He watched with intense anxiety the madly ambitious career of Buonaparte, and hailed with unfeigned delight the return of his patrons, the Bourbons. He had no cause to complain of their ingratitude, and occupied as good a position as a literary man could expect, when the escape from Elba, during a hundred days, disturbed his occupations, and placed him in considerable danger. He left Paris; returned again, and put himself forward for a struggle: but finding resistance dangerous and useless, he retired to the department of the Ain, where he concealed himself till the tempest had blown over; his celebrated journal, the Quotidienne, in the mean time, degenerating into the Feuille du Jour, or rather, as a wit said, “La Feuille de la veille ’last night’s journal); for it was only edited by scissors, and contained nothing but scraps from the Moniteur and other inoffensive journals.” The Nain Jaune ’yellow dwarf) took unfair advantage of an enemy, who, he knew, could not answer him, and bestowed upon Michaud the sobriquet of “Grand Master of the Order of the Extinguishers,” which stuck to him with the burlike pertinacity of sobriquets, for many years after the second restoration of the Bourbons. He welcomed this last event by the publication of a pamphlet entitled “The History of the Fifteen Weeks, or the Last Reign of Buonaparte,” which had a great sale, twenty-seven editions of it appearing in a very short period. Having, since his success as an author, separated from his brother as a bookseller, and sold his share in the printing office, he, after 1815, gave himself up to the prosecution of his great work on the crusades, and even parted with his portion of “La Biographie Universelle.” His love of politics led him, at this time, to get returned as deputy for the department of the Ain: but alas! he found it a very different thing for a man with a weak voice, and totally “unaccustomed to public speaking,” to sit and write uncontrolled and unobserved in his closet,—and to be subject to the “retort courteous” of an enemy who watches for your mistakes, corrects your errors, and mercilessly refutes all your favourite arguments: after the trial of one session, he retired from his deputyship, and gave up all hopes of fame as an orator.
During the celebrity of his journal, the Quotidienne, he was made reader to the king, with a salary of 3,000 francs; to which appointment was attached the somewhat strange stipulation, that he should never be called upon to perform its duties. After 1819, when a plan was devised of buying up the influential journals, Michaud and his fellow-proprietors were offered 500,000 francs for theirs, which our author declined. “Monseigneur,” said he to the excellency who solicited him, “there is but one thing for which I could be tempted to sell the Quotidienne, and that would be a little health. If you could give me that, I might allow myself to be corrupted.” The minister, Villéle, returned repeatedly to the charge, but when, in consequence of the increasing weakness of his health, the sexagenarian Michaud parted with the greater part of his shares of the journal, it was only to pass them over to another self, his friend Laurentie.
Whilst carrying on his great work, he had been surprised to meet with a vast quantity of matter which he had not dreamt of when he began it; and he conceived the idea of not only reconstructing his history, but of going to the Holy Land, in search of more information. Although it was too late for such an attempt, his fame procured him encouragement; and the king, Charles X., so far favoured it as to give him 25,000 francs to defray his expenses. He set out at the beginning of 1830. Whatever gratification he derived from his voyage, it must have been sadly damped by the news he received from France during that eventful year. To complete his griefs, he likewise at this period lost 200,000 francs, the greater part of his fortune, which he had imprudently placed in unsafe hands. He still, however, had a moderate competence, and might have passed the remainder of his days in ease, but for that mismanagement to which the families of literary men are so frequently subject. On his return from the Holy Land he sojourned for a time in Italy, where he was kindly welcomed by his natural sovereign, Charles Albert. In 1837 he was named member of the Académie des Inscriptions; but honours from monarchs and academies could not put off the fatal hour, and he died at the elegant village of Passy on the 30th of September, 1839. On this occasion was exhibited an instance of what our poet calls “the ruling passion, strong in death.” Few authors had received more adulation, and no one could be more covetous of it. Extraordinary instances are told of the copious draughts of this intoxicating beverage that were offered to him, and of the greediness with which he swallowed them. “Never,” says his biographer, “although he loved to be called the La Fontaine of journalism, did he think of the second fable of the good man.”[1] One of the most extravagant of his flatterers said to a friend, admitted for a last interview, “With all his weakness, not the least trace of decline of intellect; still the same facility of expression, still the same lucidity.”—This aroused Michaud, upon whom the affectionate words of a sincere friend had just before produced no effect. He started, and sitting upright in his bed, exclaimed, in a tremulous voice, “Yes! yes! still the same! still——” and he sunk exhausted and dying on his pillow: these were his last words!
To criticise the works of Michaud properly would require a volume; we can therefore only lay before our readers a list of such as from their merit and celebrity are ever likely to fall under the eye of English readers. His greatest claim to the attention of posterity is doubtless the one before us, “The History of the Crusades,” of which his biographer, who is certainly less of an eulogist than any one we ever saw assume a similar task, very justly says, “It may be said, without exaggeration, that it is one of the most valuable historical works that our age has produced. To its completion he sacrificed almost every moment of twenty of the best years of his life.” No reader requires to be told that it was a labour of love.—He was the founder of, and a considerable contributor to, “La Biographie Universelle,” a work which England may envy France the conception and execution of; and if to these we add his beautiful poem of “Le Printemps d’un Proscrit,” we think we name all that he wrote that would be interesting at the present day: the other historical works are feeble, and the political squibs of a journalist after a lapse of half a century, are only acceptable to him who may be writing the history of the time. In this latter vein we may, however, suppose him to have excelled; mixed up from an early age with politics and journalism; possessed of a lively imagination and great facility of expression; constantly in the world, and deeply interested in its movements; we can fancy his vers de société, of which so much is said, to have been piquant and sparkling. We subjoin a specimen, written upon Buonaparte’s expedition to Egypt:—
Que de lauriers tombés dans l’eau,
Et que de fortunes perdues!
Que d’hommes courent au tombeau,
Pour porter Bonaparte aux nues!
Ce héros vaut son pesant d’or;
En France, personne n’en doute;
Mais il vaudrait bien plus encore,
S’il valoit tout ce qu’il nous coute.
————
What laurels in the waters fall,
What fortunes sink no more to rise!
What men lie shrouded in death’s pall,
That Bonaparte may gain the skies!
This hero’s worth his weight in gold;
In France of that there’s no one doubts;
But greater far his worth, if sold
At what he costs—or thereabouts!
As a conversationalist his reputation stands even higher than that of our Coleridge; for the stream was quite as constant and abundant, and at the same time much more pellucid. One of our English biographical dictionaries says he was censor of the press under Louis XVIII., but this we believe is not correct; indeed it was an office scarcely suitable for the editor and proprietor of such a journal as the Quotidienne. He was a member of the Academy and of the Institute, a knight of St. John of Jerusalem and of the Holy Sepulchre, and for a short time representative of the department of the Ain. These were his temporary honours—much more durable and brilliant ones belong to him as the author of the work before us.
W. R.