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 MEMOIRS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 COUNT DE FALLOUX 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 LE VICOMTE DE FALLOUX 
 i837-
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 COUNT DE FALLOUX 
 
 jprom tfje Jprencf) 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 C. B. PITMAN 
 
 IN TWO VOLS. 
 
 Vol. I. 
 
 LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL 
 
 Limited 
 1888
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY J. 8. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, 
 
 CITY KOAD.
 
 / -' v - _ UKIV • r— -• 
 
 2. W i? SANTA RAEBARA 
 
 EDITOE'S PREFACE. 
 
 M. de Talleyrand could not help expressing his 
 admiration for the English diplomatist at the Con- 
 gress of Vienna who was distinguished from his 
 colleagues by not wearing any order ; and so in the 
 present day, when every strolling player who has made 
 enough money to retire from the stage thinks that 
 to write his " Memoirs " is a duty which he owes to 
 society, it might be argued that the man who has 
 really occupied a large place in the history of his 
 time best consults his own dignity by declining to run 
 the risk of being classed with the band of scribblers 
 who pander to the taste for disconnected gossip and 
 tittle-tattle which is one of the characteristics of an 
 age which is always in a hurry, which has no time for 
 any reading that requires steady thought and appli- 
 cation. This is a view which has been taken by more 
 than one prominent statesman of late years — by the 
 Earl of Beaconsfield in England and by M. Thiers and 
 M. Drouyn de Lhuys in France ; but it is a fortunate 
 thing for the world at large that the Comte de Fal- 
 loux, who was a contemporary of all three and asso-
 
 VI EDITORS PREFACE. 
 
 ciate for some time of the two last -named, did not 
 keep to himself the rich fund of information which he 
 possessed as to what may be called the inner history 
 of France for twenty or thirty years. 
 
 The publication of his Memoirs in France, first 
 commenced in the pages of the Catholic review, the 
 Correspondant, has excited the utmost interest, as this 
 publication has the value of what our neighbours 
 style "actualite," for one or two of the most striking 
 chapters in these two volumes deal with the election 
 of Prince Louis Napoleon to the Presidency of the 
 Kepublic forty years ago, with the proposals for a 
 revision of the Constitution, with the Coup d'Etat of 
 December, 1851, and with contemporary events in 
 which Frenchmen see a good deal of analogy with 
 what is going on in France at the present time. 
 Another matter alluded to in these Memoirs which 
 has excited the liveliest interest and even controversy 
 in France is his account of the attempted fusion 
 between the Legitimist and Orleanist fractions of the 
 Eoyalist party in 1873. A reconciliation — nominal, 
 at all events — had been effected between the Comte de 
 Chambord and the Comte de Paris ; but there was no 
 real harmony between their respective partisans, and 
 the Comte de Falloux has provoked the wrath of the 
 ultra-Legitimists — who, since the death of the Comte 
 de Chambord, have refused to recognise in the Comte 
 de Paris the head of the House of France, but have 
 given their allegiance to the Spanish Bourbons — by 
 alluding in his Memoirs to the somewhat equivocal
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE. Vll 
 
 attitude of the Comte de Chambord at that period. 
 The Comte de Falloux may possibly be regarded as 
 not quite an impartial witness in respect to the Comte 
 de Chambord, as he had always belonged to what was 
 termed the moderate Eoyalist party, and had as far 
 back as 1850 endeavoured to effect a reconciliation 
 between the elder and the younger branches of the 
 French Royal Family ; but one has only to mark the 
 tone in which he writes of that prince to feel that it 
 goes entirely against the grain with him to criticise or 
 condemn any of his acts, and that the break-down of 
 the negotiations upon the question of the colour of 
 the flag in 1873 came as a crushing blow to men like 
 the Comte de Falloux and the Due de Broglie, who 
 believed, whether rightly or wrongly, that the resto- 
 ration of the monarchy would have conduced to the 
 happiness and glory of France. It must be remem- 
 bered, too, that M. de Falloux is able, in these 
 Memoirs , to cite M. Berry er, who was the very per- 
 sonification of loyalty to his king and to the truth, as 
 a witness in support of what he has to say, and I 
 think that the impression which any unprejudiced 
 reader will derive from a perusal of the passages 
 relating to the Comte de Chambord, from the first 
 interview at Venice in 1850 to the publication of the 
 manifesto in favour of the white flag in 1873, must 
 be that he was not only obstinate to wrong-headedness 
 but not quite so straightforward as he has hitherto 
 enjoyed the credit of being. 
 
 The English reader, however, will not be so much
 
 Vlll EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 interested in the details of all these long and intricate 
 negotiations in which M. de Falloux took a leading 
 part, and which he therefore relates at considerable 
 length, as in what he has to say of his political 
 career during the Second Kepublic, when he held the 
 office of Minister of Public Instruction, and was 
 mainly responsible for the passing of an Act nominally 
 in favour of the freedom of education, but practically 
 very favourable to the Catholic party. By a curious 
 irony of fate this measure, which had been an object 
 of intense dislike to the Kepublicans, and which had 
 been repealed piecemeal for some years past, was in 
 its entirety removed from the Statute Book just when 
 M. de Falloux was dying; and by a more curious 
 coincidence still, his successor at the Academie Fran- 
 caise, upon whom, in accordance with invariable 
 custom, devolved the duty of pronouncing a pane- 
 gyric upon him, was M. Greard, the leader of the 
 party which is in favour of excluding anything like 
 religious teaching from public education. For the 
 Comte de Falloux, who was among the deputies 
 imprisoned by Louis Napoleon at the time of the 
 Coup d'Etat, not only found it impossible from 
 political reasons to take any active part in public 
 affairs during the Empire, but was in such bad health 
 that he could not in any circumstances have stood 
 their wear and tear. He accordingly devoted himself 
 to the congenial duties of a country gentleman in 
 Brittany and to the literary studies for which he was 
 so eminently adapted. His historical studies, notably
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE. IX 
 
 his history of Pope Pius V., procured his admission 
 to the Acade*mie Francaise, and his friend the Due de 
 Broglie, who had to "receive" his successor, 
 M. Gre'ard, the other day, speaking of these historical 
 studies on France, very eloquently said : — 
 
 " Those whom he first meets are the earliest captains, knights, 
 clad in iron, and suzerain lords of some feudal principalities; 
 but already at the base and under the shelter of the ramparts of 
 their castle are grouped humble corporations of artisans, small 
 communes, towns — the first germ of that third estate which was 
 one day to form the whole nation. The instinct of royalty made 
 it stretch out the hand to those obscure actors who were them- 
 selves ignorant of the grandeur of their future destiny. We see 
 already Philippe Auguste at Bouvines intrusting the royal ori- 
 flamme to the communal troops of the city of Paris. Then we 
 have Saint Louis and his sons, the first justiciaries of their king- 
 dom, surrounded by those councillors and lawyers who, assembled 
 in Parliament, will bestow on France an independent magistracy 
 and will succeed in raising the law above power and privilege. 
 Soon after we have Charles VII. conducted to Rheims to the foot 
 of the altar by the hand of a daughter of the people. At the 
 first dawn of modern times we find Francis II. surrounded by all 
 the splendours of the Renaissance and by the foundation of the 
 College de France, giving speech to the freedom of knowledge ; 
 Henry IV. introducing into the Code the guarantees of tolerance; 
 Louis XIV., escaping for a time from the incomparable brilliancy 
 of letters and arms which surrounds him, to listen to Colbert and 
 to give with him an impulse to that commercial and industrial 
 wealth which was to change entirely the economical appearance 
 of society. Lastly, we have Louis XVI., the favourite hero of 
 M. de Falloux, who before yielding his head to the executioners 
 had time to efface from the Code the scandal of punishment of 
 torture and to put an end to the last vestiges of religious perse- 
 cution. What a history and what a family ! What a harvest of 
 great men and great kings ! "What elasticity in the institution ! 
 What fecundity in the race ! "When one branch ceased to 
 flourish, another replaced it full of a young and renewed sap." 
 
 M. de Falloux also enjoyed the friendship of Mon-
 
 x editor's preface. 
 
 signor Dupanloup, the great Bishop of Orleans, and 
 belonged, like him, to that old Gallican school which 
 was strongly opposed to the dogma of Papal Infalli- 
 bility. Here M. de Falloux came into violent opposi- 
 tion with M. Louis Veuillot, the able but somewhat 
 scurrilous editor of the Univers, a Paris journal which 
 was more Eoyalist than the King and more Papal than 
 the Pope, though, as M. de Falloux shows in these 
 Memoirs, this ardent zeal did not prevent M. Louis 
 Veuillot from making friends with the mammon of 
 unrighteousness, or, in other words, from placing his 
 unquestionably great polemical abilities at the service 
 of the Emperor Napoleon for a time. The only tinge 
 of bitterness, in fact, which is to be discerned in the 
 Memoirs of M. de Falloux is in the passages relating 
 to Louis Veuillot, but this can scarcely create astonish- 
 ment among those who know how cruelly M. Veuillot 
 himself not only attacked the views but aspersed the 
 motives and personal character of M. de Falloux and 
 of all who differed from him. 
 
 There runs, however, a current of kindliness and 
 benevolence through the whole of these Memoirs, and 
 there is a manifest desire to think the best of persons 
 and to make the best of the different situations de- 
 scribed. M. de Falloux was himself the model of 
 charity and abnegation, and his life at home in Brit- 
 tany was just what the life of a country gentleman 
 should be, for he not only took an active part in the 
 administration of local affairs, but farmed part of his 
 own land, setting the peasantry an example of how to
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE. XI 
 
 cultivate the soil and how to breed good stock, his 
 herd of shorthorn cattle being one of the finest in 
 France. Moreover, he and his family devoted a great 
 deal of time to the organisation of charitable institu- 
 tions, and M. Gre'ard, in the panegyric of his prede- 
 cessor, tells a story which shows how much he was 
 beloved among his own people ; M. Gre'ard says : — 
 
 "He relates in his Memoirs that on visiting Walter Scott' & 
 house he was shown the gifted novelist's study by the woman 
 who had grown old in the service of the family. ' She seemed 
 to answer my eager questions with visible pleasure, but soon, 
 overcome by emotion, she paused to restrain her tears, and I 
 cannot forget the accent with which, after some moments' 
 silence, she continued, " He was so good to everybody ; " ' and 
 he adds, ' Who would not envy that short funeral oration ? ' I 
 have heard that funeral oration at Bourg d'Ire from more than 
 one mouth. People never came away from him empty-handed. 
 His barns and cellar contained stores always ready for those 
 whom necessity brought to his door. Every anniversary, happy 
 or sad, was the occasion of liberality. One day he learns that 
 the Little Sisters of the Poor at Angers have lost by an epi- 
 demic the cow which gave milk for their inmates. He goes to 
 the Mother Superior. He is announced as M. de Falloux, 
 member of the French Academy. ' No, sister,' he quickly 
 replies, ' I am only a cow-keeper, and I bring you my best 
 milker ; but in order not to disturb her habits I shall supply 
 the provender.' " 
 
 These Memoirs do not of course contain much refer- 
 ence to this side of the writer's life, for M. de Falloux 
 did not care to proclaim his good deeds to the world 
 at large, but they do contain a great deal of very 
 interesting information about men like the late 
 Emperor Napoleon, Pope Pius IX., the Comte de 
 Chambord, M. de Montalembert and Pore Lacordaire 
 
 )
 
 xii editor's preface. 
 
 — at both of whose deathbeds he stood — Bishop Du- 
 panloup, M. Thiers, M. de Persigny — with whom he 
 had formed a very singular friendship which outlasted 
 the Coup d'Etat — General Changarnier, and other 
 notable Frenchmen of the period between 1845 and 
 1873. 
 
 I must crave the indulgence of my readers for any 
 imperfections of style in these two volumes, for 
 though I have carefully revised the translation, it is 
 very probable that I may have overlooked some of the 
 •errors which it originally contained. 
 
