  VOLUME IV BOOK VII 1-30 Changes in the world—The years 1815 and 1816—I am made a peer of France—My first appearance in the tribune—Various speeches—The Monarchie selon la Charte—Louis XVIII.—M. Decazes—I am struck off the list of ministers of State—I sell my books and my Valley—My speeches continued, in 1817 and 1818—The Piet meetings—The Conservateur—Concerning the morality of material interests and that of duty—The year 1820—Death of the Duc de Berry—Birth of the Duc de Bordeaux—The market-women of Bordeaux—I cause M. de VillÈle and M. de CorbiÈre to take office for the first time—My letter to the Duc de Richelieu—Note from the Duc de Richelieu and my reply—Notes from M. de Polignac—Letters from M. de Montmorency and M. Pasquier—I am appointed Ambassador to Berlin—I leave for that embassy BOOK VIII 31-63 The year 1821—The Berlin, Embassy—I arrive in Berlin—M. Ancillon—The Royal Family—Celebrations for the marriage of the Grand-duke Nicholas—Berlin society—Count von Humboldt—Herr von Chamisso—Ministers and ambassadors—The Princess William—The Opera—A musical meeting—My first dispatches—M. de Bonnay—The Park—The Duchess of Cumberland—Commencement of a Memorandum on Germany—Charlottenburg—Interval between the Berlin Embassy and the London Embassy—Baptism of M. le Duc de Bordeaux—Letter to M. Pasquier—Letter from M. de Bernstoff—Letter from M. Ancillon—Last letter from the Duchess of Cumberland—M. de VillÈle, Minister of Finance—I am appointed Ambassador to London BOOK IX 64-112 The year 1822—My first dispatches from London—Conversation with George IV. on M. Decazes—The noble character of our diplomacy under the Legitimacy—A parliamentary sitting—English society—Continuation of the dispatches—Resumption of parliamentary labours—A ball for the Irish—Duel between the Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Buckingham—Dinner at Royal Lodge—The Marchioness Conyngham and her secret—Portraits of the ministers—Continuation of my dispatches—Parleys on the Congress of Verona—Letter to M. de Montmorency; his reply foreshadowing a refusal—A more favourable letter from M. de VillÈle—I write to Madame de Duras—Death of Lord Londonderry—Another letter to M. de Montmorency—Trip to Hartwell—Note from M. de VillÈle announcing my nomination to the Congress—The end of old England—Charlotte—Reflexions—I leave London—The years 1824, 1825, 1826 and 1827—Deliverance of the King of Spain—My dismissal—The Opposition follows me—Last diplomatic notes—NeuchÂtel, in Switzerland—Death of Louis XVIII.—Coronation of Charles X.—Reception of the knights of the Orders BOOK X 113-146 I collect my former adversaries around myself—My public charges—Extract from my polemics after my fall—Visit to Lausanne—Return to Paris—The Jesuits—Letter from M. de Montlosier and my reply—Continuation of my polemics—Letter from General SÉbastiani—Death of General Foy—The Law of Justice and Love—Letter from M. Étienne—Letter from M. Benjamin Constant—I attain the highest pitch of my political importance—Article on the King's saint's-day—Withdrawal of the law on the police of the press—Paris illuminated—Note from M. Michaud—M. de VillÈle's irritation—Charles X. proposes to review the National Guard on the Champ de Mars—I write to him: my letter—The review—The National Guard disbanded—The Elective Chamber is dissolved—The new Chamber—Refusals to co-operate—Fall of the VillÈle Ministry—I contribute towards forming the new ministry and accept the Roman Embassy—Examination of a reproach BOOK XI 147-219 Madame RÉcamier—Childhood of Madame RÉcamier described by M. Benjamin Constant—Letter to Madame RÉcamier from Lucien Bonaparte—Continuation of M. Benjamin Constant's narrative: Madame de StaËl—Madame RÉcamier's journey to England—Madame de StaËl's first journey to Germany—Madame RÉcamier in Paris—Plans of the generals—Portrait of Bernadotte—Trial of Moreau—Letters from Moreau and MassÉna to Madame RÉcamier—Death of M. Necker—Return of Madame de StaËl—Madame RÉcamier at Coppet—Prince Augustus of Prussia—Madame de StaËl's second journey to Germany—The ChÂteau de Chaumont—Letter from Madame de StaËl to Bonaparte—Madame RÉcamier and M. Mathieu de Montmorency exiled—Madame RÉcamier at ChÂlons—Madame RÉcamier at Lyons—Madame de Chevreuse—Spanish prisoners—Madame RÉcamier in Rome—Albano-Canova: his letters—The Albano fisherman—Madame RÉcamier in Naples—The Duc de Rohan-Chabot—King Murat: his letters—Madame RÉcamier returns to France—Letter from Madame de Genlis—Letters from Benjamin Constant—Articles by Benjamin Constant on Bonaparte's return from Elba—Madame de KrÜdener—The Duke of Wellington—I meet Madame RÉcamier again—Death of Madame de StaËl—The Abbaye-aux-Bois BOOK XII 220-304 My Embassy to Rome—Three kinds of materials-Diary of the road—Letters to Madame RÉcamier—Leo XII. and the Cardinals—The ambassadors—The old artists and the new artists—Old Roman society—Present manners of Rome—Town and country—Letter to M. Villemain—Letter to Madame RÉcamier—Explanation concerning the memorandum I am about to quote—Letter to M. le Comte de La Feironnays—Memorandum on Eastern Affairs—Letters to Madame RÉcamier—Letter to M. Thierry—Dispatch to M. le Comte de La Ferronnays—More letters to Madame RÉcamier—Dispatch to M. le Comte Portalis—Death of Leo XII.