Memoirs to Illustrate the History of My Time, Volume 1

by François Guizot

But if the right-hand party or the left, if the members of either in the Chambers, had followed only their sincere convictions and desires, the greater portion, I am satisfied, would have frankly accepted and supported the Restoration with the Charter, the Charter with the Restoration. When men are seriously engaged in a work and feel the weight of responsibility, they soon discover the true course, and would willingly follow it. But, both in the right and left, the wisest and best-disposed feared to proclaim the truth which they saw, or to adopt it as their rule of conduct; both were under the yoke of their external party, of its passions as of its interests, of its ignorance as of its passions. It has been one of the sorest wounds of our age, that few men have preserved sufficient firmness of mind and character to think freely, and act as they think. The intellectual and moral independence of individuals disappeared under the pressure of events and before the heat of popular clamours and desires. Under such a general slavery of thought and action, there are no longer just or mistaken minds, cautious or rash spirits, officers or soldiers; all yield to the same controlling passion, and bend before the same wind; common weakness reduces all to one common level; hierarchy and discipline vanish; the last lead the first; for the last press and drive onwards, being themselves impelled by that tyranny from without, of which they have been the most blind and ready instruments.

As a political party, the centre, in the Chambers from 1816 to 1820, was not tainted by this evil. Sincere in its adoption of the Restoration and the Charter, no external pressure could disturb or falsify its position. It remained unfettered in thought and deed. It openly acknowledged its object, and marched directly towards it; selecting, within, the leaders most capable of conducting it there, and having no supporters without who looked for any other issue. It was thus that, in spite of its other deficiencies for powerful government, the centre was at that time the fittest party to rule, the only one capable of maintaining order in the State, while tolerating the liberty of its rivals.

But to reap the full fruits of this advantage, and to diminish at the same time the natural defects of the centre in its mission, it was necessary that it should adopt a fixed idea, a conviction that the different elements of the party were indispensable to each other; and that, to accomplish the object pursued by all with equal sincerity, mutual concessions and sacrifices were called for, to maintain this necessary union. When Divine wisdom intended to secure the power of a human connection, it forbade divorce. Political ties cannot admit this inviolability; but if they are not strongly knit, if the contracting parties are not firmly resolved to break them only in the last extremity and under the most imperious pressure, they soon end, not only in impotence, but in disorder; and by their too easy rupture, policy becomes exposed to new difficulties and disturbances. I have thus pointed out the discrepancies and different opinions which, from the beginning, existed between the two principal elements of the centre: the Ministers, with their pure adherents, on the one side, and the doctrinarians on the other. From the second session after the decree of the 5th of September, 1816, these differences increased until they grew into dissensions.

While acknowledging the influence of the doctrinarians in the Chambers, and the importance of their co-operation, neither the Ministers nor their advocates measured correctly the value of this alliance, or the weight of the foundation from which that value was derived. Philosophers estimate too highly the general ideas with which they are prepossessed; politicians withhold from general ideas the attention and interest they are entitled to demand. Intelligence is proud and sensitive; it looks for consideration and respect, even though its suggestions may be disallowed; and those who treat it lightly or coldly sometimes pay heavily for their mistake. It is, moreover, an evidence of narrow intellect not to appreciate the part which general principles assume in the government of men, or to regard them as useless or hostile because we are not disposed to adopt them as guides. In our days, especially, and notwithstanding the well-merited disrepute into which so many theories have fallen, philosophic deduction, on all the leading questions and facts of policy, is a sustaining power, on which the ablest and most secure ministers would do wisely to rely. The doctrinarians at that period represented this power, and employed it fearlessly against the spirit of revolution, as well as in favour of the constitutional system. The Cabinet of 1816 undervalued the part they played, and paid too little attention to their ideas and desires. The application of trial by jury to offences of the press was not, I admit, unattended by danger; but it was much better to try that experiment, and by so doing to maintain union in the Government party, than to divide it by absolutely disregarding, on this question, M. Camille Jordan, M. Royer-Collard, and their friends.

