Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time Part 11

I retain a deep impression of the Sorbonne which I then entered, and of the lectures I delivered there during two years. This was an important epoch in my life, and perhaps I may be permitted to add, a moment of influence on my country. With more care even than in 1821, I kept my lectures free of politics. Not only did I abstain from opposition to the Martignac Ministry, but I scrupulously avoided embarra.s.sing them in the slightest degree. In other respects, I proposed an object to myself sufficiently important, as I thought, to occupy my entire attention. I was anxious to study and describe, in their parallel development and reciprocal action, the various elements of our French society, the Roman world, the Barbarians, the Christian Church, the Feudal System, the Papacy, Chivalry, Monarchy, the Commonalty, the Third Estate, and Reform. I desired not only to satisfy the scientific or philosophic curiosity of the public, but to accomplish a double end, real and practical. I proposed to demonstrate that the efforts of our time to establish a system of equal and legal justice in society, and also of political guarantees and liberties in the State, were neither new nor extraordinary,--that in the course of her history, more or less obscurely or unfortunately, France had at several intervals embraced this design, and that the generation of 1789, grasping it with enthusiasm, had committed both good and evil,--good, in resuming the glorious attempt of their ancestors,--evil in attributing to themselves the invention and the honour, and in believing that they were called upon to create, through their own ideas and wishes, a world entirely new. Thus, while promoting the interests of existing society, I was desirous of bringing back amongst us a sentiment of justice and sympathy for our early recollections and ancient customs; for that old French social system which had lived actively and gloriously for fifteen centuries, to acc.u.mulate the inheritance of civilization which we have gathered. It is a lamentable mistake, and a great indication of weakness, in a nation, to forget and despise the past. It may in a revolutionary crisis rise up against old and defective inst.i.tutions; but when this work of destruction is accomplished, if it still continues to treat its history with contempt, if it persuades itself that it has completely broken with the secular elements of its civilization, it is not a new state of society which it can then form, it is the disorder of revolution that it perpetuates. When the generation who possess their country for a moment, indulge in the absurd arrogance of believing that it belongs to them, and them alone; and that the past, in face of the present, is death opposed to life; when they reject thus the sovereignty of tradition and the ties which mutually connect successive races, they deny the distinction and pre-eminent characteristic of human nature, its honour and elevated destiny; and the people who resign themselves to this flagrant error, also fall speedily into anarchy and decline; for G.o.d does not permit that nature and the laws of His works should be forgotten and outraged to such an extent with impunity.

During my course of lectures from 1828 to 1830, it was my prevailing idea to contend against this injurious tendency of the public mind, to bring it back to an intelligent and impartial appreciation of our old social system, to inspire an affectionate respect for the early history of France; and thus to contribute, as far as I could, to establish between the different elements of our ancient and modern society, whether monarchical, aristocratic, or popular, that mutual esteem and harmony which an attack of revolutionary fever may suspend, but which soon becomes once more indispensable to the liberty as well as to the prosperity of the citizens, to the strength and tranquillity of the State.

I had some reason to think that I succeeded to a great extent in my design. My audience, numerous and diversified, youths and experienced men, natives and foreigners, appeared to take a lively interest in the ideas I expounded. These notions a.s.similated with the general impressions of their minds, without demanding complete subservience, so as to combine the charms of sympathy and novelty. My listeners found themselves, not thrown back into retrograding systems, but urged forward in the path of just and liberal reflection. By the side of my historical lessons, but without concert, and in spite of wide differences of opinion between us, literary and philosophic instruction received from my two friends, MM. Villemain and Cousin, a corresponding character and impulse. Opposite breezes produced the same movement; we bestowed no thought on the events and questions of the day, and we felt no desire to bring them to the attention of the public by whom we were surrounded. We were openly and freely devoted to great general interests, great recollections, and great hopes for man and human a.s.sociations; caring only to propagate our ideas, not indifferent as to their possible results, but not impatient to attain them; gratified by the intellectual advance in the midst of which we lived, and confident in the ultimate ascendency of the truth which we flattered ourselves we should possess and in the liberty we hoped to enjoy.

It would certainly have been profitable for us, and as I also believe for the country, if this intention could have been prolonged, and if our minds could have fortified themselves in their calm meditations before being once more engaged in the pa.s.sions and trials of active life. But, as it happens almost invariably, the errors of men stepped in to interrupt the progress of ideas by precipitating the course of events.