—Dispatch to M. le Comte Portalis—Letter to Madame RÉcamier LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONSVOL. IVGeorge IV THE MEMOIRS OF CHATEAUBRIANDVOLUME IVBOOK VII[1]Changes in the world—The years 1815 and 1816—I am made a peer of France—My first appearance in the tribune—Various speeches—The Monarchie selon la Charte—Louis XVIII.—M. Decazes—I am struck off the list of ministers of State—I sell my books and my Valley—My speeches continued, in 1817 and 1818—The Piet meetings—The Conservateur—Concerning the morality of material interests and that of duty—The year 1820—Death of the Duc de Berry—Birth of the Duc de Bordeaux—The market-women of Bordeaux—I cause M. de VillÈle and M. de CorbiÈre to take office for the first time—My letter to the Duc de Richelieu—Note from the Duc de Richelieu and my reply—Notes from M. de Polignac—Letters from M. de Montmorency and M. Pasquier—I am appointed Ambassador to Berlin—I leave for that embassy. To fall back from Bonaparte and the Empire to that which followed them is to fall from reality into nothingness, from the summit of a mountain into a gulf. Did not everything finish with Napoleon? Ought I to have spoken of anything else? What person can possess any interest beside him? Of whom and of what can there be any question after such a man? Dante alone had the right to associate himself with the great poets whom he meets in the regions of another life. How can one speak of Louis XVIII. in the stead of the Emperor? I blush when I think that, at the present moment, I have to cant about a crowd of petty creatures, of whom I myself am one, dubious and nocturnal beings that we were on a stage from which the great sun had disappeared. The Bonapartists themselves had shrivelled up. Their members had become bent and shrunk; the soul was lacking to the new universe so soon as Bonaparte withdrew his breath; objects faded from view from the moment when they were no longer illuminated by the light which had given them colour and relief. At the commencement of these Memoirs, I had only myself to speak of: well, there is always a sort of paramountcy in man's individual solitude. Later, I was surrounded by miracles: those miracles kept up my voice; but at this present moment there is no more conquest of Egypt, no more Battles of Marengo, Austerlitz and Jena, no more retreat from Russia, no more invasion of France, capture of Paris, return from Elba, Battle of Waterloo, funeral at St. Helena: what remains? Portraits to which only the genius of MoliÈre could lend the gravity of comedy! While expressing myself upon our worthlessness, I taxed my conscience home: I asked myself whether I did not purposely incorporate myself with the nullity of these times, in order to acquire the right to condemn the others, persuaded though I were in petto that my name would be read in the midst of all these obliterations. No, I am convinced that we shall all fade out: first, because we have not in us the wherewithal to live; secondly, because the age in which we are commencing or ending our days has itself not the wherewithal to make us live. Generations mutilated, exhausted, disdainful, faithless, consecrated to the annihilation which they love, are unable to bestow immortality; they have no power to create a renown; if you were to nail your ear to their mouth, you would hear nothing: no sound issues from the heart of the dead. One thing strikes me, however: the little world to which I am now coming was superior to the world which succeeded it in 1830; we were giants in comparison with the society of maggots that has engendered itself. The Restoration offers at least one point in which we can find importance: after the dignity of one man, that man having passed, there was born again the dignity of mankind. If despotism has been replaced by liberty, if we understand anything of independence, if we have lost the habit of grovelling, if the rights of human nature are no longer disregarded, we owe these things to the