Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time Part 7

But to reap the full fruits of this advantage, and to diminish at the same time the natural defects of the centre in its mission, it was necessary that it should adopt a fixed idea, a conviction that the different elements of the party were indispensable to each other; and that, to accomplish the object pursued by all with equal sincerity, mutual concessions and sacrifices were called for, to maintain this necessary union. When Divine wisdom intended to secure the power of a human connection, it forbade divorce. Political ties cannot admit this inviolability; but if they are not strongly knit, if the contracting parties are not firmly resolved to break them only in the last extremity and under the most imperious pressure, they soon end, not only in impotence, but in disorder; and by their too easy rupture, policy becomes exposed to new difficulties and disturbances. I have thus pointed out the discrepancies and different opinions which, from the beginning, existed between the two princ.i.p.al elements of the centre: the Ministers, with their pure adherents, on the one side, and the doctrinarians on the other. From the second session after the decree of the 5th of September, 1816, these differences increased until they grew into dissensions.

While acknowledging the influence of the doctrinarians in the Chambers, and the importance of their co-operation, neither the Ministers nor their advocates measured correctly the value of this alliance, or the weight of the foundation from which that value was derived. Philosophers estimate too highly the general ideas with which they are prepossessed; politicians withhold from general ideas the attention and interest they are ent.i.tled to demand. Intelligence is proud and sensitive; it looks for consideration and respect, even though its suggestions may be disallowed; and those who treat it lightly or coldly sometimes pay heavily for their mistake. It is, moreover, an evidence of narrow intellect not to appreciate the part which general principles a.s.sume in the government of men, or to regard them as useless or hostile because we are not disposed to adopt them as guides. In our days, especially, and notwithstanding the well-merited disrepute into which so many theories have fallen, philosophic deduction, on all the leading questions and facts of policy, is a sustaining power, on which the ablest and most secure ministers would do wisely to rely. The doctrinarians at that period represented this power, and employed it fearlessly against the spirit of revolution, as well as in favour of the const.i.tutional system. The Cabinet of 1816 undervalued the part they played, and paid too little attention to their ideas and desires. The application of trial by jury to offences of the press was not, I admit, unattended by danger; but it was much better to try that experiment, and by so doing to maintain union in the Government party, than to divide it by absolutely disregarding, on this question, M. Camille Jordan, M. Royer-Collard, and their friends.

All power, and, above all, recent power, demands an impression of grandeur in its acts and on its insignia. Order, and the regular protection of private interests, that daily bread of nations, will not long satisfy their wants. To secure these is an inseparable care of Government, but they do not comprise the only need of humanity. Human nature finds the other enjoyments for which it thirsts in opposite distinctions, moral or physical, just or unjust, solid or ephemeral. It has neither enough of virtue nor wisdom to render absolute greatness indispensable; but in every position it requires to see, conspicuously displayed, something exalted, which may attract and occupy the imagination. After the Empire, which had accustomed France to all the delights of national pre-eminence and glory, the spectacle of free and lofty thought displaying itself with moral dignity, and some show of talent, was not deficient in novelty or attraction, while the chance of its success outweighed the value of the cost.

The Ministers were not more skilful in dealing with the personal tempers than with the ideas of the doctrinarians, who were as haughty and independent in character as they were elevated in mind, and ready to take offence when any disposition was evinced to apply their opinions and conduct without their own consent. Nothing is more distasteful to power than to admit, to any great extent, the independence of its supporters; it considers them treated with sufficient respect if taken into confidence, and is readily disposed to view them as servants.