The Martignac Ministry adopted a moderate and const.i.tutional policy. Two bills, honestly intended and ably discussed, had given effectual guarantees, the one, to the independence of elections, and the other, to the liberty of the press. A third, introduced at the opening of the session of 1829, secured to the elective principle a share in the administration of the departments and towns.h.i.+ps, and imposed on the central Government new rules and limitations for local affairs. These concessions might be considered too extensive or too narrow; but in either case they were real, and the advocates of public liberty could do nothing better than accept and establish them. But in the Liberal party who had hitherto supported the Cabinet, two feelings, little politic in their character, the spirit of impatience and the love of system, the desire for popularity and the severity of reason, were indisposed to be satisfied with those slow and imperfect conquests. The right-hand party, by refusing to vote, left the Ministry in contest with the wants of their allies. Despite the efforts of M. de Martignac, an amendment, more formidable in appearance than in reality, attacked in some measure the plan of the bill upon departmental administration. With the King, and also with the Chambers, the Ministry had reached the term of its credit; unable to obtain from the King what would give confidence to the Chambers, or from the Chambers what would satisfy the King, it voluntarily declared its impotence by hastily withdrawing the two bills, and still remained standing, although struck by a mortal wound.

How could it be replaced? The question remained in suspense for three months. Three men alone, M. Royer-Collard, M. de Villele, and M. de Chateaubriand seemed capable of forming a new Cabinet that might last, although compounded of very different shades. The two first were entirely out of the question. Neither the King nor the Chambers contemplated the idea of making a Prime Minister of M. Royer-Collard. He perhaps had thought of it himself, more than once, for nothing was too bold to cross his mind in his solitary reveries; but these were merely inward lucubrations, not actually ambitious designs; if power had been offered to him he would a.s.suredly have refused it; he had too little confidence in the future, and too much personal pride, to encounter such a risk of failure.

M. de Villele, still suffering from the accusations first whispered against him in 1828, and which had remained in abeyance in the Chamber of Deputies, had formally refused to attend the session of 1829, and held himself in retirement at his estate near Toulouse; it was evident that he could not return to power, and act with the Chamber that had thrown him out. Neither the King nor himself would have consented, as I think, to encounter at that time the hazard of a new dissolution.

M. de Chateaubriand was at Rome. On the formation of the Cabinet of M. de Martignac he had accepted that emba.s.sy, and from thence, with a mixture of ambition and contempt he watched the uncertain policy and wavering position of the Ministers at Paris. When he learned that they were beaten, and would in all probability be compelled to retire, he immediately commenced an active agitation. "You estimate correctly my surprise," he wrote to Madame Recamier, "at the news of the _withdrawal_ of the two bills. Wounded self-love makes men children, and gives them very bad advice. What will be the end of all this? Will the Ministers endeavour to hold place? Will they retire partially or all together? Who will succeed them? How is a Cabinet to be composed? I a.s.sure you that, were it not for the pain of losing your society, I should rejoice at being here, out of the way, and at not being mixed up in all these enmities and follies, for I find that all are equally in the wrong....

Attend well to this; here is something more explicit: if by chance the portfolio of Foreign Affairs should be offered to me (and I have no reason to expect it), I should not refuse. I should come to Paris, I should speak to the King, I should arrange a Ministry without being included in it; for myself, I should propose, to attach me to my own work, a suitable position. I think, as you know, that it belongs to my ministerial reputation, as well as to revenge me for the injury I sustained from Villele, that the portfolio of Foreign Affairs should be given to me for the moment. This is the only honourable mode in which I could rejoin the Administration. But that done, I should immediately retire, to the great satisfaction of all new aspirants, and pa.s.s the remainder of my life near you in perfect repose."[19]

M. de Chateaubriand was not called to enjoy this haughty vengeance, or to exhibit such a demonstration of generosity. While he still dreamed of it in the Pyrenees, whither he had repaired to rest from the labours of the Conclave which gave Pius VIII. as successor to Leo X., the Prince de Polignac, brought over from London by the King, arrived in Paris on the 27th of July; and on the 9th of August, eight days after the closing of the session, his Cabinet was officially announced in the 'Moniteur.' What course would he propose to himself? What measures would he adopt? No one could tell; not even M. de Polignac and the King themselves any more than the public. But Charles X. had hoisted upon the Tuileries the flag of the Counter-Revolution.

