La Moricière, more than any other, was the man for the occasion. His fiery temperament protected him from that patriotic sadness which overcast the countenance of General Cavaignac all through the bloody crisis which must raise him to supreme power. In exposing himself as at Constantine, for a longer time, and to still greater danger than at Constantine, in rushing himself the first against the barricades, defended by adversaries far more formidable than Arabs or Kabyles; in prolonging the struggle with a revolution madder than that of the insurgents. La Moricière finally succeeded in wresting Paris from the insurrection. The confidence with which he inspired the troops, the high spirits and gaiety, the heroic recklessness which he mingled with his indomitable resolution, triumphed over every obstacle, and decided the victory. Thanks to that victory, and to that alone, France was drawn from the abyss and saved from barbarism.
Hence, on his return from the fearful struggle, he was greeted only with a unanimous shout of enthusiasm and gratitude. Cavaignac hastened to set his seal to the general acclamation by associating him to his government as minister of war.
There was then a short period of confidence, of union, of calm, and of relative security. Those days must have been sweet to the two friends placed at the head of the country which they had just saved, and which gave them freely the gratitude which they had so richly merited. Their union, intimate and loyal, cordial and frank, contributed often to the charm and well-being of that bright interval. It received an official and touching consecration during the discussion of the constitution, on the occasion of the articles relative to the public force. It was a beautiful scene. An imprudent member, apropos of the promotion, a little irregular, of the future Marshal Bosquet, accused the minister of war of acting from private friendship, and spoke of those whom chance and fortune had placed at the head of the army. La Moricière remained calm under the insult, but Cavaignac, seated by his side on the ministerial bench, was indignant, and, ascending the tribune, and addressing the aggressor, said: "There is one thing that astonishes me; it is that you, sir, who were there, on the soil of Africa, as well as me,—that you could see no other motive for the elevation of that man but chance and fortune. As for me, if I am surprised, it is to see him in the second rank, while I am in the first." A noble word, and worthy of the noblest antiquity, such as could sometimes, by the side of others by no means felicitous, fall from the lips of the proud and loyal Cavaignac, then still the idol of the fickle enthusiasm of conservative France, and which was so soon to leave him only the right to say, with not less of modest dignity, "I have not fallen from power; I have descended from it."
La Moricière was then at the [{294}] apogee of a fortune which nobody was disposed to regard as excessive or usurped. At the age of forty he was everywhere known, was invested with universal popularity, and was the second man of France. The superiority he had won on the battle-fields of Africa and at the much more formidable barricades in the streets of Paris, he maintained and exercised in the councils of his country and on the uncertain and perilous soil of the tribune. [Footnote 45] Even when individuals were not of his opinion, which was often the case with his friends of the evening as with those of the morrow, they regretted or were astonished not to agree with him; they ceased not to admire him, and were drawn toward him. It was known, it was felt, that however the passions of the moment might mislead him, the miserable instincts of envy, servility, selfishness, mean ambition, or thirst for wealth, could never find a place in his robust and manly heart. We loved him even when we were forced to oppose him. Beside, we knew not yet how much better and further on many essential points he saw, in his transports and gruffness, than many others more calm or more experienced, and who were, though in a different manner, as much deceived as he.
[Footnote 45: "Never has been pushed farther the intelligence, and the power of labor, with the passion or struggle under all the forms which create public life."'—Discours du Général Trochu sur la tombe de la Moricière à Saint-Philibert de Grand-Lieu.]
Moreover, in the public life of free nations and great assemblies, if the clashing of opinions and the collision of self-loves give birth to noisy or passionate dissents, they are rarely deep or lasting. This is evident from what is seen every day and has been for a long time in England. One is not forced there to brood in silence and darkness over animosities which their very impotence renders incurable. Often, on the contrary, in that open-day life, friendships the most serious, and alliances the most sincere, succeed to misunderstandings or transports which with well-born souls cannot survive the action of time and the lights of experience, when people are agreed on the great conditions of liberty, dignity, probity, and honor, without which all is null of itself. But more than this, La Moricière, a short time before getting power, gave to what was then called the conservative reaction a pledge the best fitted of all to make us forget the dissensions which had separated him from us. It was he who directed the first steps of the Roman expedition, and imprinted on it from the outset its real character, that of defending the Pope, and assuring the liberty and the security of the visible head of the Church.
To him is due the honor of initiating that expedition, of which twelve years later he must write the sorrowful epilogue with the blood of the young martyrs of Castelfidardo. To him and to the assemblies belongs the glorious responsibility of that grand act of French politics, which has been too often thrown at us as a crime, by the Caesarian democracy, hoping to gain the right to give to others an homage not their due.
Even afterwards, when the substitution of Prince Louis Napoleon for General Cavaignac had removed him from office, when the dismissal of his friends, Odillon-Barrot, Tocqueville, and Dufour, had involved his resignation of his embassy to Russia, which he had accepted at their request—when, in fine, the conservative party met him often among its most active opponents, before dividing and turning against itself. La Moricière preserved in the eyes of all a position apart and a marked ascendency. In the present he had no peer, and the future, whatever might happen, seemed to reserve to him a place always eminent, and always preponderant in the destinies of France and of Europe.
II.