"Pious libellers, the renegade now calls upon you! Come, then, and stammer out a word, a single word, with him for the unfortunate master who loaded, you with his gifts and whom you have ruined!"
Its effect on the Peers.
I turned my glances upon the benches to which I addressed those words. Several peers seemed crushed; they sank down in their arm-chairs till I could no longer see them behind their colleagues seated motionless before them. This speech made some noise: all parties were hurt in it, but all remained silent, because, by the side of great truths, I had placed a great sacrifice. I came down from the tribune; I left the Chamber, went to the cloak-room, took off my peer's coat, my sword, my feathered hat; I unfastened from the last the white cockade and placed it in the little pocket on the left-hand side of the black frock-coat which I put on and buttoned across my heart. My servant carried away the cast-off clothes of the peerage, and I, shaking the dust from my feet, quitted that palace of treachery, which I shall never enter again in my life.
On the 10th and 12th of August, I completed my self-divestment and sent in the different resignations that follow:
"Paris, 10 August 1830.
"Monsieur le président de la Chambre des pairs[319],
"Being unable to take the oath of allegiance to Louis-Philippe d'Orléans as King of the French, I find myself seized with a legal incapacity which prevents me from attending the sittings of the Hereditary Chamber. One mark of the kindness of King Louis XVIII. and of the royal munificence remains to me: a peer's pension of twelve thousand francs, which was given me to keep up, if not brilliantly, at least independently of immediate needs, the high position to which I was called. It would not be right that I should retain a favour attached to the exercise of functions which I am not able to fulfil. I therefore have the honour to resign into your hands my pension as a peer."
"Paris, 12 August 1830.
"Monsieur le ministre des finances[320],
"There remains to me, from the kindness of Louis XVII I. and the national munificence, a peer's pension of twelve thousand francs, transformed into an annuity inscribed on the ledger of the public debt and transmissible only to the first direct generation of the annuitant. Not being able to take the oath to Monseigneur le Duc d'Orléans as King of the French, it would not be right that I should continue to receive a pension attached to functions which I no longer exercise.
"I therefore write to resign it into your hands: it will have ceased to accrue to me on the day (10 August) when I wrote to M. the President of the Chamber of Peers that it would be impossible for me to take the oath required.
"I have the honour to be, with high regard, etc."
I resign pension and place.
"Paris, 12 August 1830.
"Monsieur le grand référendaire[321],
"I have the honour to send you a copy of the two letters which I have addressed, one to M. the President of the Chamber of Peers, the other to M. the Minister of Finance. You will there see that I renounce my peer's pension and that consequently my attorney will have to receive of this pension only the sum due to the 10th of August, the day on which I declared my refusal to take the oath.
"I have the honour to be, with high regard, etc."
"Paris, 12 August 1830.
"Monsieur le ministre de la justice[322],
"I have the honour to send you my resignation as Minister of State.
"I am, with high regard,
"Monsieur le ministre de la justice,
"Your most humble and most obedient servant."
*
I remained as naked as a little St. John; but I had long been accustomed to live on wild honey, and I did not fear that the daughter of Herodias would have a longing for my grey head.
My gold-lace, tassels, bullioned fringe and epaulettes, sold to a Jew and melted down by him, brought me in seven hundred francs, the net produce of all my grandeurs.