Memoirs to Illustrate the History of My Time, Volume 1

by François Guizot

I expounded these ideas before an audience little disposed to adopt or even to take any interest in them. The public who at that time attended my lectures were much less numerous and varied than they became some years later. They consisted chiefly of young men, pupils of the different scientific schools, and of a few curious amateurs of great historical disquisitions. The one class were not prepared for the questions I proposed, and wanted the preparatory knowledge which would have rendered them acceptable. With many of the rest, preconceived ideas of the eighteenth century and the Revolution, in matters of historical and political philosophy, had already acquired that strength, derived from inveterate habit, which rejects discussion, and listens coldly and distrustfully to all that differs from their own opinions. Others again, and amongst these were the most active and accessible dispositions, were more or less engaged in the secret societies, hostile intrigues and plots. With these, my opposition was considered extremely supine. I had thus many obstacles to surmount, and many conversions to effect, before I could bring over to my own views the small circle that listened to my arguments.

But there is always, in a French audience, whatever may be their prejudices, an intellectual elasticity, a relish for efforts of the mind and new ideas boldly set forward, and a certain liberal equity, which disposes them to sympathize, even though they may hesitate to admit conviction. I was at the same time liberal and anti-revolutionary, devoted to the fundamental principles of the new French social system, and animated by an affectionate respect for our ancient reminiscences. I was opposed to the ideas which constituted the political faith of the greater portion of my auditors. I propounded others which appeared suspicious to them, even while they seemed just; they considered me as made up of obscurities, contradictions, and prospective views, which astonished and made them hesitate to follow me. At the same time they felt that I was serious and sincere; they became gradually convinced that my historic impartiality was not indifference, nor my political creed a leaning towards the old system, nor my opposition to every kind of subversive plot a truckling complaisance for power. I gained ground in the estimation of my listeners: some amongst the most distinguished came decidedly over to my views; others began to entertain doubts on the soundness of their theories and the utility of their conspiring practices; nearly all agreed with my just appreciation of the past, and my recommendation of patient and legal opposition to the mistakes of the present. The revolutionary spirit in this young and ardent section of the public was visibly on the decline, not from scepticism and apathy, but because other ideas and sentiments occupied its place in their hearts, and drove it out to make room for their own admission.

The Cabinet of 1822 thought differently. It looked upon my lectures as dangerous; and on the 12th of October in that year, the Abbé Frayssinous, who a few months before had been appointed by M. de Villèle Head Master of the University, commanded me to suspend them. I made no complaint at the time, and I am not now astonished at the measure. My opposition to the Ministry was unconcealed, and although not in the slightest degree mixed up with my course of public instruction, many persons were unable to separate as distinctly as I did, in their impressions, my lectures on the history of past ages from my writings against the policy of the day. I am equally convinced that the Government, by sanctioning this proceeding, deceived itself to its own detriment. In the struggle which it maintained with the spirit of revolution, the ideas I propagated in my teaching were more salutary than the opposition I carried on through the press was injurious; they added more strength to the monarchy, than my criticisms on incidental questions and situations could abstract from the Cabinet. But my free language disturbed the blind partisans of absolute power in the Church and State, and the Abbé Frayssinous, short-witted and weak though honest, obeyed with inquietude rather than reluctance the influences whose extreme violence he dreaded without condemning their exercise.

In the division of the monarchical parties, that which I had opposed plunged more and more into exclusive and extreme measures. My lectures being interdicted, all immediate political influence became impossible to me. To struggle, beyond the circle of the Chambers, against the existing system, it was necessary either to conspire, or to descend to a blind, perverse, and futile opposition. Neither of these courses were agreeable; I therefore completely renounced all party contentions, even philosophical and abstracted, to seek elsewhere the means of still mentally serving my cause with reference to the future.

There is nothing more difficult and at the same time more important in public life, than to know how at certain moments to resign ourselves to inaction without renouncing final success, and to wait patiently without yielding to despair.

