Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time Part 12

When we were introduced into the hall of the throne, M. Royer-Collard read the address naturally and suitably, with an emotion which his voice and features betrayed. The King listened to him with becoming dignity and without any air of haughtiness or ill humour; his answer was brief and dry, rather from royal habit than from anger, and, if I am not mistaken, he felt more satisfied with his own firmness than uneasy for the future. Four days before, on the eve of the debate on the address, in his circle at the Tuileries, to which many Deputies were invited, I saw him bestow marked intention on three members of the Commission, MM. Dupin, etienne, and Gautier. In two such opposite situations, it was the same man and almost the same physiognomy, identical in his manners as in his ideas, careful to please although determined to quarrel, and obstinate from want of foresight and mental routine, rather than from the pa.s.sion of pride or power.

On the day after the presentation of the address, the 19th of March, the session was prorogued to the 1st of September. Two months later, on the 16th of May, the Chamber of Deputies was dissolved; the two most moderate members of the Cabinet, the Chancellor and the Minister of Finance, M. Courvoisier and M. de Chabrol, left the Council; they had refused their concurrence to the extreme measures already debated there, in case the elections should falsify the expectations of power. The most compromised and audacious member of the Villele Cabinet, M. de Peyronnet, became Minister of the Interior. By the dissolution, the King appealed to the country, and at the same moment he took fresh steps to separate himself from his people.

Having returned to the private life from which he never again emerged, M. Courvoisier wrote to me on the 29th of September 1831, from his retirement at Baume-les-Dames: "Before resigning the Seals, I happened to be in conversation with M. Pozzo di Borgo on the state of the country, and the perils with which the throne had surrounded itself.

What means, said he to me, are there of opening the King's eyes, and of drawing him from a system which may once again overturn Europe and France?--I see but one, replied I, and that is a letter from the hand of the Emperor of Russia.--He shall write it, said he; he shall write it from Warsaw, whither he is about to repair.--We then conversed together on the substance of the letter. M. Pozzo di Borgo often said to me that the Emperor Nicholas saw no security for the Bourbons, but in the fulfilment of the Charter."

I much doubt whether the Emperor Nicholas ever wrote himself to the King, Charles X.; but what his amba.s.sador at Paris had said to the Chancellor of France, he himself repeated to the Duke de Mortemart, the King's amba.s.sador at St. Petersburg:--"If they deviate from the Charter, they will lead direct to a catastrophe; if the King attempts a _coup-d'etat_, the responsibility will fall on himself alone." The councils of monarchs were not more wanting to Charles X., than the addresses of nations, to detach him from his fatal design.

As soon as the electoral glove was thrown down, my friends wrote to me from Nismes that my presence was necessary to unite them all, and to hold out in the College of the department any prospect of success. It was also desired that I should go, of my own accord, to Lisieux; but they added that if I was required elsewhere, they thought, even in my absence, they could guarantee my election. I trusted to this a.s.surance, and set out for Nismes on the 15th June, anxious to sound myself, and on the spot, the real dispositions of the country; which we so soon forget when confined to Paris.

I have no desire to subst.i.tute for my impressions of that epoch my ideas of the present day, or to attribute to my own political conduct and to that of my friends an interpretation which neither could a.s.sume. I republish, without alteration, what I find in the confidential letters I wrote or received during my journey. These supply the most un.o.bjectionable evidences of what we thought and wished at the time.

On the 26th of June, some days after my arrival at Nismes, I wrote as follows:--

"The contest is very sharp, more so than you can understand at a distance. The two parties are seriously engaged, and hourly oppose each other with increasing animosity. An absolute fever of egotism and stupidity possesses and instigates the administration. The opposition struggles, with pa.s.sionate ardour, against the embarra.s.sments and annoyances of a situation, both in a legal and moral sense, of extreme difficulty. It finds in the laws means of action and defence, which impart the courage necessary to sustain the combat, but without inspiring the confidence of success; for almost everywhere, the last guarantee is wanting, and after having fought long and bravely, we always run the risk of finding ourselves suddenly disarmed, and helpless. A similar anxiety applies to the moral position: the opposition despises the ministry, and at the same time looks upon it as its superior; the functionaries are in disrepute, but still they take precedence; a remembrance of imperial greatness and power yet furnishes them with a pedestal; they are looked on disdainfully, with a mingled sensation of fear and anger. In this state of affairs there are many elements of agitation, and even of a crisis. Nevertheless, no sooner does an explosion appear imminent, or even possible, than every one shrinks from it in apprehension. In conclusion, all parties at present look for their security in order and peace. There is no confidence except in legitimate measures."

