*

I had been sent to Berlin with the olive-branch, and because my presence brought trouble into the administration; but, knowing the inconstancy of fortune, and feeling that my political part was not played out, I watched events: I did not wish to abandon my friends. I soon perceived that the reconciliation between the Royalist Party and the Ministerial Party was not sincere; distrust and prejudice remained; they did not do what they had promised me: they were beginning to attack me. The entrance into the Council of Messieurs de Villèle and de Corbière had excited the jealousy of the Extreme Right; it no longer marched under the banner of the first, and he, whose ambition was impatient, was beginning to grow weary. We exchanged some letters. M. de Villèle regretted having entered the Council: he was wrong; the proof that I had seen right was that, before a year passed, he had become Minister of Finance and M. de Corbière obtained the Interior[138].

Letter to the Baron Pasquier.

I also had an explanation with M. le Baron Pasquier; I wrote to him, on the 10th of February 1821:

"I hear from Paris, monsieur le baron, by the post which arrived this morning, 9 February, that it was found amiss that I should have written from Mayence to the Prince von Hardenberg, or even that I should have sent him a messenger. I have not written to M. de Hardenberg, and still less have I sent him a messenger. I desire, monsieur le baron, to be spared chicanery. When my services are no longer agreeable, let me be told so roundly: I could not be done a greater pleasure. I neither asked nor wished for the mission with which I have been charged; it was neither by taste nor choice that I accepted an honourable exile, but for the sake of peace. If the Royalists have rallied to the Ministry, the Ministry is aware that I had the good fortune to contribute to that union. I should have some right to complain. What has been done for the Royalists since my departure? I do not cease to write on their behalf: am I listened to? Monsieur le baron, I have, thank God, other things to do in life than to attend balls. My country claims me, my wife is ill and needs my care, my friends want their guide again. I am either above or below an embassy, or even a ministry of State. You cannot lack men abler than myself to conduct diplomatic business; so it would be unnecessary to seek pretexts to chicane with me. I shall understand with half a word; and you will find me willing to return to my obscurity."

All this was sincere: that facility for cutting everything and regretting nothing would have given me great strength, if I had had any ambition.

My diplomatic correspondence with M. Pasquier went on; continuing to occupy myself with the affair of Naples[139], I said:

No. 15.

"20 February 1821.

"Austria is doing a service to the monarchies by destroying the Jacobin edifice in the Two Sicilies; but she would ruin those same monarchies if the result of a salutary and necessary expedition were to be the conquest of a province or the oppression of a people. Naples must be freed from demagogic independence, and monarchical liberty established there; irons must be broken, not chains brought there. But Austria does not desire a constitution in Naples: what will she place there? Men? Where are they? It wants only one Liberal priest and two hundred soldiers for the troubles to begin all over again.

"It is after the voluntary or forced occupation that you must intervene to establish in Naples a constitutional government, under which all social liberties will be respected."

I always preserved a preponderance of opinion in France which obliged me to look at home affairs. I ventured to submit the following plan to my minister:

"Frankly adopt constitutional government.

"Bring in a bill for septennial elections, without aiming at retaining a portion of the present Chamber, which would be suspicious, or keeping the whole, which would be dangerous.

"Give up the laws of exception, a source of arbitrariness, an eternal subject of quarrels and calumnies.

"Free the communes from ministerial despotism."