 C. B. Pitman. 
 
 August, 1888.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAOK 
 
 Province— Family— Education 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Last Years of the Restoration — First Years of the Jdly 
 
 Revolution 27 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Visit to Austria and Italy 70 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Visit to England and Russia 105 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Literary Studies — Charitable Works 149 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Trial of Prince Louis Bonaparte — The Legitimist Party — 
 
 The Chamber of Deputies 171 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The Revolution of February 210
 
 XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. / 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Constituent Assembly — The Invasion of the Assem- 
 bly — The Fifteenth of May —The Days of June . . 249 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 General Cavaignac's Government — Abd-el-Kader — The 
 
 Constitution 287 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Presidency of Prince Louis Bonaparte — Educational 
 
 Liberty 321 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The Roman Expedition — The Cholera — General Changar- 
 
 nier — End of the Constituent Assembly . . . 36"> 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Legislative Assembly— Ministerial Crisis— The In- 
 transigeant catholics — klng jerome — prince napo- 
 leon — Episcopal Appointments — A Tour in the West . 387 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Legislative Assembly — Public Relief — The Roman 
 Question — Letter to Colonel Edgar Ney — Motu Pro- 
 prio — Illness — Resignation 424 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Change of Ministry — The Law of Education — Visit 
 to Nice — Journey to Turin— Episcopal Nominations — 
 Monarchical Questions 460
 
 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PROVINCE FAMILY EDUCATION. 
 
 1811—1828. 
 
 Recognising that I have no right to occupy the attention 
 of posterity, and that I have never accomplished any- 
 thing that appears to me worthy of recollection, I can 
 say, very sincerely, that I have only put together 
 these memoirs as a proof of my fidelity to the cause 
 to which I have devoted my whole life, and in order 
 to render homage to those in whose convictions, 
 persevering struggles, and disinterested devotion I have 
 borne my part. My party and my friends can only 
 profit by being better known ; our dear country itself 
 has everything to gain by getting to know them 
 better, and, as it knows them, to accord them more of 
 the sympathy and respect which is their due. This 
 it was which decided me to dictate these pages with 
 all the simplicity of justice and truth. 
 I was born at Angers on the 7th of May, 1811. 
 
 VOL. I. b
 
 2 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 How many changes have taken place since then! 
 Not only have ideas been modified, but customs, the 
 physical aspect of places, all the appliances, so to 
 speak, and habits of life, have undergone the same 
 transformations. The first scenes of my childhood 
 differ from those of to-day, as much as the thoughts 
 and examples of to-day differ from those which first 
 presented themselves to my intelligence. 
 
 Those of my contemporaries who, like myself, were 
 brought up in the corner of Anjou bordering on 
 Brittany will recollect that they had then all around 
 them a vast and impenetrable forest. La Yendee, 
 such as the Memoir es of Madame de La Kochejaquelein 
 depict it, at that time extended as far as the district 
 of Segre, then called the Craonnais, because, before 
 the Eevolution, it belonged to the little town and 
 barony of Craon. If any one wished to go to Angers, 
 the capital of the province — at that time no one would 
 have spoken of the chief town of the department — the 
 journey, though under thirty miles, took two days. 
 The first half was accomplished in an ox- waggon, and 
 the travellers then stopped at Lion-d' Angers, a large 
 village through which passed the old royal high-road 
 to Laval. They supped at the only inn, the Boule 
 d'Or, and slept in the only room reserved for privileged 
 guests. This room contained four old-fashioned four- 
 post bedsteads with thick curtains, behind which the 
 occupants undressed and dressed. As far as possible, 
 several friends always made this journey together, in 
 order to secure pleasant or at all events not too
 
 PROVINCE — FAMILY — EDUCATION. 3 
 
 unsuitable neighbours in the unoccupied beds. After 
 passing the night in this way, they started early on 
 the following morning in a livery carriage, which came 
 from Angers expressly for them. This carriage had 
 two wheels, but also two seats, with an extra horse 
 for the postillion —being thus distinguished from the 
 one-horsed chaise called a coucou, so long used in Paris 
 and Versailles — and it climbed slowly over a paved 
 road, up two steep rocky hills called the buttes de 
 Grilleul, which have since been well levelled, but 
 which then were as terrible to us as if they had been 
 mountains bordered with precipices. Angers was not 
 reached till night-fall. 
 
 When the ox-waggon, the only mode of conveyance 
 in all the neighbourhood of Segre, was used by the 
 wealthy landowners, they placed arm-chairs covered 
 with Utrecht velvet upon the straw, and put up an 
 awning over the waggon to protect them from the 
 rain or the sun. But this was a very luxurious way 
 of doing it, and as a rule the people rode in on horse- 
 back with the children behind, tied to them by the 
 waist. The waggon and oxen were also offered to the 
 Bishop for his pastoral visits, and my childhood was 
 enlivened by an amusing incident, one of the actors 
 in which is still living as I write. 
 
 The venerable Bishop of Angers, M. Montaut des 
 lies, was staying with M. de Meaulne, at the Chateau 
 de Valliere, in the parish of La Potherie, and the latter 
 had to conduct the Bishop to our parish, that of Bourg 
 d'Ire. Their arm-chairs were arranged on the straw, 
 
 b2
 
 4 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 under the awning — one for the Bishop, one for his 
 grand vicar, Abbe Eegnier, now Cardinal Arch- 
 bishop of Cambrai, and the third, behind the two 
 others, for their host. The boyish ox-driver, goad in 
 hand, urged on the oxen when they slackened their 
 pace, and followed them behind the hedge when the 
 road, becoming too narrow, led through a deep puddle 
 of water. Suddenly, when the waggon was proceeding 
 through one of these lanes, M. de Meaulne jumped up 
 and exclaimed, " Stop the oxen, my boy ! " and then 
 turning to the Bishop, said, " Monseigneur, you shall 
 not leave this spot until you have changed my vicar ! " 
 
 "But, my good sir, you must be dreaming; this is 
 a very bad joke." 
 
 "No, no, Monseigneur, I am not joking, I have 
 already asked you to make this change, and you have 
 refused J but I consider this a good opportunity, and 
 I do not mean to let it slip. This abbe is a very 
 curious fellow, he is always preaching about hell, 
 and will never promise eternal life at the end of his 
 sermons ; he gives me nightmares from which I can- 
 not recover under twenty-four hours ! " 
 
 The Bishop and Abbe Eegnier made a stout 
 resistance, but at last they were forced to capitulate. 
 Whereupon, M. de Meaulne said, "Touch up the 
 oxen, my boy ! " and they continued their journey. 
 On returning from the pastoral tour, the Yicar of 
 La Potherie was appointed cure, with an exhortation 
 to be more indulgent, and at the end of a long 
 and in the end a peaceful career, M. de Meaulne left
 
 PROVINCE FAMILY — EDUCATION. 5 
 
 the Chateau de Yalliere to his son-in-law, M. de 
 Kochebouet, the father of General de Kochebouet, my 
 present excellent neighbour. 
 
 Of all the villages in the country, that of Bourg 
 d'Ire was one of the most picturesque and primitive. 
 The old church, very decayed, but with a Norman 
 doorway and stone steeple, was built upon a small 
 rock, up which its frequenters climbed by irregular 
 steps. The churchyard surrounded the church build- 
 ing, and the two or three houses close by gave shelter 
 to the inhabitants from remote parts of the parish, 
 who, having forty or fifty echaliers or hurdles to 
 climb over on their way to mass, did not care to make 
 the journey twice a day. These hurdles form a kind 
 of fence, made of bars placed one above the other. 
 They are set up at the corners of the fields in such a 
 way as to allow men to pass over but to prevent the 
 cattle from straying. The village was reached by a 
 well-beaten path, called the road to mass, which was 
 shorter and drier than the hollow roads, and it was 
 also called voyette, a survival of an old French word. 
 But it would be more exact to say that the peasants 
 of the Craonnais then spoke and still speak the French 
 used by the Sire de Joinville. It is not a patois, but 
 an idiom still containing a number of old words that 
 have become obsolete in other parts of the country. 
 Besides the echalier and the voyette, every field had 
 and still has a border of full-grown chestnut and oak 
 trees, but their number is now diminishing from day 
 to day because we are less economical than our fathers.
 
 6 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 The whole country not only resembles La Yendee 
 in its outward appearance, but, like the latter, it is 
 also the ardent and pure centre of monarchical tradi- 
 tions. The Memoir es d' outre-tomhe relate that, on his 
 return from America, M. de Chateaubriand and all 
 the crew on board the vessel, as soon as they caught 
 sight of the coast of France, suddenly cried out, 
 " Long live the King ! " and the same impulse was 
 continually manifesting itself amongst the peasants 
 of the district in which I was born. To practise the 
 handling of a gun, to come in a body fully armed to 
 the fete of the cure or the lord of the manor, to drink 
 a cask of cider to everybody's health, and to end the 
 proceedings by a shout of " Long live the King ! " 
 afforded at that time the highest enjoyment. I have 
 no older recollection than that of my childish share in 
 the popular cry of the country side, " Long live the 
 King and M. de Sainte-Gemmes ! " I still find eyes 
 filling with tears at the words of a Yendean song — 
 
 " D'Andigne revoit sa patrie 
 
 The Comte d'Andigne de Sainte-Gemmes, General of 
 the Angevine Yendee, who had the honour of person- 
 ally braving the anger of the first Consul, and who 
 had for a long time been imprisoned or proscribed 
 under the first Empire, used to come to the Chateau 
 de la Blanchaye to stay with the Marquis d'Andigne^ 
 his brother, where he was affectionately welcomed 
 with bouquets and other manifestations of goodwill. 
 All the gentlemen of the neighbourhood, MM. de
 
 PROVINCE FAMILY — EDUCATION. 7 
 
 Narce, de Dieusie, de la Potherie, de Villemorge, &c, 
 ■were animated by the same spirit. We had as neigh- 
 bour in the parish of Bourg d'Ire itself, and I may 
 almost say next door, the Chateau de la Douve, inha- 
 bited by the Comte and Comtesse d' Armaille, by their 
 children, who were of my own and my brother's age, 
 and by the Baronne de la Paumeliere, the mother of 
 Madame d' Armaille. For a long time Madame de la 
 Paumeliere had inhabited the Chateau du Lavouer, 
 which figures in every history of La Yendee. "When 
 the fortunes of war obliged her to leave Lavouer, she 
 confidently trusted herself to some farmers' wives in 
 the neighbourhood, borrowed their dress, and secretly 
 carried food and ammunition to the Chouans. During 
 three or four years of incessant peril she never en- 
 countered a single betrayal, not even the involuntary 
 treason of a child's thoughtlessness, and only once ran 
 into danger through an accident. She entered a field 
 of broom, where she intended hiding two of her young 
 children, when she suddenly found herself face to face 
 with two Eepublicans who had lost their way and 
 were seeking to rejoin their corps. To stop and take 
 aim at her was the work of an instant. Madame de 
 la Paumeliere — I can still see her gentle movement of 
 resignation — put her two children behind her and pre- 
 sented her bosom to the gun. One of the two soldiers 
 did not fire, the other drew the trigger, but the gun 
 missed fire: "Allons, brigande, tu as du courage, fiche le 
 campy 
 
 In order to better protect her relatives, Madame de
 
 8 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 la Paumeliere had acquired the habit, which she 
 retained until the most advanced age, of sleeping only 
 during the day, and we children enjoyed nothing so 
 much as to pass the evening with her, remaining as 
 long as we possibly could in order to hear her relate 
 the incidents of that terrible time. Madame d'Ar- 
 maille was, like her mother, unusually beautiful. 
 Her voice was incomparably melodious and charming ; 
 she accompanied herself upon the harp without much 
 skill, but with a great deal of expression, and no one 
 could hear her sing Gulistan's Point du jour, some of 
 Gr&ry's airs, and the Yendean songs, without being 
 deeply moved by them. It is to her that I owe my 
 ardent love for music. 
 
