Between M. de Châteaubriand and myself, frankness and honour, most certainly, have never been disturbed throughout our political controversies; but friendship has not been able to survive them. The word is too rare and valuable to be hastily pronounced.
When we have lived under a system of real and serious liberty, we feel both an inclination and a right to smile when we consider what, in other times, has been classed as factious opposition by the one side, and courageous resistance by the other. In August, 1807, eighteen months before the publication of 'The Martyrs,' I stopped some days in Switzerland, on my way to visit my mother at Nismes; and with the confident enthusiasm of youth, as anxious to become acquainted with living celebrities as I was myself unknown, I addressed a letter to Madame de Staël, requesting the honour of calling upon her. She invited me to dinner at Ouchy, near Lausanne, where she then resided. I was placed next to her; I came from Paris; she questioned me as to what was passing there, how the public were occupied, and what were the topics of conversation in the saloons. I spoke of an article by M. de Châteaubriand, in the 'Mercury,' which was making some noise at the moment of my departure. A particular passage had struck me, which I quoted according to the text, as it had strongly impressed itself on my memory. "When, in the silence of abject submission, we hear only the chains of the slave and the voice of the informer, when all tremble before the tyrant, and it is as dangerous to incur favour as to merit disgrace, the historian appears to be charged with the vengeance of nations. It is in vain that Nero triumphs. Tacitus has been born in the Empire; he grows up unnoticed near the ashes of Germanicus, and already uncompromising Providence has handed over to an obscure child the glory of the master of the world." My tone of voice was undoubtedly excited and striking, as I was myself deeply moved and arrested by the words. Madame de Staël, seizing me by the arm, exclaimed, "I am sure you would make an excellent tragedian; remain with us and take a part in the 'Andromache.'" Theatricals were at that time the prevailing taste and amusement in her house. I excused myself from her kind conjecture and proposal, and the conversation returned to M. de Châteaubriand and his article, which was greatly admired, while at the same time it excited some apprehension. The admiration was just, for the passage was really eloquent; neither was the alarm without grounds, for the 'Mercury' was suppressed precisely on account of this identical paragraph. Thus, the Emperor Napoleon, conqueror of Europe and absolute master of France, believed that he could not suffer it to be written that his future historian might perhaps be born under his reign, and held himself compelled to take the honour of Nero under his shield. It was a heavy penalty attached to greatness, to have such apprehensions to exhibit, and such clients to protect!
Exalted minds, who felt a little for the dignity of human nature, had sound reason for being discontented with the existing system; they saw that it could neither establish the happiness nor the permanent prosperity of France; but it seemed then so firmly established in general opinion, its power was so universally admitted, and so little was any change anticipated for the future, that even within the haughty and narrow circle in which the spirit of opposition prevailed, it appeared quite natural that young men should enter the service of Government, the only public career that remained open to them. A lady of distinguished talent and noble sentiments, who had conceived a certain degree of friendship for me, Madame de Rémusat, was desirous that I should be named Auditor in the State Council. Her cousin, M. Pasquier, Prefect of Police, whom I sometimes met at her house, interested himself in this matter with much cordiality, and, under the advice of my most intimate friends, I acceded to the proposition, although, at the bottom of my heart, it occasioned me some uneasiness. It was intended that I should be attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. M. Pasquier named me to the Duke of Bassano, then at the head of the department, and to Count d'Hauterive, Comptroller of the Archives. The Duke sent for me. I also had an interview with M. d'Hauterive, who possessed a fertile and ingenious mind, and was kindly disposed towards young men of studious habits. As a trial of ability, they ordered me to draw up a memorial on a question respecting which, the Emperor either was, or wished to appear, deeply interested—the mutual exchange of French and English prisoners. Many documents on the subject were placed in my hands. I completed the memorial; and, believing that the Emperor was sincere, carefully set forward those principles of the law of nations which rendered the measure desirable, and the mutual concessions necessary for its accomplishment. My work was duly submitted to the Duke of Bassano. I have reason to conclude that I had mistaken his object; and that the Emperor, looking upon the English detained in France as of more importance than the French confined in England, and believing also that the number of the latter pressed inconveniently on the English Government, had no serious intention of carrying out the proposed exchange. Whatever might be the cause, I heard nothing more either of my memorial or nomination, a result which caused me little regret.