Restoration. Wherefore also I threw myself into the fray in order, as far as I could, to revive the species when the individual had come to an end. Come, let us pursue our task! Let us descend, with a groan, to myself and my colleagues. You have seen me amid my dreams; you are about to see me in my realities: if the interest decreases, if I fall, reader, be just, make allowance for my subject! * I am made a peer of France. After the second return of the King and the final disappearance of Bonaparte, the Ministry being in the hands of M. le Duc d'Otrante and M. le Prince de Talleyrand, I was appointed president of the electoral college of the Department of the Loiret. The elections of 1815 gave the King the Chambre introuvable.[2] I was carrying all the votes at Orleans, when I received the Order which called me to the House of Peers[3]. My active career had hardly commenced, when it suddenly changed its course: what would it have been if I had been sent to the Elective Chamber? It is fairly probable that that career would, in the event of my success, have ended in the Ministry of the Interior, instead of taking me to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. My habits and manners were more in touch with the peerage, and, although the latter became hostile to me from the first moment, by reason of my Liberal opinions, it is nevertheless certain that my doctrines concerning the liberty of the press and against the vassalage to foreigners gave the Noble Chamber the popularity which it enjoyed so long as it suffered my opinions. I received, at my entrance, the only honour which my colleagues ever did me during my fifteen years' residence in their midst: I was appointed one of the four secretaries for the session of 1816. Lord Byron met with no more favour when he appeared in the House of Lords, and he left it for good: I ought to have returned to my deserts. My first appearance in the tribune was to make a speech on the irremovability of the judges[4]: I applauded the principle, but censured its immediate application. At the Revolution of 1830, the members of the Left who were most devoted to that revolution wished to suspend the irremovability for a time. On the 22nd of February 1816, the Duc de Richelieu brought us the autograph will of the Queen. I ascended the tribune, and said: "He who has preserved for us the will of Marie-Antoinette[5] had bought the property of Montboisier: himself one of Louis XVI.'s judges, he raised in that property a monument to the memory of the defender of Louis XVI., and himself engraved on that monument an epitaph in French verse in praise of M. de Malesherbes. This astonishing impartiality shows that all is misplaced in the moral world." On the 12th of March 1816, the question of the ecclesiastical pensions[6] was discussed: "You would," I said, "refuse an allowance to the poor vicar who devotes the remainder of his days to the altar, and you would accord pensions to Joseph Lebon[7], who struck off so many heads; to FranÇois Chabot[8], who asked for a law against the Emigrants of so simple a character that a child might lead them to the guillotine; to Jacques Roux[9], who, refusing at the Temple to receive Louis XVI.'s will, replied to the unfortunate monarch: "'My only business is to take you to your death.'" A bill had been introduced into the Hereditary Chamber relating to the elections. I declared myself in favour of the integral renewal of the Chamber of Deputies. It was not until 1824, being then a minister, that I passed it into law. It was also in this first speech on the law governing elections, in 1816[10], that I said, in reply to an opponent: "I will not refer to what has been said about Europe watching our discussions. Speaking for myself, gentlemen, I doubtless owe to the French blood that flows in my veins the impatience which I experience when, in order to influence my vote, people talk to me of opinions existing outside my country; and, if civilized Europe tried to impose the Charter on me, I should go to live in Constantinople." The Chamber of Peers. On the 9th of April 1816, I introduced a motion to the Chamber relating to the Barbary Powers. The house decided that there was cause for its discussion. I was already thinking of combating slavery, before I obtained that favourable decision from the Peers, which was the first political intervention of a great Power on behalf of the Greeks: "I have seen the ruins of Carthage," I said to my colleagues; "I have met among those ruins the successors of the unhappy Christians for whose deliverance St. Louis sacrificed his life. Philosophy can take its share of the glory attached