 In sight of Bourg d'Ire\ and a distance of about 
 two miles, stood the Chateau de Noyant ; it belonged 
 to a bachelor, an old officer of Conde's army, the 
 Chevalier Prosper de Cande. There we found recol- 
 lections of the emigration, above all an original and 
 inexhaustible charity. With an income of twelve or 
 fifteen thousand francs, which was considered wealth 
 at that period, M. de Cande* only occupied one small 
 corner of his large chateau, used his drawing-room as 
 a dining-room, wrote and read on the table from 
 which the dinner had just been removed, and had 
 only two wickerwork arm-chairs and a set of six 
 ordinary chairs. "When the convenient form of chair 
 called an arm-chair a la Voltaire was invented, or to 
 speak more correctly, revived, he resisted every 
 entreaty from his relations and friends, who begged
 
 PROVINCE — FAMILY — EDUCATION. 9 
 
 him to grant this indulgence to his attacks of gout. 
 His nephew, the Baron de Cande, ventured to order 
 one of these arm-chairs in Paris, and sent it down to 
 him. The case, which did not meet with a very 
 gracious reception, was never opened until after the 
 Chevalier's death, and the useless chair was even- 
 tually discovered in the orangery, entirely destroyed 
 by rats On the other hand, M. de Cande never 
 refused anything to the poor. Many times he sent 
 away the soup or the fruit that had been prepared 
 for him in order to give them away, even to those 
 who did not ask for them. One winter's day he was 
 told that a poor woman, recently confined, had no fire, 
 and begged for a little wood. The servants were 
 going to fetch some from the wood-pile ; but, said M. de 
 Cande, u will that wood light at once ? take some 
 out of the fireplace and be quick about it." The 
 servant left, taking with him as much as he could 
 carry, but he had scarcely made a few steps when 
 M. de Cande exclaimed, u Oh, the stupid fellow, the 
 ashes, the ashes ! As if any one could make a good 
 fire without ashes ! " and seizing the shovel, he filled 
 a basket and ran after his man with this essential 
 addition to his gift. 
 
 M. de Cande was an accomplished horseman, 
 a great judge of horses, and very difficult to please, 
 being as obstinate in his objection to English saddles 
 as he was to improved arm-chairs, and only using a 
 saddle of deerskin placed upon a saddle-cloth of red 
 velvet with yellow braid. Every one went out to the
 
 10 MEMOIRS OF A EOTALIST. 
 
 front door to see him come up to the house at a hand 
 gallop and make a bow while he put his horse through 
 exercises that showed his fine training. One portion 
 of his emigration had been spent in Poland, where 
 music and dancing had charmed his youth, so that 
 when pianos were slowly introduced into our country 
 his old age was still re-animated by the least sound of 
 a waltz, and, when partners were lacking, and they 
 were rare at that time, he would take a chair in his 
 arms and begin to twirl round in the middle of the 
 drawing-room with the grace and elegance distinc- 
 tive of the purest style of the old regime. 
 
 In another direction, and at nearly the same dis- 
 tance, we had an absolutely different type, M. Yeillon 
 de la Garroullaye. He was a country gentleman, 
 passionately attached to his native soil, from which he 
 would never allow himself to be separated. To call 
 him a Parisian was tantamount to insulting him, he 
 had never seen Paris, nor indeed have his sons. 
 After hunting, and the conversation held with the 
 farmers about their land, the only reading he allowed 
 was that of the newspaper, which then arrived but 
 twice a week — news of the King and the bulletin of 
 the Court, placed at the head of each gazette, being 
 the items first looked for. Perhaps an exception was 
 made in favour of the Pualdes case, which people met 
 from a distance of eight or ten miles to read at the 
 house of any person who might be receiving the most 
 complete account. 
 
 M. Yeillon took part in the rising in the west in
 
 PROVINCE — FAMILY — EDUCATION. 11 
 
 1815, and he again took up arms at the call of the 
 Duchesse de Berry, in 1832. He only belonged to 
 the contemporary movement through a devotion 
 which was so natural to him that he would not 
 have understood that any one could abstain from it or 
 take any credit for joining in it. His appearance, his 
 way of speaking, and his intelligence were all so 
 exceptional and so attractive, that I ventured to trace 
 his portrait in a little book called "Ten Years of 
 Agriculture." I took it to him, and flourishing my 
 pamphlet from a distance, I said, " M. Yeillon, here 
 you are, all alive." 
 
 " Give it tc me, give it to me," said he, taking 
 my pamphlet with an indescribable gesture. "Any- 
 how, it is so much paper." 
 
 The portrait was thus worded : " The true country- 
 man is at once active and sedentary ; sensitive in point 
 of honour, inaccessible to ambition, he serves his 
 country without leaving his home. His body is 
 robust, because his soul is peaceful. If he looks 
 back, he will assuredly see in his track cares and 
 troubles, but no remorse. When his days are ended, he 
 leaves around his tomb an honourable memory and this 
 device to his successors, 'Live working, die praying!'" 
 
 Lastly, and as though this small corner of France 
 were intended to offer every variety of type, we had 
 at an equal distance, in the commune of Loire, the 
 Yicomte de Turpin and his wife, relics of the old 
 Court. Madame de Turpin, nee de Bongars, displayed 
 in her small house at La Ferte, in a tiny drawing-
 
 12 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 room leading to a small kitchen, the manners and 
 language of her youth. M. de Turpin, on the con- 
 trary, had become a countryman since the commence- 
 ment of the present century, and had gaily embraced 
 all the customs of his new position. He was entirely 
 bald, and all through the summer, in order to protect 
 himself from the heat, he filled his hat with large 
 branches of fern, which hung down to his shoulders. 
 Pious in sentiment, Yoltairian in conversation, he was 
 intimate with the Comte de Provence, and the only 
 time he left La Ferte was to go and see King 
 Louis XVIII. He asked for an audience, and when 
 the answer did not come within twenty-four hours, he 
 rushed early in the morning to the first gentleman of 
 the chamber, begging him to represent to the King 
 that he could not have the honour of seeing him if he 
 were not received in the course of the day, having 
 promised Madame de Turpin to return on Saturday 
 evening to accompany her to high mass on Sunday 
 morning, which involved a walk of two miles. 
 Louis XVIII. had no answer to this, so he received 
 him at once, and laughingly said to him, " Well ! my 
 poor Turpin, have you then become a choir boy?" 
 After this he inquired whether he had not anything 
 to ask of the King. 
 
 " Sire, you have granted all that I desire, since I 
 see you again." 
 
 " And your nephew ? " 
 
 "He is a countryman like myself, and would not 
 leave Angers for anything in the world."
 
 PROVINCE — FAMILY — EDUCATION. 13 
 
 "But he has a son?" 
 
 " Yes, sire, who will enter the military schools, 
 since that is compulsory now." 
 
 " That may be, but I should like him first to come 
 to me, and you may tell him that he is appointed 
 page." 
 
 " Sire, you are right, for you will never have a more 
 faithful servant." 
 
 As soon as he was old enough, young Lancelot 
 de Turpin was taken to Paris by his father and 
 enrolled amongst the pages, and he was still one 
 of them when Louis XVIII. was attacked by his last 
 illness. One night, the old King heard some one 
 sobbing near his bed. " Who is crying in that 
 way ? " said he. " Ah ! it's Turpin ! My poor child, 
 then you love your King ? Here, keep this in 
 remembrance of him." And he gave him a ring. 
 This ring, preserved in the Chateau d'Angrie, now 
 only recalls the most painful memories. After the 
 King's death, before entering the army, Lancelot 
 de Turpin came to pass a few days with his parents. 
 Noticing one of the hounds behind a railing he held 
 out his hand to caress it. The dog was mad and bit 
 him terribly, and this branch of the Turpins became 
 extinct by his death which ensued. 
 
 Unity of sentiment reigned all around me, and I 
 also found it in my home. My family had served the 
 monarchy without brilliancy but with fidelity. Origi- 
 nally from Anjou, it had branched out into Poitou and 
 Touraine, and in all three provinces it has left the
 
 14 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 marks of a generous charity. In 1711 Angers gave 
 our name to a public square, which still bears it, in 
 gratitude for considerable benefits during the disasters 
 of France at that epoch. When the Vendean army 
 occupied Angers my grandmother received General 
 de la Kochejaquelein at her house. She soon paid for 
 the honour by her liberty, and died of an epidemic of 
 typhoid and also of hunger in the Chateau of Mont- 
 reuill-Bellay, where she had been transferred on 
 account of the overcrowding of the prisons of Angers ! 
 She was heard to say a few moments before her death, 
 "I feel that some soup would restore me to life." 
 
 My father emigrated at fourteen, entered the 
 Talleyrand-Perigord regiment, took part in the siege 
 of Maastricht and in the expedition of Quiberon ; but 
 on his return to France with the other emigrants, 
 under the Consulate, he found that only a very 
 modest portion of his fortune remained to him. He 
 then lived a good deal with his mother's brother, 
 M. de Barace, in the neighbourhood of Durtal. The 
 Eevolution had also thrown many other victims 
 there. At the Chateau de Huille the Comtesse de 
 Cre'quy had given a home to her niece, Mile, de 
 Soucy, whom my father asked and obtained in mar- 
 riage. The Marquise de Soucy, my grandmother, 
 was a daughter of the Baronne de Mackau, who had 
 been second governess to the royal children in the 
 time of Louis XV., and Madame Elizabeth had been 
 especially confided to her care. Her assiduous watch- 
 fulness and the tenderness of her elder daughter,
 
 PROVINCE — FAMILY — EDUCATION. 15 
 
 Angelique de Mackau, afterwards Marquise de Bom- 
 belles, triumphed over Madame Elizabeth's extreme 
 hastiness, we might almost say violence, of character, 
 and finally transformed those defects into heroic 
 virtues. Madame de Soucy, second governess to the 
 royal children in her turn, had brought up Louis 
 XVII. and Madame Eoyale. She was sent for to the 
 Temple when the young princess was exchanged for 
 the hostages of Olmutz, and accompanied her to 
 Yienna to place her in the charge of the Imperial 
 family. Madame de Mackau and Madame de Soucy 
 refused to emigrate in order that they might remain 
 near the Queen. They were by her side on the 20th 
 of June; when the 10th of August violently tore 
 them from their posts they retired to Vitry, in the 
 suburbs of Paris, and Abbe Edgewor.th took refuge 
 with them after the 21st of January. 
 
 My grandfather de Soucy, a colonel in the cavalry, 
 was in command at Cherbourg, where the Duke de la 
 Kochefoucauld had been anxious to prepare a retreat 
 for Louis XYI. " Soucy, I rely upon you," the 
 King had said to him, and these words were suffi- 
 cient to deter him from all thoughts of emigration, a 
 devotion which he paid for with his life. 
 
 Madame de Bombelles soon succumbed to the grief 
 caused her by the death of Madame Elizabeth. Her 
 husband became a priest, and until 1814 lived as a 
 cure in Moravia, when he returned to France with the 
 Comte d'Artois, and was made Bishop of Amiens. 
 He had four children, whose singular destinies I shall
 
 16 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 speak of later on, and lie was very fond of relating the 
 affront which he had received in 1814 at the Hotel de 
 Kouge. 
 
 "Whom shall I announce?" asked an old man- 
 servant. 
 
 "Announce the Bishop of Amiens and his children." 
 
 " Sir, I will never announce that to Madame la 
 Marquise." 
 
 The lesson was not lost, and in future when the 
 Bishop entered a drawing-room with his children, he 
 amused himself by saying, " Allow me to introduce 
 my brother's nephews to you," although he had never 
 had a brother. 
 
 Thus my whole childhood was spent amongst persons 
 who had only lived at the Court to make every kind 
 of sacrifice for it, or among persons who professed and 
 practised the same devotion, without ever having 
 either needed or wished to know the Court. 
 