Politics soon became the absorbing consideration of every mind. From all quarters a fierce struggle was foreseen in the approaching session; all parties hastened to congregate beforehand round the scene of action, seeking to draw some antic.i.p.ation as to what would occur, and how to secure a place. On the 19th of October, 1829, the death of the learned chemist, M. Vauquelin, left open a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, in which he had represented the division of Lisieux and Pont-l'eveque, which formed the fourth electoral district in the department of Calvados. Several influential persons of the country proposed to subst.i.tute me in his place. I had never inhabited or even visited that province. I had no property there of any kind. But since 1820, my political writings and lectures had given popularity to my name. The young portions of the community were everywhere favourably disposed towards me. The Moderates and active Liberals mutually looked to me to defend them, and their cause, should occasion arrive. As soon as the proposition became known at Lisieux and Pont-l'eveque, it was cordially received. All the different shades of the Opposition, M. de La Fayette and M. de Chateaubriand, M. Dupont de l'Eure and the Duke de Broglie, M. Odillon Barrot and M. Bertin de Veaux, seconded my candidates.h.i.+p.

Absent, but supported by a strong display of opinion in the district, I was elected on the 23rd of February, 1830, by a large majority.

At the same moment M. Berryer, whose age, as in my own case, had until then excluded him from the Chamber of Deputies, was elected by the department of the Higher Loire, where a seat had also become vacant.

On the day following that on which my election was known in Paris, I had to deliver my lecture at the Sorbonne. As I entered the hall, the entire audience rose and received me with a burst of applause. I immediately checked them, and said: "I thank you for your kind reception, by which I am sensibly affected. I request two favours of you; the first is to preserve always the same feelings towards me; the second is, never to evince them again in this manner. Nothing that pa.s.ses without should resound within these walls. We come here to treat of pure, unmingled science, which is essentially impartial, disinterested, and estranged from all external occurrences, important or insignificant. Let us always maintain for learning this exclusive character. I hope that your sympathy will accompany me in the new career to which I am called; I will even presume to say that I reckon upon it.

Your silent attention here is the most convincing proof I can receive."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 18: He was, in fact, extremely ill at the moment of this crisis.]

[Footnote 19: February 23rd, and April 20th, 1829.]

CHAPTER VIII.

ADDRESS OF THE TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE.

1830.

MENACING, AND AT THE SAME TIME INACTIVE ATt.i.tUDE OF THE MINISTRY.--LAWFUL EXCITEMENT THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY.--a.s.sOCIATION FOR THE ULTIMATE REFUSAL OF THE NON-VOTED TAXES.--CHARACTER AND VIEWS OF M. DE POLIGNAC.--MANIFESTATIONS OF THE MINISTERIAL PARTY.--NEW ASPECT OF THE OPPOSITION.--OPENING OF THE SESSION.--SPEECH OF THE KING.--ADDRESS OF THE CHAMBER OF PEERS.--PREPARATION OF THE ADDRESS OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.--PERPLEXITY OF THE MODERATE PARTY AND OF M. ROYER-COLLARD.--DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS.--THE PART TAKEN IN IT BY M. BERRYER AND MYSELF.--PRESENTATION OF THE ADDRESS TO THE KING.--PROROGATION OF THE SESSION.--RETIREMENT OF MM. DE CHABROL AND COURVOISIER.--DISSOLUTION OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.--MY JOURNEY TO NISMES FOR THE ELECTIONS.--TRUE CHARACTER OF THE ELECTIONS.--INTENTIONS OF CHARLES X.

Whether, attention is arrested by the life of an individual or the history of a nation, there is no spectacle more imposing than that of a great contrast between the surface and the interior, the appearance and the reality of matters. To be excited under the semblance of immobility, to do nothing while we expect much, to look on the calm while we antic.i.p.ate the tempest,--this, perhaps, of all human situations, is the most oppressive for the mind to endure, and the most difficult to sustain for any length of time.

At the commencement of the year 1830, such was the common position of all,--of the Government and the nation, of the ministers and citizens, of the supporters and opponents of power. No one acted directly, and all prepared themselves for unknown chances. We pursued our ordinary course of life, while we felt ourselves on the brink of a convulsion.

