Memoirs to Illustrate the History of My Time, Volume 1

by François Guizot

During this time, many other measures of constitutional organization, or general legislation, had been accomplished or proposed. In 1818, an amendment of M. Royer-Collard settled the addition to the budget of an annual law for the supervision of public accounts; and in the course of the following year, two ministers of finance, the Baron Louis and M. Roy, brought into operation that security for the honest appropriation of the revenue. By the institution of smaller "Great-books" of the national debt, the state of public credit became known in the departments. Other bills, although laid before the Chambers, produced no result; three, amongst the rest, may be named: on the responsibility of Ministers, on the organization of the Chamber of Peers into a court of justice, and on the alteration of the financial year to avoid the provisional vote of the duty. Others again, especially applicable to the reform of departmental and parochial administrations, and to public instruction, were left in a state of inquiry and preliminary discussion. Far from eluding or allowing important questions to linger, the Government laboriously investigated them, and forestalled the wishes of the public, determined to submit them to the Chambers as soon as they had collected facts and arranged their own plans.

I still preserve a deep remembrance of the State Council in which these various bills were first discussed. This Council had not then any defined official existence or prescribed action in the constitution of the country; politics nevertheless were more prominently argued there, and with greater freedom and effect, than at any other time; every shade, I ought rather to say every variation, of the royalist party, from the extreme right to the edge of the left, were there represented; the politicians most in repute, the leaders of the majority in the two Assemblies, were brought into contact with the heads of administration, the old senators of the Empire, and with younger men not yet admissible to the Chambers, but introduced by the Charter into public life. MM. Royer-Collard, de Serre, and Camille Jordan sat there by the side of MM. Siméon, Portalis, Molé, Bérenger, Cuvier, and Allent; and MM. de Barante, Mounier, and myself deliberated in common with MM. de Ballainvilliers, Laporte-Lalanne, and de Blaire, unswerving representatives of the old system. When important bills were examined by the Council, the Ministers never failed to attend. The Duke de Richelieu often presided at the general sittings. The discussion was perfectly free, without oratorical display or pretension, but serious, profound, varied, detailed, earnest, erudite, and at the same time practical. I have heard Count Bérenger, a man of disputatious and independent temper, and a quasi-republican under the Empire, maintain there, with ingenious and imposing subtlety, universal suffrage, and distinctions of qualification for voting, against direct election and the concentrated right of suffrage. MM. Cuvier, Siméon, and Allent were the constant defenders of traditional and administrative influence. My friends and I argued strongly for the principles and hopes of liberty strongly based, which appeared to us the natural consequences of the Charter and the necessary conditions for the prosperity of the Restoration. Reforms in criminal legislation, the application of trial by jury to offences of the press, the introduction of the elective principle into the municipal system, were argued in the Council of State before they were laid before the Chambers. The Government looked to the Council, not only for a study of all questions, but for a preparatory and amicable experience of the ideas, desires, and objections it was destined to encounter at a later period, in a rougher contest, and a more tumultuous theatre.