 Thus local history, incessant anecdotes, sometimes 
 of the splendour and kind deeds of Versailles, some- 
 times of the trials and courage of the royal family, all 
 went to foster the monarchical creed at Bourg d'Ire. 
 I cannot recall these early years without finding in 
 them the source of the inspirations of my whole life — 
 honour before interest, patriotism personified in noble 
 and touching figures, the heart agreeing with the 
 intelligence and strengthening it, the soil itself speak- 
 ing an intelligible, cherished language, and the native 
 province inspiring a love as pure and distinct as that 
 which the country as a whole can provoke.
 
 PROVINCE — FAMILY — EDUCATION. 17 
 
 Thus the first landscape which met my eyes, the 
 first faces which smiled round my infancy, have re- 
 tained in my heart a place that nothing has or ever 
 can dispute until my last sigh. 
 
 After their marriage my parents came to live in 
 Angers, in a small house close to our old hotel, which 
 had hecome too large for their means, and which my 
 father had let to the Bishop. We passed the summer 
 at Bourg d'Ire in a very modest dwelling which was 
 called the Mabouillere. My mother, born and 
 brought up in the Chateau de Versailles until ten 
 years old, found it difficult to accustom herself to 
 such different circumstances, and was particularly 
 annoyed by the name of Mabouillere, a thoroughly 
 Angevin termination which appeared to her a little 
 ridiculous. She had no difficulty in inducing my 
 father to substitute the name of de Soucy ; but she 
 less easily persuaded the people of the neighbourhood* 
 who, some from habit, others through a little mischief, 
 persisted in calling it Mabouillere, not at all to my 
 father's annoyance. Born and growing up in the 
 midst of this little difference, my brother and I 
 always said Bourg d'Ire. Neutrals imitated us, and 
 gradually Mabouillere fell into disuse. Soucy was 
 never adopted, and Bourg d'Ire remained. 
 
 When I was old enough for school, my parents sent 
 me as a day boy to the Lycee at Angers, where my 
 brother, who was four years my senior, was already 
 boarder. At first I won all the first prizes; in the 
 following years I still had many successes, but I 
 vol. i. c
 
 18 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 always found an insurmountable barrier in mathe- 
 matics. I applied myself to this study with all possible 
 good will, and I burst into tears in the midst of my 
 lessons at recognising that I could never understand 
 one word of the science my masters were endeavouring 
 to inculcate. My tastes were entirely for literature, 
 and in course of time for oratory. I had no sooner 
 heard a few discourses at Saint-Maurice, the cathedral 
 of Angers, than I imagined that I had an ecclesiastical 
 vocation, and began to compose sermons. My mother 
 and some of her friends cut me some copes and 
 chasubles out of some old shawls, and my school- 
 fellows transformed themselves into a congregation. 
 I was, however, very timid, and those who wished 
 to hear me could not always do so. One of the im- 
 pressions of that date which I find still vivid in my 
 memory is the alarm which seized me when, descend- 
 ing from my small improvised pulpit, I saw the 
 wardrobes and cupboards open, and disclose all the 
 Quatrebarbes, the uncles, aunts, grandfather, and 
 grandmother of Louis de Quatrebarbes, who, anxious 
 that his family should hear me, and despairing of 
 obtaining my consent, had played me this trick. 
 
 "When upon the point of emigrating, my father was 
 present on his way through Paris at several meetings of 
 the Constituent Assembly, and once heard Mirabeau, 
 who made a profound impression upon him. On his 
 return from Quiberon he settled in London, where 
 he heard Mr. Pitt, of whom he never spoke without 
 enthusiasm. My own family circle thus presented
 
 PROVINCE — FAMILY — EDUCATION. 19 
 
 the singular anomaly of the most passionately mo- 
 narchical opinions and of a private admiration for 
 parliamentary success and glory. The result was 
 that my supposed inclinations to oratory were taken 
 seriously, and it was decided that I should finish my 
 studies in Paris. We were to lodge in the Eue 
 Caumartin, and I followed as a day-scholar the course 
 of lectures at the College Bourbon, now the Lycee 
 Condorcet. I do not know how long this arrange- 
 ment would have lasted, for our small means made it 
 very difficult, if providence had not interposed. 
 
 In 1822 an old cousin of my father's, M. de la 
 Crossonniere, who for a long time had ceased all inter- 
 course with any of his relations or friends, died 
 intestate. He left a large landed property, which was 
 divided between my father and a cousin, M. de 
 Menage, great-nephew of Madame de Se'vigne's friend. 
 M. de Menage's share passed to the Yillebois, the 
 Quatrebarbes, and the La Potherie families, now re- 
 presented by the Comtesse Albert de la Eochefoucauld. 
 My father's share suddenly changed our position. 
 
 I must add that M. de la Crossonniere proved during 
 nearly the whole of his existence that avarice becomes 
 a sensual passion, like every other passion. He had 
 been very handsome, very dissipated, and in his regi- 
 ment had incurred debts amounting to fifty thousand 
 crowns, which his father had paid, but not without 
 great demur. The Ee volution had given him a still 
 more severe lesson, and he so thoroughly contracted 
 the habit of economy that he carried it to the last 
 
 c2
 
 20 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 extreme. He owned one hotel in Angers and a second 
 in Paris, in the Marais quarter ; he kept them only in 
 order to avoid having to pay rent. But when he 
 posted anywhere, a mode of travelling which the gout 
 rendered necessary for him, he was forced to pay for 
 his night's lodging in every inn, and this caused him 
 an ever-recurring annoyance. He only found one 
 means of escape from it, and this was by purchasing 
 one house at La Fleche, another at Mans, and a third 
 at Chartres, by putting a servant into each of them, 
 and by lodging there gratis whenever he felt inclined 
 to do so. His heirs were obliged to sell all these 
 houses and to dismiss all the servants. An old 
 lawyer, M. Eoussel, who possessed, as far as it was 
 possible for any one to do so, M. de Crossonniere's 
 confidence, thus explained this eccentricity : "It cost 
 him more than one hundred thousand francs, but it was 
 money drawn from my strong box, without affecting 
 his ; he had never seen it, he had never touched it, 
 so that he had not had time to become attached to it." 
 In Anjou, M. de la Crossonniere possessed a beautiful 
 old chateau, Plessis-Chivre ; but his favourite resi- 
 dence was a manor of the most desolate appearance. 
 Its court was surrounded by four high walls, all the 
 windows on the ground floor were furnished with iron 
 bars, and it looked more like a strong box than a 
 house. La Lussiere was in other respects a fine 
 estate, and offered two advantages to him — that of 
 being well looked after by the farmer and his wife, 
 very intelligent people, and that of going to Angers
 
 PROVINCE — FAMILY — EDUCATION. 21 
 
 at their expense, whenever he had business there, on 
 the sole- condition of making his journey coincide with 
 market-day. These honest people loved him sincerely, 
 and lamented his parsimony much more on his account 
 than on their own. They imagined they had found a 
 remedy for it in asking the cure of Yern to preach 
 upon avarice. The cure willingly consented, and 
 acquitted himself excellently; but the person most 
 interested never flinched, and was, as it happens with 
 many other sermons, perhaps the only one who did 
 not recognise himself. The farmer perceived this, 
 but was not to be discouraged, and determined to see 
 whether he could not, in his own way, succeed better 
 than the cure. He entered his master's room one 
 morning with a very miserable face. The latter, not 
 accustomed to see him looking like that, exclaimed — 
 " Whatever has happened to you ? " 
 " Ah ! I shall never dare to tell you." 
 " Come, now, don't let me have to press you ! " 
 ""Well, sir, I dreamt last night that I was in hell ! 
 Oh, sir ! it is abominable there — everywhere flames 
 and tortures ! I did not know what to do, when I 
 suddenly saw a good arm-chair in a corner. I rushed 
 towards it, but the devil stopped me, crying, 'Un- 
 happy man, don't go there .... that's M. de la 
 Crossonniere's arm-chair ! ' Ah, monsieur ! I pray 
 you," added the farmer, in the most sincere, respectful 
 tone, " make the devil lie and keep out of hell ! " 
 
 One of my professors at Angers had consented to 
 rejoin us in Paris as tutor. He was a distinguished
 
 22 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 man, who extended his passionate love for the classics 
 to the Theatre Erancais. Talma and Mademoiselle 
 Mars were then reigning there. My tutor took me 
 there, occasionally at first, then frequently, too 
 frequently perhaps. 
 
 I then exchanged the love of preaching for that of 
 tragedy. I translated my college erudition into five 
 acts and into verse, and I learnt Corneille, Eacine, 
 and Moliere by heart in preference to Homer, Yirgil, 
 and Horace. 
 
 Talma took complete possession of my youthful 
 imagination. When I returned from the Theatre 
 Erancais, instead of going to bed, I draped myself 
 in Eoman fashion in the coverings of my bed, and 
 I recited to myself — I could still to-day recite — almost 
 every role of the great tragedian. Beauty of feature, 
 beauty of voice, natural nobility of figure and posture, 
 Talma possessed them all in the rarest degree ; in 
 him everything spoke, touched, impressed. Since 
 then I have only met with this reunion and this 
 prestige of all the natural gifts in M. Berry er. Iso 
 accent was more heartrending than that of Orestes 
 saying to Hermione — 
 
 " Q,uoi! ne m'avez voas pas, 
 
 Vous-meme, ici, tantot, ordonne son trepas?" 
 
 Every note of the human voice, from the most 
 piercing to the deepest accents, vibrated in this cry, 
 and the entire theatre received an impression which 
 lasted for some minutes. In his hands the most
 
 PROVINCE — FAMILY EDUCATION. 23 
 
 inferior pieces appeared the work of genius. To hear 
 one single word every one hurried to see Falkland, 
 a drama by M. Laya. Listening to the account of 
 a crime in which he at last recognised his own work, 
 Falkland interrupted the narrator by "Hein!" a 
 simple exclamation, which furnished Talma with one 
 of his most powerful effects, he introduced so much 
 remorse, apprehension, and woe into the word. His 
 last creation was the role of Charles VI., in the 
 tragedy of M. de la Yille-Miremont, which is now 
 quite forgotten ; and no one who has not heard Talma 
 exclaim to the Dauphin, u Dans mes bras! dans mes 
 bras ! " can form any idea of the striking effect of this 
 struggle between folly and reason. 
 
 I at last began to doubt whether Talma was really 
 an ordinary man, and I was seized with such an 
 irresistible desire to see him, that one morning I 
 escaped during school hours in order to visit clandes- 
 tinely the Eue de la Tour des Dames, where Talma 
 had an hotel near to that of Horace Vernet. I was 
 admitted to his presence without any difficulty, and 
 once there all I could do was to burst into tears. 
 Talma reassured me, and questioned me with extreme 
 gentleness. When he had drawn from me the avowal 
 that I was there simply to look at him, he said to me, 
 " My child, I have received a great deal of homage, 
 but I assure you that yours has quite touched mc!" 
 He then offered to give me tickets every time I 
 wished to go and hear him. I replied that I could 
 pay for my place, and that my parents never refused
 
 24 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 me anything in that way. He kept me with him a 
 long time, questioning me about my studies and 
 warmly encouraging me to work well. Some days 
 later he resumed the part of Ducis's Macbeth, and 
 my mother took me to the first representation. The 
 tragedy ended, a comedy was played, but I found it so 
 impossible to listen to anything after Talma that I 
 begged to go away at once. My mother at first 
 refused, but when I insisted she gave way. We were 
 waiting for a carriage in the vestibule, which was 
 empty at the moment. A man was also waiting, care- 
 fully wrapped in a large mantle : he recognised me, 
 approached, and embraced me, saying, "Well, my 
 little friend, were you pleased this evening?" It 
 was Talma. My mothers surprise and my embarrass- 
 ment may be imagined. Then I had to tell the 
 whole truth, and though my mother scolded me she 
 eventually forgave me. Very shortly afterwards Talma 
 died. 
 
 Paris, with the exception of the Theatre Francais, 
 never dazzled me at all. I deeply regretted Angers 
 and Anjou. I entertained both fear and distrust of 
 the Parisians, and I became intimate with only a few 
 of my school companions, such as — 
 
 Leon de Miramon, whose heart was full of great 
 courage and great affection, and who lost his life 
 through these two qualities, for he sacrificed himself 
 to save one of his young cousins who was drowning 
 in a part of the baths in Auvergne. 
 