to the success of my motion and boast of having obtained in an age of light that for which religion strove in vain in an age of darkness." I found myself in an assembly in which my words, for three-fourths of the time, turned against myself. One can move a popular chamber; an aristocratic chamber is deaf. With no gallery, speaking in private before old men, dried-up remains of the old Monarchy, of the Revolution and of the Empire, anything that rose above the most commonplace seemed madness. One day, the front row of arm-chairs, quite close to the tribune, was filled with venerable peers, one more deaf than the other, their heads bent forward, and holding to their ears a trumpet with the mouth turned towards the tribune. I sent them to sleep, which is very natural. One of them dropped his ear-trumpet; his neighbour, awakened by the fall, wanted politely to pick up his colleague's trumpet; he fell down. The worst of it was that I began to laugh, although I was just then speaking pathetically on some subject of humanity, I forget what. The speakers who succeeded in that Chamber were those who spoke without ideas, in a level and monotonous tone, or who found terms of sensibility only in order to melt with pity for the poor ministers. M. de Lally-Tolendal thundered in favour of the public liberties: he made the vaults of our solitude resound with the praises of three or four English Lord Chancellors, his ancestors, he said. When his panegyric of the liberty of the press was finished, came a "but" based upon "circumstances," which "but" left our honour safe, under the useful supervision of the censorship. The Restoration gave an impulse to men's minds; it set free the thought suppressed by Bonaparte: the intellect, like a caryatic figure relieved of the entablature that bent its brow, lifted up its head. The Empire had struck France with dumbness; liberty restored touched her and gave her back speech: oratorical talents existed which took up matters where the Mirabeaus and CazalÈs had left them, and the Revolution continued its course. * My labours were not limited to the tribune, so new to me. Appalled at the systems which men were embracing and at France's ignorance of the principles of representative government, I wrote and had printed the Monarchie selon la Charte. This publication marked one of the great epochs of my political life: it made me take rank among the publicists; it served to determine opinion on the nature of our government. The English papers praised the work to the skies; among us, the AbbÉ Morellet even could not recover from the transformation of my style and the dogmatic precision of the truths. The Monarchie selon la Charte is a constitutional catechism: from it have been taken the greater part of the propositions which are put forward as new to-day. Thus the principle that "the King reigns but does not govern" is found fully set forth in Chapters IV., V., VI. and VII. on the Royal Prerogative. The constitutional principles having been laid down in the first part of the Monarchie selon la Charte, I examine in the second the systems of the three ministries which till then had followed upon one another, from 1814 to 1816; in this part are brought together predictions too well verified since and expositions of doctrines at that time unperceived. These words appear in Chapter XXVI., in the Second Part:
As I was finishing my work, appeared the ordinance of the 5th of September 1816[11]: this measure dispersed the few Royalists assembled to reconstruct the Legitimate Monarchy. I hastened to write the Postscript, which caused an explosion of anger on the part of M. le Duc de Richelieu and of Louis XVIII.'s favourite, M. Decazes. Seizure of my pamphlet. The Postscript added, I ran to M. Le Normant, my publisher's. On arriving, I found constables and a police-commissary making out instruments. They had seized parcels and affixed seals. I had not defied Bonaparte to be intimidated by M. Decazes: I objected to the seizure; I declared that, as a free Frenchman and a peer of France, I would yield only to force. The force arrived and I withdrew. I went on the 18th of September to Messieurs Louis-Marthe Mesnier and his colleague, notaries-royal; I protested in their office and called upon them to register my statement of the fact of the apprehension of my work, wishing to ensure the rights of French citizens by means of this protest M. BaudÉ[12] followed my example in 1830. I next found myself engaged in a rather long correspondence with M. the Chancellor, M. the Minister of Police and M. the Attorney-General Bellart[13], until the 9th of November, on which