Madame, who was embroidering, stopped her needle, looked at me in surprise and surprised me, in my turn, by giving a pretty judicious criticism of the mind and character of M. de Villèle. She regarded him only as an able administrator.
"Madame is too severe," said I to her: "M. de Villèle is a man of method, of accounts, of moderation, of composure, of infinite resource; if he had not had the ambition to fill the first place, he would have been a man to keep everlastingly in the King's Council: he will never be replaced. His presence with Henry V. would have the best effect."
"I thought that you did not like M. de Villèle?"
"I should despise myself if, after the fall of the throne, I continued to cherish a sentiment of some petty rivalry. Our royalist divisions have already done too much harm; I forswear them with all my heart and am ready to beg pardon of those who have offended me. I entreat Your Majesty to believe that this is neither a display of false generosity nor a stone laid by way of prevision of a future fortune. What could I ask of Charles X. in exile? If the Restoration were to come about, should I not be at the bottom of my grave?"
Madame looked at me with kindness; she had the goodness to praise me in these simple words:
"That is very well said, Monsieur de Chateaubriand."
She seemed to be still surprised to find a Chateaubriand so different from the one who had been described to her.
"There is another person, Madame," I resumed, "whom one might send for: my noble friend M. Lainé. There were three of us in France who ought never to take the oath to Philip: myself, M. Lainé and M. Royer-Collard. Outside the government and in different positions, we should have formed a triumvirate of some value. M. Lainé took the oath from weakness, M. Royer-Collard from pride: the first will die of it; the second will live by it, because he lives by all that he does, being incapable of doing anything that is not admirable."
"Were you pleased with Monsieur le Duc de Bordeaux?"
"I thought him charming. They say that Your Majesty spoils him a little."