M. Laine, then Minister of the Interior, wrote one morning to M. Cuvier to say that the King had just named him Royal Commissioner, to second a bill which would be presented on the following day to the Chamber of Deputies. He had not only neglected to apprise him before of the duty he was to undertake, but he did not even mention in the note the particular bill he instructed him to support. M. Cuvier, more subservient than susceptible, with power, made no complaint of this treatment, but related it with a smile. A few days before, the Minister of Finance, M. Corvetto, had also appointed M. de Serre Commissioner for the defence of the budget, without asking whether this appointment was agreeable to him, or holding any conference even on the fundamental points of the budget he was expected to carry through. On receiving notice of this nomination, M. de Serre felt deeply offended. "It is either an act of folly or impertinence," said he loudly; "perhaps both." M. de Serre deceived himself; it was neither the one nor the other. M. Corvetto was an extremely polite, careful, and modest person; but he was of the Imperial school, and more accustomed to give orders to agents than to concert measures with members of the Chambers. By habits as well as ideas, the doctrinarians belonged to a liberal system,--troublesome allies of power, on the termination of a military and administrative monarchy.

I know not which is the most difficult undertaking,--to transform the functionaries of absolute power into the supporters of a free Government, or to organize and discipline the friends of liberty into a political party. If the Ministers sometimes disregarded the humour of the doctrinarians, the doctrinarians in their turn too lightly estimated the position and task of the Ministers. They had in reality, whatever has been said of sectarian pa.s.sions and ideas, neither the ambition nor the vanity of a coterie; they possessed open, generous, and expanded minds, extremely accessible to sympathy; but, too much accustomed to live alone and depend on themselves, they scarcely thought of the effect which their words and actions produced beyond their own circle; and thus social faults were laid to their charge which they had not the least desire to commit. Their political mistakes were more real.

In their relations with power, they were sometimes intemperate and offensive in language, unnecessarily impatient, not knowing how to be contented with what was possible, or how to wait for amelioration without too visible an effort. These causes led them to miscalculate the impediments, necessities, and practicable resources of the Government they sincerely wished to establish. In the Chambers, they were too exclusive and pugnacious, more intent on proving their opinions than on gaining converts, despising rather than desiring recruits, and little gifted with the talent of attraction and combination so essential to the leaders of a party. They were not sufficiently acquainted with the difficulties of carrying out a sound scheme of policy, nor with the infinite variety of efforts, sacrifices, and cares which are comprised in the art of governing.

From 1816 to 1818 the vices of their position and the mistakes committed, infused into the Government and its party a continual ferment, and the seeds of internal discord which prevented them from acquiring the necessary strength and consistency. The mischief burst forth towards the end of 1818, when the Duke de Richelieu returned from the conferences of Aix-la-Chapelle, reporting the withdrawal of the foreign armies, the complete evacuation of our territory, and the definitive settlement of the financial burdens which the Hundred Days had imposed on France. On his arrival he saw his Cabinet on the point of dissolution, and vainly attempted to form a new one, but was finally compelled to abandon the power he had never sought or enjoyed, but which, a.s.suredly, he was unwilling to lose by compulsion in the midst of his diplomatic triumph, and to see it pa.s.s into hands determined to employ it in a manner totally opposed to his own intentions.

A check like this, at such a moment, and to such a man, was singularly unjust and unseasonable. Since 1815, the Duke de Richelieu had rendered valuable services to France and to the King. He alone had obtained some mitigation to the conditions of a very harsh treaty of peace, which nothing but sincere and sad devotion had induced him to sign, while feeling the full weight of what he sacrificed in attaching to it his ill.u.s.trious name, and seeking no self-glorification from an act of honest patriotism. No man was ever more free from exaggeration or quackery in the display of his sentiments. Fifteen months after the ratification of peace, he induced the foreign powers to consent to a considerable reduction in the army of occupation. A year later, he limited to a fixed sum the unbounded demands of the foreign creditors of France. Finally, he had just signed the entire emanc.i.p.ation of the national soil four years before the term rigorously prescribed by treaties. The King, on his return, thanked him in n.o.ble words: "Duke de Richelieu," he said, "I have lived long enough, since, thanks to you, I have seen the French flag flying over every town in France."