day the Chancellor informed me of the order made in my favour by the Court of First Instance, which placed me in possession of my seized work. In one of his letters, M. the Chancellor told me that he had been distressed to see the dissatisfaction which the King had publicly expressed with my work. This dissatisfaction arose from the chapter in which I stood up against the establishment of a minister of General Police in a constitutional country. * In my account of the journey to Ghent, you have seen Louis XVIII.'s value as a descendant of Hugh Capet; in my pamphlet, Le Roi est mort: vive le roi![14] I have told the Prince's real qualities. But man is not a simple unit: why are there so few faithful portraits? Because the model is made to pose at such or such a period of his life; ten years later the portrait is no longer like. Louis XVIII. did not see far the objects before or around him; all seemed fair or foul to him according to the way he looked at it. Smitten with his century, it is to be feared that "the most Christian King" regarded religion only as an elixir fit for the amalgam of drugs of which royalty is composed. The licentious imagination which he had received from his grandfather[15] might have inspired some distrust of his enterprises; but he knew himself and, when he spoke in a positive manner, he boasted (well knowing it), while laughing at himself. I spoke to him one day of the need of a new marriage for M. le Duc de Bourbon, in order to bring back the race of the CondÉs to life. He strongly approved of that idea, although he cared very little about the sad resurrection; but in this connection he spoke to me of the Comte d'Artois, and said: "My brother might marry again without changing anything in the succession to the throne: he would only make cadets. As for me, I should only make elders; I do not want to disinherit M. le Duc d'AngoulÊme." And he drew himself up with a capable and bantering air; but I had no intention of denying the King any power. Selfish and unprejudiced, Louis XVIII. desired his peace of mind at any price: he supported his ministers so long as they held the majority; he dismissed them so soon as the majority was shaken and his tranquillity liable to be upset: he did not hesitate to fall back when, to obtain the victory, he ought to have taken a step forward. His greatness was patience: he did not go towards events; events came to him. Without being cruel, the King was not humane; tragic catastrophes neither astonished nor touched him; he was satisfied with saying to the Duc de Berry, who apologized for having had the misfortune to disturb the King's sleep by his death: "I have finished my night." Nevertheless, this quiet man would fly into horrible rages when annoyed; and also, this cold, unfeeling Prince had attachments which resembled passions: thus there succeeded each other in his intimacy the Comte d'Avaray, M. de Blacas, M. Decazes[16]; Madame de Balbi[17], Madame de Cayla[18]. All these beloved persons were favourites; unfortunately they have a great deal too many letters in their hands. Louis XVIII. appeared to us in all the profundity of historic tradition; he showed himself with the favouritism of the ancient royalties. Does the heart of our isolated monarchs contain a void which they fill with the first object they light upon? Is it sympathy, the affinity of a nature analogous to their own? Is it a friendship which drops down to them from Heaven to console their greatnesses? Is it a leaning for a slave who gives himself body and soul, before whom one conceals nothing, a slave who becomes a garment, a plaything, a fixed idea bound up with all the feelings, all the tastes, all the whims of him whom it has subdued and whom it holds under the empire of an invincible fascination? The viler and closer a favourite has been, the less easily is he to be dismissed, because he is in possession of secrets which would put one to the blush if they were divulged: the chosen one derives a dual force from his own baseness and his master's weaknesses. When the favourite happens to be a great man, like the besetting Richelieu[19] or the undismissable Mazarin[20], the nations, while detesting him, profit by his glory or his power; they only change a wretched king de jure for an illustrious king de facto. * The Duc Decazes. So soon as M. Decazes was made a minister, the carriages blocked the Quai Malaquais in the evenings to set down in the new-comer's drawing-room all that was noblest in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The Frenchman may do what he pleases, he will never be anything but a courtier, no matter of