And here let us pause, and observe to what trials men are exposed who devote themselves entirely to the defence of the interests of their country, without intrigue or passion, simply from the feeling for all that is right and noble! No character can bear a comparison with that of the Duc de Richelieu; no services equal those he rendered to his country; and, behold! he was overturned both by the côté droit, and the gauche of the Chamber of Deputies. The conduct of the gauche was this: the Duke took charge of France at the time of the foreign invasion; the Buonapartists and the remains of the Jacobin faction, having a second time endangered the country by their madness of the hundred days; the enemy was in Paris—it occupied France; the influence of the Duke succeeded in preserving the country, and diminishing the sacrifices exacted from it; the foreign troops were withdrawn, and, as a recompense, the spirit of liberalism overturned the Duke.
Would you also know the conduct of the ungrateful monarchical party? A great crisis had occurred for the crown; the royalists were giving way, and the power was about to be wrested from their hands by the côté gauche. The restoration was completely compromised, when the Duke again sacrificed himself: holding his popularity cheap, he augmented and strengthened the royalist party, and this was the summary of the instructions concerning the elections, directed by M. Mounier: "Before every thing, the friends of royalty;" and then the ultras, masters by this means of the majority, had nothing so much at heart as the dismissal of the Duc de Richelieu, in order to give themselves up to their mad projects.
This moment was the conclusion of the Duke's political life; his feelings had been severely tried by the injustice of parties. It soon became apparent that his health was rapidly declining, and in a journey to the Château of Courteille, where the Duchess was living, he was taken ill, suddenly became insensible, and died at Paris, on the night of the 16th of May, 1822. He was only fifty-five years of age; his carriage was erect, and his features simple and regular, as they appear in the fine portrait of Lawrence of which I have spoken. All parties concur in awarding the highest praise to the noble qualities of the Duc de Richelieu. He was not a man of extraordinary genius, but of a thoroughly honest and upright character; and there are times, when no talent possessed by a statesman is of so much avail as honesty. I admire the infinite superiority of a man capable of allowing virtue and honour their full weight in the political balance, and I take especial pleasure in rendering this tribute to the Duc de Richelieu, because I have never known so fine a character combined with so noble a name.
[PRINCE HARDENBERG.]
It is natural that States which feel an incessant desire of increasing, should not retain the inflexible principles of upright and generous policy in their diplomatic system. Every time they feel stifled, they strive for more space and the means of more extended respiration; and such has constantly been the condition of the Prussian monarchy, from the time of its foundation, which may be said to have taken place unexpectedly, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. At this period the Duchy became a Kingdom, and no sooner was the kingdom established than it wanted to become great; for more room is required to unfold the sweeping train of a King, than to wear the robes merely of a Duke or a Margrave.
This necessity for augmentation created a national law peculiar to Prussia; and looking at nothing but the necessities of her position, she seized every thing she could lay her hands upon. Frederic II. carried on this system of conquest, for his wars were regulated by no principle of the law of nations, and he appeared to have but one object in view, which was, to attack at one time Poland, and at another Silesia, for the purpose of conquering cities and provinces. On this account he availed himself of all means of distinction, striving for the celebrity of a writer and the pretension of a poet; even making the most of the puerile vanity of the philosophical party of the eighteenth century. When we examine into the actual constitution of Prussia, as well as into that she formerly possessed, we shall observe that her organisation has always been such as to render conquest imperatively necessary; even at present is not the kingdom like a lean giant, armed at all points, whose head is at Königsberg and his feet dipped in the Rhine, but whose middle is wanting? and the country that is required to complete the picture, is it not Saxony?
It is, then, as the personification of the Prussian political system, that I am about to write the life of Baron, afterwards Prince Hardenberg, the most remarkable statesman that has been at the head of affairs in the monarchy of Frederic. Charles-Augustus, baron Hardenberg, was born in October 1750, at Hanover, that principality wedged into the midst of Germany, which recalls to the recollection the origin of the kings of England. Hanover preserves its German character under a separate administration, although it belongs to the patrimonial inheritance of the princes called to wear the English crown; and this separation was imperatively demanded by the English, a people so tenacious of their liberty, in order to avoid the chance of fatal continental wars, to defend the patrimony of their sovereign—a contingency their constitution will not permit.