 Eleuthere de Girardin, now Abbe de Girardin,
 
 PROVINCE — FAMILY — EDUCATION. 25 
 
 the ardent promoter of many charitable works in 
 Paris. 
 
 Elzear de Yogue, a true southerner of a Yery origi- 
 nal turn of mind. At an early age he had a great 
 desire to marry a young girl, pretty and well born, 
 but without a dowry, and I said to him, "You are 
 heir to a peerage and a great fortune; your father 
 will never consent to the marriage." 
 
 " Oh, I have a plan ; it is infallible. I will ask my 
 father's permission to travel in the East ; he will cer- 
 tainly not refuse, and I will write to him from Con- 
 stantinople, * My father, I am hopelessly in love with 
 one of the Grand Turk's daughters, and I intend to 
 marry her.' He will make me come back at once ; 
 will indignantly point out to me that a son of the 
 Crusaders, of Simon de Montfort's companions, could 
 not ally himself with a Mahommedan wife. I will 
 end by saying to him, £ I will give it up, and I con- 
 sent to marry Mademoiselle de X J You can see 
 
 at once how pleased my father will be," 
 
 He did not, however, carry out this romantic resolu- 
 tion, but married one of his cousins, Mademoiselle de 
 Yogue. 
 
 Charles de Morny, brought up by the paternal care 
 of the Comte de Flahaut, completed our little circle. 
 He was not studious as a pupil, but was very amiable 
 as a comrade. 
 
 My personal success decreased a little for lack, I 
 believe, of severity in my scholastic rule; my first 
 prizes in the provinces dwindled to " honourable men-
 
 26 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 tions " in Paris. I was only once admitted into the 
 general competition, and then I did not gain any 
 prize. They allowed me to complete my course of 
 rhetoric and philosophy in a single year in order to 
 gain more quickly a diploma as bachelor signed 
 Vatimesnil. From that time I contracted a habit 
 which was quite incompatible with any serious or 
 durable work. I neglected everything that cost me 
 an effort. I never really studied anything, but only 
 allowed full play to that facility which deceives one- 
 self and others by complacently pausing at anything 
 that pleased me. M. de Maistre said, when speaking 
 of moral progress, " That which costs nothing is 
 worth nothing." This is equally true of literary pro- 
 gress. I did not know it then, but I have realised it 
 since, when it was too late.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 LAST YEAES OF THE RESTORATION FIRST YEARS OF THE 
 
 JULY REVOLUTION. 
 
 1828-1834. 
 
 While at college, or even when leaving it, one has 
 only reflected opinions, and I do not claim to have 
 been any exception to this rule. Like all those by 
 whom I was surrounded, I thought that in a conflict 
 between the King and the Chambers the last word 
 should belong to the King ; but the more profound 
 my conviction on this point became, the more surely 
 a certain instinct of common sense warned me that 
 care should be taken to avoid carrying this preroga- 
 tive of the Crown too far or exercising it too lightly. 
 The debates in the two Chambers were followed by 
 some of my comrades and myself with passionate 
 attention ; we were assiduous in the perusal of the 
 newspapers, and I am still quite sincerely convinced, 
 even to-day, that if time to handle the affairs of the 
 kingdom had been given, in their turn and place, to 
 the younger members of the monarchical party, it 
 would have proved itself very patriotic, even very 
 liberal in its royalism.
 
 28 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 We were all sensitive to the reproach most unjustly 
 levelled at the Eestoration of being too grateful 
 towards those foreigners who had reinstated the 
 Bourbons in France. I remember that in rhetoric 
 we were given as a theme for amplification a report 
 from M. Hyde de Neuville, then Minister of the 
 Marine, to the King, of Lieutenant Bisson's heroic 
 self-devotion in blowing up his ship rather than sur- 
 render it to the enemy. The report, eloquent, full of 
 emotion, ended with these words: "A noble heart 
 has ceased to beat and France boasts another hero ! " 
 I undertook to prove to my professor that the minis- 
 ter would have been better inspired had he said, " A 
 noble heart has ceased to beat and France has lost 
 another hero ! " maintaining that our sailors, our 
 soldiers, and ourselves would have done quite as 
 much as Bisson under the same circumstances. I 
 cannot know how far I might have come short of this 
 had the opportunity occurred, but I assert that at 
 that time I did not yield to any idea of boasting, but 
 that I expressed a very sincere feeling equally shared 
 by the majority of the rhetoricians, who warmly 
 applauded me. 
 
 I remember also that, in the disastrous rupture 
 which took place between M. de Chateaubriand and 
 M. de Yillele, we generally sided with M. de Chateau- 
 briand. It is true that we were not in a position to 
 sift the question at issue, but we thought, or rather 
 we felt, that M. de Chateaubriand was one of the 
 jewels of the Crown, and that the lustre of royalty
 
 LAST TEARS OF THE RESTORATION. 29 
 
 would be diminished if he were detached from it. 
 We had already sufficient feeling in the heart and 
 clear-sightedness in the judgment to understand that 
 M. de Villele's policy, whilst perfectly honourable, 
 and very skilful from a business point of view, did 
 not take the higher aspirations, or at all events the 
 imagination, of the country sufficiently into account. 
 I have since heard it said that M. de Villele's system 
 too nearly resembled the household of an old husband 
 and a young wife ; we had not discovered the expres- 
 sion, but we instinctively realised the fact. 
 
 We did not take into account the political prudence 
 which prevented him from promoting, by too many 
 new works undertaken in Paris, a sudden increase of 
 the working population, but we were struck with the 
 languishing state of all public works and by the sad- 
 dened aspect of Paris. The Place Louis XV. was 
 still a vast sewer, the Champs Ely sees a deserted 
 promenade, the Place du Carrousel, from which scarcely 
 one or two windows of the Louvre could be seen, 
 was obstructed by small streets, sheds, and miserable 
 houses, just as when Marie Antoinette lost her way 
 for more than a quarter of an hour between the gate 
 of the Tuileries and the Quay, where the carriage 
 was waiting to take her to Varennes. In one of 
 M. Scribe's vaudevilles, the title and subject of which 
 I have forgotten, I can only recall one scene between 
 a patron and his protege. The patron said, "My 
 friend, what can you do well ? " 
 
 " Alas ! nothing."
 
 30 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 " Nothing ! Oh, then I can arrange something for 
 you ; I appoint you workman on the Triumphal Arch 
 at the Barriere de l'Etoile." And the public, impatient 
 to see the completion of a monument raised to the 
 memory of the Grand Army, burst into applause. 
 
 I mourned too sincerely for Talma to enter at once 
 the camp of romanticism. I was too much engrossed 
 with Augustus, Nero, Joad, and even Manlius or 
 Sylla to enjoy immediately and unreservedly the 
 language and attractions of Hernani. I devoted 
 myself to a work which then appeared to me triumph- 
 ant, to prove to my friends that M. Yictor Hugo's 
 drama was devoid of originality, that his leading 
 ideas were borrowed from the old repertory, and that 
 the poet was not up to his usual standard except in a 
 few lines more lyrical than dramatic, like the follow- 
 ing, indelibly engraved upon my memory. 
 
 " Tu dis vrai. Le bonheur, amie, est chose grave, 
 II veut des cceurs de bronze et lentement s'y grave ; 
 Le plaisir l'effarouche en lui jetant des neurs, 
 Son sourire estmoins pres du rire que des pleurs." 
 
 Thus there were at that time some moderate 
 men in the realm of literature as well as in that of 
 politics, yet enthusiasts rendered all conciliatory 
 doctrines difficult to maintain. 
 
 The house in which I felt myself most at home was 
 the Hotel Castellane, where I found a friend, Henry 
 de Castellane, a little younger than myself, but very 
 advanced as regards the natural distinction of his
 
 LAST YEARS OF THE RESTORATION. 31 
 
 mind and the intellectual atmosphere in which he 
 lived. The aged Marquis de Castellane had belonged, 
 before the Eevolution, to a cavalry regiment of which 
 my grandfather was colonel. He had retained a very 
 affectionate recollection of the Marquis de Soucy, and 
 I benefited by it. His receptions fully proved that 
 under the Eestoration no invincible incompatibility 
 existed between ancient and modern France. 
 
 The fashionable district now occupied by the Eue 
 Tronchet and the Boulevard Malesherbes was quite 
 deserted before 1830. The wood trade occupied it 
 almost exclusively, and one was surprised to come 
 across, in the midst of these forests, converted into 
 wood for fuel, a few fine hotels, such as the house 
 belonging to the Marquis d'Aligre, in the Rue 
 d'Anjou, the hotel Eohan-Soubise, in the Eue de 
 1' Arcade, where the Marechal de Soubise had received 
 Louis XV., and at the angle of the Eue des Mathu- 
 rins an hotel with terraced garden, then occupied by 
 the Marquis de Castellane. He had first married 
 Mademoiselle de Chabot, the Due de Eohan's 
 daughter, and his second wife was another Chabot, 
 the widow of the Due de la Eochefoucauld-d'Anville 
 and aunt of Cardinal de Eohan, who died Archbishop 
 de Besancon. M. de Castellane had by his first mar- 
 riage an only son, afterwards a marshal of France, 
 and this son had four children, the eldest of whom 
 was brought up by his grandfather and grandmother. 
 I became his intimate friend ; he was passionately fond 
 of reading, and to him I owe my first and deep im-
 
 32 MEMOIKS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 pression of the Soirees de Saint- Peter sbourg. His 
 grandparents greatly enjoyed the cultivation of the 
 mind which they had carried themselves to a very 
 high point. Madame de Castellane had learnt Latin 
 with her brother, the Due de Eohan, whose tutor had 
 been a friend of J. J. Eousseau, about whom we never 
 ceased questioning her, and M. de Castellane retained, 
 at his advanced age, an incomparable memory. No 
 one could repeat more naturally or with more vivacity 
 lines from Moliere, Corneille, and above all from Vol- 
 taire. He was fond of telling us how, when spending 
 a few days in the Chateau d'Acosta with the Prince 
 de Talleyrand and Madame de Stael, an elocutionary 
 contest between them filled the whole of one evening. 
 When he had retired to his apartment after midnight 
 M. de Castellane heard a noise, half opened his door, 
 and perceived Madame de Stael in the corridor knock- 
 ing at M. de Talleyrand's closed door. 
 
 "Do you really think that Castellane recites poetry 
 better than I do ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes," replied the Prince de Talleyrand with 
 his customary sang-froid, and without opening his 
 door. " You write the poetry and let Castellane 
 recite it." 
 
 Such was the ardent enthusiasm for literature at 
 that epoch. 
 
 M. de Castellane had been a member of the Con- 
 stituent Assembly, and although faithful to the 
 Eight, he had been in communication with several 
 members of the Left, of whom he spoke with much
 
 LAST YEARS OF THE RESTORATION. 33 
 
 impartiality. At first he sat next to a Breton deputy 
 who could only speak his native language with faci- 
 lity, saying Eutru for Monsieur. " I cannot accustom 
 myself," said M. de Castellane, "to a neighbour who 
 calls me Eutru, and I shall change my place." The 
 Restoration had nominated him to the Chamber of 
 Peers ; when a sitting excited attention every one 
 eagerly crowded round him to hear his account of it. 
 The few survivors of the eighteenth century displayed 
 great attachment to him. On this account and also 
 on account of the Auvergnats (for M. de Castellane 
 annually passed some months in Auvergne), MM. de 
 Montlosier and de Pradt were assiduous in their 
 attentions to him — M. de Montlosier more impetuous 
 than eloquent, the Abbe de Pradt more shrewd and 
 more moderate. 
 