On the 9th of July, I received the following from Paris:--

"The elections of the great colleges have commenced. If we gain any advantage there, it will be excellent; above all, for the effect it may produce on the King's mind, who can expect nothing more favourable to him than the great colleges. At present, there are no indications of a _coup d'etat_. The 'Quotidienne' announces this morning that it looks upon the session as opened, admitting at the same time that the Ministry will not have a majority. It appears delighted at there being no prospect of an address exactly similar to that of the Two Hundred and Twenty-one."

And again, on the 12th of July:--

"Today the 'Universel'[22] exclaims against the report of a _coup d'etat_, and seems to guarantee the regular opening of the session by a speech from the King. This speech, which will annoy you, will have the advantage of opening the session on a better understanding. But the great point is to have a session; violent extremes become much more improbable when we are const.i.tutionally employed. But you will find it very difficult to draw up a new address; whatever it may be, the right and the extreme left will look upon it in the light of a retractation,--the right as a boast, the left as a complaint. You will have to defend yourselves against those who wish purely and simply a repet.i.tion of the former address, and who hold to it as the last words of the country. Having acquired a victory at the elections, and the alternative of dissolution being no longer available to the King, we shall have evidently a new line of conduct to adopt. Besides, what interest have we in compelling the King to make a stand? France has every thing to gain by years of regular government; let us be careful not to precipitate events."

I replied on the 16th of July:--"I scarcely know how we are to extricate ourselves from the new address. It will be an extremely difficult matter, but in any case we are bound to meet this difficulty, for evidently we must have a session. We should be looked upon as children and madmen if we were merely to recommence what we have taken in hand for four months. The new Chamber ought not to retreat; but it should adopt a new course. Let us have no _coup d'etat_, and let const.i.tutional order be regularly preserved. Whatever may be the ministerial combinations, real and ultimate success will be with us."

"Amongst the electors by whom I am surrounded here, I have met with nothing but moderate, patient, and loyal dispositions. M. de Daunant has just been elected, on the 13th of July instant, by the Divisional College of Nismes; he had 296 votes against 241 given in favour of M. Daniel Murjas, president of the college. When the result was announced, the official secretary proposed to the a.s.sembly to pa.s.s a vote of thanks to the president, who, notwithstanding his own candidateship, had presided with most complete impartiality and loyalty.

The vote was carried on the instant, in the midst of loud cries of "Long live the King!" and the electors, as they retired, found in all quarters the same tranquillity and gravity which they had themselves preserved in the discharge of their own duties."

On the 12th of July, when news of the capture of Algiers arrived, I wrote thus:--"And so the African campaign is over, and well over; ours, which must commence in about two months, will be rather more difficult; but no matter; I hope this success will not stimulate power to the last madness, and I prefer our national honour to all parliamentary considerations."

I do not pretend to a.s.sert that the foregoing sentiments were those of all who, whether in the Chambers or in the country, had approved the Address of the Two Hundred and Twenty-one, and who, at the elections, voted for its support. The Restoration had not achieved such complete conquests in France. Inactive, but not resigned, the secret societies were ever in existence; ready, when opportunity occurred, to resume their work of conspiracy and destruction. Other adversaries, more legitimate but not less formidable, narrowly watched every mistake of the King and his Government, and sedulously brought them under public comment, expecting and prognosticating still more serious errors, which would lead to extreme consequences. Amongst the popular ma.s.ses, a deeply rooted instinct of suspicion and hatred to all that recalled the old system and the invasion of the foreigners, continued to supply arms and inexhaustible hopes to the enemies of the Restoration. The people resemble the ocean, motionless and almost immutable at the bottom, however violent may be the storms which agitate the surface.

Nevertheless, the spirit of legality and sound political reason had made remarkable progress; even during the ferment of the elections, public feeling loudly repudiated all idea of a new revolution. Never was the situation of those who sincerely wished to support the King and the Charter more favourable or powerful; they had given evidences of persevering firmness by legitimate opposition, they had lately maintained with reputation the principles of representative government, they enjoyed the esteem and even the favour of the public; the more violent party, through necessity, and the country, with some hesitation, mingled with honest hope, followed in their rear. If at this critical moment they could have succeeded with the King as with the Chambers and the country,--if Charles X., after having by the dissolution pushed his royal prerogative to the extreme verge, had listened to the strongly manifested wishes of France, and selected his advisers from amongst those of the const.i.tutional Royalists who stood the highest in public consideration, I say, with a feeling of conviction which may appear foolhardy, but which I maintain to this hour, that there was every reasonable hope of surmounting the last decisive trial; and that the country taking confidence at once in the King and in the Charter, the Restoration and const.i.tutional government would have been established together.

