FOOTNOTES:
[18] He was, in fact, extremely ill at the moment of this crisis.
[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 ATTITUDE OF THE MINISTRY.—LAWFUL EXCITEMENT THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY.—ASSOCIATION 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 anticipate 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 Villèle and the Abbé 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 title of Deputy called for no step or demonstration, and I sought not for any factitious opportunity. In some paragraphs of town and court gossip, several of the papers in the interest of the extreme right asserted 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 furnishing 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 assume in the uncertain fortune of my country. I revolved over in my mind every opposite chance, looking upon all as possible, and wishing 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 classes. Although no longer interested in the electoral object which had occasioned its institution 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 assembly of all opposing parties, Constitutionalists, 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 assembly; but all were on the alert, and prepared for anything that might happen. In Brittany, in Normandy, in Burgundy, in Lorraine, and in Paris, associations 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 constitutional 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 publishing 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 constitutional faith, the prejudices entertained against him. His assurances of attachment to the Charter were not, on his part, a simply ambitious and hypocritical calculation; he really fancied himself a friend to constitutional 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 nobility, and with the definitive supremacy of the ancient Royalty; and he flattered himself that he could develop new institutions by making them assist 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 constitutional 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 assembly of the Chambers, ever protesting their fidelity to the Charter, and promising themselves, as means of escape from their embarrassments, 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 assigned 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, "Pass on, pass 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 entitled, 'On the Necessity of a Dictatorship.' 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'état," 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 dictatorship of the King, and the legitimacy of coups d'état.
In a moment of urgent danger, a nation may accept an isolated coup d'état 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 constitutional 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 attitudes towards the nation. He assumed 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, passions 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 constitutions; 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 anticipate, 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 constitutional 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 institutions, 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, noble and benevolent, but mingled with restrained agitation and embarrassment. 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 passage, his hat fell; the Duke d'Orléans 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 institutions 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 Châteaubriand 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 passions 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 circumlocution, 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 assert the frank and strong measures of the constitutional 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 circumstances, the King had not shown himself intractable, for two years before, in January, 1828, he had dismissed M. de Villèle, 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 associations, 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 passions 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 analogous 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 passed 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 Mass. 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.
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, Étienne, 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 passion 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 Villèle 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 ambassador at Paris had said to the Chancellor of France, he himself repeated to the Duke de Mortemart, the King's ambassador at St. Petersburg:—"If they deviate from the Charter, they will lead direct to a catastrophe; if the King attempts a coup-d'état, 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 assurance, 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 substitute 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 assume. I republish, without alteration, what I find in the confidential letters I wrote or received during my journey. These supply the most unobjectionable 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 passionate ardour, against the embarrassments 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'état. 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'état, 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 constitutionally 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 repetition 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'état, and let constitutional 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 assembly to pass 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 assert 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 masses, 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 constitutional 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 constitutional 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, unobservant 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 constitutional 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 Villèle 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 constitutional 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 ambassador, 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 Ambassador's mind as to the measures in preparation.