 The former Archbishop of Malines made with good 
 grace a public apology for his past. It was more 
 difficult to interrupt him when upon this subject than 
 to start him on it. I have seen him at table hold his 
 glass with one hand and signify with the other that 
 no one was to speak before he had finished what he 
 had to say, which, however, no one cared to do, for 
 he spoke brilliantly. I owe him some acknowledg- 
 ment of a generous action. Soon after 1830, Abbe 
 Chatel, the ephemeral founder of a so-called French 
 Catholic Church, came to offer him a high dignity in 
 his new religion. Abbe de Pradt rejected the offer 
 with indignation and went in the evening, much 
 affected, to relate the scene at the Hotel Castellane. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 u I have never realised the errors of my life more 
 bitterly," said he, before us all, "and I have never 
 paid for them with a more cruel humiliation." 
 
 I owed to other family recollections an acquaint- 
 ance which, though it did not lead to friendship, was 
 of no little service to me. My father during the 
 emigration had served with the Perigord regiment. 
 In Paris he rejoined his old colonel, the Due de 
 Talleyrand, by whom he was very cordially welcomed, 
 and he would occasionally take me of a morning to 
 see the old duke during his dressing hour. M. de 
 Talleyrand was the accomplished type of the great 
 noble of former times, his Christian name was Ar- 
 chambaud, and in his youth he was called Archi-beau. 
 In his old age he might have retained the nickname, 
 as his features were remarkable for their perfect regu- 
 larity, and no one could add more charm to the most 
 exquisite distinction. He liked to receive at an early 
 hour, robed in an ample white dressing-gown, making 
 his valet powder him whilst he talked, a habit which 
 much prolonged the operation. His attachment to 
 the King, Charles X., dated from the time when they 
 were dandies together, and he never lost an opportu- 
 tunity of avowing his entire fidelity, not however 
 without blaming, in the most respectful terms, cer- 
 tain designs or certain counsels of the Court. At his 
 house one often met his brother, Comte Bozon de 
 Pe'rigord, extremely deaf and very asthmatical. One 
 day King Louis XVIII. asked him, " Bozon, how is 
 your wife ? "
 
 LAST YEAES OF THE RESTORATION. 35 
 
 The Comte de Pdrigord, never doubting that the 
 King was inquiring about his cough, replied, u Ah, 
 sire I elle m 7 a Men tourmente cette nuit ! " His brother 
 often joked him about this mistake. 
 
 I happened to be present one morning when a very- 
 different question arose. The Comte de P^rigord 
 impetuously entered his brother's room, with every 
 symptom of violent irritation. He had been present 
 on the previous evening at a sitting of the Chamber of 
 Deputies, where the Extreme Eight by abstaining 
 from voting on the municipal law had caused the fall 
 of the Marti gnac ministry. No words can express the 
 warmth with which he described the sitting to his 
 brother : " We were there, five or six of us" — and he 
 quoted five or six of the greatest names in France — 
 " we shouted to the Extreme Eight, ' But vote ! for 
 Heaven's sake vote!' " And M. de Pe'rigord repeated 
 the cry like a deaf man, but also like a man of great 
 heart and great sense. Alas ! why was not this cry 
 heard either by the King or by his friends ? This scene 
 struck me by its vivacity ; the memory of its recollec- 
 tion moves me now, by once more proving with what 
 imprudence certain Eoyalists went out of their way to 
 hasten all those catastrophes which their duty, and 
 assuredly their intention, would have led them to 
 avert. 
 
 Abbe Gregoire was elected in 1819 in the depart- 
 ment of the Isere, owing to the help of the Extreme 
 Eight ; and owing to the same help the Ministry of MM. 
 de Martignac, de la Ferronnays, and Hyde de Neuville 
 
 d2
 
 86 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 was overthrown. The logical consequence of these 
 two actions was the Polignac Ministry, and Prince 
 Polignac's Ministry led to the fall of the Eestoration ! 
 Is it quite certain that we are now much more advanced 
 and much wiser than we were in 1819 or in 1829? 
 
 My grandmother de Soucy had remained with Queen 
 Marie Antoinette during the odious days of the 20th 
 of June and the 10th of August, together with the 
 Princesse de Tarente and the Marquise de la Eoche- 
 Aymon. This circumstance procured me admission to 
 the Hotel Crussol. The Duchesse d'Uzes, n^e Cha- 
 tillon, was sister to the Princesse de Tarente, whose 
 last days, so many years later, I was to chronicle in 
 the "Life of Madame Swetchine." I could then ob- 
 serve how many degrees of human pride exist, and 
 how utterly inexhaustible it becomes in its gradations 
 when it degenerates into vanity. The Duchesse 
 d'Uzes let us see very clearly that, in her view, her 
 husband, the first duke and peer of France, had made, 
 in wedding her, a most flattering marriage. All the 
 frequenters of the Hotel Crussol were aware of this 
 weakness, and I can still see the look that was ex- 
 changed between those present when the good duchess 
 informed us of the marriage of her grandson, Herve 
 de Eouge, with Mademoiselle de Pastoret, the Chan- 
 cellor's grand-daughter. " Madame de Pastoret came 
 this morning," said she, "to ask my consent and I 
 found in her all the amiability that I had been led to 
 anticipate. She spoke of the Chatillons with excel- 
 lent taste, and I was much touched by it."
 
 LAST YEARS OF THE RESTORATION. 37 
 
 The tragedy of Louis IX , by M. Ancelot, caused 
 her a very different sensation, because in it Chatillon 
 is not represented as sufficiently faithful to the King. 
 " M. Ancelot at least makes him return at the end," 
 said some one wishing to defend the poet. " Sir," 
 replied the Duchesse d'Uzes with extreme vivacity — 
 she was then at least eighty years of age — " Chatillon 
 had not left, it was unnecessary for him to return," and 
 she found, in defence of her glorious ancestor, an energy 
 that amounted to eloquence. 
 
 M. Brifaut had fully gained the affection and the 
 confidence of the Duchesse d'Uzes. His conversation, 
 his talent, his existence, everything in him revived the 
 eighteenth century. This was also his favourite epoch 
 in the history of France. 
 
 He would have liked to have lived then, as he 
 declared to whoever would listen to him, because, 
 in his eyes, that was the epoch of the real triumph of 
 French genius from one end of Europe to the other. 
 Like many of his retrospective rivals, M. Brifaut had 
 readily exchanged theatrical success for that of the 
 salon. He was one of the oracles of the Faubourg St. 
 Germain ; he enjoyed it without elation and without 
 malevolence, taking nothing seriously except political 
 opinions, retaining in all things moderation, tact and 
 loyalty. He was a very shrewd observer, and a very 
 reliable friend; he excelled in elegies and short royalist 
 poems ; from these he derived easy triumphs, always 
 disinterested, as much so under the Eestoration as 
 under the government which succeeded it. He very
 
 38 MEMOIRS OP A ROYALIST. 
 
 rarely left Paris except for a few summer excursions 
 to the chateaux, where the neighbouring scenery most 
 resembled Paris. He was, to his great distress, a wit- 
 ness of the July revolution, and when after three days 7 
 tumult most people donned, either through prudence 
 or through enthusiasm, some token of the victorious 
 colours, M. Brifaut refused to make any demonstra- 
 tion of the kind. One evening, returning to his house 
 in the Rue du Bac without a tricolor ribbon in his 
 buttonhole, he was rudely accosted by a workman, 
 who said to him : " Citizen, why do you not wear the 
 insignia of liberty?" "Why, my friend, to prove 
 that I am free ! " 
 
 If, to-day, his three volumes of poetry were re-read, 
 not one single bitter or intentionally unjust word would 
 be found in his political poems ; his conversation always 
 bore the same character. I saw him one day dis- 
 puting with a young Orleanist, the Comte de , 
 
 who was talking and gesticulating very fast ; in a few 
 minutes M. Brifaut's interlocutor had made a hat fly 
 and knocked over a small table. " Since you insist 
 upon hearing my opinion, sir," M. Brifaut then replied, 
 " my advice is that you should be charged to over- 
 throw the Government ; " and so he put a stop to his 
 adversary's petulance, who, being very well bred, 
 burst into a laugh and held out his hand. 
 
 I must not quit the salon of the Duchesse d'Uzes 
 without rendering her a last token of gratitude. The 
 good duchess was full of affection for my mother, and 
 of indulgence for me. M. Brifaut, who twenty-five
 
 LAST YEARS OF THE RESTORATION. 39 
 
 years later received me into the French Academy, 
 undertook to express the sentiments of the hostess in 
 a quatrain. Blotting pads were then a very recent 
 invention. Until that time, every writing-table was 
 supplied with a wooden bowl of more or less elegance, 
 filled with golden powder or blue sand, with which 
 the writer sprinkled each page before passing to a 
 second. The Duchesse d'TJzes having invited us to 
 dinner, my mother found under her table-napkin a 
 blotting pad which I still use, on the first page of 
 which was written by M. Brifaut in the name of 
 the Duchesse d'Uzes — 
 
 ' ' Aimer est ma coutume, et seduire est la votre, 
 J'ai tou jours de ces dons prefere le premier ; 
 Mais, en vous connaissant, je voudrais essayer 
 Ou de vous preter l'un ou de vous ravir l'autre." 
 
 The Marquis de Montchenu was present at this 
 dinner, and the guests vied with each other in beg- 
 ging him to recount to them his sojourn at St. Helena, 
 where he had resided as royal commissioner to keep 
 watch over the Emperor. At that period people 
 regarded themselves as free to admire or to render 
 justice to Napoleon, without any hesitation or thought 
 for the future. The Empire was spoken of as a 
 poetic legend of the past. This was the act of an 
 anti-Bonapartist B^ranger, but still it was Be'ranger. 
 
 But whilst leading at an early age, at an even too 
 early an age, an over- worldly life, I never lost sight 
 of a career for which I felt great inclination — diplo-
 
 40 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 macy. I qualified myself for it under the direction 
 of one of the professors of the school, M. Bugnet ; I 
 studied English, German and Italian with additional 
 attention, because my chances had increased through 
 the appointment of the Prince de Polignac to the 
 Ministry of Foreign Affairs. My grandmother had 
 been intimate with his mother before the Eevolution, 
 and this circumstance secured for me a most en- 
 couraging reception. 
 
 The Prince de Polignac accepted power with very 
 English notions ; he did not consider himself to be at 
 all an absolutist, nor did he wish to be one. His 
 dream was to found a parliamentary aristocracy, and 
 to raise the influence of the peerage, as compared to 
 the Chamber of Deputies. His first appearance at 
 the tribunal was depressingly mediocre. He was 
 absolutely disconcerted by an opposition of which he 
 had not calculated either the extent or the intensity. 
 From that moment he enfolded himself in a mysticism 
 which I shall have an opportunity of alluding to later 
 on. At the same time, he declared himself opposed 
 to all favouritism, particularly iu the diplomatic 
 career, for he was very anxious about French great- 
 ness and flattered himself that he could raise its 
 external prestige. A school of young diplomatic 
 aspirants was founded in connection with his Minis- 
 try, and I received a promise of admission on the 
 first promotion. The pupils were obliged to pass 
 an examination upon all international treaties and 
 upon everything which could be called diplomatic
 
 FIRST YEARS OP THE JULY REVOLUTION. 41 
 
 knowledge. M. Mandaroux-Vertamy, an eminent 
 lawyer and an exceedingly honourable man, a native 
 of Auvergne, like the Prince de Polignac, was the 
 organiser and perhaps the inventor of this new 
 institution. It never had the time to begin working. 
 This was not the only deception of that epoch. The 
 Court, usually very cold and very monotonous, 
 became very animated on the arrival of the King and 
 Queen of Naples, the Duchesse de Berry's parents, 
 who were conducting their daughter, Princess Chris- 
 tine, to Spain, where she was to share the throne of 
 Ferdinand VII. Presh confirmation of Louis XIV.'s 
 policy was drawn from this marriage, and every one 
 was pleased to witness the brief meeting between the 
 two sisters, to whom everything seemed to promise 
 the highest destinies. The Duchesse de Berry was 
 the most popular person of the Royal Family, and 
 Paris willingly associated itself with this family 
 festival, which was for me the first and last glance at 
 the splendours of the Court. Por a moment I found 
 myself close to Charles X. when at the Due d' Orleans' 
 ball. The old King was walking on the terrace of 
 the new galleries, and I gathered from his gesture 
 towards a brilliantly starlit sky that he was speaking 
 of the favourable circumstances under which our fleet 
 was then sailing towards Algiers. 
 