The sovereigns of Europe treated him with esteem and confidence. A rare example of a statesman, who, without great actions or superior abilities, had, by the uprightness of his character and the unselfish tenor of his life, achieved such universal and undisputed respect!

Although the Duke de Richelieu had only been engaged in foreign affairs, he was better calculated than has been said, not so much to direct effectively as to preside over the internal government of the Restoration. A n.o.bleman of exalted rank, and a tried Royalist, he was neither in mind or feeling a courtier nor an Emigrant; he had no preconceived dislike to the new state of society or the new men; without thoroughly understanding free inst.i.tutions, he had no prejudice against them, and submitted to their exercise without an effort. Simple in his manners, true and steady in his words, and a friend to the public good, if he failed to exercise a commanding influence in the Chambers, he maintained full authority near the King; and a const.i.tutional Government, resting on the parliamentary centre, could not, at that period, have possessed a more worthy or more valuable president.

But at the close of 1818 the Duke de Richelieu felt himself compelled, and evinced that he was resolved, to engage in a struggle in which the considerations of grat.i.tude and prosperity I have here reverted to proved to be ineffective weapons on his side. In virtue of the Charter, and in conformity with the electoral law of the 5th of February, 1817, two-fifths of the Chamber of Deputies had been renewed since the formation of his Cabinet. The first trial of votes, in 1817, had proved satisfactory to the Restoration and its friends; not more than two or three recognized names were added to the left-hand party, which, even after this reinforcement, only amounted to twenty members. At the second trial in 1818, the party acquired more numerous and much more distinguished recruits; about twenty-five new members, and amongst them MM. de La Fayette, Benjamin Constant, and Manuel, were enrolled in its ranks. The number was still weak, but important as a rallying point, and prognostic. An alarm, at once sincere and interested, exhibited itself at court and in the right-hand party; they found themselves on the eve of a new revolution, but their hopes were also excited: since the enemies of the House of Bourbon were forcing themselves into the Chamber, the King would at length feel the necessity of replacing power in the hands of his friends. The party had not waited the issue of these last elections to attempt a great enterprise. _Secret notes_, drawn up under the eye of the Count d'Artois, and by his most intimate confidants, had been addressed to the foreign sovereigns, to point out to them this growing mischief, and to convince them that a change in the advisers of the crown was the only safe measure to secure monarchy in France, and to preserve peace in Europe. The Duke de Richelieu, in common with his colleagues, and with a feeling of patriotism far superior to personal interest, felt indignant at these appeals to foreign intervention for the internal government of the country.

M. de Vitrolles was struck off from the Privy Council, as author of the princ.i.p.al of the three _Secret notes_. The European potentates paid little attention to such announcements, having no faith either in the sound judgment or disinterested views of the men from whom they emanated. Nevertheless, after the elections of 1818, they also began to feel uneasy. It was from prudence, and not choice, that they had sanctioned and maintained the const.i.tutional system in France; they looked upon it as necessary to close up the Revolution. If, on the contrary, it once again opened its doors, the peace of Europe would be more compromised than ever; for then the Revolution would a.s.sume the semblance of legality. But neither in France nor in Europe did any one at that time, even amongst the greatest alarmists and the most intimidated, dream of interfering with the const.i.tutional system; in universal opinion it had acquired with us the privileges of citizenship.

The entire evil was imputed to the law of elections. It was at Aix-la-Chapelle, while surrounded by the sovereigns and their ministers, that the Duke de Richelieu was first apprised of the newly-elected members whom this law had brought upon the scene. The Emperor Alexander expressed to him his amazement; the Duke of Wellington advised Louis XVIII. "to unite himself more closely with the Royalists." The Duke de Richelieu returned to France with a determination to reform the electoral law, or no longer to incur the responsibility of its results.