Another career soon opened to me, more suitable to my views, as being less connected with the Government. My first attempts at writing, particularly my Critical Notes on Gibbon's 'History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' and the 'Annals of Education,' a periodical miscellany in which I had touched upon some leading questions of public and private instruction, obtained for me the notice of literary men.[2] With gratuitous kindness, M. de Fontanes, Grand Master of the University, appointed me Assistant Professor to the Chair of History, occupied by M. de Lacretelle, in the Faculty of Letters in the Academy of Paris. In a very short time, and before I had commenced my class, as if he thought he had not done enough to evince his esteem and to attach me strongly to the University, he divided the Chair, and named me Titular Professor of Modern History, with a dispensation on account of age, as I had not yet completed my twenty-fifth year. I began my lectures at the College of Plessis, in presence of the pupils of the Normal School, and of a public audience few in number but anxious for instruction, and with whom modern history, traced up to its remote sources, the barbarous conquerors of the Roman Empire, presented itself with an urgent and almost contemporaneous interest. In his conduct towards me, M. de Fontanes was not entirely actuated by some pages of mine he had read, or by a few friendly opinions he had heard expressed. This learned Epicurean, become powerful, and the intellectual favourite of the most potent Sovereign in Europe, loved literature for itself with a sincere and disinterested attachment. The truly beautiful touched him as sensibly as in the days of his early youth and poetical inspirations. What was still more extraordinary, this refined courtier of a despot, this official orator, who felt satisfied when he had embellished flattery with noble eloquence, never failed to acknowledge, and render due homage to independence. Soon after my appointment, he invited me to dinner at his country-house at Courbevoie. Seated near him at table, we talked of studies, of the different modes of teaching, of ancient and modern classics, with the freedom of old acquaintances, and almost with the association of fellow-labourers. The conversation turned upon the Latin poets and their commentators. I spoke with warm praise of the great edition of Virgil by Heyne, the celebrated professor of the University of Göttingen, and of the merit of his annotations. M. de Fontanes fiercely attacked the German scholars. According to him, they had neither discovered nor added anything to the earlier commentaries, and Heyne was no better acquainted with Virgil and the ancients than Père La Rue. He fulminated against German literature in the mass, philosophers, poets, historians, or philologists, and pronounced them all unworthy of attention. I defended them with the confidence of conviction and youth; when M. de Fontanes, turning to his neighbour on the other side, said to him, with a smile, "We can never make these Protestants give in." But, instead of taking offence at my obstinacy, he was cordially pleased with the frankness of this little debate. His toleration of my independence was, not long after, subjected to a more delicate trial.
When I was about to commence my course, in December, 1812, he spoke to me of my opening address, and insinuated that I ought to insert in it a sentence or two in praise of the Emperor. It was the custom, he said, particularly on the establishment of a new professorship, and the Emperor sometimes demanded from him an account of these proceedings. I felt unwilling to comply, and told him, I thought this proposal scarcely consistent. I had to deal exclusively with science, before an audience of students; how then could I be expected to introduce politics, and, above all, politics in opposition to my own views? "Do as you please," replied M. de Fontanes, with an evident mixture of regard and embarrassment; "if you are complained of, it will fall upon me, and I must defend you and myself as well as I can."[3]
He displayed as much clear penetration and good sense as generosity, in so quickly and gracefully renouncing the proposition he had suggested. In regard to the master he served, the opposition of the society in which I lived had in it nothing of practical or immediate importance. It was purely an opposition of ideas and conversation, without defined plan or effective influence, earnest in philosophic inquiry, but passive in political action; disposed to be satisfied with tranquil life, in the unshackled indulgence of thought and speech.
On entering the University, I found myself in contact with another opposition, less apparent but more serious, without being, at the moment, of a more active character. M. Royer-Collard, at that time Professor of the History of Philosophy, and Dean of the Faculty of Letters, attached himself to me with warm friendship. We had no previous acquaintanceship; I was much the younger man; he lived quite out of the world, within a small circle of selected associates; we were new to each other, and mutually attractive. He was a man, not of the old system, but of the old times, whose character had been developed, though not controlled, by the Revolution, the principles, transactions, and leading promoters of which he judged with rigid independence, without losing sight of the primary and national cause. His mind, eminently liberal, highly cultivated, and supported by solid good sense, was more original than inventive, profound rather than expanded, more given to sift thoroughly a single idea than to combine many; too much absorbed within himself, but exercising a singular power over others by the commanding weight of his reason, and by an aptitude of imparting, with a certain solemnity of manner, the unexpected brilliancy of a strong imagination, continually under the excitement of very lively impressions. Before being called to teach philosophy, he had never made this particular branch of science the object or end of his special study, and throughout our political vicissitudes between 1789 and 1814 he had never taken an important position, or connected himself prominently with any party. But, in youth, under the influence of the traditions of Port-Royal, he had received a sound classical and Christian education; and after the Reign of Terror, under the government of the Directory, he joined the small section of Royalists who corresponded with Louis XVIII., less to conspire, than to enlighten the exiled Prince on the true state of the country, and to furnish him with suggestions equally advantageous for France and the House of Bourbon, if it were destined that the House of Bourbon and France should be re-united on some future day. He was therefore decidedly a spiritualist in philosophy, and a royalist in politics. To restore independence of mind to man, and right to government, formed the prevailing desire of his unobtrusive life. "You cannot believe," he wrote to me in 1823, "that I have ever adopted the word Restoration in the restricted sense of an individual fact; but I have always regarded, and still look upon this fact as the expression of a certain system of society and government, and as the condition on which, under the circumstances of France, we are to look for order, justice, and liberty; while, without this condition, disorder, violence, and irremediable despotism, springing from things and not from men, will be the necessary consequence of the spirit and doctrines of the Revolution." Passionately imbued with this conviction, an aggressive philosopher and an expectant politician, he fought successfully in his chair against the materialistic school of the eighteenth century, and watched from the retirement of his study, with anxiety but not without hope, the chances of the perilous game on which Napoleon daily staked his empire.