I proceeded quietly with my course at the Sorbonne. There, where M. de Villele and the Abbe Frayssinous had silenced me, M. de Polignac and M. de Guernon-Ranville permitted me to speak freely. While enjoying this liberty, I scrupulously preserved my habitual caution, keeping every lecture entirely divested of all allusion to incidental questions, and not more solicitous of winning popular favour, than apprehensive of losing ministerial patronage. Until the meeting of the Chamber, my new t.i.tle of Deputy called for no step or demonstration, and I sought not for any fact.i.tious opportunity. In some paragraphs of town and court gossip, several of the papers in the interest of the extreme right a.s.serted that meetings of Deputies had been held at the residence of the late President of the Chamber. M. Royer-Collard, upon this, wrote immediately to the 'Moniteur:'--"It is positively false that any meeting of Deputies has taken place at my residence since the closing of the session of 1829. This is all I have to say; I should feel ashamed of formally denying absurd reports, in which the King is not more respected than the truth." Without feeling myself restricted to the severe abstinence of M. Royer-Collard, I sedulously avoided all demonstrative opposition; my friends and I were mutually intent on furnis.h.i.+ng no pretext for the mistakes of power.

But in the midst of this tranquil and reserved life, I was deeply occupied in reflecting on my new position, and on the part I was henceforward to a.s.sume in the uncertain fortune of my country. I revolved over in my mind every opposite chance, looking upon all as possible, and wis.h.i.+ng to be prepared for all, even for those I was most desirous to avert. Power cannot commit a greater error than that of plunging imaginations into darkness. A great public terror is worse than a great positive evil; above all, when obscure perspectives of the future excite the hopes of enemies and blunderers, as well as the alarms of honest men and friends. I lived in the midst of both cla.s.ses.

Although no longer interested in the electoral object which had occasioned its inst.i.tution in 1827, the society called, "Help thyself and Heaven will help thee" existed still, and I still continued to be a member. Under the Martignac Ministry I considered it advisable to remain amongst them, that I might endeavour to moderate a little the wants and impatience of the external opposition, which operated so powerfully on the opposition in Parliament. Since the formation of the Polignac Cabinet, from which everything was to be apprehended, I endeavoured to maintain a certain degree of interest in this a.s.sembly of all opposing parties, Const.i.tutionalists, Republicans, and Buonapartists, which, in the moment of a crisis, might exercise itself such preponderating influence on the destiny of the country. At the moment, I possessed considerable popularity, especially with the younger men, and the ardent but sincere Liberals. I felt gratified at this, and resolved to turn it to profitable use, let the future produce what it might.

The temper of the public resembled my own, tranquil on the surface but extremely agitated at the heart. There was neither conspiracy, nor rising, nor tumultuous a.s.sembly; but all were on the alert, and prepared for anything that might happen. In Brittany, in Normandy, in Burgundy, in Lorraine, and in Paris, a.s.sociations were publicly formed to resist payment of the taxes, if the Government should attempt to collect them without a legal vote of the legal Chambers. The Government prosecuted the papers which had advertised these meetings; some tribunals acquitted the responsible managers, others, and amongst them the Royal Court of Paris, condemned them, but to a very slight punishment, "for exciting hatred and contempt against the King's government, in having imputed to them the criminal intention either of levying taxes which had not been voted by the two Chambers, or of changing illegally the mode of election, or even of revoking the const.i.tutional Charter which has been granted and confirmed in perpetuity, and which regulates the rights and duties of every public authority." The ministerial journals felt their position, and saw that their patrons were so reached by this sentence, that, in publis.h.i.+ng it, they suppressed all observations.

In presence of this opposition, at once so decided and restrained, the Ministry remained timid and inactive. Evidently doubtful of themselves, they feared the opinion in which they were held by others. A year before this time, at the opening of the session of 1829, when the Cabinet of M. de Martignac still held power, and the department of Foreign Affairs had fallen vacant by the retirement of M. de la Ferronnays, M. de Polignac had endeavoured, in the debate on the address in the Chamber of Peers, to dissipate, by a profession of const.i.tutional faith, the prejudices entertained against him. His a.s.surances of attachment to the Charter were not, on his part, a simply ambitious and hypocritical calculation; he really fancied himself a friend to const.i.tutional government, and was not then meditating its overthrow; but in the mediocrity of his mind, and the confusion of his ideas, he neither understood thoroughly the English society he wished to imitate, nor the French system he desired to reform. He believed the Charter to be compatible with the political importance of the old n.o.bility, and with the definitive supremacy of the ancient Royalty; and he flattered himself that he could develop new inst.i.tutions by making them a.s.sist in the preponderance of influences which it was his distinct object to limit or abolish. It is difficult to measure the extent of conscientious illusions in a mind weak but enthusiastic, ordinary, but with some degree of elevation, and mystically vague and subtle. M. de Polignac felt honestly surprised at not being acknowledged as a minister devoted to const.i.tutional rule; but the public, without troubling themselves to inquire into his sincerity, had determined to regard him as the champion of the old system, and the standard-bearer of the counter-revolution.