Inst.i.tutions attacked have no voice in their own defence, and men gladly charge on them their individual errors. I shall not commit this injustice, or abandon a sound idea because it has been compromised or perverted in application. The principle of the electoral law of the 5th of February, 1817, was good in itself, and still remains good, although it was insufficient to prevent the evil of our own want of foresight and intemperate pa.s.sions.

When a free government is seriously desired, we must choose between the principle of the law of the 5th of February, 1817, and universal suffrage,--between the right of voting confined to the higher cla.s.ses of society and that extended to the popular ma.s.ses. I believe the direct and defined right of suffrage to be alone effectual in securing the action of the country upon the Government. On this common condition, the two systems may const.i.tute a real control over power, and substantial guarantees for liberty. Which is to be preferred?--this is a question of epoch, of situation, of degree of civilization, and of form of government. Universal suffrage is well suited to republican a.s.sociations, small or federative, newly inst.i.tuted or mature in wisdom and political virtue. The right of voting confined to a more elevated cla.s.s, and exercised in a strong a.s.sumption of the spirit of order, of independence, and intelligence, is more applicable to great single and monarchical states. This was our reason for making it the basis of the law of 1817. We dreaded republican tendencies, which with us, and in our days, are nearly synonymous with anarchy; we regarded monarchy as natural, and const.i.tutional monarchy as necessary, to France; we wished to organize it sincerely and durably, by securing under this system, to the conservative elements of French society as at present const.i.tuted, an influence which appeared to us as much in conformity with the interests of liberty as with those of power.

It was the disunion of the monarchical party that vitiated the electoral system of 1817, and took away its strength with its truth. By placing political power in the hands of property, intelligence, independent position, and great interests naturally conservative, the system rested on the expectation that these interests would be habitually united, and would defend, in common accord, order and right against the spirit of license and revolution, the fatal bias of the age. But, from their very first steps, the different elements of the great royalist party, old or new, aristocratic or plebeian, plunged into discord, equally blind to the weakness with which it infected them all, and thus opening the door to the hopes and efforts of their common enemies, the revolutionists.

From thence, and not from the electoral law of 1817, or from its principle, came the mischief which in 1818 it was considered desirable to check by repealing that enactment.

I am ready to admit in express terms, for it may be alleged with justice, that, when in 1816 and 1817 we prepared and defended the law of elections, we might have foreseen the state of general feeling under which it was to be applied. Discord between the components of the monarchical party was neither a strange nor a sudden fact; it existed at that time; the Royalists of old and new France were already widely separated. I incline to think that, even had we attached more importance to their future contests, we should still have pursued the same course. We were in presence of an imperative necessity: new France felt that she was attacked, and required defence; if she had not found supporters amongst the Royalists, she would have sought for them, as she has too often done, in the camp of the Revolution. But what may explain or even excuse a fault cannot effect its suppression. Our policy in 1816 and 1817 regarded too lightly the disagreements of the monarchical party, and the possible return of the Revolutionists; we miscalculated the extent of both dangers. It is the besetting error of men entrammelled in the fetters of party, to forget that there are many opposite facts which skilful policy should turn to profitable account, and to pa.s.s over all that are not inscribed with brilliancy on their standard.

On leaving Aix-la-Chapelle, where he had been so fortunate, the Duke de Richelieu, although far from presumptuous, expected, I have no doubt, to be equally successful in his design of repealing the law of elections. Success deceives the most una.s.suming, and prevents them from foreseeing an approaching reverse. On his arrival, he found the undertaking much more difficult than he had antic.i.p.ated. In the Cabinet, M. Mole alone fully seconded his intentions. M. Decazes and Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr declared strongly for the law as it stood. M. Laine, while fully admitting that it ought to be modified, refused to take any part in the matter, having been, as he said, the first to propose and maintain it. M. Roy, who had lately superseded M. Corvetto in the department of finance, cared little for the electoral question, but announced that he would not remain in the Cabinet without M. Decazes, whom he considered indispensable, either in the Chambers or near the King's person. Discord raged within and without the Ministry. In the Chambers, the centre was divided; the left defended the law vehemently; the right declared itself ready to support any minister who proposed its reform, but at the same time repudiated M. Decazes, the author of the decree of the 5th of September, 1816, and of all its consequences. The public began to warm into the question. Excitement and confusion went on increasing. It was evidently not the electoral law alone, but the general policy of the Restoration and the Government of France, that formed the subject of debate.

