Memoirs to Illustrate the History of My Time, Volume 1

by François Guizot

The Charter bore the impress of this impolitic conduct; timid and obstinate in its turn, and seeking to cover the retreat of royalty, as the Revolution had sought to protect its own, it replied to the pretensions of the revolutionary system by the pretensions of the ancient form, and presented itself as purely a royal concession, instead of proclaiming its true character, such as it really was, a treaty of peace after a protracted war, a series of new articles added by common accord to the old compact of union between the nation and the King.

In this point lay the complaint of the Liberals of the Revolution against the Charter, as soon as it appeared. Their adversaries, the supporters of the old rule, assailed it with other reproaches. The most fiery, such as the disciples of M. de Maistre, could scarcely tolerate its existence. According to them, absolute power, legitimate in itself alone, was the only form of government that suited France. The moderates, amongst whom were M. de Villèle in the reply he published at Toulouse to the declaration of Saint-Ouen, accused this plan for a constitution, which became the Charter, of being an importation from England, foreign to the history, the ideas, and the manners of France; and which, they said, "would cost more to establish than the ancient organization would require for repairs."

I do not here propose to enter upon any discussion of principles, with the apostles of absolute power; as applied to France and our own time, experience, and a very overwhelming experience, has supplied an answer. Absolute power, amongst us, can only belong to the Revolution and its representatives, for they alone can (I do not say for how long) retain the masses in their interest, by withholding from them the securities of liberty.

For the House of Bourbon and its supporters, absolute power is impossible; under them France must be free; it only accepts their government by supplying it with the eye and the hand.

The objections of the moderate party were more specious. It must be admitted that the government established by the Charter had, in its forms at least, something of a foreign aspect. Perhaps too there was reason for saying that it assumed the existence of a stronger aristocratic element in France, and of a more trained and disciplined spirit of policy, than could, in reality, be found there. Another difficulty, less palpable but substantial, awaited it; the Charter was not alone the triumph of 1789 over the old institutions, but it was the victory of one of the Liberal sections of 1789 over its rivals as well as its enemies, a victory of the partisans of the English Constitution over the framers of the Constitution of 1791, and over the republicans as well as the supporters of the ancient monarchy,—a source teeming with offences to the self-love of many, and a somewhat narrow basis for the re-settlement of an old and extensive country.

But these objections had little weight in 1814. The position of affairs was urgent and imperative; it was necessary that the old monarchy should be reformed when restored. Of all the measures of improvement proposed or attempted since 1789, the Charter comprised that which was the most generally recognized and admitted by the public at large, as well as by professed politicians. At such moments controversy subsides; the resolutions adopted by men of action, present an epitome of the ideas common to men of thought. A republic would be to revive the Revolution; the Constitution of 1791 would be government without power; the old French Constitution, if the name were applicable, had been found ineffective in 1789, equally incapable of self-maintenance or amelioration. All that it had once possessed of greatness or utility, the Parliaments, the different Orders, the various local institutions, were so evidently beyond the possibility of re-establishment, that no one thought seriously of such a proposition. The Charter was already written in the experience and reflection of the country. It emanated as naturally from the mind of Louis XVIII., returning from England, as from the deliberations of the Senate, intent on renouncing the yoke of the Empire. It was the produce of the necessities and convictions of the hour. Judged by itself, notwithstanding its inherent defects and the objections of opponents, the Charter was a very practicable political implement. Power and liberty found ample scope there for exercise and defence; the workmen were much less adapted to the machine than the machine to the work.

Thoroughly distinguished from each other in ideas and character, and extremely unequal in mind and merit, the three leading Ministers of Louis XVIII. at that epoch, M. de Talleyrand, the Abbé de Montesquiou, and M. de Blacas, were all specially unsuited to the government they were called on to found.