Disturbed by this reputation, and fearing to confirm it by his acts, M. de Polignac did nothing. His Cabinet, sworn to conquer the Revolution and to save the Monarchy, remained motionless and sterile. The Opposition insultingly taxed them with their impotence: they were christened "the Braggadocio Ministry," "the most helpless of Cabinets;"

and to all this they gave no answer, except by preparing the expedition to Algiers, and by convoking the a.s.sembly of the Chambers, ever protesting their fidelity to the Charter, and promising themselves, as means of escape from their embarra.s.sments, a conquest and a majority.

M. de Polignac was ignorant that a minister does not entirely govern by his own acts, and that he is responsible for others besides himself.

While he endeavoured to escape from the character a.s.signed to him, by silence and inaction,--his friends, his functionaries, his writers, his entire party, masters and servants, spoke and moved noisily around him.

He expressed his anger when they discussed, as an hypothesis, the collection of taxes not voted by the Chambers; and at that same moment the Attorney-General of the Royal Court at Metz, M. Pinaud, said, in a requisition, "Article 14 of the Charter secures to the King a method of resisting electoral or elective majorities. If then, renewing the days of 1792 and 1793, the majority should refuse the taxes, would the King be called upon to deliver up his crown to the spectre of the Convention?

No; but in that case he ought to maintain his right, and save himself from the danger by means respecting which it is proper to keep silence."

On the 1st of January, the Royal Court of Paris, who had just given a proof of their firm adherence to the Charter, presented themselves, according to custom, at the Tuileries; the King received and spoke to them with marked dryness; and when arriving in front of the Dauphiness, the first President prepared to address his homage to her, "Pa.s.s on, pa.s.s on," exclaimed she brusquely; and while complying with her words, M. Seguier said to the Master of the Ceremonies, M. de Rochemore, "My Lord Marquis, do you think that the Court ought to inscribe the answer of the Princess in its records?" A magistrate high in favour with the Minister, M. Cotta, an honest but a light and credulous individual, published a work ent.i.tled, 'On the Necessity of a Dictators.h.i.+p.' A publicist, a fanatical but sincere reasoner, M. Madrolle, dedicated to M. de Polignac a memorial, in which he maintained the necessity of remodelling the law of elections by a royal decree. "What are called _coups d'etat_," said some important journals, and avowed friends of the Cabinet, "are social and regular in their nature when the King acts for the general good of the people, even though in appearance he may contravene the existing laws." In fact France was tranquil, and legal order in full vigour; neither on the part of authority nor on that of the people had any act of violence called for violence in return; and yet the most extreme measures were openly discussed. In all quarters people proclaimed the imminence of revolution, the dictators.h.i.+p of the King, and the legitimacy of _coups d'etat_.

In a moment of urgent danger, a nation may accept an isolated _coup d'etat_ as a necessity; but it cannot, without dishonour and decline, admit the principle of such measures as the permanent basis of its public rights and government. Now this was precisely what M. de Polignac and his friends pretended to impose on France. According to them, the absolute power of the old Royalty remained always at the bottom of the Charter; and to expand and display this absolute power, they selected a moment when no active plot, no visible danger, no great public disturbance, threatened either the Government of the King or the order of the State. The sole question at issue was, whether the Crown could, in the selection and maintenance of its advisers, hold itself entirely independent of the majority in the Chambers, or the country; and whether, in conclusion, after so many const.i.tutional experiments, the sole governing power was to be concentrated in the Royal will. The formation of the Polignac Ministry had been, on the part of the King, Charles X., an obstinate idea even more than a cry of alarm, an aggressive challenge as much as an act of suspicion. Uneasy, not only for the security of his throne, but for what he considered the unalienable rights of his crown, he placed himself, to maintain them, in the most offensive of all possible att.i.tudes towards the nation. He a.s.sumed defiance rather than defence. It was no longer a struggle between the different parties and systems of government, but a question of political dogma, and an affair of honour between France and her King.

