[282] The above page was written on the 6th of October 1833. Those which follow were begun in 1837. In September 1836, Chateaubriand wrote, at the Château de Maintenon, a chapter which was intended for his Memoirs, but not included in the earlier editions. This short chapter has been recovered by M. Biré and it will be found at the end of this volume as Appendix II.: Unpublished Fragments of the Mémoires if Outre-tombe.—T.
BOOK IX[283]
General politics of the moment—Louis-Philippe—M. Thiers—M. de La Fayette—Armand Carrel—Of some women: the lady from Louisiana—Madame Tastu—Madame Sand—M. de Talleyrand—Death of Charles X.
When, passing from the politics of the Legitimacy to general politics, I re-read what I wrote on those politics in the years 1831, 1832 and 1833, I find that my previsions were fairly correct
Louis-Philippe is a man of intelligence whose tongue is set in movement by a torrent of commonplaces. He pleases Europe, which reproaches us with not knowing his worth; England is glad to see that, like herself, we have dethroned a king; the other sovereigns forsake the Legitimacy, which they did not find obedient. Philip has lorded it over the men who have come closer to him; he has made game of his ministers; he has employed them, dismissed them, reemployed them, dismissed them afresh, after compromising them, if anything can compromise one nowadays.
Philip's superiority is real, but it is only relative; place him in a period when society still retains some life, and his mediocrity shall come to the surface. Two passions spoil his good qualities: his exclusive love for his children and his insatiable eagerness to increase his fortune; on those two points his eyes will always be dazzled.
Philip has not that feeling for the honour of France which the elder Bourbons had; he has no occasion for honour: he fears nothing except popular risings, even as the nearest relations of Louis XVI. feared it. He is sheltered by his father's crime; the hatred of what is good does not weigh heavy on him: he is an accomplice, not a victim.
Having realized the lassitude of the times and the vileness of men's souls, Philip has made himself at home. Laws of intimidation have come to suppress our liberties, as I foretold at the time of my farewell speech in the House of Peers, and not a thing has stirred; the Government has resorted to arbitrary measures; it has murdered people in the Rue Transnonain, shot them down in Lyons, instituted numerous newspaper prosecutions; it has arrested private citizens, has kept them for months and years in prison without trial, and has been applauded for doing so. The exhausted country, which no longer understands what is happening, has suffered all. There is hardly a man whom it is not possible to face with his own past. From year to year, from month to month, we have written, said and done the exact opposite of what we used to write, say and do. By dint of having cause for blushing, we have ceased to blush; our inconsistencies escape our memory, so numerous have they become. To have done with it, we adopt the course of declaring that we have never changed, or that we have changed only through the progressive transformation of our ideas and our enlightened apprehension of the times. Events so rapid have aged us so speedily that, when men remind us of our doings of a past period, it seems to us that they are talking of some other man than ourselves: and besides, to have changed is to have done what everybody does.