whom, provided it be a power of the day. Soon there was formed, on behalf of the new favourite, a formidable coalition of stupidities. In democratic society, prate about liberties, declare that you see the progress of the human race and the future of things, adding to your speeches a few Crosses of the Legion of Honour, and you are sure of your place; in aristocratic society, play whist, utter commonplaces and carefully-prepared witticisms with a grave and profound air, and the fortune of your genius is assured. Born a fellow-countryman of Murat[21], but of Murat without a kingdom, M. Decazes had come to us from the mother of Napoleon[22]. He was familiar, obliging, never insolent; he wished me well; I do not know why, I did not care: thence came the commencement of my disgraces. That was to teach me that one must never fail in respect to a favourite. The King loaded him with kindnesses and credit, and subsequently married him to a very well-born person, daughter to M. de Sainte-Aulaire[23]. It is true that M. Decazes served royalty too well; it was he who unearthed Marshal Ney in the mountains of Auvergne, where he had hidden himself. Faithful to the inspirations of his throne, Louis XVIII. said of M. Decazes: "I shall raise him up so high that the greatest lords will be envious of him." This phrase, borrowed from another king, was a mere anachronism: to raise up others, one must be sure of not descending; now, at the time when Louis XVIII. arrived, what were monarchs? If they could still make a man's fortune, they could no longer make his greatness; they had become merely their favourites' bankers. Madame Princeteau[24], M. Decazes' sister, was an agreeable, modest and excellent person; the King had fallen in love with her prospectively. M. Decazes, the father, whom I saw in the throne-room in full dress, sword at side, hat under his arm, made no success, however. At last, the death of M. le Duc de Berry increased the ill-will on both sides and brought about the favourite's fall. I have said that "his feet slipped in the blood[25]," which does not mean, Heaven forbid! that he was guilty of the murder, but that he fell in the reddened pool that formed under Louvel's knife. * I had resisted the seizure of the Monarchie selon la Charte to enlighten misled royalty and to uphold the liberty of thought and of the press; I had frankly embraced our institutions, and I remained loyal to them. These broils over, I remained bleeding from the wounds inflicted on me at the appearance of my pamphlet. I did not take possession of my political career without bearing the scars of the blows which I received on entering upon that career: I felt ill at ease in it, I was unable to breathe. I am deprived of my place. Shortly afterwards, an Order[26] countersigned "Richelieu" struck me off the list of ministers of State, and I was deprived of a place till then reputed irremovable; it had been given me at Ghent, and the pension attached to that place was withdrawn from me: the hand which had taken FouchÉ struck me. I have had the honour to be thrice stripped for the Legitimacy: first, for following the sons of St. Louis into exile; the second time, for writing in favour of the principles of the Monarchy, as "granted;" the third, for keeping silence on a baleful law at the moment when I had just caused the triumph of our arms. The Spanish Campaign had given back soldiers to the White Flag, and, if I had been kept in power, I should have carried back our frontiers to the banks of the Rhine. My nature made me quite indifferent to the loss of my salary; I came off with going on foot again and, on rainy days, driving to the Chamber of Peers in a hackney-coach. In my popular conveyance, under the protection of the rabble that surged around me, I re-entered into the rights of the proletariat of which I formed part: from my lofty chariot I looked down upon the train of kings. I was obliged to sell my books; M. Merlin put them up to auction at the Salle Sylvestre in the Rue des Bons-Enfants[27]. I kept only a little Greek Homer, whose margins were covered with attempts at translation and remarks in my handwriting. Soon it became necessary to take energetic measures; I asked M. the Minister of the Interior for leave to raffle my country-house. The lottery was opened at the office of M. Denis, notary. There were ninety tickets at 1000 francs each: the numbers were not taken up by the Royalists; the Dowager Madame la Duchesse d'OrlÉans[28] took three numbers; my friend, M. LainÉ, the Minister of the Interior, who had countersigned the Order of the 5th of September and consented in the Council to the striking