All power, and, above all, recent power, demands an impression of grandeur in its acts and on its insignia. Order, and the regular protection of private interests, that daily bread of nations, will not long satisfy their wants. To secure these is an inseparable care of Government, but they do not comprise the only need of humanity. Human nature finds the other enjoyments for which it thirsts in opposite distinctions, moral or physical, just or unjust, solid or ephemeral. It has neither enough of virtue nor wisdom to render absolute greatness indispensable; but in every position it requires to see, conspicuously displayed, something exalted, which may attract and occupy the imagination. After the Empire, which had accustomed France to all the delights of national pre-eminence and glory, the spectacle of free and lofty thought displaying itself with moral dignity, and some show of talent, was not deficient in novelty or attraction, while the chance of its success outweighed the value of the cost.

The Ministers were not more skilful in dealing with the personal tempers than with the ideas of the doctrinarians, who were as haughty and independent in character as they were elevated in mind, and ready to take offence when any disposition was evinced to apply their opinions and conduct without their own consent. Nothing is more distasteful to power than to admit, to any great extent, the independence of its supporters; it considers them treated with sufficient respect if taken into confidence, and is readily disposed to view them as servants. M. Lainé, then Minister of the Interior, wrote one morning to M. Cuvier to say that the King had just named him Royal Commissioner, to second a bill which would be presented on the following day to the Chamber of Deputies. He had not only neglected to apprise him before of the duty he was to undertake, but he did not even mention in the note the particular bill he instructed him to support. M. Cuvier, more subservient than susceptible, with power, made no complaint of this treatment, but related it with a smile. A few days before, the Minister of Finance, M. Corvetto, had also appointed M. de Serre Commissioner for the defence of the budget, without asking whether this appointment was agreeable to him, or holding any conference even on the fundamental points of the budget he was expected to carry through. On receiving notice of this nomination, M. de Serre felt deeply offended. "It is either an act of folly or impertinence," said he loudly; "perhaps both." M. de Serre deceived himself; it was neither the one nor the other. M. Corvetto was an extremely polite, careful, and modest person; but he was of the Imperial school, and more accustomed to give orders to agents than to concert measures with members of the Chambers. By habits as well as ideas, the doctrinarians belonged to a liberal system,—troublesome allies of power, on the termination of a military and administrative monarchy.

I know not which is the most difficult undertaking,—to transform the functionaries of absolute power into the supporters of a free Government, or to organize and discipline the friends of liberty into a political party. If the Ministers sometimes disregarded the humour of the doctrinarians, the doctrinarians in their turn too lightly estimated the position and task of the Ministers. They had in reality, whatever has been said of sectarian passions and ideas, neither the ambition nor the vanity of a coterie; they possessed open, generous, and expanded minds, extremely accessible to sympathy; but, too much accustomed to live alone and depend on themselves, they scarcely thought of the effect which their words and actions produced beyond their own circle; and thus social faults were laid to their charge which they had not the least desire to commit. Their political mistakes were more real. In their relations with power, they were sometimes intemperate and offensive in language, unnecessarily impatient, not knowing how to be contented with what was possible, or how to wait for amelioration without too visible an effort. These causes led them to miscalculate the impediments, necessities, and practicable resources of the Government they sincerely wished to establish. In the Chambers, they were too exclusive and pugnacious, more intent on proving their opinions than on gaining converts, despising rather than desiring recruits, and little gifted with the talent of attraction and combination so essential to the leaders of a party. They were not sufficiently acquainted with the difficulties of carrying out a sound scheme of policy, nor with the infinite variety of efforts, sacrifices, and cares which are comprised in the art of governing.

From 1816 to 1818 the vices of their position and the mistakes committed, infused into the Government and its party a continual ferment, and the seeds of internal discord which prevented them from acquiring the necessary strength and consistency. The mischief burst forth towards the end of 1818, when the Duke de Richelieu returned from the conferences of Aix-la-Chapelle, reporting the withdrawal of the foreign armies, the complete evacuation of our territory, and the definitive settlement of the financial burdens which the Hundred Days had imposed on France. On his arrival he saw his Cabinet on the point of dissolution, and vainly attempted to form a new one, but was finally compelled to abandon the power he had never sought or enjoyed, but which, assuredly, he was unwilling to lose by compulsion in the midst of his diplomatic triumph, and to see it pass into hands determined to employ it in a manner totally opposed to his own intentions.

