There are few men in modern times who, like the magistrates of old, devote a certain portion of their leisure hours to study and to writing; all their country residences and their thick forests are redolent of their recollections and their learning; such are Malesherbes, Baville, and Champlâtreux.
M. Pasquier's private life is very simple; he inhabits the apartments of the petit château at the Luxembourg, leaving the great palace to M. Decaze. No person is easier of access; he speaks rapidly, and apprehends and resolves questions with admirable perspicuity; his habits are very industrious, and reading is his favourite occupation; there is no time thrown away with him, for he contrives to make even his visits a matter of business.
Perhaps he has been appreciated as president of the judicial court and of the chamber. He exhibits the most perfect impartiality in his regulation of the debates in the court of justice. His dislike to useless words and lawyers' speeches, which are of no use either to direct or enlighten, is very great, and he always exercises a degree of firmness without severity, which abridges the proceedings without in any way interfering with the defence of the accused. As president of the chamber, he never separates himself from an idea or opinion in politics: it has been written that the president of a chamber ought not to have an opinion, but I think differently, for he is the expression of a majority, and essentially the man of a system, and therefore I think he ought to form his own opinion; he cannot allow every thing to be said or to be done, and it would be very fortunate if the president possessed authority to put a stop to all idle debates; we sink under the press of words in France, when shall we come to business?
The political school of the restoration, of which M. Pasquier was one of the most eminent chiefs, is gradually disappearing; it was the heir of the moral and intellectual portion of the empire, and must have afforded great strength of support to the Bourbons. Every time that adverse parties have seized the reins of government by means of its expulsion, the most serious catastrophes have ensued; it is fortunate for the existence of kingdoms, and to preserve them from dangers occasioned by the prevalence of excitement, that some men of sense and reflection still exist, of a calm and prophetic turn of mind, who render the transition between one system and another almost imperceptible, and contrive that, in our capricious country, the only definitive system should have been linked with moderation and a constitutional government, which assumes its proper superiority after a long struggle of adverse parties.
[THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.]
The life of the Duke of Wellington forms, for England, a sort of epitome of the glorious career of the Tory party. The venerable chief of the British armies is not only endowed with extraordinary abilities in military operations, he also possesses a cool head in politics, and a wise and pre-eminently moderate mind. Few publications have produced so deep and lively an impression as the "Despatches of the Duke of Wellington, during the various Periods of his Military Command, from India to Waterloo." It changed and modified all party opinions concerning his character; Whigs and Tories were equally struck with the forethought of his measures and the temperate current of his ideas, both in the most difficult and the most varied situations, while in power as well as during the time of war.
In France, opinions do not progress so fast, and people are still full of prejudices concerning the talents and character of this great man. The remains of the Buonaparte faction still affect us, and disfigure history. His power of organisation and his restoration of the elements of society, are not the qualities for which Napoleon's genius is considered especially worthy of admiration, but people want to prove impossibilities, even to the detriment of his fame; and the Duke of Wellington is sacrificed to the resentments inspired by the battle of Waterloo. We have been distinguished enough on the field of battle, and our country has produced names sufficiently known to fame not to make it necessary for us to sacrifice upon the tomb of Napoleon all the rival reputations which opposed obstacles to his career. The careful perusal of the Duke of Wellington's Despatches first caused me to rectify my ideas concerning the man who has both filled the first military place in his native land, and has also been, in the present times, at the head of a powerful and organising party in the affairs of government.