of engaging in war, M. de Chateaubriand, who desired, and M. de Villele, who was averse to, these extreme measures, equally endeavoured to escape from the responsibility attached to them.

I have nothing to say on the war itself and the course of its incidents. In principle it was unjust, for it was unnecessary. The Spanish revolution, in spite of its excesses, portended no danger to France or the Restoration. The differences to which it gave rise between the two Governments might have been easily arranged without violating peace. The revolution of Paris, in February, 1848, produced much more serious and better-founded alarms to Europe in general, than the Spanish revolution in 1823 could have occasioned to France. Nevertheless Europe, with sound policy, respected towards France the tutelary principle of the internal independence of nations, which can never be justly invaded except under an absolute and most urgent necessity. Neither do I think that in 1823 the throne and life of Ferdinand VII. were actually in danger. All that has since occurred in Spain justifies the conclusion, that regicide has no accomplices there, and revolution very few partisans. The great and legitimate reasons for war were therefore wanting. In fact, and notwithstanding its success, it led to no profitable result either for Spain or France. It surrendered up Spain to the incapable and incurable tyranny of Ferdinand VII., without putting an end to revolutions; and substituted the barbarities of popular absolutism for popular anarchy. Instead of securing the influence of France beyond the Pyrenees, it compromised and annulled it to such an extent that, towards the close of 1823, it was found necessary to have recourse to the mediation of Russia, and to send M. Pozzo di Borgo to Madrid to compel Ferdinand VII. to select more moderate advisers. The Northern Powers and England alone retained any credit in Spain,—the first with the King and the Absolutists, the latter with the Liberals; victorious France was there politically vanquished. In the eyes of clear-sighted judges, the advantageous and permanent effects of the war were of no more value than the causes.

As an expedient of restless policy, as a mere coup-de-main of dynasty or party, the Spanish war fully succeeded. The sinister predictions of its opponents were falsified, and the hopes of its advocates surpassed. Brought under proof together, the fidelity of the army and the impotence of the conspiring refugees were clearly manifested. The expedition was easy but not inglorious, and added much to the personal credit of the Duke d'Angouleme. The prosperity and tranquillity of France received no check. The House of Bourbon exhibited a strength and resolution which the Powers who urged it on scarcely expected; and England, who would have restrained the effort, submitted to it patiently, although with some dissatisfaction. Regarding matters in this light only, M. de Chateaubriand was correct in writing to M. de Villele from Verona, "It is for you, my dear friend, to consider whether you ought not to seize this opportunity, which may never occur again, of replacing France in the rank of military powers, and of re-establishing the white cockade, in a short war almost without danger, and in favour of which the opinion of the Royalists and of the army so strongly impels you at this moment." M. de Villele was mistaken in his answer: "May God grant," said he, "for my country and for Europe, that we may not persist in an intervention which I declare beforehand, with the fullest conviction, will compromise the safety of France herself."

After such an event, in which they had taken such unequal shares, the relative positions of these two statesmen became sensibly changed; but the alteration did not yet appear for some time. M. de Chateaubriand endeavoured to triumph with modesty, and M. de Villele, not very sensitive to the wounds of personal vanity, treated the issue of the war as a general success of the Cabinet, and prepared to turn it to his own advantage, without considering to whom the principal honour might be due. Accustomed to power, he exercised it without noise or parade, and was careful not to clash with his adversaries or rivals, who thus felt themselves led to admit his preponderance as a necessity, rather than humiliated to endure it as a defeat. The dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies became his fixed idea and immediate object. The liberal Opposition was too strong there to allow him to hope that he could carry the great measures necessary to satisfy his party. The Spanish war had led to debates, continually increasing in animosity, which in time produced violence in the stronger, and anger in the weaker party, beyond all previous example. After the expulsion of M. Manuel on the 3rd of March, 1823, and the conduct of the principal portion of the left-hand party, who left the hall with him when he was removed by the gendarmes, it was almost impossible to expect that the Chamber could resume its regular place or share in the government. On the 24th of December, 1823, it was in fact dissolved, and M. de Villele, putting aside the differences of opinion on the Spanish war, applied his whole attention to ensure the success of the elections and the formation of a new Chamber, from which he could demand with confidence what the right-hand party expected from him, and which, according to his expectation, should secure a long duration of his influence both with that party and with the Court.

M. de Chateaubriand had no such objects to contemplate or effect. Unacquainted with the internal government of the country, and the daily management of the Chambers, he enjoyed the success of his Spanish war, as he called it, with tranquil pride,—ready, on provocation, to become active and bitter. He wanted exactly the qualities which distinguished M. de Villele, and he possessed those, or rather the instinct and inclination of those, in which M. de Villele was deficient. Entering late on public life, and until then unknown, with a mind but slightly cultivated, and little distracted from business by the force or variety of his imaginative ideas, M. de Villele had ever one leading object,—to reach power by faithfully serving his party; and, power once obtained, to hold it firmly, while exercising it with discretion.