In presence of a subject under this aspect, pa.s.sions and intentions hostile to established order could not fail to resume hope and appear once more upon the stage. The sovereignty of the people was always at hand, available to be invoked in opposition to the sovereignty of the Monarch. Popular strokes of policy were to be perceived, ready to reply to the attempts of royal power. The party which had never seriously put faith in or adhered to the Restoration, had now new interpreters, destined speedily to become new leaders, and younger, as well as more rational and skilful than their predecessors. There were no conspiracies, no risings in any quarter; secret machinations and noisy riots were equally abandoned; everywhere a bolder and yet a more moderate line of conduct was adopted, more prudent, and at the same time more efficacious. In public discussion, appeal was made to examples from history and to the probabilities of the future. Without directly attacking the reigning power, lawful freedom in opposition was pushed to its extremest limits, too clearly to be taxed with hypocrisy, and too ingeniously to be arrested in this hostile proceeding. In the more serious and intelligent organs of the party, such as the 'National,'

they did not absolutely propound anarchical theories, or revolutionary const.i.tutions; they confined themselves to the Charter from which Royalty seemed on the point of escaping, either by carefully explaining the import, or by peremptorily demanding the complete and sincere execution; by making it clearly foreseen that compromising the national right would also compromise the reigning dynasty. They avowed themselves decided and prepared, not to antic.i.p.ate, but to accept without hesitation the last trial evidently approaching, and the rapid progress of which they clearly indicated to the public from day to day.

The conduct to be held by the const.i.tutional Royalists who had laboured in honest sincerity to establish the Restoration with the Charter, although less dangerous, was even more complex and difficult. How could they repulse the blow with which Royalty menaced the existing inst.i.tutions, without inflicting on Royalty a mortal wound in return?

Should they remain on the defensive, wait until the Cabinet committed acts, or introduced measures really hostile to the interests and liberties of France, and reject them when their character and object had been clearly developed in debate? Or should they take a bolder initiative, and check the Cabinet in its first steps, and thus prevent the unknown struggles which at a later period it would be impossible to direct or restrain? This was the great practical question, which, when the Chambers were convened, occupied, above all other considerations, those minds which were strangers to all preconcerted hostility, and to every secret desire of encountering new hazards.

Two figures have remained, since 1830, impressed on my memory; the King, Charles X., at the Louvre on the 2nd of March, opening the session of the Chambers; and the Prince de Polignac at the Palais Bourbon on the 15th and 16th of March, taking part in the discussion on the address of the Two Hundred and Twenty-One Deputies. The demeanour of the King was, as usual, n.o.ble and benevolent, but mingled with restrained agitation and embarra.s.sment. He read his speech mildly, although with some precipitation, as if anxious to finish; and when he came to the sentence which, under a modified form, contained a royal menace,[20] he accentuated it with more affectation than energy. As he placed his hand upon the pa.s.sage, his hat fell; the Duke d'Orleans raised and presented it to him, respectfully bending his knee. Amongst the Deputies, the acclamations of the right-hand party were more loud than joyful, and it was difficult to decide whether the silence of the rest of the Chamber proceeded from sadness or apathy. Fifteen days later, at the Chamber of Deputies, and in the midst of the secret committee in which the address was discussed, in that vast hall, void of spectators, M. de Polignac was on his bench, motionless, and little attended even by his friends, with the air of a stranger surprised and out of place, thrown into a world with which he is scarcely acquainted, where he feels that he is unwelcome, and charged with a difficult mission, the issue of which he awaits with inert and impotent dignity. In the course of the debate, he was reproached with an act of the Ministry in reference to the elections, to which he replied awkwardly by a few short and confused words, as if not thoroughly understanding the objection, and anxious to resume his seat. While I was in the tribune, my eyes encountered his, and I was struck by their expression of astonished curiosity. It was manifest that at the moment when they ventured on an act of voluntary boldness, neither the King nor his minister felt at their ease; in the two individuals, in their respective aspects as in their souls, there was a mixture of resolution and weakness, of confidence and uncertainty, which at the same moment testified blindness of the mind and the presentiment of coming evil.

We waited with impatience the address from the Chamber of Peers. Had it been energetic, it would have added strength to ours. Whatever has been said, their address was neither blind nor servile, but it was far from forcible. It recommended respect for inst.i.tutions and national liberties, and protested equally against despotism and anarchy.

Disquietude and censure were perceptible through the reserve of words; but these impressions were dimly conveyed and stripped of all power. Their unanimity evinced nothing beyond their nullity.