off of my name, took a fourth ticket under a false name. The money was returned to the subscribers; M. LainÉ, however, refused to withdraw his 1000 francs; he left it with the notary for the poor. Not long after, my VallÉe-aux-Loups was sold, as they sell the furniture of the poor, on the Place du ChÂtelet. I suffered much by this sale; I had become attached to my trees, planted and, so to speak, full-grown in my memories. The reserve was 50,000 francs; it was covered by M. le Vicomte de Montmorency[29], who alone dared to bid one hundred francs higher: the VallÉe was knocked down to him[30]. He has since inhabited my retreat. It is not a good thing to meddle with my fortunes: that man of virtue is no more. * After the publication of the Monarchie selon la Charte and at the opening of the new session in the month of November 1816, I continued my contests. In the House of Peers, in the sitting of the 23rd of that month, I moved a proposition to the effect that the King be humbly begged to order an investigation into the proceedings at the last elections. The corruption and violence of the Ministry during those elections were flagrant. In giving my opinion on the Bill relating to Supply (21 March 1817), I spoke against Clause II. of that Bill: it had to do with the State forests which they proposed to appropriate for the Sinking Fund, in order afterwards to sell one hundred and fifty thousand hectares. These forests consisted of three kinds of properties: the ancient domains of the Crown, a few commanderies of the Order of Malta, and the remainder of the goods of the Church. I do not know why, even to-day, I find a sad interest in my words; they bear some resemblance to my Memoirs: "With all due deference to those who have administered only during our troubles, it is not the material security but the ethics of a people that constitute the public credit. Will the new owners make good the titles of their new property? To deprive them there will be quoted to them instances of inheritances of nine centuries taken away from their former possessors. Instead of those inalienable patrimonies in which the same family outlived the race of the oaks, you will have unfixed properties in which the reeds will scarcely have time to spring up and die before they change masters. The homes will cease to be the guardians of domestic morality; they will lose their venerable authority; rights-of-way open to all comers, they will no longer be hallowed by the grandfather's chair and the cradle of the new-born child. "Peers of France, it is your cause that I am pleading here, not mine: I am speaking to you in the interests of your children; I shall have no concern with posterity; I have no sons; I have lost my father's fields, and a few trees which I have planted will soon cease to be mine." * The Comte de VillÈle. Because of the resemblance of opinions, then very keen, an intimacy had been established between the minorities of the two Chambers. France was learning representative government. As I had been foolish enough to take it literally and make a real passion of it, to my prejudice, I supported those who took it up, without troubling my head as to whether their opposition was not prompted by human motives rather than by a pure love like that which I felt for the Charter: not that I was a simpleton, but I idolized my lady-love and would have gone through fire to carry her off in my arms. It was during this constitutional attack that I came to know M. de VillÈle[31], in 1816. He was calmer; he overcame his ardour; he, too, aimed at conquering liberty, but he laid siege to it according to rule. He opened the trenches methodically: I, who wanted to carry the place by assault, advanced to the escalade, and often found myself flung back into the ditch. I met M. de VillÈle first at the Duchesse de LÉvis'. He became the leader of the Royalist Opposition in the Elective Chamber, as I was in the Hereditary Chamber. He had as a friend his colleague M. de CorbiÈre[32]. The latter never left his side, and people used to speak of "VillÈle and CorbiÈre" as they speak of "Orestes and Pylades" or "Euryalus and Nisus." To enter into fastidious details about persons whose names one will not know to-morrow would be an idiotic vanity. Obscure and tedious commotions, which one considers of immense interest and which interest nobody, bygone intrigues, which have decided no important event, should be left to those devoutly happy persons who imagine themselves to be, or to have been, the object of the world's attention. Nevertheless, there were proud moments in which my contentions with M. de VillÈle seemed