CHAPTER VI.
GOVERNMENT OF THE RIGHT-HAND PARTY.
1822-1827.
POSITION OF M. DE VILLÈLE ON ASSUMING POWER.—HE FINDS HIMSELF ENGAGED WITH THE LEFT AND THE CONSPIRACIES.—CHARACTER OF THE CONSPIRACIES.—ESTIMATE OF THEIR MOTIVES.—THEIR CONNECTION WITH SOME OF THE LEADERS OF THE PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION.—M. DE LA FAYETTE.—M. MANUEL.—M. D'ARGENSON.—THEIR ATTITUDE IN THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.—FAILURE OF THE CONSPIRACIES, AND CAUSES THEREOF.—M. DE VILLÈLE ENGAGED WITH HIS RIVALS WITHIN AND BY THE SIDE OF THE CABINET.—THE DUKE DE MONTMORENCY.—M. DE CHÂTEAUBRIAND AMBASSADOR AT LONDON.—CONGRESS OF VERONA.—M. DE CHÂTEAUBRIAND BECOMES MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS.—SPANISH WAR.—EXAMINATION OF ITS CAUSES AND RESULTS.—RUPTURE BETWEEN M. DE VILLÈLE AND M. DE CHÂTEAUBRIAND.—FALL OF M. DE CHÂTEAUBRIAND.—M. DE VILLÈLE ENGAGED WITH AN OPPOSITION SPRINGING FROM THE RIGHT-HAND PARTY.—THE "JOURNAL DES DÉBATS" AND THE MESSRS. BERTIN.—M. DE VILLÈLE FALLS UNDER THE YOKE OF THE PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY.—ATTITUDE AND INFLUENCE OF THE ULTRA-CATHOLIC PARTY.—ESTIMATE OF THEIR CONDUCT.—ATTACKS TO WHICH THEY ARE EXPOSED.—M. DE MONTLOSIER.—M. BÉRANGER.—ACUTENESS OF M. DE VILLÈLE.—HIS DECLINE.—HIS ENEMIES AT THE COURT.—REVIEW AND DISBANDING OF THE NATIONAL GUARD OF PARIS.—ANXIETY OF CHARLES X.—DISSOLUTION OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.—THE ELECTIONS ARE HOSTILE TO M. DE VILLÈLE.—HE RETIRES.—SPEECH OF THE DAUPHINISTS TO CHARLES X.
I now change position and point of view. It was no longer as an actor within, but as a spectator without, that I watched the right-hand party, and am enabled to record my impressions,—a spectator in opposition, who has acquired light, and learned to form a correct judgment, from time.
In December 1821, M. de Villèle attained power by the natural highroad. He reached his post through the qualities he had displayed and the importance he had acquired in the Chambers, and at the head of his party, which he brought in with himself. After a struggle of five years, he accomplished the object prematurely conceived by M. de Vitrolles in 1815,—that the leader of the parliamentary majority should become the head of the Government. Events are marked by unforeseen contradictions. The Charter conducted to office the very individual who, before its promulgation, had been its earliest opponent.
Amongst the noted men of our time, it is a distinctive feature in the career of M. de Villèle, that he became minister as a partisan, and retained that character in his official position, while at the same time endeavouring to establish, amongst his supporters, general principles of government in preference to the spirit of party. This moderator of the right was ever strictly faithful to the interests of that side. Very often unacquainted with the ideas, passions, and designs of his party, he opposed them indirectly and without positive disavowal, resolved never to desert his friends, even though he might be unable to control their course. Not from any general and systematic conviction, but from a sound practical instinct, he readily perceived the necessity of a strong attachment from the leader to his army, to secure a reciprocal feeling from the army to its chief. He paid dearly for this pertinacity; for it justly condemned him to bear the weight of errors which, had he been unfettered, he would never in all probability have committed; but through this sacrifice he held power for six years, and saved his party, during that period, from the extreme mistakes which, after his secession, led rapidly to their ruin. As minister of a constitutional monarchy, M. de Villèle has furnished France with one of the first examples of that fixity of political ties which, in spite of many inconveniences and objections, is essential to the great and salutary effects of representative government.
When M. de Villèle was called on to form a Cabinet, he found the country and the Government under the influence of a violent excitement. There were not alone storms in the Chamber and tumults in the streets; secret societies, plots, insurrections, and a strong effort to overthrow established order, fermented and burst forth in every quarter,—in the departments of the east, west, and south, at Béfort, Colmar, Toulon, Saumur, Nantes, La Rochelle, and even at Paris itself, under the very eyes of the Ministers, in the army as well as in the civil professions, in the royal guards as in the regiments of the line. In less than three years, eight serious conspiracies attacked and endangered the Restoration.