 The first representation of the Muette de Portici 
 was given on this occasion. In this piece M. Scribe 
 and M. Auber had apparently only sought for pre- 
 texts for Neapolitan costume, scenes, and songs. The
 
 42 MEMOIES OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 favourite airs from this opera greeted the King and 
 Queen of Naples wherever they appeared, until they 
 served as a provocative and accompaniment to the 
 revolution in Belgium. These contradictory recollec- 
 tions are henceforth so blended in my memory that I 
 have retained an invincible antipathy for the airs of 
 the Muette, and it would be impossible for me now to 
 hear this opera again without being reminded of 
 other scenes very different from those passing on the 
 stage. 
 
 When the Prince de Polignac's Ministry suddenly 
 appeared in the Moniteur, some people were seized 
 with great uneasiness, others with great hope. The 
 deception of the public, at the end of a few weeks, 
 was expressed before me in very just terms by the 
 elderty Princesse de la Tremoille. " It seems to me," 
 she said, " that I am invited to a great spectacle, that 
 the curtain rises, but that the actors do not appear." 
 The people who were alarmed and impatient all 
 gradually calmed down; the country returned to its 
 business, the world to its pleasures, and for my part, 
 when I had supplemented my preparatory studies by 
 the spring fetes of 1830, when the King and Queen of 
 Naples had left Paris for Madrid, I went and joined 
 my father at the baths of Aix, in Savoy, where he was 
 seeking to cure his gout. I saw the Alps for the first 
 time, and explored the surrounding mountains with 
 delight. Amongst other excursions I visited the 
 grotto of Chatelard, which like many other things 
 excites less curiosity by itself than by its difficulty of
 
 FIEST YEARS OF THE JULY EEVOLXJTIOX. 43 
 
 access. I often went to contemplate the Cascade de 
 Gr^syf, where twenty years before Qneen Hortense 
 had seen the Comtesse de Broc, her lady of honour 
 and her friend, disappear. She caused the following 
 inscription to be engraved upon the rock, where it can 
 still be read: "You, who visit this spot, advance 
 cautiously towards the abyss. Think of those who 
 love you ! " 
 
 We had the good fortune to number M. de 
 Lamartine, who had come to Aix partly for the 
 waters, partly as a tourist, amongst the companions 
 of our sojourn at Aix. With him we crossed the Lac 
 de Bourget to visit the Abbey de Haute-Combe, the 
 burial-place of the Princes of Savoy. Could any one 
 find himself on this lake with M. de Lamartine, on 
 this lake which inspired him with his most beautiful 
 meditations, without asking him to recite some verses ? 
 We did not fail to entreat him, but it was in vain ; he 
 gracefully but obstinately refused, and during the 
 crossing chiefly occupied himself with a fine grey- 
 hound which he has mentioned several times in his 
 works, and which by its movements and its intelligent 
 looks seemed to respond to all the conversation which 
 his master made for him. 
 
 The King of Sardinia was then residing for a short 
 time at Chambe'ry, and had come on the same day to 
 render his pious homage to the Abbey de Haute- 
 Combe. King Charles Felix was elderly, bent, and 
 powdered, and his habits, like those of the Queen, were 
 always very simple. Nothing in his appearance or
 
 44 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 in his character could lead any one to foresee the 
 adventurous reign of his successor Charles Albert. 
 We solicited the honour of being introduced to the 
 King and Queen, and it was accorded without any 
 difficulty. They were then out for a walk, and we 
 were conducted into their presence almost without 
 being announced. "We found them seated in two 
 large arm-chairs in the midst of a field. The spot 
 was well chosen for the enjoyment of a magnificent 
 panorama; but the Queen was suffering from tooth- 
 ache, and a very modest screen in faded torn paper 
 was placed behind her chair. This apparition of a 
 patriarchal sovereignty is blended in my memory with 
 the sorrowful tidings of the July revolution. 
 
 We learnt through the papers the grave events 
 which responded to the promulgation of the Ordi- 
 nances, for at that season of the year none of our 
 friends inhabited Paris, and the officers of the guard, 
 who were very few, on account of the leave granted 
 for election purposes, found themselves engaged in 
 action, and had neither time nor thought for writing. 
 For my part, I venture to say that my youthful 
 indignation was entirely patriotic. I had enough 
 common sense to understand that King Charles X. 
 had not chosen either the most suitable men for such 
 a contest nor the best means of defence ; but nothing 
 would have forced me to admit that the King's 
 abdication was not a sufficient expiation, nor that any 
 social progress could be inaugurated by the proscrip- 
 tion of a child, whose education left free scope for
 
 FIRST YEARS OF THE JULY REVOLUTION. 45 
 
 just ideas and legitimate hopes. After an interval of 
 fifty years I am better able to appreciate those 
 opinions which differed from my own, but I still 
 persist in my first judgment. I divide the responsi- 
 bility of error more equitably between the instigators 
 and the instigated, but I persist in thinking that we 
 all came short in 1830 of a great interest and a great 
 duty : the Eight by too much dread of liberty, the 
 Left by failing to restrain their impatience or their 
 passions, and by refusing to secure, at the price of a 
 little patience towards an aged king, the durable and 
 henceforth certain triumph of representative govern- 
 ment. This great problem was tossing about, con- 
 fusedly perhaps, but still fervently in my heart, and 
 I can affirm with the most perfect sincerity that the 
 shipwreck of my personal hopes had nothing to do 
 with the vivacity of my impressions or my regrets. 
 The destiny of my country alarmed me too much for my 
 own future to appear worthy of consideration. I also 
 anticipated at first the possibility of a speedy reaction. 
 I entreated my father to allow me to hasten to 
 Anjou to join there the populations of the "West, who 
 were certain to call for and avenge Henri Y. My 
 father replied that he would not oppose the accom- 
 plishment of such a duty if Charles X. appealed to the 
 fidelity of France, but that I must, until then, rely 
 upon his experience that a serious insurrection did 
 not appear probable, and that he would restrain me 
 by every means in his power from having anything 
 to do with a rising which could serve no good pur-
 
 46 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 pose. The more anxious I appeared to return to 
 France the more my father considered it advisable 
 to gain time. He prolonged his system of treatment 
 and returned through Switzerland, but this short 
 delay sufficed to prove to me that the July insurrec- 
 tion had enthroned a government and developed an 
 order of ideas with which I must reckon in quite a 
 different way from what I had at first anticipated. 
 My intelligence felt itself vanquished before my 
 devotion could make itself heard, and from the time 
 that I returned to Paris — my father always keeping 
 me a little separated from the West — I placed myself 
 in active communication with those men who still 
 nourished the hope of a Eoyalist revenge. 
 
 The Marquis de Coislin, an old friend of my family, 
 a Breton by origin and an Angevin by his marriage 
 with Mademoiselle de Colasseau, a peer of France, a 
 general little known in the army but a chivalrous 
 gentleman, much beloved and much listened to in 
 every department of the West, had promised me that 
 nothing should be attempted without my receiving 
 notice at the same time as his sons, who had been my 
 friends from childhood. 
 
 In the meantime I devoted myself to a drawing- 
 room war, a war which, in France, frequently precedes 
 more serious conflicts, or consoles those who cannot 
 undertake them. The latter was my case, and my 
 tribute was never lacking for any man or any work 
 of the opposition. I believe, however, that I can 
 honestly declare that I never lost my respect for the
 
 FIRST YEARS OF THE JULY REVOLUTION. 47 
 
 ancient house of France. The insulting language 
 employed at the time always shocked me, and I never 
 used it. The maximum of my protest against Louis 
 Philippe when on the throne was continuing to call 
 him the Due d' Orleans and his son, the new Due 
 d' Orleans, the Due de Chartres. The clergy had 
 been requested to chant Domine, salvum fac Ludo- 
 vicum Philippum, which the bad taste of the times 
 first converted into Philippe-pomme and afterwards 
 into Philippe-poire. Louis Philippe gave pet names 
 to his children, and the Due de Chartres was therefore 
 impertinently nicknamed Grand-Poulot. All these 
 expressions were much used in the drawing-rooms 
 and chateaux where the Mode and the Revenant 
 indulged sometimes wittily but always very violently 
 in this style of polemic. I should have been much 
 astonished had any one then spoken to me of fusion ; 
 but in any case my Eoyalist instinct alone would have 
 restrained me from these personalities. 
 
 Nothing in the world would have induced me to 
 enter an Orleanist drawing-room, but I had a few 
 glimpses of the party on an absolutely neutral ground, 
 the Austrian Embassy. 
 
 The Countess Apponyi, nee Nogarola, not only 
 possessed exquisite grace of manner, she had in the 
 same degree benevolence of heart. She had, so to 
 speak, three countries : Vienna, her adopted country ; 
 Verona, her cradle; Eome, her first home as an ambas- 
 sadress ; and with indefatigable good nature she made 
 herself the elegant commissioner of all three. A trous-
 
 48 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 seau, or corbeille, were not considered in good taste in 
 two or three capitals unless, if they had come from 
 Paris, they had been inspected and approved by the 
 Countess Apponyi. She had, in fact, a sort of a second 
 mission of her own. I saw her again at an advanced 
 age, passing a few days in Paris on her way to Lon- 
 don, where her son was ambassador. Her sitting-room 
 at the hotel, continually filled by the elite of society 
 and by the elite of the Paris tradespeople, presented 
 a unique spectacle. She displayed equal emotion at 
 the remembrance shown by one and the other, received 
 from and addressed to them all affectionate expressions 
 which had nothing trite about them; and when in 
 extreme old age she passed away at Pesth, the same 
 respectful homage and the same universal sympathy 
 accompanied her coffin, even as they had constantly 
 attended her during her life. All the more credit was 
 due to her for the kindness she lavished upon others 
 because her health was very delicate ; her great height 
 made her extreme thinness more apparent, and it 
 needed all the distinction of her features, all the soft 
 brilliancy of her eyes to enable her to retain her charm 
 under conditions so unfavourable to anyone else. The 
 entertainments at the Austrian Embassy lasted over 
 the winter and were prolonged until the last days of 
 spring ; they were exceptionally brilliant and had a 
 distinct character of their own. It was then the only 
 house where all opinions met without coming into col- 
 lision, so completely did each person feel that any act 
 of bad taste would be both ungrateful and out of place.
 
 FIRST YEARS OF THE JULY REVOLUTION. 49 
 
 The Due d' Orleans and the Due de Nemours, both very- 
 courteous and very brilliant, were assiduous in their 
 attendance, and the regrettable scenes which sometimes 
 took place at the English Embassy never happened 
 there. The Countess Apponyi was also an admirable 
 musician. ~No one who has heard her sing Beethoven's 
 Adelaide, accompanied by Kossini, could ever forget 
 it. Her son Eudolph Apponyi, brought up in Paris, 
 possessed all the good qualities belonging to such a 
 family and such a school ; our mutual affection, com- 
 menced before 1830, was never disturbed by any 
 political events nor diminished by any absence. In 
 our youth he had spent some weeks with us in Anjou. 
 He returned there after an interval of forty-seven 
 years, and we flattered ourselves that we should cele- 
 brate fifty years of friendship, when his death, as 
 firmly Christian-like as his life had been, separated 
 us for the last time, or rather gave me the signal and 
 the hope of a final and lasting reunion. 
 
 Great reverses should at least enlighten those upon 
 whom they fall and draw them together. Exile in- 
 volves in itself such profound sadness that it ought at 
 least to effect the cessation of hatred and the end of 
 discord as some sort of consolation. However, this is 
 rarely the case, and the little Court of King Charles X. 
 made no exception to the common rule. The King 
 refused to make any armed attempt at a restoration, 
 only building his hopes of a return upon a distant 
 future and upon his grandson. 
 