A check like this, at such a moment, and to such a man, was singularly unjust and unseasonable. Since 1815, the Duke de Richelieu had rendered valuable services to France and to the King. He alone had obtained some mitigation to the conditions of a very harsh treaty of peace, which nothing but sincere and sad devotion had induced him to sign, while feeling the full weight of what he sacrificed in attaching to it his illustrious name, and seeking no self-glorification from an act of honest patriotism. No man was ever more free from exaggeration or quackery in the display of his sentiments. Fifteen months after the ratification of peace, he induced the foreign powers to consent to a considerable reduction in the army of occupation. A year later, he limited to a fixed sum the unbounded demands of the foreign creditors of France. Finally, he had just signed the entire emancipation of the national soil four years before the term rigorously prescribed by treaties. The King, on his return, thanked him in noble words: "Duke de Richelieu," he said, "I have lived long enough, since, thanks to you, I have seen the French flag flying over every town in France." The sovereigns of Europe treated him with esteem and confidence. A rare example of a statesman, who, without great actions or superior abilities, had, by the uprightness of his character and the unselfish tenor of his life, achieved such universal and undisputed respect! Although the Duke de Richelieu had only been engaged in foreign affairs, he was better calculated than has been said, not so much to direct effectively as to preside over the internal government of the Restoration. A nobleman of exalted rank, and a tried Royalist, he was neither in mind or feeling a courtier nor an Emigrant; he had no preconceived dislike to the new state of society or the new men; without thoroughly understanding free institutions, he had no prejudice against them, and submitted to their exercise without an effort. Simple in his manners, true and steady in his words, and a friend to the public good, if he failed to exercise a commanding influence in the Chambers, he maintained full authority near the King; and a constitutional Government, resting on the parliamentary centre, could not, at that period, have possessed a more worthy or more valuable president.

But at the close of 1818 the Duke de Richelieu felt himself compelled, and evinced that he was resolved, to engage in a struggle in which the considerations of gratitude and prosperity I have here reverted to proved to be ineffective weapons on his side. In virtue of the Charter, and in conformity with the electoral law of the 5th of February, 1817, two-fifths of the Chamber of Deputies had been renewed since the formation of his Cabinet. The first trial of votes, in 1817, had proved satisfactory to the Restoration and its friends; not more than two or three recognized names were added to the left-hand party, which, even after this reinforcement, only amounted to twenty members. At the second trial in 1818, the party acquired more numerous and much more distinguished recruits; about twenty-five new members, and amongst them MM. de La Fayette, Benjamin Constant, and Manuel, were enrolled in its ranks. The number was still weak, but important as a rallying point, and prognostic. An alarm, at once sincere and interested, exhibited itself at court and in the right-hand party; they found themselves on the eve of a new revolution, but their hopes were also excited: since the enemies of the House of Bourbon were forcing themselves into the Chamber, the King would at length feel the necessity of replacing power in the hands of his friends. The party had not waited the issue of these last elections to attempt a great enterprise. Secret notes, drawn up under the eye of the Count d'Artois, and by his most intimate confidants, had been addressed to the foreign sovereigns, to point out to them this growing mischief, and to convince them that a change in the advisers of the crown was the only safe measure to secure monarchy in France, and to preserve peace in Europe. The Duke de Richelieu, in common with his colleagues, and with a feeling of patriotism far superior to personal interest, felt indignant at these appeals to foreign intervention for the internal government of the country. M. de Vitrolles was struck off from the Privy Council, as author of the principal of the three Secret notes. The European potentates paid little attention to such announcements, having no faith either in the sound judgment or disinterested views of the men from whom they emanated. Nevertheless, after the elections of 1818, they also began to feel uneasy. It was from prudence, and not choice, that they had sanctioned and maintained the constitutional system in France; they looked upon it as necessary to close up the Revolution. If, on the contrary, it once again opened its doors, the peace of Europe would be more compromised than ever; for then the Revolution would assume the semblance of legality. But neither in France nor in Europe did any one at that time, even amongst the greatest alarmists and the most intimidated, dream of interfering with the constitutional system; in universal opinion it had acquired with us the privileges of citizenship. The entire evil was imputed to the law of elections. It was at Aix-la-Chapelle, while surrounded by the sovereigns and their ministers, that the Duke de Richelieu was first apprised of the newly-elected members whom this law had brought upon the scene. The Emperor Alexander expressed to him his amazement; the Duke of Wellington advised Louis XVIII. "to unite himself more closely with the Royalists." The Duke de Richelieu returned to France with a determination to reform the electoral law, or no longer to incur the responsibility of its results.