Memoirs to Illustrate the History of My Time, Volume 1

by François Guizot

Today, after the lapse of more than thirty years, after so many events of greater importance, when an honest and rational man asks himself what motives could have excited such fierce anger and rash enterprises, he can find none either sufficient or legitimate. Neither the acts of power nor the probabilities of the future had so wounded or threatened the rights and interests of the country as to justify these attempts at utter subversion. The electoral system had been artfully changed; power had passed into the hands of an irritating and suspected party; but the great institutions were still intact; public liberty, though disputed, still displayed itself vigorously; legal order had received no serious blow; the country prospered and regularly advanced in strength. The new society was disturbed, but not disarmed; it was in a condition to wait and defend itself. There were just grounds for an animated and public opposition, but none for conspiracy or revolution.

Nations that aspire to be free incur a prominent danger,—the danger of deceiving themselves on the question of tyranny. They readily apply that name to any system of government that displeases or alarms them, or refuses to grant all that they desire. Frivolous caprices, which entail their own punishment! Power must have inflicted on a country many violations of right, with repeated acts of injustice and oppression bitter and prolonged, before revolution can be justified by reason, or crowned with triumph in the face of its inherent faults. When such causes are wanting to revolutionary attempts, they either fail miserably or bring with them the reaction which involves their own punishment.

But from 1820 to 1823 the conspirators never dreamed of asking themselves if their enterprises were legitimate; they entertained no doubt on the subject. Very different although simultaneous passions, past alarms and prospective temptations, influenced their minds and conduct. The hatreds and apprehensions that attached themselves to the words emigration, feudal system, old form of government, aristocracy, and counter-revolution, belonged to bygone times; but these fears and antipathies were in many hearts as intense and vivid as if they were entertained towards existing and powerful enemies. Against these phantoms, which the folly of the extreme right had conjured up, without the power of giving them substantial vitality, war in any shape was considered allowable, urgent, and patriotic. It was believed that liberty could best be served and saved by rekindling against the Restoration all the slumbering revolutionary fires. The conspirators flattered themselves that they could at the same time prepare a fresh revolution, which should put an end, not only to the restored monarchy, but to monarchy altogether, and by the re-establishment of the Republic lead to the absolute triumph of popular rights and interests. To the greater part of these young enthusiasts, descended from families who had been engaged in the old cause of the first Revolution, dreams of the future united with traditions of the domestic hearth; while maintaining the struggles of their fathers, they indulged their own Utopian chimeras.

Those who conspired from revolutionary hatred or republican hope, were joined by others with more clearly defined but not less impassioned views. I have elsewhere said, in speaking of Washington, "It is the privilege, often corruptive, of great men, to inspire attachment and devotion without the power of reciprocating these feelings." No one ever enjoyed this privilege more than the Emperor Napoleon. He was dying at this very moment upon the rock of St. Helena; he could no longer do anything for his partisans; and he found, amongst the people as well as in the army, hearts and arms ready to do all and risk all for his name,—a generous infatuation for which I am at a loss to decide whether human nature should be praised or pitied.

All these passions and combinations would in all probability have remained futile and unnoticed, had they not found exponents and chiefs in the highest political circles and in the bosom of the great bodies of the State. The popular masses are never sufficient for themselves; their desires and designs must be represented by visible and important leaders, who march at their head and accept the responsibility of the means and end. The conspirators of from 1820 to 1823 knew this well; and upon the most widely separated points, at Béfort as at Saumur, and at each fresh enterprise, they declared that they would not act unless well-known political leaders and Deputies of reputation were associated with them. Everybody knows, at the present day, that the co-operation they required was not withheld.

In the Chamber of Deputies, the opposition to the Government of the Right was comprised of three sections united against it, but differing materially in their views and in their means of hostility. I shall only name the principal members of this confederacy, and who have themselves clearly defined their respective positions. M. de La Fayette and M. Manuel acknowledged and directed the conspiracies. Without ignoring them, General Foy, M. Benjamin Constant, and M. Casimir Perrier, disapproved of their proceedings and declined association. M. Royer-Collard and his friends were absolutely unacquainted with them, and stood entirely aloof.

