A true sentiment does not readily believe itself impotent. The two works which I published in 1821 and 1822, entitled, the first, 'On Conspiracies and Political Justice,' and the second, 'On Capital Punishment for Political Offences,' were not, on my part, acts of opposition; I endeavoured to divest them of this character. To mark distinctly their meaning and object, it will suffice for me to repeat their respective epigraphs. On the title-page of the first I inscribed this passage from the prophet Isaiah: "Say ye not, a confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, a confederacy;" and on that of the second, the words of St. Paul: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" What I chiefly desired was to convince power itself that sound policy and true justice called for very rare examples of trial and execution in political cases; and that in exercising against all offenders the utmost severity of the laws, it created more perils than it subdued. Public opinion was in accordance with mine; sensible and independent men, taking no part in the passions of the parties engaged in this struggle, found, as I did, that there was excess in the action of the police with reference to these plots, excess in the number and severity of the prosecutions, excess in the application of legal penalties. I carefully endeavoured to restrain these complaints within their just limits, to avoid all injurious comparisons, all attempts at sudden reforms, and to concede to power its necessary weapons. While discussing these questions, which had sprung up in the bosom of the most violent storms, I sought to transfer them to an elevated and temperate region, convinced that by that course alone my ideas and words would acquire any permanent efficacy. They obtained the sanction of a much more potent ally than myself. The Court of Peers, which at that time had assumed the place assigned to it by the Charter, in judgment on political prosecutions, immediately began to exercise sound policy and true discrimination. It was a rare and imposing sight, to behold a great assembly, essentially political in origin and composition,—a faithful supporter of authority; and at the same time sedulously watchful, not only to elevate justice above the passions of the moment, and to administer it with perfect independence, but also to apply, in the appreciation and punishment of political offences, that intelligent equity which alone could satisfy the reason of the philosopher and the charity of the Christian. A part of the honour due to this grand exhibition belongs to the authorities the time, who not only made no attempt to interfere with the unshackled impartiality of the Court of Peers, but refrained even from objection or complaint. Next to the merit of being themselves, and through their own convictions, just and wise, it is a real act of wisdom on the part of the great ones of the earth, when they adopt without murmur or hesitation the good which has not originated with themselves.
I have lived in an age of political plots and outrages, directed alternately against the authorities to whom I was in opposition and those I supported with ardour. I have seen conspiracies occasionally unpunished, and at other times visited by the utmost rigour of the law. I feel thoroughly convinced that in the existing state of feelings, minds, and manners, the punishment of death in such cases is an injurious weapon which heavily wounds the power that uses it for safety. It is not that this penalty is without denunciatory and preventive efficacy; it terrifies and holds back from conspiracies many who would otherwise be tempted to engage in them. But by the side of this salutary consequence, it engenders others which are most injurious. Drawing no line of distinction between the motives and dispositions which have incited men to the acts it punishes, it stifles in the same manner the reprobate and the dreamer, the criminal and the enthusiast, the wildly ambitious and the devotedly fanatical. By this gross indifference, it offends more than it satisfies moral feeling, irritates more than it restrains, moves indifferent spectators to pity, and appears to those who are interested an act of war falsely invested with the forms of a decree of justice. The intimidation which it conveys at first, diminishes from day to day; while the hatred and thirst of vengeance it inspires become hourly more intense and expansive; and at last the time arrives when the power which fancies itself saved is exposed to the attacks of enemies infinitely more numerous and formidable than those who have been previously disposed of.
A day will also come, I confidently feel, when, for offences exclusively political, the penalties of banishment and transportation, carefully graduated and applied, will be substituted in justice as well as in fact for the punishment of death. Meanwhile I reckon, amongst the most agreeable reminiscences of my life, the fact of my having strenuously directed true justice and good policy to this subject, at a moment when both were seriously compromised by party passions and the dangers to which power was exposed.
