Memoirs to Illustrate the History of My Time, Volume 1

by François Guizot

At a later period, the popular party, who neither thought nor spoke on the subject in 1817, adopted this argument in their turn, and charged, on this same accusation of political monopoly for the benefit of the middle classes, their chief complaint, not only against the electoral law, but against the entire system of government of which that law was the basis and guarantee.

I collect my reminiscences, and call back my impressions. From 1814 to 1848, under the government of the Restoration, and under that of July, I loudly supported and more than once had the honour of carrying this flag of the middle classes, which was naturally my own. What did we understand by it? Have we ever conceived the design, or even admitted the thought, that the citizens should become a newly privileged order, and that the laws intended to regulate the exercise of suffrage should serve to found the predominance of the middle classes by taking, whether in right or fact, all political influence, on one side from the relics of the old French aristocracy, and on the other from the people?

Such an attempt would have been strangely ignorant and insane. It is neither by political theories nor articles in laws, that the privileges and superiority of any particular class are established in a State. These slow and pedantic methods are not available for such a purpose; it requires the force of conquest or the power of faith. Society is exclusively controlled by military or religious ascendency; never by the influence of the citizens. The history of all ages and nations is at hand to prove this to the most superficial observer.

In our day, the impossibility of such a predominance of the middle classes is even more palpable. Two ideas constitute the great features of modern civilization, and stamp it with its formidable activity; I sum them up in these terms:—There are certain universal rights inherent in man's nature, and which no system can legitimately withhold from any one; there are individual rights which spring from personal merit alone, without regard to the external circumstances of birth, fortune, or rank, and which every one who has them in himself should be permitted to exercise. From the two principles of legal respect for the general rights of humanity, and the free development of natural gifts, ill or well understood, have proceeded, for nearly a century, the advantages and evils, the great actions and crimes, the advances and wanderings which revolutions and Governments have alternately excited in the bosom of every European community. Which of these two principles provokes or even permits the exclusive supremacy of the middle classes? Assuredly neither the one nor the other. One opens to individual endowments every gate; the other demands for every human being his place and his portion: no greatness is unattainable; no condition, however insignificant, is counted as nothing. Such principles are irreconcilable with exclusive superiority; that of the middle classes, as of every other, would be in direct contradiction to the ruling tendencies of modern society.

The middle classes have never, amongst us, dreamed of becoming privileged orders; and no rational mind has ever indulged in such dreams for them. This idle accusation is but an engine of war, erected under cover of a confusion of ideas, sometimes by the hypocritical dexterity, and at others by the blind infatuation of party spirit. But this does not prevent its having been, or becoming again, fatal to the peace of our social system; for men are so constructed that chimerical dangers are the most formidable they can encounter: we fight boldly with tangible substances, but we lose our heads, either from fear or anger, when in presence of phantoms.

It was with real dangers that we had to cope in 1817, when we discussed the electoral system of France. We saw the most legitimate principles and the most jealous interests of the new state of society indistinctly menaced by a violent reaction. We felt the spirit of revolution spring up and ferment around us, arming itself, according to old practice, with noble incentives, to cover the march and prepare the triumph of the most injurious passions. By instinct and position, the middle classes were the best suited to struggle with the combined peril. Opposed to the pretensions of the old aristocracy, they had acquired, under the Empire, ideas and habits of government. Although they received the Restoration with some mistrust, they were not hostile to it; for under the rule of the Charter, they had nothing to ask from new revolutions. The Charter was for them the Capitol and the harbour; they found in it the security of their conquests, and the triumph of their hopes. To turn to the advantage of the ancient monarchy, now become constitutional, this anti-revolutionary state of the middle classes, to secure their co-operation with that monarchy by giving them confidence in their own position, was a line of policy clearly indicated by the state of facts and opinions. Such was the bearing of the electoral bill of 1817. In principle this bill cut short the revolutionary theories of the supremacy of numbers, and of a specious and tyrannical equality; in fact, it brought the new society under shelter from the threats of counter-revolution. Assuredly, in proposing it, we had no intention of establishing any antagonism between the great and small proprietors; but when the question was so laid down, we evinced no hesitation; we supported the bill firmly, by maintaining that the influence, not exclusive but preponderating, of the middle classes was confirmed, on one side by the spirit of free institutions, and on the other in conformity with the interests of France as the Revolution had changed her, and with the Restoration itself as the Charter had defined when proclaiming it.

The election bill occupied the session of 1816. The bill for recruiting was the great subject and work of the session of 1817. The right-hand party opposed it with vehement hostility: it disputed their traditions and disturbed their monarchical tendencies. But the party had to contest with a minister as imperturbable in his convictions and will as in his physiognomy. Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr had a powerful, original, and straightforward mind, with no great combination of ideas, but passionately wedded to those which emanated from himself. He had resolved to give back to France what she no longer possessed—an army. And an army in his estimate was a small nation springing from the large one, strongly organized, formed of officers and soldiers closely united, mutually knowing and respecting each other, all having defined rights and duties, and all well trained by solid study or long practice to serve their country effectually when called upon.

Upon this idea of an army, according to the conception of Marshal St. Cyr, the principles of his bill were naturally framed. Every class in the State was required to assist in the formation of this army. Those who entered in the lowest rank were open to the highest, with a certain advantage in the ascending movement of the middle classes. Those who were ambitious of occupying at once a higher step, were compelled in the first instance to pass certain examinations, and then to acquire by close study the particular knowledge necessary to their post. The term of service, active or in reserve, was long, and made military life in reality a career. The obligations imposed, the privileges promised, and the rights recognized for all, were guaranteed by the bill.

Besides these general principles, the bill had an immediate result which St. Cyr ardently desired. It enrolled again in the new army, under the head of veterans and reserve, the remains of the old discharged legions, who had so heroically endured the penalty of the errors committed by their crowned leader. It effaced also, in their minds, that reminiscence of a distasteful past, while by a sort of special Charter it secured their future.

No one can deny that this plan for the military organization of France, embraced grand ideas and noble sentiments. Such a bill accorded with the moral nature and political conduct of Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, who possessed an upright soul, a proud temperament, monarchical opinions, and republican manners; and who, since 1814, had given equal proofs of loyalty and independence. When he advocated it in the tribune, when, with the manly solemnity and disciplined feeling of an experienced warrior, at once a sincere patriot and a royalist, he recapitulated the services and sufferings of that nation of old soldiers which he was anxious for a few years longer to unite with the new army of France, he deeply moved the public and the Chambers; and his powerful language, no less than the excellent propositions of his bill, consecrated it on the instant in the affectionate esteem of the country.