The Cabinet, composed as it was at the time when the decree of the 5th of September, 1816, appeared, was not equal to that line of policy, continually increasing in moderation, sometimes resolutely, liberal, and, if not always provident, at least perpetually active. But the same progress which accompanied events, affected individuals. During the course of the year 1817, M. Pasquier, Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, and M. Molé replaced M. Dambray, the Duke of Feltri, and M. Dubouchage in the departments of justice, war, and the marine. From that time the Ministers were not deficient either in internal unity, or in parliamentary and administrative talent. They endeavoured to infuse the same qualities into all the different branches and gradations of government, and succeeded tolerably in the heart of the State. Without reaction or any exclusive spirit, they surrounded themselves with men sincerely attached to a constitutional policy, and who by their character and ability had already won public esteem. They were less firm and effective in local administration; although introducing more changes than are generally believed, they were unable to reconcile them with their general policy. In many places, acts of violence, capricious temper, haughty inexperience, offensive pretension and frivolous alarm, with all the great and little party passions which had possessed the Government of 1815, continued to weigh upon the country. These proceedings kept up amongst the tranquil population a strong sentiment of uneasiness, and sometimes excited active malcontents to attempts at conspiracy and insurrection, amplified at first with interested or absurd credulity, repressed with unmitigated rigour, and subsequently discussed, denied, extenuated, and reduced almost to nothing by never-ending explanations and counter-charges. From thence arose the mistakes, prejudices, and false calculations of the local authorities; while the supreme powers assumed alternately airs of levity or weakness, which made them lose, in the eyes of the multitude, the credit of that sound general policy from which they, the masses, experienced little advantage. The occurrences at Lyons in June 1817, and the long debates of which they became the subject after the mission of redress of the Duke of Ragusa, furnish a lamentable example of the evils which France at this period had still to endure, although at the head of government the original cause had disappeared.

Things are more easily managed than men. These same Ministers, who were not always able to compel the prefects and mayors to adopt their policy, and who hesitated to displace them when they were found to be obstinate or incapable, were ever prompt and effective when general administration was involved, and measures not personal were necessary for the public interest. On this point, reflection tells me that justice has not been rendered to the Government of the day; religious establishments, public instruction, hospital and prison discipline, financial and military administration, the connection of power with industry and commerce, all the great public questions, received from 1816 to 1820 much salutary reform and made important advances. The Duke de Richelieu advocated an enlightened policy and the public good; he took pride in contributing to both. M. Lainé devoted himself with serious and scrupulous anxiety to the superintendence of the many establishments included in his department, and laboured to rectify existing abuses or to introduce salutary limitations. The Baron Louis was an able and indefatigable minister, who knew to a point how regularity could be established in the finances of the State, and who employed for that object all the resources of his mind and the unfettered energy of his will. Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr had, on every branch of military organization, on the formation and internal system of the different bodies, on the scientific schools as well as on the material supplies, ideas at once systematic and practical, derived either from his general conception of the army or from long experience; and these he carried into effect in a series of regulations remarkable for the unity of their views and the profound knowledge of their details. M. Decazes was endowed with a singularly inquiring and inventive mind in seeking to satisfy doubts, to attempt improvements, to stimulate emulation and concord for the advantage of all social interests, of all classes of citizens, in connection with the Government; and these combined objects he invariably promoted with intelligent, amiable, and eager activity. In a political point of view, the Administration left much to regret and to desire; but in its proper sphere it was liberal, energetic, impartial, economical from probity and regularity, friendly to progress at the same time that it was careful of order, and sincerely impressed with the desire of giving universal prevalence to justice and the public interest.[14]

Here was undoubtedly a sensible and sound Government, in very difficult and lamentable circumstances; and under such rule the country had no occasion to lament the present or despair of the future. Nevertheless this Government gained no strength by permanence; its enemies felt no discouragement, while its friends perceived no addition to their power or security. The Restoration had given peace to France, and laboured honestly and successfully to restore her independence and rank in Europe. Under this flag of stability and order, prosperity and liberty sprang up again together. Still the Restoration was always a disputed question.

If we are to believe its enemies, this evil was inherent and inevitable. According to them the old system, the emigrants, the foreigners, the hatreds and suspicions of the Revolution devoted the House of Bourbon to their obstinately precarious situation. Without disputing the influence of such a fatal past, I cannot admit that it exercised complete empire over events, or that it suffices in itself to explain why the Restoration, even in its best days, always was and appeared to be in a tottering state. The mischief sprang from more immediate and more personal causes. In the Government of that date there were organic and accidental infirmities, vices of the political machine and errors of the actors, which contributed much more than revolutionary remembrances to prevent its firm consolidation.