These four works, published successively within the space of two years, attracted a considerable share of public attention. The leading members of Opposition in the two Chambers thanked me as for a service rendered to the cause of France and free institutions. "You win battles for us without our help," said General Foy to me. M. Royer-Collard, in pointing out some objections to the first of these Essays ('On the Government of France since the Restoration'), added, "Your book is full of truths; we collect them with a shovel." I repeat without hesitation these testimonies of real approbation. When we seriously undertake to advocate political measures, either in speeches or publications, it becomes most essential to attain our object. Praise is doubly valuable when it conveys the certainty of success. This certainty once established, I care little for mere compliments, from which a certain degree of puerility and ridicule is inseparable; sympathy without affected words has alone a true and desirable charm. I had a right to set some value on that which the Opposition evinced towards me; for I had done nothing to gratify the passions or conciliate the prejudices and after-thoughts which fermented in the extreme ranks of the party.
I had as frankly supported royalty, as I had opposed the Cabinet; and it was evident that I had no desire to consign either the House of Bourbon or the Charter to their respective enemies.
Two opportunities soon presented themselves of explaining myself on this point in a more personal and precise manner. In 1821, a short time after the publication of my 'Essay on Conspiracies and Political Justice,' one of the leaders of the conspiring faction, a man of talent and honour, but deeply implicated in secret societies, that inheritance of tyrannical times which becomes the poison of freedom, came to see me, and expressed with much warmth his grateful acknowledgments. The boldest conspirators feel gratified, when danger threatens, by shielding themselves under the principles of justice and moderation professed by men who take no part in their plots. We conversed freely on all topics. As he was about to leave me, my visitor, grasping me by the arm, exclaimed, "Become one of ours!"—"Who do you call yours?"—"Enter with us into the Charbonnerie; it is the only association capable of overthrowing the Government by which we are humiliated and oppressed."—I replied, "You deceive yourself, as far as I am concerned; I do not feel humiliation or oppression either for myself or my country."—"What can you hope from the people now in power?"—"It is not a question of hope; I wish to preserve what we possess; we have all we require to establish a free government for ourselves. Actual power constantly calls for resistance. In my opinion it does so at this moment, but not to the extent of being subverted. It is very far from having done anything to give us either the right or the means of proceeding to that extremity. We have legal and public arms in abundance to produce reform by opposition. I neither desire your object nor your method of attaining it; you will bring much mischief on all, yourselves included, without success; and if you should succeed, matters would be still worse."
He went away without anger, for he felt a friendship for me; but I had not in the slightest degree shaken his passion for plots and secret societies. It is a fever which admits of no cure, when the soul is once given up to it, and a yoke not to be thrown off when it has been long endured.
A little later, in 1822, when the publications I have spoken of had produced their effect, I received one day a visit from M. Manuel. We had occasionally met at the houses of mutual friends, and lived on terms of good understanding without positive intimacy. He evidently came to propose closer acquaintanceship, with an openness in which perhaps the somewhat restricted character of his mind was as much displayed as the firmness of his temperament; he passed at once from compliments to confidence, and, after congratulating me on my opposition, opened to me the full bearing of his own. He neither believed in the Restoration nor the Charter, held the House of Bourbon to be incompatible with the France of the Revolution, and looked upon a change of dynasty as a necessary consequence of the total alteration in the social system. He introduced, in the course of our interview, the recent death of the Emperor Napoleon, the security which thence resulted to the peace of Europe, and the name of Napoleon II. as a possible and perhaps the best solution of the problems involved in our future. All this was expressed in guarded but sufficiently definite terms, equally without passion or circumlocution, and with a marked intention of ascertaining to what extent I should admit or reject the prospects on which he enlarged. I was unprepared, both for the visit and the conversation; but I stood on no reserve, not expecting to convert M. Manuel to my own views, and with no desire to conceal mine from him. "Far from thinking," I said in reply, "that a change of dynasty is necessary for France, I should look upon it as a great misfortune and a formidable peril. I consider the Revolution of 1789 to be satisfied as well as finished. In the Charter it possesses all the guarantees that its interests and legitimate objects require. I have no fear of a counter-revolution. We hold against it the power of right as well as of fact; and if people were ever mad enough to attempt it, we should always find sufficient strength to arrest their progress. What France requires at present is to expel the revolutionary spirit which still torments her, and to exercise the free system of which she is in full possession. The House of Bourbon is extremely well suited to this double exigence of the country. Its government is anti-revolutionary by nature, and liberal through necessity. I should much dread a power which, while maintaining order, would either in fact or appearance be sufficiently revolutionary to dispense with being liberal. I should be apprehensive that the country would too easily lend itself to such a rule. We require to be a little uneasy as regards our interests, that we may learn how to maintain our rights. The Restoration satisfies while it keeps us on our guard. It acts at the same time as a spur and a bridle. Both are good for us. I know not what would happen if we were without either." M. Manuel pressed me no longer; he had too much sense to waste time in useless words. We continued to discourse without further argument, and parted thinking well, I believe, of each other, but both thoroughly satisfied that we should never act in concert.
