During three years, from the accession of Charles X. to his own fall, M. de Villèle not only made no stand against the inconsiderate fickleness of the King, but even profited by it to strengthen himself against his various enemies. Too clear-sighted to hope that Charles X. would persevere in the voluntary course of premeditated and steady moderation which Louis XVIII. had followed, he undertook to make him at least pursue, when circumstances allowed, a line of policy sufficiently temperate and popular to save him from the appearance of being exclusively in the hands of the party to whom in fact his heart and faith were devoted. Skilful in varying his advice according to the necessities and chances of the moment, and aptly availing himself of the inclination of Charles X. for sudden measures, whether lenient or severe, M. de Villèle at one time abolished, and at another revived, the censorship of the journals, occasionally softened or aggravated the execution of the laws, always endeavouring, and frequently with success, to place in the mouth or in the name of the King, liberal demonstrations and effusions, by the side of words and tendencies which recalled the old system and the pretensions of absolute power. The same spirit governed him in the Chambers. His bills were so conceived and presented, as we may say, to the address of the different parties, that all influential opinions were conciliated to a certain extent. The indemnity to the emigrants satisfied the wishes and restored the position of the entire lay party of the right. The recognition of the Republic of Hayti pleased the Liberals. Judicious reforms in the national budget and an administration friendly to sound regulations and actual services, obtained for M. de Villèle the esteem of enlightened men and the general approbation of all public functionaries. The bill on the system of inheritance and the right of primogeniture afforded hope to those who were prepossessed with aristocratic regrets. The bill on sacrilege fostered the passions of the fanatics, and the views of their theorists. Parallel with the spirit of reaction which predominated in these legislative deliberations, as in the enactments of power, an intelligent effort was ever visible to contrive something to the advantage of the spirit of progress. While faithfully serving his friends, M. de Villèle sought for and availed himself of every opportunity that offered of making some compensation to his adversaries.
It was not that the state of his mind was changed in principle, or that he had identified himself with the new and liberally-disposed society which he courted with so much solicitude. After all, M. de Villèle continued ever to be a follower of the old system, true to his party from feeling as well as on calculation. But his ideas on the subject of social and political organization were derived from tradition and habit, rather than from personal and well-meditated conviction. He preserved, without making them his sole rule of conduct, and laid them aside occasionally, without renunciation. A strong practical instinct, and the necessity of success, were his leading characteristics; he had the peculiar tact of knowing what would succeed and what would not, and paused in face of obstacles, either judging them to be insurmountable, or to demand too much time for removal. I find, in a letter which he wrote on the 31st of October, 1824, to Prince Julius de Polignac, at that time ambassador in London, on the projected re-establishment of the law of primogeniture, the strong expression of his inward thought, and of his clear-sighted prudence in an important act. "You would be wrong to suppose," said he, "that it is because entailed titles and estates are perpetual, we do not create any. You give us too much credit; the present generation sets no value on considerations so far removed from their own time. The late King named Count K—— a peer, on the proviso of his investing an estate with the title; he gave up the peerage, rather than injure his daughter to the advantage of his son. Out of twenty affluent families, there is scarcely one inclined to place the eldest son so much above the rest. Egotism prevails everywhere. People prefer to live on good terms with all their children, and, when establishing them in the world, to show no preference. The bonds of subordination are so universally relaxed, that parents, I believe, are obliged to humour their own offspring. If the Government were to propose the re-establishment of the law of primogeniture, it would not have a majority on that question; the difficulty is more deeply seated; it lies in our habits, still entirely impressed with the consequences of the Revolution. I do not wish to say that nothing can be done to ameliorate this lamentable position; but I feel that, in a state of society so diseased, we require time and management, not to lose in a day the labour and fruit of many years. To know how to proceed, and never to swerve from that path, to make a step towards the desired end whenever it can be made, and never to incur the necessity of retreat,—this course appears to me to be one of the necessities of the time in which I have arrived at power, and one of the causes which have led me to the post I occupy."
M. de Villèle spoke truly; it was his rational loyalty to the interests of his party, his patient perseverance in marching step by step to his object, his calm and correct distinction between the possible and impossible, which had made and kept him minister. But in the great transformations of human society, when the ideas and passions of nations have been powerfully stirred up, good sense, moderation, and cleverness will not long suffice to control them; and the day will soon return when, either to promote good or restrain evil, defined convictions and intentions, strongly and openly expressed, are indispensable to the heads of government. M. de Villèle was not endowed with these qualities. His mind was accurate, rather than expanded; he had more ingenuity than vigour, and he yielded to his party when he could no longer direct it. "I am born for the end of revolutions," he exclaimed when arriving at power, and he judged himself well; but he estimated less correctly the general state of society: the Revolution was much further from its end than he believed; it was continually reviving round him, excited and strengthened by the alternately proclaimed and concealed attempts of the counter-principle. People had ceased to conspire; but they discussed, criticized, and contended with undiminished ardour in the legitimate field. There were no longer secret associations, but opinions which fermented and exploded on every side. And, in this public movement, impassioned resistance was chiefly directed against the preponderance and pretensions of the fanatically religious party. One of the most extraordinary infatuations of our days has been the blindness of this party to the fact that the conditions under which they acted, and the means they employed, were directly opposed to the end in view, and leading from rather than conducting to it. They desired to restrain liberty, to control reason, to impose faith; they talked, wrote, and argued; they sought and found arms in the system of inquiry and publicity which they denounced. Nothing could be more natural or legitimate on the part of believers who have full confidence in their creed, and consider it equal to the conversion of its adversaries. The latter are justified in recurring to the discussion and publicity which they expect to serve their cause. But those who consider publicity and free discussion as essentially mischievous, by appealing to these resources, foment themselves the movement they dread, and feed the fire they wish to extinguish. To prove themselves not only consistent, but wise and effective, they should obtain by other means the strength on which they rely: they should gain the mastery; and then, when they have silenced all opposition, let them speak alone, if they still feel the necessity of speaking. But until they have arrived at this point, let them not deceive themselves; by adopting the weapons of liberty, they serve liberty much more than they injure it, for they warn and place it on its guard. To secure victory to the system of order and government to which they aspire, there is but one road;—the Inquisition and Philip II. were alone acquainted with their trade.
