The Diplomatists of Europe

by M. Capefigue

The administration of the Empire was, generally speaking, strong, full of energy and unity of purpose; it was composed of two elements, the ruins of the republican party now rallied around the dictatorship of Napoleon, and became submissive under his iron rule, such as Treilhard, Merlin, and Thibaudeau, and the pure and elevated remains of the old monarchical school, like Molé, De Fontanes, and De Narbonne. According to the custom observed in all governments possessed of any portion of strength and intelligence, Buonaparte collected around himself all the persons whose names were honourably connected with past events, or exercised any influence over the present or the past; he indulged neither in fear nor repugnance, because he had perfect confidence in his own power of restraining and managing every thing. Before the revolution of 1789, some parliamentary families existed, who transmitted the highest magisterial offices from one generation to another, forming a sanctuary in which public morals, duties, and learning, were preserved and perpetuated. There were no doubt some little party prejudices among them, together with a tendency towards the feelings of the patricians of Rome; considering themselves to have succeeded to the assemblies of the states-general. But though the parliament sometimes threw difficulties in the way of the executive government, still they maintained the spirit of liberty and probity through the lapse of ages, and people considered them as a political guarantee, upon occasions when a degree of confusion and disorder prevailed in the constitution of the country.

The family of the Pasquiers were descended from Etienne Pasquier, a man of great talent and erudition, author of a celebrated work entitled "Recherches sur la France." His character was very remarkable from the versatility of his talents and occupations; he wrote clever verses, and displayed the greatest ability in the important correspondence in which he was engaged, and during the troubles of the League, he strove to find a middle course from whence he might offer himself as a timid mediator among the opposing parties. In my writings upon the events of the sixteenth century, I have often spoken of that good Etienne Pasquier, with his ingenious talents and the exquisite tact he displayed in the evil times of civil war.

The direct progenitors of the subject of this memoir held an appointment in the parliament, and his father, Etienne Pasquier, councillor in the parliament of Paris, was denounced at the revolutionary tribunal and condemned to death on the 21st of April, 1794. His son was brought up at the College of Juilly, a fine institution, which has produced many distinguished characters. I have always admired the mild and careful system pursued by religious bodies, where the education of the heart and mind is as carefully attended to as that of the head, and which invested each professor with so paternal a character, that even the most ungrateful of his pupils could never entirely shake off the recollection; witness Voltaire and Diderot.

M. Pasquier had scarcely left college before he was appointed to a situation in the Parisian parliament, according to the custom observed in families of the legal profession, where the office of the father was inherited by the son. He did not long continue to wear the parliamentary habit; he was, however, enabled to be present at the solemn debates which took place in that assembly, and were terminated by the convocation of the States-general, and he there received his first lesson in political life. The magistracy were carried away in the general tempest, and the parliaments were destroyed by the revolution; the resistance to the royal prerogative had originated with them, and both were abolished at the same time.

Popular excitement is always ungrateful, and deals its first blow upon those by whom it has been assisted or fostered, thus affording an important lesson to demagogues or flatterers of the populace.

M. Pasquier did not emigrate during the revolutionary troubles; he was proscribed like all persons bearing a historic name, and at the age of twenty-six years he received a summons to appear before the committee of public safety, which was soon after succeeded by his being placed under arrest at St. Lazare, on the evening before the 9th Thermidor. The close of the reign of terror restored him to liberty, and the restoration of the property of condemned persons enabled him to retire to the estates of his family, which like those possessed by all the parliamentary races were covered with thick woods, in whose impenetrable retreats they were accustomed to seek shelter, in the evil days of exile, from their accustomed employments.

When order was restored under Napoleon, M. Pasquier returned to Paris, and appeared in society, especially at the house of M. Cambacérès, who was partial to the old magisterial families, and his remarkable talents soon brought him into notice. At that period the Emperor was desirous of establishing a monarchical system upon elevated principles, and sought every where among men and things the materials for his purpose; every noble or influential name attracted his attention, for he was well aware of the power exercised by hereditary rank, and knew that past recollections have as much influence as present energy in the restoration of States. The Arch-chancellor Cambacérès agreed in the Emperor's sentiments; and he, who was himself one of the enlightened magistrates of the Cour des Aides at Montpelier, suggested the name of M. Pasquier for the situation of Master of Requests. It is rather a remarkable circumstance that the memorial of the Arch-chancellor contained the names of three candidates, MM. de Molé, Pasquier, and Portalis; they all received appointments on the same day, and have never been separated in the course of their political life, their career having been facilitated and its importance augmented by the strong political friendship that subsisted between them, in spite of the difference in their age and capacity.

M. Pasquier, while master of requests at the Conseil d'Etat, was distinguished by his laborious attention and assiduity, at the time when improvement had assumed a serious and reflective form; he had passed his fortieth year when he was appointed attorney-general of the great seal, and afterwards Councillor of state. The State council was a powerful and important school; the Emperor, who entertained a strong antipathy towards all bodies that deliberated under the sanction of publicity, had a perfect horror of the representative system, and public speaking; he liked to collect suffrages, to listen to all opinions, reserving to himself the right of deciding upon them, and weighing them against each other in such a manner, that an imperial decree should never sanction an equivocal project or a bad measure. The council of state, composed of very eminent men, was the real corps politique; and even the title of Master of requests was not a common rank granted to aspirants of an inferior grade. In this anxious and laborious situation, the Masters of requests, attached to a section of the council, devoted their existence to it, and the great end and aim of their executive career was the situation of Councillor of state, a title of which the characters best known to fame were ambitious.

This close and incessant every-day application suited perfectly the studious mind of M. Pasquier; a generation of young men had sprung up, whose souls were entirely given up to assiduous attention to business, and who devoted themselves to the active and deliberative portion of the administration. The Master of requests had already received the title of Baron and officer of the legion of honour in reward of his services, when the dismissal of M. Dubois, after the melancholy burning of Prince Schwartzenburg's palace, left vacant the prefecture of police, an appointment originally instituted during the Consulate. The police was divided into two parts:—the political police, which was charged with the general safety of the kingdom and the surveillance of political parties, constantly in a state of commotion even under the heavy hand of Napoleon; it was always intrusted to the minister of a department, and the situation was at that time filled by General Savary; and the prefecture of police, an appointment of a more simple order, circumscribed within the walls of Paris, whose chief had charge of the édilité, that is to say, of the safety and cleanliness of the city and the inspection of the markets and provisions, all duties of considerable importance. The prefect of police also regulated the bulletins concerning the state of the public mind, so as to act as a check upon the minister of police. During the time of the Empire, each of these situations involved serious duties and considerable responsibility.

When appointed to the prefecture of police, M. Pasquier devoted himself entirely to the discharge of his official duties, and voluminous writings still exist upon the provisioning of the capital, and the method of multiplying magazines in the time of abundance; this had now become a question of great anxiety, occupying the serious attention of the government, for in the year 1811, the first symptoms of an alarming scarcity made their appearance. The price of bread had reached an exorbitant height, and people were constantly on the brink of a disturbance owing to the dearness of grain of all kinds. I have perused and analysed with the greatest attention the important writings of M. Pasquier under the empire, deposited in the archives of the prefecture of police.[26]