I say only what I truly think; yet I do not feel myself compelled, in speaking of those with whom I have come in contact, to say all that I think. I owe nothing to M. de Talleyrand; in my public career he thwarted rather than assisted me; but when we have been much associated with an eminent man, and have long reciprocated amicable intercourse, self-respect renders it imperative to speak of him with a certain degree of reserve. At the crisis of the Restoration, M. de Talleyrand displayed, in a very superior manner, the qualities of sagacity, cool determination, and preponderating influence. Not long after, at Vienna, he manifested the same endowments, and others even more rare and apposite, when representing the House of Bourbon and the European interests of France. But except in a crisis or a congress, he was neither able nor powerful. A courtier and a politician, no advocate upon conviction, for any particular form of government, and less for representative government than for any other, he excelled in negotiating with insulated individuals, by the power of conversation, by the charm and skilful employment of social relations; but in authority of character, in fertility of mental resources, in promptitude of resolution, in command of language, in the sympathetic association of general ideas with public passions,—in all these great sources of influence upon collected assemblies, he was absolutely deficient. Besides which, he had neither the inclination nor habit of sustained, systematic labour, another important condition of internal government. He was at once ambitious and indolent, a flatterer and a scoffer, a consummate courtier in the art of pleasing and of serving without the appearance of servility; ready for everything, and capable of any pliability that might assist his fortune, preserving always the mien, and recurring at need to the attractions of independence; a diplomatist without scruples, indifferent as to means, and almost equally careless as to the end, provided only that the end advanced his personal interest. More bold than profound in his views, calmly courageous in danger, well suited to the great enterprises of absolute government, but insensible to the true atmosphere and light of liberty, in which he felt himself lost and incapable of action. He was too glad to escape from the Chambers and from France, to find once more at Vienna a congenial sphere and associations.

As completely a courtier as M. de Talleyrand, and more thoroughly belonging to the old system, the Abbé de Montesquiou was better suited to hold his ground under a constitutional government, and occupied a more favourable position for such a purpose, at this period of uncertainty. He stood high in the estimation of the King and the Royalists, having ever remained immovably faithful to his cause, his order, his friends, and his sovereign. He was in no danger of being taxed as a revolutionist, or of having his name associated with unpleasant reminiscences. Through a rare disinterestedness, and the consistent simplicity of his life, he had won the confidence of all honest men. His character was open, his disposition frank, his mind richly cultivated, and his conversation unreserved, without being exceptious as to those with whom he might be conversing. He could render himself acceptable to the middle classes, although indications of pride and aristocratic haughtiness might be occasionally detected in his words and manner. These symptoms were only perceptible to delicate investigators; by the great majority he was considered affable and unassuming. In the Chambers he spoke with ease and animation, if not with eloquence, and often indulged in an attractive play of fancy. He could have rendered good service to the constitutional government, had he either loved or trusted it; but he joined it without faith or preference, as a measure of necessity, to be evaded or restrained even during the term of endurance. Through habit, and deference for his party, or rather for his immediate coterie, he was perpetually recurring to the traditions and tendencies of the old system, and endeavouring to carry his listeners with him by shallow subtleties and weak arguments, which were sometimes retorted upon himself. One day, partly in jest, and partly in earnest, he proposed to M. Royer-Collard to obtain for him from the King the title of Count. "Count?" replied M. Royer-Collard, in the same tone, "make yourself a Count?" The Abbé de Montesquieu smiled, with a slight expression of disappointment, at this freak of citizen pride. He believed the old aristocracy to be beaten down, but he wished to revive and strengthen it by an infusion with the new orders. He miscalculated in supposing that none amongst the latter class would, from certain instinctive tendencies, think lightly of a title which flattered their interests, or that they could be won over by conciliation without sympathy. He was a thoroughly honourable man, with a heart more liberal than his ideas, of an enlightened and accomplished mind, naturally elegant, but volatile, inconsiderate, and absent; little suited for long and bitter contentions, formed to please rather than to control, and incapable of leading his party or himself in the course in which reason suggested that they should follow.

In the character of M. de Blacas there were no such apparent inconsistencies. Not that he was either an ardent, or a decided and stirring partisan of the contra-revolutionary reaction; he was moderate through coldness of temperament, and a fear of compromising the King, to whom he was sincerely devoted, rather than from clear penetration. But neither his moderation nor his loyalty gave him any insight into the true state of the country, or any desire to occupy himself with the subject. He remained at the Tuileries what he had been at Hartwell, a country gentleman, an emigrant, a courtier, and a steady and courageous favourite, not deficient in personal dignity or domestic tact, but with no political genius, no ambition, no statesmanlike activity, and almost as entirely a stranger to France as before his return. He impeded the Government more than he pretended to govern, taking a larger share in the quarrels and intrigues of the palace, than in the deliberations of the Council, and doing much more injury to public affairs by utter neglect, than by direct interference.