M. de Chateaubriand alone, while signifying his approbation, considered them insufficient. The Court declared itself satisfied. The Chamber seemed more desirous of discharging a debt of conscience, and of escaping from all responsibility in the evils which it foresaw, than of making a sound effort to prevent them. "If the Chamber of Peers had spoken out more distinctly," said M. Royer-Collard to me, shortly after the Revolution, "it might have arrested the King on the brink of the abyss, and have prevented the Decrees." But the Chamber of Peers had little confidence in their own power to charm away the danger, and feared to aggravate it by a too open display. The entire weight of the situation fell upon the Chamber of Deputies.

The perplexity was great,--great in the majority of sincere Royalists, in the Committee charged to draw up the Address, and in the mind of M. Royer-Collard who presided, both in the Committee and the Chamber, and exercised on both a preponderating influence. One general sentiment prevailed,--a desire to stay the King in the false path on which he had entered, and a conviction that there was no hope of succeeding in this object, but by placing before him an impediment which it would be impossible for him personally to misunderstand. It was evident, when he dismissed M. de Martignac and appointed M. de Polignac to succeed him, that he was not alone influenced by his fears as a King. In this act Charles X. had, above all considerations, been swayed by his pa.s.sions of the old system. It became indispensable that the peril of this tendency should be clearly demonstrated to him, and that where prudence had not sufficed, impossibility should make itself felt. By expressing, without delay or circ.u.mlocution, its want of confidence in the Cabinet, the Chamber in no way exceeded its privilege; it expressed its own judgment, without denying to the King the free exercise of his, and his right of appealing to the country by a dissolution. The Chamber acted deliberately and honestly; it renounced empty or ambiguous words, to a.s.sert the frank and strong measures of the const.i.tutional system. There was no other method of remaining in harmony with the public feeling so strongly excited, and of restraining it by legitimate concessions. There was reason to hope that language at once firm and loyal would prove as efficacious as it was necessary; already, under similar circ.u.mstances, the King had not shown himself intractable, for two years before, in January, 1828, he had dismissed M. de Villele, almost without a struggle, after the elections had produced a majority decidedly opposed to his Cabinet.

During five days, the Committee, in their sittings, and M. Royer-Collard in his private reflections, as well as in his confidential intercourse with his friends, scrupulously weighed all these considerations, as well as all the phrases and words of the Address. M. Royer-Collard was not only a staunch Royalist, but his mind was disposed to doubt and hesitation; he became bewildered in his resolves as he looked on the different aspects of a question, and always shrank from important responsibility. For two years he had observed Charles X. closely, and more than once during the Martignac Administration he had said to some of the more rational oppositionists, "Do not press the King too closely; no one can tell to what follies he might have recourse." But at the point which matters had now reached, called upon as he was to represent the sentiments and maintain the honour of the Chamber, M. Royer-Collard felt that he could not refuse to carry the truth to the foot of the throne; and he flattered himself that on appearing there, with a respectful and affectionate demeanour, he would be in 1830, as in 1828, if not well received, at least listened to without any fatal explosion.

The Address in fact bore this double character: never had language more unpresuming in its boldness, and more conciliating in its freedom, been held to a monarch in the name of his people.[21] When the President read it to the Chamber for the first time, a secret satisfaction faction of dignity mingled in the most moderate hearts with the uneasiness they experienced. The debate was short and extremely reserved, almost even to coldness. On all sides, the members feared to commit themselves by speaking; and there was an evident desire to come to a conclusion. Four of the Ministers, MM. de Montbel, de Guernon-Ranville, de Chantelauze, and d'Haussez took part in the discussion, but almost exclusively on the general question. In the Chamber of Deputies, as in the Chamber of Peers, the leader of the Cabinet remained mute. It is on more lofty conditions that political aristocracies maintain or raise themselves.

When they came to the last paragraphs, which contained the decisive phrases, the individual members of the different parties maintained the contest alone. It was then that M. Berryer and I ascended the tribune for the first time, both new to the Chamber, he as a friend and I as an opponent of the Ministry; he to attack and I to defend the Address. It gives me pleasure, I confess, to retrace and repeat today, the ideas and arguments by which I supported it at the time. "Under what auspices," I asked the Chamber, "and in the name of what principles and interests has the present Ministry been formed? In the name of power menaced, of the Royal prerogative compromised, of the interests of the Crown ill understood and sustained by their predecessors. This is the banner under which they have entered the lists, the cause they have promised to make triumphant. We had a right to expect from their entrance on office that authority should be exercised with vigour, the Royal prerogative in active operation, the principles of power not only proclaimed but practised, perhaps at the expense of the public liberty, but at least for the advantage of that power itself. Gentlemen, has this happened?