When my thoughts revert to M. de La Fayette, I am saddened by affectionate regret. I never knew a character more uniformly sincere, generous, and kind, or more ready to risk everything for his pledged faith and cause; his benevolence, although rather indiscriminate in particular cases, was not the less true and expanded towards humanity in general. His courage and devotedness were natural and earnest, serious under an exterior sometimes light, and as genuine as they were spontaneous. Throughout his life he maintained consistency in sentiments and ideas; and he had his days of vigorous resolution, which would have reflected honour on the truest friend of order and resistance to anarchy. In 1791, he opened fire, in the Champ de Mars, on the revolt set up in the name of the people; in 1792, he came in person to demand, on behalf of his army, the suppression of the Jacobins; and he held himself apart and independent under the Empire. But, taking all points into account, he failed in political judgment, in discernment, in a just estimate of circumstances and men; and he had a yielding towards his natural bent, a want of foresight as to the probable results of his actions, with a constant but indistinct yearning after popular favour, which led him on much further than he intended, and subjected him to the influence of men of a very inferior order, directly against his moral nature and political situation. At the first moment, in 1814, he seemed to be well disposed towards the Restoration; but the tendencies of power, and the persevering rancour of the Royalists, soon threw him back into the ranks of opposition. At the close of the Hundred Days, his hostility to the House of Bourbon became declared and active; a republican in soul, without being sufficiently strong or daring to proclaim the Republic, he opposed as obstinately as vainly the return of royalty; and before the Chamber of 1815, excited but not dismayed, he pledged himself, while the Restoration lasted, to enter and never to desert the ranks of its most inveterate enemies. From 1820 to 1823 he was, not the ostensible head, but the instrument and ornament, of every secret society, of every plot and project of revolution; even of those the results of which he would inevitably have denounced and resisted, had they been crowned with success.

No two people could less resemble each other than M. Manuel and M. de La Fayette. While one was open, improvident, and rash in his hostility, the other was in an equal degree reserved, calculating, and prudent even in his violence, although in real character bold and determined. M. de La Fayette was not exactly a high and mighty lord,—that expression does not apply to him,—but a noble gentleman, liberal and popular, not naturally a revolutionist, but one who by enthusiasm or example might be led and would himself lead to repeated revolutions. M. Manuel was the obedient child and able defender of the past revolution, capable of joining Government for its interest—a liberal Government, if animated with revolutionary objects, an absolute Government if unlimited power should be necessary to their supremacy,—but determined to uphold revolution in every case and at any price. His mind was limited and uncultivated, and, either in his general life or in parliamentary debate, without any impress of great political views, or of sympathetic or lofty emotions of the soul, beyond the firmness of his attitude and the lucid strength of his language. Although no advocate, and a little provincial in his style, he spoke and acted as a man of party, calmly persevering and resolved, immovable in the old revolutionary arena, and never disposed to leave it either to become a convert to new measures or to adopt new views. The Restoration, in his opinion, was in fact the old system and the counter-revolution. After having confronted it in the Chambers with all the opposition which that theatre permitted, he encouraged, without, every plot and effort of subversion; less ready than M. de La Fayette to place himself at their head, less confident in their success, but still determined to keep alive by these means hatred and war against the Restoration, watching at the same time for a favourable opportunity of launching a decisive blow.

M. d'Argenson had less weight with the party than either of his colleagues, although perhaps the most impassioned of the three. He was a sincere and melancholy visionary, convinced that all social evils spring from human laws, and bent on promoting every kind of reform, although he had little confidence in the reformers. By his position in society, the generous tone of his sentiments, the seriousness of his convictions, the attraction of an affectionate although reserved disposition, and the charm of a refined and elegant mind, which extracted from his false philosophy bold and original views, he held, in the projects and preliminary deliberations of the conspiring opposition, a tolerably important place; but he was little suited for action, and ready to discourage it, although always prepared for personal engagement. A chimerical but not hopeful fanaticism is not a very promising temperament for a conspirator.