In a little work which the historians of this period, M. de Lamartine amongst others, have published, the King, Louis XVIII. himself has related the incidents and sudden turns of this ministerial crisis, which ended, as is well known, in the retirement of the Duke de Richelieu, with four of his colleagues, and in the promotion of M. Decazes, who immediately constructed a new Cabinet, of which he was the head, without appearing to preside, while M. de Serre, appointed to the seals, became the powerful organ in the Chambers, and the maintenance of the law of elections was adopted as the symbol. Two sentiments, under simple forms, pervade this kingly recital: first, a certain anxiety, on the part of the author, that no blame should be attached to him in his royal character, or in his conduct towards the Duke de Richelieu, and a desire to exculpate himself from these charges; secondly, a little of that secret pleasure which kings indulge in, even under heavy embarra.s.sments, when they see a minister fall whose importance was not derived from themselves, and who has served them without expecting or receiving favours.

"If I had only consulted my own opinion," says the King, in concluding his statement, "I should have wished M. Decazes, uniting his lot, as he had always intended, with that of the Duke de Richelieu, to have left the Ministry with him." It would have been happy for M. Decazes if this desire of the King had prevailed. Not that he erred in any point of duty or propriety by surviving the Duke de Richelieu in office, and in forming a Cabinet without him; an important misunderstanding on a pressing question had already separated them. M. Decazes, after tendering his resignation, had raised no obstacle to the Duke's efforts at finding new colleagues; it was only on the failure of those attempts, frankly avowed by the Duke himself, and at the formal request of the King, that he had undertaken to form a ministry. As a friend of M. de Richelieu, and the day before his colleague, there were certainly unpleasant circ.u.mstances and appearances attached to this position; but M. Decazes was free to act, and could scarcely refuse to carry out the policy he had recommended in council, when that which he had opposed acknowledged itself incapable. Yet the new Cabinet was not strong enough for the enterprise it undertook; with the centre completely shaken and divided, it had to contend against the right-hand party more irritated than ever, and the left evidently inimical, although through decency it lent to Government a precarious support. The Cabinet of M. Decazes, as a ministerial party, retained much inferior forces to those which had surrounded the Duke de Richelieu, and had to contest with two bitter enemies, the one inaccessible to peace or truce, the other sometimes appearing friendly, but suddenly turning round and attacking the Ministry with eager malevolence, when an opportunity offered, and with hesitating hostility when compelled to dissemble.

The doctrinarians, who, in co-operation with M. Decazes, had defended the law of elections, energetically supported the new Cabinet, in which they were brilliantly represented by M. de Serre. Success was not wanting at the commencement. By a mild and active administration, by studied care of its partisans, by frequent and always favourably received appeals to the royal clemency in behalf of the exiles still excepted from amnesty, even including the old regicides, M. Decazes sought and won extensive popularity; Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr satisfied the remnants of the old army, by restoring to the new the ablest of its former leaders; M. de Serre triumphantly defended the Ministry in the Chambers; his bills, boldly liberal, and his frank opposition to revolutionary principles, soon acquired for him, even with his adversaries, a just reputation for eloquence and sincerity. In the parliamentary arena it was an effective and upright Ministry; with the country it was felt to be a Government loyally const.i.tutional. But it had more brilliancy than strength; and neither its care of individual interests, nor its successes in the tribune, were sufficient to rally round it the great Government party which its formation had divided.

