[291] Thiers had published his Histoire de la Révolution française in 1823 to 1827. The Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire did not appear till many years later (1845 to 1862).—T.
[292] The remains of Napoleon were brought back to France in 1840.—T.
[293] M. Thiers had said in the Tribune, under the Monarchy of July, in the course of the discussion of the law against the associations:
"France abhors the Republic; speak of it to her, and she recoils in affright; she knows that that form of government turns to blood or imbecility."
In 1872, Henry Reeve met him in Paris and describes the conversation as follows in his Journal:
"M. Thiers' conversation on the war, the Commune and the siege was very interesting. He said to me:
"'Certainement je suis pour la République! Sans la République qu'est-ce que je serais, moi? Un bourgeois, Adolphe Thiers!'
"He described the withdrawal of the troops from Paris, which was his own act. Then the siege, which he claims to have directed, the battery of Mouton Tout, adding:
"'Nous avons enterré, en entrant à Paris, vingt mille cadavres!'"
(John Knox Laughton: Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, Vol. II., p. 202).—B.
[294] At the same time that Chateaubriand was drawing this portrait of M. Thiers, another seer, Balzac, wrote in the Chronique de Paris, on the 12th of May 1836:
"M. Thiers has always wished for the same thing, he has never had but one thought, one system, one aim; all his efforts have been constantly directed towards it: he has always thought of M. Thiers.... M. Thiers is a weather-cock which, in spite of its incessant mobility, remains on the same building."—B.
[295] Simon Deutz was the converted Jew who betrayed the Duchesse de Berry's hiding-place to Thiers in 1832 (cf. Vol. III., p. 156).—T.