It follows from what you have just read that, if what I advised had been done, if petty longings had not placed their own satisfaction before the interests of France; if those in power had shown a clearer appreciation of relative capacities; if the foreign Cabinets had, like Alexander, deemed that the safety of the French Monarchy lay in Liberal institutions; if those Cabinets had not maintained the restored authority in defiance of the principles of the Charter, the Legitimacy would still be occupying the throne. Ah, what is past is past! It is useless to turn back, to resume the place which we have quitted; we find nothing of that which we left there: men, ideas, circumstances, all have faded away.
[262] This book was written in 1839.—T.
[263] Marthe Camille Bachasson, Comte de Montalivet (1801-1880), inherited the title of peer on the death of his father and his elder brother (22 January and 12 October 1823), but was not admitted to take his seat in the Upper Chamber until 12 May 1826, because of his age. He became, from the first, a defender of constitutional ideas; published in 1827 a pamphlet entitled, Un jeune pair de France aux Français de son age; held several offices, from 1830 to 1839; and was Intendant General of the Civil List from 1839 to 1848. In 1879, M. de Montalivet was elected a perpetual senator.—B.
[264] Narcisse Achille Comte de Salvandy (1795-1856), one of the principal writers on the Journal des Débats, and author of a large number of political pamphlets published between 1824 and 1827. In 1835, he was elected a member of the French Academy. The Comte de Salvandy was twice Minister of Public Instruction (1837-1839 and 1845-1848).—B.
[265] Prosper Léon Duvergier de Hauranne (1798-1881), author of the Histoire du gouvernement parlementaire en France ( 1857-1872). He was imprisoned by Louis-Napoleon, in 1851, and banished for a short period. Duvergier became a member of the French Academy in 1870.
[266] Henri Joseph Gisquet (1792-1866) was Prefect of Police from 1831 to 1836, and it was under his administration that Chateaubriand was sent to jail, in 1832, as we shall see later. Gisquet's name was subsequently mixed up in more than one scandal, notably that of the inferior muskets supplied, in 1831, by the firm of Périer, in which Gisquet, as well as Casimir Périer, had been a partner. In 1838, he was mulcted in a fine and dismissed from the Council of State for bribery and corruption, in which his family and his mistress were concerned with him.—B.
[267] 21 June 1826 and 18 December 1826 are the dates of Chateaubriand's first and last article in the Journal des Débats.—B.
[268] Article of 28 June 1824.—B.
[269] Article of 5 July 1824.—B.