Has power strengthened itself within the last seven months? Has it been exercised with activity, energy, confidence, and efficacy? Either I grossly deceive myself, or during these seven months power has suffered in confidence and energy, to the full extent of what the public have lost in security."

"But power has lost more than this. It is not entirely comprised in the positive acts it commits or the materials it employs; it does not always end in decrees and circulars. The authority over minds, the moral ascendency, that ascendency so suitable to free countries, for it directs without controlling public will,--in this is comprised an important component of power, perhaps the first of all in efficiency.

But beyond all question, it is the re-establishment of this moral ascendency which is at this moment the most essential need of our country. We have known power extremely active and strong, capable of great and difficult undertakings; but whether from the inherent vice of its nature, or by the evil of its position, moral ascendency, that easy, regular, and imperceptible empire, has been almost entirely wanting. The King's government, more than any other, is called upon to possess this.

It does not extract its right from force. We have not witnessed its birth; we have not contracted towards it those familiar a.s.sociations, some of which always remain attached to the authorities at the infancy of which those who obey them were present. What has the actual Ministry done with that moral ascendency which belongs naturally, without premeditation or labour, to the King's government? Has it exercised it skilfully, and increased it in the exercise? Has it not, on the contrary, seriously compromised this great element, by placing it at issue with the fears to which it has given rise, and the pa.s.sions it has excited?...

"Gentlemen, your entire mission is not to control, or at the least to oppose power; you are not here solely to retrieve its errors or injuries and to make them known to the country; you are also sent here to surround the government of the King--to enlighten it while you surround, and to support it while you enlighten.... Well, then, what is at this moment the position in the Chamber of the members who are the most disposed to undertake the character of those who are the greatest strangers to the spirit of faction, and unaccustomed to the habits of opposition? They are compelled to become oppositionists; they are made so in spite of themselves; they desire to remain always united to the King's government, and now they are forced to separate from it; they wish to support, and are driven to attack. They have been propelled from their proper path. The perplexity which disturbs them has been created by the Ministry in office; it will continue and redouble as long as they continue where they are."

I pointed out the a.n.a.logous perturbation which existed everywhere, in society as in the Chambers; I showed how the public authorities, in common with the good citizens, were thrown out of their natural duties and position; the tribunals, more intent on restraining the Government itself than in repressing disorders and plans directed against it; the papers, exercising with the tolerance, and even with the approbation of the public, an unlimited and disorderly influence. I concluded by saying: "They tell us that France is tranquil, that order is not disturbed. It is true; material order is not disturbed; everything circulates freely and peaceably; no commotion deranges the current of affairs.... The surface of society is calm,--so calm that the Government may well be tempted to believe that the interior is perfectly secure, and to consider itself sheltered from all peril. Our words, gentlemen, the frankness of our words, comprises the sole warning that power can at this moment receive, the only voice that can reach it and dissipate its illusions. Let us take care not to diminish their force or to enervate our expressions; let them be respectful and even gentle, but let them at the same time be neither timid nor ambiguous. Truth already finds it difficult enough to penetrate into the palaces of kings; let us not send her there weak and trembling; let it be as impossible to misunderstand what we say, as to mistake the loyalty of our sentiments."

The Address pa.s.sed as it was drawn up, with uneasy sadness, but with a profound conviction of its necessity. Two days after the vote, on the 18th of March, we repaired to the Tuileries to present it to the King.

Twenty-one members alone joined the official deputation of the Chamber.

Amongst those who had voted for the Address, some were little anxious of supporting by their presence, under the eyes of the King, such an act of opposition; others, from respect for the Crown, had no wish to give to this presentation additional solemnity and effect. Our entire number amounted only to forty-six. We waited some time in the "Salon de la Paix," until the King returned from Ma.s.s. We stood there in silence; opposite to us, in the recesses of the windows, were the King's pages and some members of the royal establishment, inattentive and almost intentionally rude. The Dauphiness crossed the saloon on her way to the chapel, rapidly and without noticing us. She might have been much colder still before I could have felt that I had any right either to be surprised or indignant at her demeanour. There are crimes whose remembrance silences all other thoughts, and misfortunes before which we bow with a respect almost resembling repentance, as if we ourselves had been the author of them.