While engaged in the publication of these different treatises, I was also preparing my course of lectures on Modern History, which I commenced on the 7th of December, 1820. Determined to make use of the two influential organs with which public instruction and the press supplied me, I used them nevertheless in a very different manner. In my lectures, I excluded all reference to the circumstances, system, or acts of the Government; I checked every inclination to attack or even to criticize, and banished all remembrance of the affairs or contests of the moment. I scrupulously restrained myself within the sphere of general ideas and by-gone facts. Intellectual independence is the natural privilege of science, which would be lost if converted into an instrument of political opposition. For the effective display of different liberties, it is necessary that each should be confined within its own domain; their strength and security depend on this prudent restraint.
While imposing on myself this line of conduct, I did not evade the difficulty. I selected for the subject of my course the history of the old political institutions of Christian Europe, and of the origin of representative government, in the different forms in which it had been formerly attempted, with or without success. I touched very closely, in such a subject, on the flagrant embarrassments of that contemporaneous policy to which I was determined to make no allusion. But I also found an obvious opportunity of carrying out, through scientific paths alone, the double object I had in view. I was anxious to combat revolutionary theories, and to attach interest and respect to the past history of France. We had scarcely emerged from the most furious struggle against that old French society, our secular cradle; our hearts, if not still overflowing with anger, were indifferent towards it, and our minds were confusedly imbued with the ideas, true or false, under which it had fallen. The time had come for clearing out that arena covered with ruins, and for substituting, in thought as in fact, equity for hostility, and the principles of liberty for the arms of the Revolution. An edifice is not built with machines of war; neither can a free system be founded on ignorant prejudices and inveterate antipathies. I encountered, at every step throughout my course, the great problems of social organization, under the name of which parties and classes exchanged such heavy blows,—the sovereignty of the people and the right divine of kings, monarchy and republicanism, aristocracy and democracy, the unity or division of power, the various systems of election, constitution, and action of the assemblies called to co-operate in government. I entered upon all these questions with a firm determination to sift thoroughly the ideas of our own time, and to separate revolutionary excitement and fantasies from the advances of justice and liberty, reconcilable with the eternal laws of social order. By the side of this philosophic undertaking, I pursued another, exclusively historical; I endeavoured to demonstrate the intermitting but always recurring efforts of French society to emerge from the violent chaos in which it had been originally formed, sometimes produced by the conflict, and at others by the accordance of its different elements—royalty, nobility, clergy, citizens, and people,—throughout the different phases of that harsh destiny, and the glorious although incomplete development of French civilization, such as the Revolution had compiled it after so many combats and vicissitudes. I particularly wished to associate old France with the remembrance and intelligence of new generations; for there was as little sense as justice in decrying or despising our fathers, at the very moment when, equally misled in our time, we were taking an immense step in the same path which they had followed for so many ages.