The ministers received orders, each to present to him a list of candidates.
M. Delavalette, in whom the Emperor had particular confidence, was also desired to furnish him with a list.
Formerly an aide-de-camp of Napoleon, and connected with him by marriage[25], M. Delavalette had vowed to him an attachment proof against all temptations. Phocion said to Antipater, "I cannot be at once thy flatterer, and thy friend:" and M. Delavalette, thinking like Phocion, had abjured every kind of flattery, to adhere to the rigid language of friendship. Endowed with a cool head, and sound judgment, he appreciated events with skill and sagacity. Reserved in the world, frank and open with Napoleon, he avowed his opinions to him with the freedom of an affectionate, pure, and upright heart. Accordingly Napoleon set much value on his advice; and confessed with noble candour, that he had frequently had to congratulate himself for having followed it.
The lists presented to the Emperor exhibited a complete assortment of ancient nobles, senators, generals, land-holders, and merchants[26]. The Emperor, it is right to say, had only the trouble of choosing, but this was great.
On the one hand he could have wished, both from self-love and a spirit of conciliation, to have had in the chamber of peers some of those great names, that sound so gratefully to the ear. On the other hand he was desirous, as I have said above, that this chamber should hold the deputies in check; and he could not conceal from himself, that, if he introduced into it any of the ancient nobility, it would have no influence over that of the representatives, and probably be on very bad terms with it.
He decided, therefore, to sacrifice his inclinations to the good of the cause; and, instead of granting the peerage to that crowd of parchment nobles, who had humbly solicited it, he conferred it only on a few of them, noted for their patriotism, and their attachment to liberal principles. Many of these illustrious solicitors have since boasted of having refused it. This is very natural, but is it true? I leave it to their own hearts, their own consciences, to answer the question.
The Emperor, fearful of refusals, had taken the precaution to have the inclinations of the doubtful candidates previously sounded. Some hesitated; others plainly refused. Of all these refusals, direct and indirect, which amounted but to five or six at most, no one more painfully disappointed Napoleon, than that of Marshal Macdonald. He had not forgotten the noble fidelity that the Marshal preserved towards him in 1814, to the last moment; and he regretted, that his scruples deprived him of a dignity, to which he was called by his rank, his services, and the public esteem.
The 3d of June being come, the chamber of representatives assembled in the ancient palace of the legislative body, and formed itself provisionally under the presidency of the oldest of its members.
The constitution had left to the representatives the right of choosing their president. The Emperor hoped, that their suffrages would be given in favour of his brother Lucien; and in this hope he did not publish immediately the list of peers, that he might retain the power of comprising this prince in it, or not, according as he should or should not be appointed to the presidency[27]. But the chamber, notwithstanding the esteem and confidence, with which the principles and character of Prince Lucien inspired it, thought, that his election would be considered as a deference to the will of the Emperor; and resolved therefore, to make a different choice, in order to prove to France, and to the foreign powers, that it was, and would remain, free and independent. M. Lanjuinais was elected: and Napoleon, who knew that M. Lanjuinais, a malecontent by nature, had never been able to agree with any government[28], was doubly vexed, that Prince Lucien had been rejected, and that such a successor had been given him.
The sitting of the day following gave Napoleon another subject of dissatisfaction. The assembly had expressed its wish the day before, to be acquainted with the list of the members of the Chamber of Peers. The Emperor, from the motive I have mentioned, made answer, that this list would not be fixed, till after the opening of the session. This answer excited violent murmurs: one member proposed, to declare, that the chamber would not proceed to constitute itself definitively, till it was furnished with the list, which it had required. Thus from its entrance on its career, and even before it was installed, the chamber announced its design, of establishing itself in a state of insurrection against the head of the government.