A natural and important disagreement exists between the representative government instituted by the Charter, and the administrative monarchy founded by Louis XIV. and Napoleon. Where administration and policy are equally free, when local affairs are discussed and decided by local authorities or influences, and neither derive their impulse nor solution from the central power, which never interferes except when the general interest of the State absolutely requires it to do so,—as in England, and in the United States of America, in Holland and Belgium, for instances,—the representative system readily accords with an administrative Government which never appeals to its co-operation except on important and rare occasions. But when the supreme authority undertakes at the same time to govern with freedom, and to administer by centralization,—when it has to contend, at the seat of power, for the great affairs of the State, and to regulate, under its own responsibility, in all the departments, the minor business of every district,—two weighty objections immediately present themselves: either the central power, absorbed by the care of national questions, and occupied with its own defence, neglects local affairs, and suffers them to fall into disorder and inaction; or it connects them closely with general questions, making them subservient to its own interests; and thus the whole system of administration, from the hamlet to the palace, degenerates into an implement of government in the hands of political parties who are mutually contending for power.

I am certainly not called upon today to dwell on this evil; it has become the hackneyed theme of the adversaries of representative government, and of political liberty. It was felt long before it was taken advantage of; but instead of employing it against free institutions, an attempt was made to effect its cure. To achieve this end, a double work was to be accomplished; it was necessary to infuse liberty into the administration of local affairs, and to second the development of the local forces capable of exercising authority within their own circle. An aristocracy cannot be created by laws, either at the extremities or at the fountain-head of the State; but the most democratic society is not stripped of natural powers ready to display themselves when called into action. Not only in the departments, but in the divisions, in the townships and villages, landed property, industry, employments, professions, and traditions have their local influences, which, if adopted and organized with prudence, constitute effectual authority. From 1816 to 1848, under each of the two constitutional monarchies, whether voluntarily or by compulsion, the different cabinets have acted under this conviction; they have studied to relieve the central Government, by remitting a portion of its functions, sometimes to the regular local agents, and at others to more independent auxiliaries. But, as it too often happens, the remedy was not rapid enough in operation; mistrust, timidity, inexperience, and routine slackened its progress; neither the authorities nor the people knew how to employ it with resolution, or to wait the results with patience. Thus compelled to sustain the burden of political liberty with that of administrative centralization, the newly-born constitutional monarchy found itself compromised between difficulties and contradictory responsibilities, exceeding the measure of ability and strength which could be reasonably expected from any Government.

Another evil, the natural but not incurable result of these very institutions, weighed also upon the Restoration. The representative system is at the bottom, and on close analysis, a system of mutual sacrifices and dealings between the various interests which coexist in society. At the same time that it places them in antagonism, it imposes on them the absolute necessity of arriving at an intermediate term, a definite measure of reciprocal understanding and toleration which may become the basis of laws and government. But also, at the same time, by the publicity and heat of the struggle, it throws the opposing parties into an unseemly exaggeration of vehemence and language, and compromises the self-love and personal dignity of human nature. Thus, by an inconsistency teeming with embarrassment, it daily renders more difficult that agreement or submission which, in the end, it has also made indispensable. Herein is comprised an important difficulty for this system of government, which can only be surmounted by a great exercise of tact and conciliation on the part of the political actors themselves, and by a great preponderance of good sense on that of the public, which in the end recalls parliamentary factions and their leaders to that moderation after defeat, from which the inflated passion of the characters they have assumed too often tends to estrange them.

This necessary regulator, always difficult to find or institute, was essentially wanting to us under the Restoration; on entering the course, we were launched, without curb, on this precipice of extreme demonstrations and preconceived ideas, the natural vice of parties in every representative government. How many opportunities presented themselves from 1816 to 1830, when the different elements of the monarchical party could, and in their struggle ought to have paused on this brink, at the point where the danger of revolution commenced for all! But none had the good sense or courage to exercise this provident restraint; and the public, far from imposing it on them, excited them still more urgently to the combat,—as at a play, in which people delight to trace the dramatic reflection of their own passions.