And, strange to relate, in this generous ardour to turn me out, the men who intimated their wishes to me were neither my real friends nor the joint sharers of my political opinions. I was to immolate myself forthwith to Liberalism, to the doctrine which had continually attacked me; I was to run the risk of shaking the Legitimist Throne in order to deserve the praises of a few poltroons of enemies, who had not the thorough courage to starve.

I was to find myself swamped by a long embassy; the entertainments which I had given had ruined me; I had not paid the expenses of my first establishment. But what broke my heart was the loss of what I had promised myself in the way of happiness for the rest of my life.

I have not to reproach myself with bestowing upon anybody those Catonian counsels which impoverish him who receives, not him who gives them, fully convinced as I am that those counsels are of no use to the man who does not feel them within himself. My resolve was fixed, as I have said, from the first; it cost me nothing to take, but it was painful to execute. When, at Lourdes, instead of turning south and rolling towards Italy, I took the road for Pau[157], my eyes filled with tears: I admit my weakness. What matter, if I none the less accepted and held the challenge fortune sent me? I did not return quickly, in order to let the days slip by. I slowly unwound the thread of that road which I had wound up with such alacrity, but a few weeks before.

The Prince de Polignac dreaded my resignation. He felt that, if I retired, I should deprive him of Royalist votes in the Chambers and jeopardize his ministry. The idea was suggested to him of sending an express to me in the Pyrenees with orders from the King to go at once to Rome, to receive the King[158] and Queen of Naples[159], who were coming to marry their daughter[160] in Spain. I should have been greatly perplexed had I received that order. Perhaps I should have felt obliged to obey it, free to send in my resignation after fulfilling it. But, once in Rome, what might have happened? I should perhaps have been delayed; the fatal days[161] might have surprised me at the Capitol. Perhaps, also, the indecision in which I might have remained would have given M. de Polignac the parliamentary majority of which he was but a few votes short. Then the Address would not have been passed; the Ordinances resulting from that address would not have seemed necessary to their baleful authors: Diis aliter visum.

*

I resign my Embassy.

I found Madame de Chateaubriand quite resigned in Paris. Her head was turned at the idea of being Ambassadress in Rome, and assuredly many a woman's head would be turned for less; but, in great circumstances, my wife has never hesitated to approve of what she thought calculated to add consistency to my life and to enhance my name in the public esteem: in this she has more merit than most women. She loves display, titles and fortune; she detests poverty and a mean establishment; she despises those susceptibilities, those excesses of loyalty and self-sacrifice which she looks upon as thorough duperies for which nobody thanks you; she would never have cried, "Long live the King quand même;" but, where I am in question, everything changes: with a firm mind she accepts my disgraces, while cursing them.

I had still to fast, to watch, to pray for the salvation of those who took good care not to don the hair-cloth with which they hastened to cover me. I was the sacred ass, the ass laden with the dry relics of liberty, relics which they adored with great devotion, provided they did not have the trouble of carrying them.

The day after my return to Paris, I went to M. de Polignac.

I had written him this letter on my arrival: