A mischievous, although inevitable, distribution of parts between the opposing parties aggravated still more, from 1816 to 1820, this want of forecast in men, and this extravagance of public passions. Under the representative system, it is usually to one of the parties distinctly defined and firmly resolved in their ideas and desires, that the government belongs: sometimes the systematic defenders of power, at others the friends of liberty, then the conservatives, and lastly the innovators, direct the affairs of the country; and between these organized and ambitious parties are placed the unclassed opinions and undecided wishes, that political chorus which is ever present watching the conduct of the actors, listening to their words, and ready to applaud or condemn them according as they satisfy or offend their unfettered judgment. This is, in fact, the natural bias and true order of things under free institutions. It is well for Government to have a public and recognized standard, regulated on fixed principles, and sustained in action by steady adherents; it derives from that position, not only the strength and consistent coherence that it requires, but the moral dignity which renders power more easy and gentle by placing it higher in the estimation of the people. It is not the chance of events or the personal ambition of men alone, but the interests and inclination of the public, which have produced, in free countries, the great, acknowledged, permanent, and trusty political parties, and have usually confided power to their hands. At the Restoration it was impossible, from 1816 to 1820, to fulfil this condition of a Government at once energetic and restrained. The two great political parties which it found in action, that of the old system and of the revolution, were both at the time incapable of governing by maintaining internal peace with liberty; each had ideas and passions too much opposed to the established and legal order they would have had to defend; they accepted with great reluctance, and in a very undefined sense, the one the Charter, and the other the old Monarchy. Through absolute necessity, power returned to the hands of the political choir; the floating and impartial section of the Chambers, the centre, was called to the helm. Under a free system, the Centre is the habitual moderator and definitive judge of Government, but not the party naturally pretending to govern. It gives or withholds the majority, but its mission is not to conquer it. And it is much more difficult for the centre than for strongly organized parties to win or maintain a majority; for when it assumes government, it finds before it, not undecided spectators who wait its acts to pass judgment on them, but inflamed adversaries resolved to combat them beforehand;—a weak and dangerous position, which greatly aggravates the difficulties of Government, whether engaged in the display of power, or the protection of liberty.
Not only was this the situation of the King's Government from 1816 to 1820, but even this was not regularly and powerfully established. Badly distributed amongst the actors, the characters were doubtfully filled in the interior of this new and uncertain party of the centre, on whom the government, through necessity, devolved. The principal portion of the heads of the majority in the Chambers held no office. From 1816 to 1819, several of those who represented and directed the centre, who addressed and supported it with prevailing influence, who defended it from the attacks of the right and left-hand parties, who established its power in debate and its credit with the public, MM. Royer-Collard, Camille Jordan, Beugnot, and de Serre, were excluded from the Cabinet. Amongst the eminent leaders of the majority, two only, M. Lainé and M. Pasquier were ministers. The Government, therefore, in the Chambers, relied on independent supporters who approved of their policy in general, but neither bore any part in the burden, nor acknowledged any share in the responsibility.
The doctrinarians had acquired their parliamentary influence and moral weight by principles and eloquence rather than by deeds; they maintained their opinions without applying them to practice; the flag of thought and the standard of action were in different hands. In the Chambers, the Ministers often appeared as the clients of the orators; the orators never looked upon their cause as identical with that of the Ministers; they preserved this distinction while supporting them; they had their own demands to make before they assented; they qualified their approval, and even sometimes dissented altogether. As the questions increased in importance and delicacy, so much the more independence and discord manifested themselves in the bosom of the ministerial party, with dangerous notoriety. During the session of 1817, M. Pasquier, then Chancellor, presented a bill to the Chamber of Deputies, which, while temporarily maintaining the censorship of the daily papers, comprised in other respects some modifications favourable to the liberty of the press. M. Camille Jordan and M. Royer-Collard demanded much greater concessions, particularly the application of trial by jury to press offences; and the bill, reluctantly passed by the Chamber of Deputies, was thrown out by the Chamber of Peers, when the Duke de Broglie urged the same amendments on similar principles. In 1817 also, a new Concordat had been negotiated and concluded at Rome by M. de Blacas. It contained the double and contradictory defect of invading by some of its specifications the liberties of the old Gallican Church; while, by the abolition of the Concordat of 1801, it inspired the new French society with lively alarms for its civil liberties. Little versed in such matters, and almost entirely absorbed in the negotiations for relieving France from the presence of foreigners, the Duke de Richelieu had confided this business to M. de Blacas, who was equally ignorant and careless of the importance of the old or new liberties of France, whether civil or religious. When this Concordat, respecting which the Ministers themselves were discontented and doubtful when they had carefully examined it, was presented to the Chamber of Deputies by M. Lainé, with the measures necessary for carrying it into effect, it was received with general disfavour. In committee, in the board appointed to report on it, in the discussions in the hall of conference, all the objections, political and historical, of principle or circumstance, that the bill could possibly excite, were argued and explained beforehand, so as to give warning of the most obstinate and dangerous debate. The doctrinarians openly declared for this premature opposition; and their support produced a strong effect, as they were known to be sincere friends to religion and its influences. It is true, M. Royer-Collard was accused of being a Jansenist; and thus an attempt was made to depreciate him in the eyes of the true believers of the Catholic Church. The reproach was frivolous. M. Royer-Collard had derived, from family traditions and early education, serious habits, studious inclinations, and an affectionate respect for the exalted minds of Port-Royal, for their virtue and genius; but he neither adopted their religious doctrines nor their systematic conclusions on the relative ties between Church and State. On all these questions he exercised a free and rational judgment, as a stranger to all extreme passion or sectarian prejudice, and not in the least disposed, either as Catholic or philosopher, to engage in obscure and endless quarrels with the Church. "I seek not to quibble with religion," he was wont to say; "it has enough to do to defend itself and us from impiety." The opposition of M. Royer-Collard to the Concordat of 1817 was the dissent of a politician and enlightened moralist, who foresaw the mischief which the public discussion, and adoption or rejection of this bill, would inflict on the influence of the Church, the credit of the Restoration, and the peace of the country. The Cabinet had prudence enough not to brave a danger which it had created, or suffered to grow on its steps. The report on the bill was indefinitely adjourned, and a fresh negotiation was opened with Rome by sending Count Portalis on a special mission, which ended in 1819 by the tacit withdrawal of the Concordat of 1817. The Duke de Richelieu, pressed by his colleagues, and his own tardy reflections, coincided in this retrograde movement; but he maintained a feeling of displeasure at the opposition of the doctrinarians and others on this occasion, which he sometimes gratified himself by indulging. In the month of March, 1818, some one, whose name I have forgotten, demanded of him a trifling favour. "It is impossible," replied he sharply; "MM. Royer-Collard, de Serre, Camille Jordan, and Guizot will not suffer it."
I had no reason to complain that my name was included in this ebullition. Although not a member of the Chamber, I openly adopted the opinions and conduct of my friends; I had both the opportunity and the means, in the discussions of the Council of State, in the drawing-room, and through the press,—channels which all parties employed with equal ardour and effect. In spite of the shackles which restrained the papers and periodical publications, they freely exercised the liberty which the Government no longer attempted to dispute, and to which the most influential politicians had recourse, to disseminate far and wide the brilliant flames or smouldering fire of their opposition. M. de Châteaubriand, M. de Bonald, M. de Villèle, in the 'Conservative,' and M. Benjamin Constant in the 'Minerva,' maintained an incessant assault on the Cabinet. The Cabinet in its defence, multiplied similar publications, such as the 'Moderator,' the 'Publicist,' and the 'Political and Literary Spectator.' But, for my friends and our cause, the defences of the Cabinet were not always desirable or sufficient; we therefore, from 1817 to 1820, had our own journals and periodical miscellanies,—the 'Courier,' the 'Globe,' the 'Philosophical, Political, and Literary Archives,' and the 'French Review;' and in these we discussed, according to our principles and hopes, sometimes general questions, and at others the incidental subjects of current policy, as they alternately presented themselves. I contributed much to these publications. Between our different adversaries and ourselves the contest was extremely unequal: whether they came from the right or the left, they represented old parties; they expressed ideas and sentiments long in circulation; they found a public predisposed to receive them. We were intruders in the political arena, officers seeking to recruit an army, moderate innovators. We attacked, in the name of liberty, theories and passions long popular under the same denomination. We defended the new French society according to its true rights and interests, but not in conformity with its tastes or habits. We had to conquer our public, while we combated our enemies. In this difficult attempt our position was somewhat doubtful: we were at the same time with and against the Government, royalists and liberals, ministerialists and independents; we acted sometimes in concert with the Administration, sometimes with the Opposition, and we were unable to avail ourselves of all the weapons of either power or liberty. But we were full of faith in our opinions, of confidence in ourselves, of hope in the future; and we pressed forward daily in our double contest, with as much devotion as pride, and with more pride than ambition.
All this has been strenuously denied; my friends and I have often been represented as deep plotters, greedy for office, eager and shrewd in pushing our fortunes through every opening, and more intent on our own ascendency than on the fate or wishes of the country,—a vulgar and senseless estimate, both of human nature and of our contemporary history. If ambition had been our ruling principle, we might have escaped many efforts and defeats. In times when the most brilliant fortunes, political or otherwise, were easily within reach of those who thought of nothing else, we only desired to achieve ours on certain moral conditions, and with the object of not caring for ourselves. Ambition we had, but in the service of a public cause; and one which, either in success or adversity, has severely tried the constancy of its defenders.
The most clear-sighted of the cabinet ministers in 1817, M. Decazes and M. Pasquier, whose minds were more free and less suspicious than those of the Duke de Richelieu and M. Lainé, were not deceived on this point: they felt the necessity of our alliance, and cultivated it with anxiety. But when it becomes a question of how to govern in difficult times, allies are not enough; intimate associates are necessary, devoted adherents in labour and peril. In this character, the doctrinarians, and particularly M. Royer-Collard, their leader in the Chambers, were mistrusted. They were looked upon as at once imperious and undecided, and more exacting than effective. Nevertheless, in November, 1819, after the election of M. Grégoire and in the midst of their projected reforms in the electoral law, M. Decazes, at the strong instigation of M. de Serre, proposed to M. Royer-Collard to join the Cabinet with one or two of his friends. M. Royer-Collard hesitated at first, then acceded for a moment, and finally declined. "You know not what you would do," said he to M. Decazes; "my method of dealing with affairs would differ entirely from yours: you elude questions, you shift and change them, you gain time, you settle things by halves; I, on the contrary, should attack them in front, bring them into open view, and dissect them before all the world. I should compromise instead of assisting you." M. Royer-Collard was in the right, and defined himself admirably, perhaps more correctly than he imagined. He was more calculated to advise and contest than to exercise power. He was rather a great spectator and critic than an eminent political actor. In the ordinary course of affairs he would have been too absolute, too haughty, and too slow. In a crisis, I question whether his mental reservations, his scruples of conscience, his horror of all public excitement, and his prevailing dread of responsibility, would have permitted him to preserve the cool self-possession, with the firm and prompt determination, which circumstances might have required. M. Decazes pressed him no further.
Even at this moment, after all I have seen and experienced, I am not prone to be discouraged, or inclined to believe that difficult achievements are impossible. However defective may be the internal constitution and combinations of the different parties who co-operate in carrying on public affairs, the upright conduct of individuals may remedy them; history furnishes more than one example of vicious institutions and situations, the evil results of which have been counteracted by the ability of political leaders and the sound sense of the public. But when to the evils of position, the errors of men are added,—when, instead of recognizing dangers in their true tendency, and opposing firm resistance, the chiefs and followers of parties either yield to or accelerate them, then the mischievous effects of pernicious courses inevitably and rapidly develop themselves. Errors were not wanting from 1816 to 1820 in every party, whether of Government or Opposition, of the centre, the right, or the left, of the ministers or doctrinarians. I make no parade of impartiality; in spite of their faults and misfortunes, I continue, with a daily increasing conviction, to look upon the Government I served, and the party I supported, to have been the best; but, for our own credit, let leisure and reflection teach us to acknowledge the mistakes we committed, and to prepare for our cause—which assuredly will not die with us—a more auspicious future.
The centre, in its governing mission, had considerable advantages; it suffered neither from moral embarrassments nor external clogs, it was perfectly free and unshackled,—essential qualifications in a great public career, and which at that time belonged neither to the right nor to the left-hand party.
The right had only accepted the Charter on the eve of its promulgation, and after strenuous resistance; a conspicuous and energetic section of the party still persisted in opposing it. That division which had seats in the Chambers, sided from day to day with the constitutional system,—the officers as intelligent and reflecting men, the soldiers as staunch and contented royalists; but neither, in these recognized capacities, inspired confidence in the country, which looked upon their adhesion to the Charter as constrained or conditional, always insincere and covering other views. The right, even while honestly accepting the Charter, had also party interests to satisfy; when it aspired to power, it was not solely to govern according to its principles, and to place the restored monarchy on a solid basis: it had private misfortunes to repair and positions to re-assume. It was not a pure and regular party of Tory royalists. The emigrants, the remains of the old court and clergy, were still influential amongst them, and eagerly bent on carrying out their personal expectations. By its composition and reminiscences, the party was condemned to much reserve and imprudence, to secret aspirations and indiscreet ebullitions, which, even while it professed to walk in constitutional paths, embarrassed and weakened its action at every step.
The situation of the left was no less confused. It represented, at that exact epoch, not the interests and sentiments of France in general, but the interests and sentiments of that portion of France which had ardently, indistinctly, and obstinately promoted and sustained the Revolution, under its republican or imperial form. It cherished against the House of Bourbon and the Restoration an old habit of hostility, which the Hundred Days had revived, which the most rational of the party could scarcely throw off, the most skilful with difficulty concealed, and the gravest considered it a point of honour to display as a protest and corner-stone. In November 1816, a man of probity, as sincere in the renunciation of his opinions of 1789 as he had formerly been in their profession, the Viscount Matthieu de Montmorency, complained, in a drawing-room of the party, that the Liberals had no love for legitimacy. A person present defended himself from this reproach. "Yes," said M. de Montmorency, with thoughtless candour, "you love legitimacy as we do the Charter." A keen satire on the false position of both parties under the government of the Charter and of legitimacy!