By his lofty and intuitive instincts, Napoleon was a spiritualist: men of his order have flashes of light and impulses of thought, which open to them the sphere of the most exalted truths. In his hours of better reflection, spiritualism, reviving under his reign, and sapping the materialism of the last century, was sympathetic with and agreeable to his own nature. But the principle of despotism quickly reminded him that the soul cannot be elevated without enfranchisement, and the spiritualistic philosophy of M. Royer-Collard then confused him as much as the sensual ideology of M. de Tracy. It was, moreover, one of the peculiarities of Napoleon's mind, that his thoughts constantly reverted to the forgotten Bourbons, well knowing that he had no other competitors for the throne of France. At the summit of his power he more than once gave utterance to this impression, which recurred to him with increased force when he felt the approach of danger. On this ground, M. Royer-Collard and his friends, with whose opinions and connections he was fully acquainted, became to him objects of extreme suspicion and disquietude. Not that their opposition (as he was also aware) was either active or influential; events were not produced through such agencies; but therein lay the best-founded presentiments of the future; and amongst its members were included the most rational partisans of the prospective Government.
Hitherto they had ventured nothing beyond vague and half-indulged conversations, when the Emperor himself advanced their views to a consistence and publicity which they were far from assuming. On the 19th of December, 1813, he convened together the Senate and the Legislative Body, and ordered several documents to be laid before them relative to his negotiations with the Allied Powers, demanding their opinions on the subject. If he had then really intended to make peace, or felt seriously anxious to convince France, that the continuance of the war would not spring from the obstinacy of his own domineering will, there can be no doubt that he would have found in these two Bodies, enervated as they were, a strong and popular support. I often saw and talked confidentially with three of the five members of the Commission of the Legislative Body, MM. Maine-Biran, Gallois, and Raynouard, and through them I obtained a correct knowledge of the dispositions of the two others, MM. Lainé and Flaugergues. M. Maine-Biran, who, with M. Royer-Collard and myself formed a small philosophical association, in which we conversed freely on all topics, kept us fully informed as to what passed in the Commission, and even in the Legislative Assembly itself. Although originally a Royalist (in his youth he had been enrolled amongst the bodyguards of Louis XVI.), he was unconnected with any party or intrigue, scrupulously conscientious, even timid when conviction did not call for the exercise of courage, little inclined to politics by taste, and, under any circumstances, one of the last men to form an extreme resolution, or take the initiative in action. M. Gallois, a man of the world and of letters, a moderate liberal of the philosophic school of the eighteenth century, occupied himself much more with his library than with public affairs. He wished to discharge his duty to his country respectably, without disturbing the peaceful tenor of his life. M. Raynouard, a native of Provence and a poet, had more vivacity of manner and language, without being of an adventurous temperament. It was said that his loud complaints against the tyrannical abuses of the Imperial Government, would not have prevented him from being contented with those moderate concessions which satisfy honour for the present, and excite hope for the future. M. Flaugergues, an honest Republican, who had put on mourning for the death of Louis XVI., uncompromising in temper and character, was capable of energetic but solitary resolutions, and possessed little influence over his colleagues, although he talked much. M. Lainé, on the contrary, had a warm and sympathetic heart under a gloomy exterior, and an elevated mind, without much vigour or originality. He spoke imposingly and convincingly when moved by his subject; formerly a Republican, he had paused as a simple partisan of liberal tendencies, and being promptly acknowledged as the head of the Commission, consented without hesitation to become its organ. But, like his colleagues, he had no premeditated hostility or concealed engagement against the Emperor. All were desirous of conveying to him a true impression of the desires of France; externally for a pacific policy, and internally for a respect for public rights and the legal exercise of power. Their Report contained nothing beyond a guarded expression of these moderate sentiments.
With such men, animated by such views, a perfect understanding was anything but difficult. Napoleon would not even listen to them. It is well known how he suddenly suppressed the Report and adjourned the Legislative Body, and with what rude but intentional violence he received the Deputies and their Commissioners on the 1st of January, 1814. "Who are you who address me thus? I am the sole representative of the nation. We are one and inseparable. I have a title, but you have none.... M. Lainé, your mouthpiece, is a dishonest man who corresponds with England through the Advocate Desèze. I shall keep my eye upon him. M. Raynouard is a liar." In communicating to the Commission the papers connected with the negotiation, Napoleon had forbidden his Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Duke of Vicenza, to include that which specified the conditions on which the Allied Powers were prepared to treat, not wishing to pledge himself to any recognized basis. His Minister of Police, the Duke of Rovigo, took upon himself to carry to extremity the indiscretion of his anger. "Your words are most imprudent," said he to the members of the Commission, "when there is a Bourbon in the field." Thus, in the very crisis of his difficulties, under the most emphatic warnings from heaven and man, the despot at bay made an empty parade of absolute power; the vanquished conqueror displayed to the world that the ostensible negotiations were only a pretext for still trying the chances of war; the tottering head of the new dynasty proclaimed himself that the old line was there, ready to supplant him.