From the debut of the new cabinet, the Opposition, to use a recent expression, showed itself irreconcilable. It raised a long cry of anger, and declared war to the death on Prince Polignac.
"It is in vain," said the Debats, "that the ministers demand of Time to efface with a sweep of his wing their days, their actions, their thoughts, of yesterday; these live for them, as for us. The shadow of their past goes before them and traces their route. They cannot turn aside; they must march; they must advance.—But I wish to turn back.—You cannot.—But I shall support liberty, the Charter, the Opposition.—You cannot. March, then, march, under the spur of necessity, to the abyss of Coups d'Etat! March! Your life has judged and condemned you. Your destiny is accomplished."
The man who excited hatreds so violent was Jules de Polignac. He was born at Versailles, May 14, 1780. As the German historian, Gervinus, has said: "His past weighed upon him like a lash of political interdict. He was the son of the Duchess of Polignac, who had been the object of so many calumnies, and who had never been pardoned for the intimate friendship with which she was honored by the unfortunate queen, Marie Antoinette, a friendship that had evoked against her, first all the jealousies of the envious courtiers, and then all the aversion of the people. It was believed that a like favoritism could be recognized in the relations of the son of the Duchess with Charles X. To this unpopularity, inherited from his mother, was joined another that was directed against the person of the emigre."
After having been one of the courtiers of the little court at Coblenz, he had taken service for some time in Russia, and then passed into England, where he had been one of the most intimate confidants, and one of the most active agents of the Count d'Artois. Sent secretly into France, with his elder brother, the Duke Armand de Polignac, he was, like the latter, compromised in the Cadoudal conspiracy. Their trial is remarkable for the noble strife of devotion, in which each of the brothers pleaded the cause of the other at the expense of his own. Armand was condemned to death. His wife threw herself at the feet of the First Consul, who, thanks to the intercession of Josephine, commuted the penalty of death to perpetual confinement. Jules was condemned to prison, and shared the captivity of his brother. Confined at first in the castle of Ham, then in the Temple, then at Vincennes, they obtained, at the time of the marriage of Napoleon with Marie Louise, their transfer to a hospital. There they knew the General Mallet, but the part they were suspected of taking in his conspiracy was never proven. When the allied armies entered France, they succeeded in escaping, and rejoined the Count d'Artois at Vesoul. They penetrated to Paris some days before the capitulation, and displayed the white flag there the 3d of March, 1814.
Peer of France, field-marshal, ambassador, the Prince Jules de Polignac was one of the favorites of the Restoration. On the proposition of M. de Chateaubriand, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, he had him named, in 1823, ambassador to London, where he had shown a genuine talent for diplomacy. The example of England made him think that in France the liberties of the constitutional regime could be combined with the directing influence of an aristocracy. That was his error and the cause of his fall. Some weeks before his accession to the ministry, he had solemnly affirmed in the Chamber of Peers, that he considered the Charter as a solemn pact, on which rested the monarchical institutions of France, and as the heavenly sign of a serene future. But the liberals did not believe his word, and accused him of striving to re-establish the old regime.
Even at court the accession of the Prince de Polignac did not fail to cause apprehension. Charles X., having announced to the Duchess of Gontaut that he was going to appoint him minister, added: "This news must give you pleasure; you know him well, I believe." The Duchess replied: "He has been absent a long time. I only knew him when very young." The King resumed: "Do not speak of it; it is my secret as yet." Madame de Gontaut could not keep from smiling, for she held several letters from London in her hand, among others one from the sister-in-law of the Duke of Wellington, announcing the news. Charles X. wished to see the letters. "He is good, loyal," they said, "loving the King as one loves a friend, but feeble, and with bad surroundings. It is doubted whether he can ever rise to the height of the post in which the King wishes to place him."
Charles X., wounded by the indiscretion of the Prince, and also by that of the Duke of Wellington, who divulged what he himself was keeping secret, returned the letter to Madame de Gontaut, and remarked:—
"It is very thoughtless in Jules to have spoken of it so soon, and in the Duke to have published it." The Duchess of Gontaut, who was used to frank talk with the King, said: "In the circumstances existing, I long for, I confess it frankly, and at the risk of displeasing Your Majesty, yes, I long for the Martignac ministry."
Then, adds the Duchess in her unpublished Memoirs, the King, more impatient than ever, turned his back on me, and took his way to his apartment. I had had the courage to tell him my thought and the truth. I did not repent it. When we saw each other again the same day he did not speak to me again of it.
One of those most devoted to the elder branch, the Duke Ambroise de la Rochefoucauld-Doudeauville, also says in his Memoirs:—