Discord arose between the Chambers themselves. The Chamber of Peers, by adopting the proposition of the Marquis Barthelemy, renewed the struggle against the electoral law. In vain did the Chamber of Deputies repel this attack; in vain did the Cabinet, by creating sixty new Peers, break down the majority in the palace of the Luxembourg; these half triumphs and legal extremes decided nothing. Liberal governments are condemned to see the great questions perpetually revived which revolutions bequeath to society, and which even glorious despotism suspends without solving.

The right-hand party was pa.s.sionately bent on repossessing the power which had recently escaped them. The left defended, at any cost, the Revolution, more insulted than in danger. The centre, dislocated and doubtful of the future, wavered between the hostile parties, not feeling itself in a condition to impose peace on all, and on the point of being confounded in the ranks of one side or the other. The Cabinet, ever victorious in daily debate, and supported by the King's favour, felt itself nevertheless feebly surrounded and precariously placed, with the air of expecting a favourable or a hostile incident, to bring the security it wanted, or to overthrow it altogether.

The events which men call accidents are never wanting in such situations. During the s.p.a.ce of a few months the Cabinet of 1819 experienced two,--the election of M. Gregoire, and the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Duke de Berry; and these two decided its fate.

It is difficult to look upon the election of M. Gregoire as an accident; it was proposed and settled beforehand in the central committee established at Paris to superintend elections in general, and which was called the managing committee. This particular election was decided on at Gren.o.ble in the college a.s.sembled on the 11th of September, 1819, by a certain number of votes of the right-hand party, which at the second round of balloting were carried to the credit of the left-hand candidate, and gave him a majority which otherwise he could not have obtained. To excuse this scandal, when it became known, some apologists pretended that M. Gregoire was not in fact a regicide, because, even though he had approved of the condemnation of Louis XVI. in his letters to the Convention, his vote at least had not been included in the fatal list. Again, when the admission of the deputy was disputed in the Chamber, the left-hand party, to get rid of him, while eluding the true cause of refusal, eagerly proposed to annul the election on the ground of irregularity. When improvident violence fails, men gladly shelter themselves under pusillanimous subtlety. It was unquestionably in the character of a Conventional regicide, and with premeditated reflection, not by any local or sudden accident, that M. Gregoire had been elected.

No act was ever more deliberately arranged and accomplished by party feelings. Sincere in the perverse extravagancies of his mind, and faithful to his avowed principles, although forgetful and weak in their application, openly a Christian, and preaching tolerance under the Convention, while he sanctioned the most unrelenting persecution of the priests who refused to submit to the yoke of its new church; a republican and oppositionist under the Empire, while consenting to be a senator and a Count, this old man, as inconsistent as obstinate, was the instrument of a signal act of hostility against the Restoration, to become immediately the pretext for a corresponding act of weakness. A melancholy end to a sad career!

The a.s.sa.s.sination 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 pa.s.sions 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 const.i.tution 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 const.i.tutional 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 rea.s.sume 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 pa.s.sed over, and the new electoral system had not yet been presented to the Chamber. Three days after the a.s.sa.s.sination 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 const.i.tutional 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 pa.s.s. 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 cla.s.s, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sume 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 antic.i.p.ate 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 Amba.s.sador to Berlin, and General Clauzel was declared ent.i.tled 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 n.o.bleman 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 Doc.u.ments" 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 Doc.u.ments, No. IX.)]

[Footnote 15: I insert in the "Historic Doc.u.ments" 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 Doc.u.ments, No. X.)]

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

CHAPTER VI.

GOVERNMENT OF THE RIGHT-HAND PARTY.

1822-1827.

POSITION OF M. DE VILLeLE ON a.s.sUMING 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 ATt.i.tUDE 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 AMBa.s.sADOR 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.--ATt.i.tUDE 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, pa.s.sions, 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 const.i.tutional 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 Roch.e.l.le, 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 pa.s.sed into the hands of an irritating and suspected party; but the great inst.i.tutions 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.