to me personally like the dissensions of Sulla and Marius, of CÆsar and Pompey. Together with the other members of the Opposition, we went pretty often to spend the evening in deliberation at M. Piet's[33], in the Rue ThÉrÈse. We arrived looking extremely ugly, and sat down round a room lighted by a flaring lamp. In this legislative fog, we talked of the Bill introduced, of the motion to be made, of the friend to be pushed into the secretaryship, the questorship, the different committees. We were not unlike the assemblies of the early Christians, as depicted by the enemies of the Faith: we broached the worst news; we said that things were going to turn, that Rome would be troubled by divisions, that our armies would be routed. M. de VillÈle listened, summed up, and drew no conclusions; he was a great aid in business: a prudent mariner, he never put to sea in a storm and, though he would cleverly enter a known harbour, he would never have discovered the New World. I often observed, in the matter of our discussions concerning the sale of the goods of the clergy, that the best Christians among us were the most eager in defense of the constitutional doctrines. Religion is the well-spring of liberty: in Rome, the flamen dialis wore only a hollow ring on his finger, because a solid ring had something of a chain; in his clothing and on his head-dress the pontiff of Jupiter was forbidden to suffer a single knot. After the sitting, M. de VillÈle would go away, accompanied by M. de CorbiÈre. I studied many personalities, I learnt many things, I occupied myself with many interests at those meetings: finance, which I always understood, the army, justice, administration initiated me into their several elements. I left those conferences somewhat more of a statesman and somewhat more persuaded of the poverty of all that knowledge. Throughout the night, between sleeping and waking, I saw the different attitudes of the bald heads, the different expressions of the faces of those untidy and ungainly Solons. It was all very venerable, truly; but I preferred the swallow which woke me in my youth and the Muses who filled my dreams: the rays of the dawn which, striking a swan, made the shadows of those white birds fall upon a golden billow; the rising sun which appeared to me in Syria in the stem of a palm-tree, like the phoenix' nest, pleased me more. * I felt that my fighting in the tribune, in a closed Chamber, and in the midst of an assembly which was unfavourable to me, remained useless to victory, and that I required another weapon. The censorship being established over the periodical daily newspapers, I could fulfil my object only by means of a free, semi-daily paper, with the aid of which I would at once attack the system of the Ministers and the opinions of the Extreme Left printed in the Minerve by M. Étienne[34]. I was staying at Noisiel with Madame la Duchesse de LÉvis, in the summer of 1818, when my publisher, M. Le Normant, came to see me. I told him of the idea which I had in mind; he caught fire, offered to run all risks and undertook all expenses. I spoke to my friends, Messieurs de Bonald[35] and de La Mennais[36], and asked them if they would take part: they agreed, and the paper was not long in appearing under the title of the Conservateur.[37] The revolution worked by this paper was unexampled: in France, it changed the majority in the Chambers; abroad, it converted the spirit of the Cabinets. In this way the Royalists owed to me the advantage of issuing from the state of nullity into which they had fallen with peoples and kings. I put the pen into the hands of France's greatest families. I decked out the Montmorencys and the LÉvises as journalists; I called out the arriere-ban; I made feudality march to the aid of the liberty of the press. I had got together the most brilliant men of the Royalist party, Messieurs de VillÈle, de CorbiÈre, de Vitrolles[38], de Castelbajac[39], etc. I could not help blessing Providence every time that I spread the red robe of a prince of the Church over the Conservateur by way of a cover, and that I had the pleasure to read an article signed in full: "The Cardinal de La Luzerne[40]." But it came to pass that, after I had led my knights on the constitutional crusade, so soon as they had conquered power by the deliverance of liberty, so soon as they had become Princes of Edessa, of Antioch, of Damascus, they locked themselves up in their new States with Eleanor of Aquitaine[41], and left me out in the cold at the foot of Jerusalem, where the infidels had recaptured the Holy Sepulchre. |
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