It was at this epoch that I applied myself seriously to the study of England, her institutions, and the long contests on which they were founded. Enthusiastically devoted to the political future of my own country, I wished to learn accurately through what realities and mistakes, by what persevering efforts and prudent acts, a great nation had succeeded in establishing and preserving a free government. When we compare attentively the history and social development of France and England, we find it difficult to decide by which we ought to be most impressed,—the differences or the resemblances. Never have two countries, with origin and position so totally distinct, been more deeply associated in their respective destinies, or exercised upon each other, by the alternate relations of peace and war, such continued influence. A province of France conquered England; England for a long time held possession of several provinces of France; and on the conclusion of this national strife, already the institutions and political wisdom of the English were, with the most political spirits of the French, with Louis XI. and Philip de Comines, for example, subjects of admiration. In the bosom of Christianity the two nations have served under different religious standards; but this very distinction has become between them a new cause of contact and intermixture. In England the French Protestants, and in France the persecuted English Catholics, have sought and found an asylum. And when kings have been proscribed in their turn, in France the monarch of England, and in England the sovereign of France, was received and protected. From these respective havens of safety, Charles II., in the seventeenth century, and Louis XVIII. in the nineteenth, departed to resume their dominions. The two nations, or, to speak more correctly, the high classes of the two nations, have mutually adopted ideas, manners, and fashions from each other. In the seventeenth century, the court of Louis XIV. gave the tone to the English aristocracy. In the eighteenth, Paris went to London in search of models. And when we ascend above these historical incidents to consider the great phases of civilization in the two countries, we find that, after considerable intervals in the course of ages, they have followed nearly the same career; and that similar attempts and alternations of order and revolution, of absolute power and liberty, have occurred in both, with singular coincidences and equally remarkable distinctions.

It is, therefore, on a very superficial and erroneous survey that some persons look upon French and English society as so essentially different, that the one could not draw political examples from the other except by factitious and barren imitations. Nothing is more completely falsified by true history, and more opposed to the natural bias of the two countries. Their very rivalries have never broken the ties, apparent or concealed, that exist between them; and, whether they know or are ignorant of it, whether they acknowledge or deny the fact, they cannot avoid being powerfully acted upon, by each other; their ideas, their manners, and their institutions intermingle and modify mutually, as if by an amicable necessity.

Let me at the same time admit, without hesitation, that we have sometimes borrowed from England too completely and precipitately. We have not sufficiently calculated the true character and social condition of French society. France has increased and prospered under the influence of royalty seconding the ascending movement of the middle classes; England, by the action of the landed aristocracy, taking under its charge the liberties of the people. These distinctions are too marked to disappear, even under the controlling uniformity of modern civilization. We have too thoroughly forgotten them. It is the rock and impediment in the way of innovations accomplished under the name of general ideas and great examples, that they do not assume their legitimate part in real and national facts. But how could we have escaped this rock? In the course of her long existence, ancient France has made, at several regular intervals, great efforts to obtain free government. The most powerful influences have either resisted, or failed in the attempt; her best institutions have not co-operated with the necessary changes, or have remained politically ineffective; nevertheless, by a just sentiment of her honour as of her interest, France has never ceased to aspire to a true and permanent system of political guarantees and liberties. She demanded and desired this system in 1789. Through what channels was it sought? From what institution was it expected? So often deceived in her hopes and attempts within, she looked beyond home for lessons and models,—a great additional obstacle to a work already so difficult, but an inevitable one imposed by necessity.

In 1823, I was far from estimating the obstacles which beset us in our labour of constitutional organization as correctly as I do now. I was impressed with the idea that our predecessors of 1789 had held old France, her social traditions and her habits, in too much contempt; and that to bring back harmony with liberty into our country, we ought to lay more stress on our glorious past. At the same moment, therefore, when I placed before the eyes of the French public the history and original monuments of the institutions and revolutions of England, I entered with ardour into the study and exposition of the early state of French society, its origin, laws, and different gradations of development. I was equally desirous to give to my readers information on a great foreign history, and to revive amongst them a taste and inclination for the study of our own.

My labours were certainly in accord with the instincts and requirements of the time; for they were received and seconded by the general movement which then manifested itself in the public mind, and with reference to the Government so much a subject of dispute. It is the happy tendency of the French temperament to change the direction of its course without slackening speed. It is singularly flexible, elastic, and prolific. An obstacle impedes it, it opens another path; if burdened by fetters, it still walks on while bearing them; if restrained on a given point, it leaves it, and rebounds elsewhere. The Government of the right-hand party restrained political life and action within a narrow circle, and rendered them more difficult; the generation which was then beginning to stir in the world, sought, not entirely independent of, but side by side with politics, the employment of its strength and the gratification of its desires: literature, philosophy, history, policy, and criticism assumed a new and powerful flight. While a natural and unfortunate reaction brought back into the field of combat the eighteenth century with its old weapons, the nineteenth displayed itself with its original ideas, tendencies, and features.