But the precise quality in which Charles X. was deficient, was that expansive freedom of mind which conveys to a monarch a perfect intelligence of the age in which he lives, and endows him with a sound appreciation of its resources and necessities. "There are only M. de La Fayette and I who have not changed since 1789," said he, one day; and he spoke truly. Through all the vicissitudes of his life he ever remained what his youthful training had made him at the Court of Versailles and in the aristocratic society of the eighteenth century--sincere and light, confident in himself and in his own immediate circle, un.o.bservant and irreflective, although of an active spirit, attached to his ideas and his friends of the old system as to his faith and his standard.

Under the reign of his brother Louis XVIII., and during the scission of the monarchical party, he became the patron and hope of that Royalist opposition which boldly availed itself of const.i.tutional liberties, and presented in his own person a singular mixture of persevering intimacy with his old companions, and of a taste for the new popularity of a Liberal. When he found himself on the throne, he made more than one coquettish advance to this popular disposition, and sincerely flattered himself that he governed according to the Charter, with his old friends and his ideas of earlier times. M. de Villele and M. de Martignac lent themselves to his views in this difficult work; and after their fall, which he scarcely opposed, Charles X. found himself left to his natural tendencies, in the midst of advisers little disposed to contradict, and without the power of restraining him. Two fatal mistakes then established themselves in his mind; he fancied that he was menaced by the Revolution, much more than was really the fact; and he ceased to believe in the possibility of defending himself, and of governing by the legal course of the const.i.tutional system. France had no desire for a new revolution. The Charter contained, for a prudent and patient monarch, certain means of exercising the royal authority and of securing the Crown. But Charles X. had lost confidence in France and in the Charter. When the Address of the Two Hundred and Twenty-one Deputies came triumphant through the elections, he believed that he was driven to his last entrenchment, and reduced to save himself without the Charter, or to perish by a revolution.

A few days before the Decrees of July, the Russian amba.s.sador, Count Pozzo di Borgo, had an audience of the King. He found him seated before his desk, with his eyes fixed on the Charter, opened at Article 14.

Charles X. read and re-read that article, seeking with honest inquietude the interpretation he wanted to find there. In such cases, we always discover what we are in search of; and the King's conversation, although indirect and uncertain, left little doubt on the Amba.s.sador's mind as to the measures in preparation.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 20: "Peers of France, Deputies of Departments, I have no doubt of your co-operation in carrying out the good measures I propose. You will repulse with contempt the perfidious insinuations which malevolence seeks to propagate. If criminal manoeuvres were to place obstacles in the way of my government, which I neither can, nor wish to, foresee, I should find the power of surmounting them in a resolution to maintain the public peace, in the just confidence of the French people, and in the devotion which they have always demonstrated for their King."]

[Footnote 21: I think no one who reads the six concluding paragraphs of this Address, which alone formed the subject of debate, can fail to appreciate, in the present day, the profound truth of the sentiments and the apt propriety of the language.

"a.s.sembled at your command from all points of the kingdom, we bring to you, Sire, from every quarter, the homage of a faithful people, still further inspired by having found you the most beneficent of all, in the midst of universal beneficence, and which reveres in your person the accomplished model of the most exemplary virtues. Sire, this people cherishes and respects your authority; fifteen years of peace and liberty which it owes to your august brother and to yourself, have deeply rooted in its heart the grat.i.tude due to your august family: its reason, matured by experience and freedom of discussion, tells it that in questions of authority, above all others, antiquity of possession is the holiest of t.i.tles, and that it is as much for the happiness of France as for your personal glory, that ages have placed your throne in a region inaccessible to storms. The conviction of the nation accords then with its duty in representing to it the sacred privileges of your crown as the surest guarantee of its own liberties, and the integrity of your prerogatives as necessary to the preservation of public rights."

"Nevertheless, Sire, in the midst of these unanimous sentiments of respect and affection with which your people surround you, there has become manifest in the general mind a feeling of inquietude which disturbs the security France had begun to enjoy, affects the sources of her prosperity, and might, if prolonged, become fatal to her repose. Our conscience, our honour, the fidelity we have pledged and which we shall ever maintain, impose on us the duty of unveiling to you the cause."

"Sire, the Charter which we owe to the wisdom of your august predecessor, and the benefits of which your Majesty has declared a firm determination to consolidate, consecrate as a right the intervention of the country in the deliberation of public interests. This intervention ought to be, and is in fact, indirect, wisely regulated, circ.u.mscribed within limits minutely defined, and which, we shall never suffer any one to exceed; but it is also positive in its result; for it establishes a permanent concurrence between the political views of your government, and the wishes of your people, as an indispensable condition of the regular progress of public affairs. Sire, our loyalty and devotion compel us to declare that this concurrence does not exist."

"An unjust suspicion of the sentiments and ideas of France forms the fundamental conviction of the present Ministry; your people look on this with sorrow, as injurious to the Government itself, and with uneasiness, as it appears to menace public liberty."

