In maintaining his policy, d'Argenson had to struggle against the irresistible current which was carrying the Monarchy to destruction. Since the death of Louis XIV., private convenience had been the only criterion of national interest. Dubois and Fleury, for their own purposes, had dismantled the tradition of French foreign policy; and though an effort had been made to re-establish it by Chauvelin and his pupil d'Argenson, their work could not long stand against the forces of disintegration. After d'Argenson's withdrawal no further attempt was made, and he lived to see the complete surrender of those cherished principles he had striven so bravely to maintain. D'Argenson admired and reverenced Richelieu; and he has been laughed at for aspiring to be his worthy successor.[378] Banished from power until the age of fifty, he could never attain the eminence of his master. He could only defend for the last time the policy which that master had bequeathed to France.

His defence was in vain. The collapse abroad heralded the collapse at home. It was only in 1789 that the French Monarchy surrendered its charter to the French People. It had resigned it, thirty-three years before, into the hands of Maria Theresa.

[V.]
1747-1757.
A momentous decade—The Journal—Private life.

It was on the 10th of January, 1747, that d'Argenson's ministry came to an end. For a year or so he found it a little hard to support his banishment from power; but it is plain that after that time his personal ambitions were gradually forgotten amid the press and play of wider interests. It is true that he never quite dismisses his hopes of office, and that he even fondles the pretty, courtier-like phrase with which he will accept an invitation to return; but there is none of the ardent, even feverish anticipation which clouds the period before his ministry; and we feel that when he speaks of his own prospects it is with the smiling, tranquil air of a man who is fond of pleasant dreams. He was far from being unhappy. The ten years that preceded his death were a period when a man of d'Argenson's character will desire rather to watch than to work.

Though his outward life meanwhile was devoid of incident, it was inwardly full of stir and excitement. Throughout these years society in France was passing through the most critical of all its phases. Men's veins were tingling with that new wine with which the old bottles were already bursting; while across the history of the time is writ the word of omen—Revolution. It is this that lends to d'Argenson's pages such a vivid power and fascination.

The chief interest of his retirement was the composition of that Journal which is, and which he evidently designed to be, the most important commentary on a momentous period. He spared no pains to obtain direct and definite information, securing correspondents at the Court, in the Parlement, in the army, and in every department of the public service; while in handling events he added to the industry of the chronicler the grasp and acumen of a political expert. It is from these pages that we catch the impression of d'Argenson's power. We feel that a man cannot act in one year like a blind, blundering doctrinaire, and write like a statesman in the next. It may be useful to glance very lightly at the history of the time as it appeared to one of its most sagacious observers. In doing so we are in the hands of a cicerone who is not satisfied to speak by rote.

In December, 1747, after speaking sorrowfully of the national prospects, d'Argenson writes:—

"Will any one have the hardihood to propose an advance towards republican government. So far as I see, the people are utterly unfitted for it; the nobility, the great lords, the tribunals, accustomed as they are to servitude, have never turned their thoughts in that direction, and they have no inclination of the kind. Still these ideas are coming, and a habit is readily formed among the French."[379]