Launched on the world almost from infancy, M. de Chateaubriand had traversed the whole range of ideas, attempted every career, aspired to every renown, exhausted some, and approached others; nothing satisfied him. "My capital defect," said he himself, "has been ennui, disgust with everything, perpetual doubt." A strange temperament in a man devoted to the restoration of religion and monarchy! Thus the life of M. de Chateaubriand had been a constant and a perpetual combat between his enterprises and his inclinations, his situation and his nature. He was ambitious, as the leader of a party, and independent, as a volunteer of the forlorn hope; captivated by everything great, and sensitive even to suffering in the most trifling matters, careless beyond measure of the common interests of life, but passionately absorbed, on the stage of the world, in his own person and reputation, and more annoyed by the slightest check than gratified by the most brilliant triumph; in public life, more jealous of success than power, capable in a particular emergency, as he had just proved, of conceiving and carrying out a great design, but unable to pursue in government, with energy and patience, a well-cemented and strongly-organized line of policy. He possessed a sympathetic understanding of the moral impressions of his age and country; more able however, and more inclined, to win their favour by compliance than to direct them to important and lasting advantages; a noble and expanded mind, which, whether in literature or politics, touched all the exalted chords of the human soul, but more calculated to strike and charm the imagination than to govern men; greedy, to an excess, of praise and fame, to satisfy his pride, and of emotion and novelty, as resources from constitutional weariness.

At the very moment when he was achieving a triumph in Spain for the House of Bourbon, he received disappointments from the latter quarter, the remembrance of which he has thought proper to perpetuate himself:—"In our ardour," said he, "after the arrival of the telegraphic despatch which announced the deliverance of the King of Spain, we Ministers hastened to the palace. There I received a warning of my fall,—a pailful of cold water which recalled me to my usual humility. The King and Monsieur took no notice of us. The Duchess d'Angouleme, bewildered with the glory of her husband, distinguished no one.... On the Sunday following, before the Council met, I returned to pay my duty to the royal family. The august Princess said something complimentary to each of my colleagues; to me she did not deign to address a single word: undoubtedly I had no claim to such an honour. The silence of the Orphan of the Temple can never be considered ungrateful." A more liberal sovereign undertook to console M. de Chateaubriand for this royal ingratitude; the Emperor Alexander, with whom he had continued in intimate correspondence, being anxious to signalize his satisfaction, conferred on him and M. de Montmorency, and on them alone, the great riband of the Order of St. Andrew.

M. de Villele was not insensible to this public token of imperial favour bestowed on himself and his policy; and the King, Louis XVIII., showed that he was even more moved by it. "Pozzo and La Ferronays," said he to M. de Villele, "have made me give you, through the Emperor Alexander, a slap on the cheek; but I shall be even with him, and mean to pay for it in coin of a better stamp. I name you, my dear Villele, a knight of my Orders; they are worth more than his." And M. de Villele received from the King the Order of St. Esprit. It was in vain that a little later, and on the mutual request of the two rivals, the Emperor Alexander conferred on M. de Villele the Grand Cross of St. Andrew, and the King, Louis XVIII., gave the Saint Esprit to M. de Chateaubriand; favours thus extorted cannot efface the original disappointments.

To these courtly slights were soon added causes of rupture more serious. The dissolution of the Chamber had succeeded far beyond the expectations of the Cabinet. The elections had not returned from the left, or the left centre, more than seventeen oppositionists. Much more exclusively than that of 1815, the new Chamber belonged to the right-hand party; the day had now arrived to give them the satisfaction they had long looked for. The Cabinet immediately brought in two bills, which appeared to be evident preparatives and effectual pledges for the measures most ardently desired. By one, the integral remodelling of the Chamber of Deputies every seven years was substituted for the partial and annual reconstruction as at present in force. This was bestowing on the new Chamber a guarantee of power as of durability. The second bill proposed the conversion of the five per cent. annuities into three per cents; that is to say, a reimbursement, to the holders of stock, of their capital at par, or the reduction of interest. To this great financial scheme was joined a political measure of equal importance,—indemnity to the Emigrants, with preparations for carrying it into effect. The two bills had been discussed and approved in council. On the question of the septennial renewal of the Chamber of Deputies, M. de Chateaubriand proposed the reduction of age necessary for electors; he failed in this object, but still supported the bill. With respect to the conversion of the funds, the friends of M. de Villele asserted that M. de Chateaubriand warmly expressed his approbation of the measure, and was even anxious that, by a previous arrangement with the bankers, M. de Villele should secure the means of carrying it, as a preface to that which was intended to heal the most festering wound of the Revolution.

But the debate in the Chambers soon destroyed the precarious harmony of the Cabinet. The conversion of the funds was vigorously opposed, not only by the numerous interests thereby injured, but by the unsatisfied feeling of the public on a new measure extremely complicated and ill understood. In both Chambers, the greater portion of M. de Chateaubriand's friends spoke against the bill; it was said that he was even hostile to it himself. Some observations were attributed to him on the imprudence of a measure which no one desired, no public necessity called for, and was merely an invention of the bankers, adopted by a Minister of Finance, who hoped to extract reputation from what might lead to his ruin. "I have often seen," he was accused of saying, "people break their heads against a wall; but I have never, until now, seen people build a wall for the express purpose of running their heads against it." M. de Villele listened to these reports, and expressed his surprise at them; his supporters inquired into the cause. Hints were uttered of jealousy, of ambition, of intrigues to depose the President of the Council, and to occupy his place. When the bill had passed the Chamber of Deputies, the debate in the Chamber of Peers, and the part that M. de Chateaubriand would take in it, were looked forward to with considerable misgivings. He maintained profound silence, not affording the slightest support; and when the bill was thrown out, approaching M. de Villele, he said to him, "If you resign, we are ready to follow you." He adds, while relating this proposal himself, "M. de Villele, for sole answer, honoured us with a look which we still have before us. This look, however, made no impression."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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