As might naturally be expected, the resistance provoked by the attempts of the fanatical party soon transformed itself into an attack. One royalist gentleman raised the flag of opposition against the policy of M. de Villèle; another assailed the religious controllers of his Cabinet, and not only dragged them before public opinion, but before the justice of the country, which disarmed and condemned them, without inflicting any other sentence than that of its disapprobation in the name of the law.
No one was less a philosopher of the eighteenth century, or a liberal of the nineteenth, than the Count de Montlosier. In the Constituent Assembly he had vehemently defended the Church and resisted the Revolution; he was sincerely a royalist, an aristocrat, and a Catholic. People called him, not without reason, the feudal publicist. But, neither the ancient nobility nor the modern citizens were disposed to submit to ecclesiastical dominion. M. de Montlosier repulsed it, equally in the name of old and new France, as he would formerly have denied its supremacy from the battlements of his castle, or in the court of Philip the Handsome. The early French spirit re-appeared in him, free, while respectful towards the Church, and as jealous of the laical independence of the State and crown, as it was possible for a member of the Imperial State Council to show himself.
At the same moment, a man of the people, born a poet and rendered still more poetical by art, celebrated, excited, and expanded, through his songs, popular instincts and passions in opposition to everything that recalled the old system, and above all against the pretensions and supremacy of the Church. M. Béranger, in his heart, was neither a revolutionist nor an unbeliever; he was morally more honest, and politically more rational, than his songs; but, a democrat by conviction as well as inclination, and carried away into license and want of forethought by the spirit of democracy, he attacked indiscriminately everything that was ungracious to the people, troubling himself little as to the range of his blows, looking upon the success of his songs as a victory achieved by liberty, and forgetting that religious faith and respect for things holy are nowhere more necessary than in the bosom of democratic and liberal associations. I believe he discovered this a little too late, when he found himself individually confronted by the passions which his ballads had fomented, and the dreams he had transformed to realities. He then hastened, with sound sense and dignity, to escape from the political arena, and almost from the world, unchanged in his sentiments, but somewhat regretful and uneasy for the consequences of the war in which he had taken such a prominent part. Under the Restoration, he was full of confidence and zeal, enjoying his popularity with modesty, and more seriously hostile and influential than any [sonneteer] had ever been before him.
Thus, after six years of government by the right-hand party, and three of the reign of Charles X., matters had arrived at this point—that two of the chief royalist leaders marched at the head of an opposition, one against the Cabinet, and the other against the Clergy, both becoming from day to day more vigorous and extended, and that the Restoration enumerated a ballad-maker in the first rank of its most dangerous enemies.
This entire mischief and danger was universally attributed to M. de Villèle; on the right or on the left, in the saloons and the journals, amongst the Moderates and the extreme Radicals, he became more and more an object of attack and reproach. As the judicial bodies had acted in affairs which regarded religion, so the literary institutions, on questions which concerned their competence, eagerly seized the opportunity of manifesting their opposition. The University, compressed and mutilated, was in a state of utter discontent. The French Academy made it a duty of honour to protest, in an address which the King refused to receive, but which was nevertheless voted, against the new bill on the subject of the press, introduced to the Chamber in 1826, and withdrawn by the Cabinet three months afterwards. In his own Chamber of Peers, M. de Villèle found neither general goodwill nor a certain majority. Even at the Palais Bourbon and the Tuileries, his two strongholds, he visibly lost ground; in the Chamber of Deputies, the ministerial majority declined, and became sad even in triumph; at the court, several of the King's most trusty adherents, the Dukes de Rivière, de Fitz-James, and de Maillé, the Count de Glandères, and many others,—some through party spirit, and some from monarchical uneasiness,—desired the fall of M. de Villèle, and were already preparing his successors. Even the King himself, when any fresh manifestation of public feeling reached him, exclaimed pettishly, on entering his closet, "Always Villèle! always against Villèle!"
In truth, the injustice was shameful. If the right-hand party had held office for six years, and had used power so as to maintain it, if Charles X. had not only peaceably succeeded Louis XVIII., but had ruled without trouble, and even with some increase of popularity, it was to M. de Villèle, above all others, that they were indebted for these advantages. He had accomplished two difficult achievements, which might have been called great had they been more durable: he had disciplined the old royalist party, and from a section of the court, and a class which had never been really active except in revolutionary contests, he had established during six years a steady ministerial support; he had restrained his party and his power within the general limits of the Charter, and had exercised constitutional government for six years under a prince and with friends who were generally considered to understand it little, and to adopt it with reluctance. If the King and the right-hand party felt themselves in danger, it was themselves, and not M. de Villèle, whom they ought to have accused.
Nevertheless M. de Villèle, on his part, had no right to complain of the injustice to which he was exposed. For six years he had been the head of the Government; by yielding to the King and his partisans when he disapproved their intentions, and by continuing their minister when he could no longer prevent what he condemned, he had admitted the responsibility of the faults committed under his name and with his sanction, although in spite of himself. He endured the penalty of his weakness in the exercise of power, and of his obstinacy in retaining it under whatever sacrifices it might cost him. We cannot govern under a free system, to enjoy the merit and reap the fruit of success, while we repudiate the errors which lead to reverse.