"This suspicion could find no entrance in your own n.o.ble heart. No, Sire, _France is not more desirous of anarchy than you are of despotism_.[23] She is worthy of your having faith in her loyalty, as she relies implicitly on your promises."

"Between those who misrepresent a nation so calm and loyal, and we, who with a deep conviction deposit in your bosom the complaints of an entire people, jealous of the esteem and confidence of their King, let the exalted wisdom of your Majesty decide! Your royal prerogatives have placed in your hands the means of establishing between the authorities of the State, that const.i.tutional harmony, the first and most essential condition for the security of the Throne and the greatness of the country."]

[Footnote 22: One of the ministerial journals of the time.]

[Footnote 23: The words used by the Chamber of Peers in their address.]

HISTORIC DOc.u.mENTS.

HISTORIC DOc.u.mENTS.

No. I.

THE VISCOUNT DE CHaTEAUBRIAND TO M. GUIZOT.

_Val-de-Loup, May 12th, 1809._

Sir,

I return you a thousand thanks. I have read your articles with extreme pleasure. You praise me with so much grace, and bestow on me so many commendations, that you may easily afford to diminish the latter. Enough will always remain to satisfy my vanity as an author, and a.s.suredly more than I deserve.

I find your criticisms extremely just; one in particular has struck me by its refined taste. You say that the Catholics cannot, like the Protestants, admit a Christian mythology, because we have not been trained and accustomed to it by great poets. This is most ingenious; and if my work should be considered good enough to induce people to say that I am the first to commence this mythology, it might be replied that I come too late, that our taste is formed upon other models, etc. etc.

etc.... Nevertheless there will always be Ta.s.so, and all the Latin Catholic poems of the Middle Ages. This appears to me the only solid objection that can be raised against your remark.

In truth, and I speak with perfect sincerity, the criticisms which, before yours, have appeared on my work, make me feel to a certain extent ashamed of the French. Have you observed that no one seems to have comprehended its design? That the rules of epic composition are so generally forgotten, that a work of thought and immense labour is judged as if it were the production of a day, or a mere romance? And all this outcry is against the marvellous! Would it not imply that I am the inventor of this style? that it has been hitherto unheard of, and is singular and new? And yet we have Ta.s.so, Milton, Klopstock, Gessner, and even Voltaire! And if we are not to employ the marvellous in a Christian subject, there can no longer be an epic in modern poetry, for the marvellous is essential to that style of composition, and I believe no one would be inclined to introduce Jupiter in a subject taken from our own history. All this, like every thing else in France, is insincere.

The question to be decided was, whether my work was good or bad as an epic poem; all was comprised in this point, without attempting to ascertain whether it was or was not contrary to religion; and a thousand other arguments of the same kind.

I cannot deliver an opinion on my own work; I can only convey to you that of others. M. Fontanes is entirely in favour of 'The Martyrs.' He finds this production much superior to what I have written before, in plan, style, and characters.

What appears singular to me is, that the third Book, which you condemn, seems to him one of the best of the whole! With regard to style, he thinks that I have never before reached so high a point as in the description of the happiness of the just, in that of the light of Heaven, and in the pa.s.sage on the Virgin. He tolerates the length of the two dialogues between the Father and Son, on the necessity of establishing the epic machinery. Without these dialogues there could be no more narrative or action; the narrative and action are accounted for by the conversation of the uncreated beings.

I mention this, Sir, not to convince, but to show you how sound judgments can see the same object under different aspects. With you I dislike the description of torture, but I consider it absolutely necessary in a work upon Martyrs. It has been consecrated by all history and every art. Christian painting and sculpture have selected these subjects; herein lies the real controversy of the question. You, Sir, who are well acquainted with the details, know to what extent I have softened the picture, and how much I have suppressed of the _Acta Martyrum_, particularly in holding back physical agony, and in opposing agreeable images to harrowing torments. You are too just not to distinguish between the objections of the subject and the errors of the poet.

For the rest, you, Sir, well know the tempest raised against my work, and the source from whence they proceed. There is another sore not openly displayed, and which lies at the root of all this anger. It is that _Hierocles_ ma.s.sacres the Christians in the name of _philosophy_ and _liberty_. Time will do me justice if my book deserves it, and you will greatly accelerate this judgment by publishing your articles, if you could be induced to modify them to a certain extent. Show me my faults and I will correct them. I only despise those writers, who are as contemptible in their language as in the secret reasons which prompt them to speak. I can neither find reason nor honour in the mouths of those literary mountebanks in the hire of the Police, who dance in the kennels for the amus.e.m.e.nt of lacqueys.

I am in my cottage, where I shall be delighted to hear from you. It would give me the greatest pleasure to receive you here, if you would be so kind as to visit me. Accept the a.s.surance of my profound esteem and high consideration.