I had some reason to think that I succeeded to a great extent in my design. My audience, numerous and diversified, youths and experienced men, natives and foreigners, appeared to take a lively interest in the ideas I expounded. These notions assimilated with the general impressions of their minds, without demanding complete subservience, so as to combine the charms of sympathy and novelty. My listeners found themselves, not thrown back into retrograding systems, but urged forward in the path of just and liberal reflection. By the side of my historical lessons, but without concert, and in spite of wide differences of opinion between us, literary and philosophic instruction received from my two friends, MM. Villemain and Cousin, a corresponding character and impulse. Opposite breezes produced the same movement; we bestowed no thought on the events and questions of the day, and we felt no desire to bring them to the attention of the public by whom we were surrounded. We were openly and freely devoted to great general interests, great recollections, and great hopes for man and human associations; caring only to propagate our ideas, not indifferent as to their possible results, but not impatient to attain them; gratified by the intellectual advance in the midst of which we lived, and confident in the ultimate ascendency of the truth which we flattered ourselves we should possess and in the liberty we hoped to enjoy.
It would certainly have been profitable for us, and as I also believe for the country, if this intention could have been prolonged, and if our minds could have fortified themselves in their calm meditations before being once more engaged in the passions and trials of active life. But, as it happens almost invariably, the errors of men stepped in to interrupt the progress of ideas by precipitating the course of events. The Martignac Ministry adopted a moderate and constitutional policy. Two bills, honestly intended and ably discussed, had given effectual guarantees, the one, to the independence of elections, and the other, to the liberty of the press. A third, introduced at the opening of the session of 1829, secured to the elective principle a share in the administration of the departments and townships, and imposed on the central Government new rules and limitations for local affairs. These concessions might be considered too extensive or too narrow; but in either case they were real, and the advocates of public liberty could do nothing better than accept and establish them. But in the Liberal party who had hitherto supported the Cabinet, two feelings, little politic in their character, the spirit of impatience and the love of system, the desire for popularity and the severity of reason, were indisposed to be satisfied with those slow and imperfect conquests. The right-hand party, by refusing to vote, left the Ministry in contest with the wants of their allies. Despite the efforts of M. de Martignac, an amendment, more formidable in appearance than in reality, attacked in some measure the plan of the bill upon departmental administration. With the King, and also with the Chambers, the Ministry had reached the term of its credit; unable to obtain from the King what would give confidence to the Chambers, or from the Chambers what would satisfy the King, it voluntarily declared its impotence by hastily withdrawing the two bills, and still remained standing, although struck by a mortal wound.
How could it be replaced? The question remained in suspense for three months. Three men alone, M. Royer-Collard, M. de Villèle, and M. de Châteaubriand seemed capable of forming a new Cabinet that might last, although compounded of very different shades. The two first were entirely out of the question. Neither the King nor the Chambers contemplated the idea of making a Prime Minister of M. Royer-Collard. He perhaps had thought of it himself, more than once, for nothing was too bold to cross his mind in his solitary reveries; but these were merely inward lucubrations, not actually ambitious designs; if power had been offered to him he would assuredly have refused it; he had too little confidence in the future, and too much personal pride, to encounter such a risk of failure.
M. de Villèle, still suffering from the accusations first whispered against him in 1828, and which had remained in abeyance in the Chamber of Deputies, had formally refused to attend the session of 1829, and held himself in retirement at his estate near Toulouse; it was evident that he could not return to power, and act with the Chamber that had thrown him out. Neither the King nor himself would have consented, as I think, to encounter at that time the hazard of a new dissolution.
M. de Châteaubriand was at Rome. On the formation of the Cabinet of M. de Martignac he had accepted that embassy, and from thence, with a mixture of ambition and contempt he watched the uncertain policy and wavering position of the Ministers at Paris. When [he] learned that they were beaten, and would in all probability be compelled to retire, he immediately commenced an active agitation. "You estimate correctly my surprise," he wrote to Madame Recamier, "at the news of the withdrawal of the two bills. Wounded self-love makes men children, and gives them very bad advice. What will be the end of all this? Will the Ministers endeavour to hold place? Will they retire partially or all together? Who will succeed them? How is a Cabinet to be composed? I assure you that, were it not for the pain of losing your society, I should rejoice at being here, out of the way, and at not being mixed up in all these enmities and follies, for I find that all are equally in the wrong.... Attend well to this; here is something more explicit: if by chance the portfolio of Foreign Affairs should be offered to me (and I have no reason to expect it), I should not refuse. I should come to Paris, I should speak to the King, I should arrange a Ministry without being included in it; for myself, I should propose, to attach me to my own work, a suitable position. I think, as you know, that it belongs to my ministerial reputation, as well as to revenge me for the injury I sustained from Villèle, that the portfolio of Foreign Affairs should be given to me for the moment. This is the only honourable mode in which I could rejoin the Administration. But that done, I should immediately retire, to the great satisfaction of all new aspirants, and pass the remainder of my life near you in perfect repose."[19]
M. de Châteaubriand was not called to enjoy this haughty vengeance, or to exhibit such a demonstration of generosity. While he still dreamed of it in the Pyrenees, whither he had repaired to rest from the labours of the Conclave which gave Pius VIII. as successor to Leo X., the Prince de Polignac, brought over from London by the King, arrived in Paris on the 27th of July; and on the 9th of August, eight days after the closing of the session, his Cabinet was officially announced in the 'Moniteur.' What course would he propose to himself? What measures would he adopt? No one could tell; not even M. de Polignac and the King themselves any more than the public. But Charles X. had hoisted upon the Tuileries the flag of the Counter-Revolution.
Politics soon became the absorbing consideration of every mind. From all quarters a fierce struggle was foreseen in the approaching session; all parties hastened to congregate beforehand round the scene of action, seeking to draw some anticipation as to what would occur, and how to secure a place. On the 19th of October, 1829, the death of the learned chemist, M. Vauquelin, left open a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, in which he had represented the division of Lisieux and Pont-l'Évêque, which formed the fourth electoral district in the department of Calvados. Several influential persons of the country proposed to substitute me in his place. I had never inhabited or even visited that province. I had no property there of any kind. But since 1820, my political writings and lectures had given popularity to my name. The young portions of the community were everywhere favourably disposed towards me. The Moderates and active Liberals mutually looked to me to defend them, and their cause, should occasion arrive. As soon as the proposition became known at Lisieux and Pont-l'Évêque, it was cordially received. All the different shades of the Opposition, M. de La Fayette and M. de Châteaubriand, M. Dupont de l'Eure and the Duke de Broglie, M. Odillon Barrot and M. Bertin de Veaux, seconded my candidateship. Absent, but supported by a strong display of opinion in the district, I was elected on the 23rd of February, 1830, by a large majority.
At the same moment M. Berryer, whose age, as in my own case, had until then excluded him from the Chamber of Deputies, was elected by the department of the Higher Loire, where a seat had also become vacant.
On the day following that on which my election was known in Paris, I had to deliver my lecture at the Sorbonne. As I entered the hall, the entire audience rose and received me with a burst of applause. I immediately checked them, and said: "I thank you for your kind reception, by which I am sensibly affected. I request two favours of you; the first is to preserve always the same feelings towards me; the second is, never to evince them again in this manner. Nothing that passes without should resound within these walls. We come here to treat of pure, unmingled science, which is essentially impartial, disinterested, and estranged from all external occurrences, important or insignificant. Let us always maintain for learning this exclusive character. I hope that your sympathy will accompany me in the new career to which I am called; I will even presume to say that I reckon upon it. Your silent attention here is the most convincing proof I can receive."