 The Dauphin never emerged from his pious resigna- 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 MEMOIES OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 tion, but the Duchesse de Berry endeavoured by every 
 means in her power to induce them to listen to other 
 counsels. But even the friends of this princess could 
 not agree between themselves upon the opportune 
 moment, or the choice of the political ideas to which 
 they would do best to attach themselves. Some of 
 them, true to the spirit of the Ordinances and to the 
 tendencies of the "Ultras," as they were then called, 
 considered themselves freed from all obligation towards 
 the Eight and the modern liberties which had failed 
 to preserve the inviolability of the throne. Others 
 wished to give a younger programme to the youthful 
 sovereignty of Henri V., and went so far as to inscribe 
 monarchical liberty upon his flag. The former had 
 the Due des Cars and the Marechal de Bourmont for 
 leaders. The others went to confide their ideas to 
 M. de Chateaubriand, M. Berryer, and M. Hyde de 
 Nenville, who received them rather with the idea of 
 bringing them to reason than of entering into their 
 plans. The bolder spirits carried the day with the 
 Duchesse de Berry, and the Yend^an expedition was 
 resolved upon, with what results I need not describe. 
 I found myself kept aloof from it, quite contrary to 
 my expectation and wishes. The Marquis de Coislin 
 was one of those who, having accepted a command in 
 the West, disapproved of the hour chosen and pre- 
 dicted a fatal issue. He was one of those who replied 
 to the Duchesse de Berry, " We offer you our own 
 lives, but we cannot lightly dispose of the lives of 
 those who have placed their trust in us. We will not
 
 FIRST TEAKS OF THE JULY REVOLUTION. 51 
 
 transmit orders of which we cannot loyally accept the 
 responsibility." The carrying out of the enterprise 
 was then scarcely commenced, exc.ept in a few places 
 where devotion had not received any counter- orders, 
 or else, having received them, attributed them to 
 felony and chose to ignore them. 
 
 M. de Chateaubriand played an active part as a 
 pacificator in this passing crisis. He has given a 
 detailed account of it in his Memoires, where he brings 
 forward M. Berryer's intrepid intervention, whose 
 great qualities of mind and heart I from that time 
 learnt to appreciate. I was a close witness of the 
 narrow, ungrateful, and sometimes jealous violence, 
 which unceasingly pursued him, even in all the 
 brilliancy of his services, and I swore an attachment 
 to him which has been the torch of my whole political 
 life. 
 
 M. Berryer's generous magnanimity equalled all 
 his other qualities. Nothing was more unjust than 
 the expression used in certain Eoyalist groups, 
 "Berryer is only the barrister of his party." 
 M. Berryer was a Eoyalist not by profession or by 
 calculation, but in the plenitude of his convictions. 
 He threw into his creed his whole heart and whole 
 reason from the very first. For forty years he was 
 without respite and without reserve the inspiration 
 and the life of the Legitimist party. He would have 
 secured the success and the greatness of the monarchy 
 if God in His impenetrable decree had not condemned 
 the monarchy itself to a fatal blindness. "No one knew 
 
 e2
 
 52 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 better than M. Berryer himself the distrust and 
 calumnies of which he was the object. He was 
 never for a single instant discouraged nor damped by 
 them. And this striking feature of his character was 
 revealed to me as far back as 1832 by unexceptional 
 evidence. When the Duchesse de Berry was arrested 
 at Nantes, in the house of Mademoiselle de Guiny, 
 her correspondence was seized. It was full of out- 
 rageous denunciations of M. Berryer, and M. Thiers 
 thought it would be useful to communicate them 
 through an official medium to the man who could 
 not fail to be cruelly wounded by them. M. Berryer 
 took the letters from the hand that presented them, 
 coolly looked through them, and said to the mes- 
 senger, who probably expected some other answer, 
 " I need not read any more ; the men who wrote them 
 are too frank to have hidden their dissent or their 
 blame from me. I must prove to them that they are 
 mistaken, and you may feel sure that I shall not fail 
 to do so ! " This was M. Berryer all over. The 
 Duchesse de Berry's expedition in 1832 had the 
 usual fate of all badly-planned designs, and dealt the 
 last blow to the men who were expecting their 
 triumph from it. It was said that in La Vendee the 
 monarchical flag ought to be raised and supported — 
 it was La Vendee which succumbed to the pretensions 
 that had been placarded in its name far more than 
 that they had been planned by that region ; for with 
 very few exceptions the judgment of the Vendean 
 leaders was in conformity with that of the political
 
 FIRST YEARS OF THE JULY REVOLUTION. 53 
 
 and parliamentary Parisians. The country itself was 
 materially modified at the same time that it was 
 vanquished. The government of July could not 
 remain under the dread of an incessant menace, and 
 skilful precautions were taken. The Eestoration, 
 which was much less of a party government than it 
 was accused of being, had in La Vendee rather 
 merited the reproach of ingratitude than anything 
 else. Nothing exceptional, nothing even equitable 
 had been accorded to this heroic district. It had not 
 received any favour in the distribution of the State 
 funds, the princes had rarely or very rapidly visited 
 it : its agriculture languished and its means of inter- 
 communication were more neglected, more defective 
 than in any other part of France. The new govern- 
 ment saw that it would be dealing a decisive blow at 
 the spirit of insurrection if it opened, so to speak, the 
 departments of the "West, and no longer allowed one 
 single point to remain inaccessible to the action of 
 military force. Eoyal roads, departmental roads, 
 parish roads, were promptly voted and made after 
 strategic plans. Markets and every commercial fa- 
 cility were lavishly granted out of distrust as they 
 had never been by favour. The modern spirit, which 
 formarly had been ineffectually imposed upon La 
 Vendee with iron and fire, had been repulsed by her 
 with unparalleled energy. From 1832 it was offered to 
 her in the form of an increase of well-being and riches. 
 The reception was no longer doubtful ; military La 
 Vendee became and remained a magnificent souvenir.
 
 54 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 During the Duchesse de Berry's captivity at Blaye, 
 the Eoyalist society resolved to wear mourning and to 
 deny itself any entertainments. The Faubourg St. 
 Germain, which was then a power, proscribed all 
 balls, and only allowed itself routs. The entertain- 
 ments called by this name were not very favourable 
 to conversation; however, French wit, incapable of 
 idleness, devised the idea of rendering them a means 
 of doing honour to the authors then in fashion. The 
 Vicomtesse de Noailles, who inhabited the Hotel 
 Beauvau, since transformed into the Ministry of the 
 Interior; the Duchesse de Bauzan, daughter of the 
 Duchesse de Duras ; the Comtesse de Chastellux, her 
 sister-in-law ; the Marquise de la Bourdonnaye, 
 daughter of the general who was deputy of the 
 Morbihan; the Duchesse de Maille', who gave a real 
 renown to the Chateau de l'Ormoy, and who played 
 Moliere's repertory in a way to make the Theatre 
 Francais turn green with envy — bid against each 
 other for the guests borrowed from Madame Smile de 
 Girardin's salon : Eugene Sue, M. de Balzac, and M. de 
 Sainte-Beuve became the lions of the winter of 1833. 
 
 Eugene Sue affected very aristocratic manners ; he 
 assumed the most fashionable dress, the most studied 
 attitudes, and no one would have divined, from the 
 diamonds in his ample cuffs, the future author of the 
 " Mysteries of Paris." 
 
 M. de Balzac was very heavy, very embarrassed, 
 and but for his intelligent look nothing in his con- 
 versation would have indicated his genius with the
 
 FIRST TEARS OF THE JULY REVOLUTION. 55 
 
 pen. One evening the Vicomtesse de Noailles thought 
 that she would show him off by asking him to impro- 
 vise a story. Every one present hastened to form a 
 silent circle around him ; he declined, but no one 
 believed in his modesty, and every one persisted in 
 the request. At last he opened his lips and com- 
 menced by describing a desert island, which at the 
 same time he suddenly peopled with a crowd of 
 inhabitants. The listeners exchanged smiles, and, 
 noticing this, he began to laugh good-humouredly and 
 stopped short, the attempt being never recommenced. 
 M. de Sainte-Beuve displayed little taste for routs, 
 preferring afternoon calls, where he could choose his 
 interlocutors more easily and remain master of the 
 conversation. This dull winter was ended by the 
 painful despatches from Blaye, and the following 
 winter the drawing-rooms returned to their usual 
 pleasures, and speedily forgot their temporary guests. 
 Eugene Sue abandoned himself without any transition 
 to a demagogic public and passions ; M. de Balzac 
 retained on his palette several of the colours borrowed 
 from the Faubourg St. Germain in 1833 ; M. de Sainte- 
 Beuve, gladly consenting neither to be classed nor 
 unclassed, remained the unrivalled critic of books 
 and manuscripts, his favourite companions. The salon 
 of Madame Himile de Girardin alone survived all these 
 changes; admission to it was eagerly sought, and it 
 was worthy of its position. It was neutral but not 
 indifferent ground, where poetry and prose, politics 
 and romance, met together and clasped hands.
 
 56 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 M. de Girardin, whose character had nothing 
 magnetic about it, was not, however, any such 
 obstacle to success as might since have been imagined. 
 He effaced himself considerably before his wife, and 
 had, also, several natural allies in the aristocratic 
 world. His father, General de Girardin, son or 
 nephew of the Marquis de Girardin d'Ermenonville, 
 was grand- equerry and rather in favour under the 
 Eestoration. He squinted shockingly, and once, upon 
 asking the Prince de Talleyrand, "How are affairs 
 going on?" he received this answer: "All crooked, 
 as you see ! " General de Girardin, without reflecting 
 upon the responsibility he was incurring, brought up 
 this son under his own name in one of the colleges of 
 Paris. When the young man was old enough to 
 enter the world, the Marquise de Girardin, born 
 Yintimille, repudiated this adoption, which could not 
 possibly be legal and, in order to get out of the 
 difficulty, the General offered the young man a con- 
 siderable fortune. He replied with stubborn pride : 
 " Your name, or nothing ! " 
 
 Negotiations were then commenced ; several friends, 
 amongst others the Marquis de la Bourdonnaye, inte- 
 rested themselves in this delicate business, and con- 
 ceived a very affectionate esteem for the youthful 
 Emile. Poverty voluntarily accepted soon became 
 the excuse for a series of bold speculations, which 
 were not always equal in nobility to the original 
 starting-point. 
 
 "lam refused a name," said he ; " be it so, I shall
 
 FIRST TEARS OF THE JULY REVOLUTION. 57 
 
 find the way to conquer one which will open every 
 door to me ! " 
 
 He was in this state of fervent illusions when he 
 met Mademoiselle Delphine Gay, and endeavoured to 
 supplant a great number of rivals in her favour. 
 Madame Gay by her opinions belonged to the Eoyalist 
 society, and had even been intimate with General de 
 Girardin at a former date. When her daughter Del- 
 phine displayed the first gleams of her genius, the 
 Court took such warm interest in her that the King 
 and the Dauphin expressed a desire to hear the youth- 
 ful Sappho, as she was then called. Her success was 
 so complete that the King, contrary to his custom, con- 
 gratulated her with so much warmth that for a few 
 days people believed there was to be another Main- 
 tenon. This whispered report was not of long dura- 
 tion, but Mademoiselle Gay remained the object of 
 much homage, and when M. de Girardin announced 
 his marriage it provoked as much jealousy as surprise 
 in very different spheres. Madame de Girardin' s 
 poetry, separated from the fascination of the writer, 
 has lost a great deal of its charm, though several of 
 her small comedies remain masterpieces, and the first 
 rank would still be accorded to her if the brilliancy, 
 the warmth, the natural wit of her conversation could 
 be preserved and transmitted. Eoyalist society was 
 still deeply moved by the captivity of Blaye, when the 
 Duchesse de Berry's marriage with Count Lucchesi 
 was abruptly and officially announced. Incredulity 
 reigned at first, and the report gave rise to several
 
 58 MEMOIES OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 challenges; but when doubt became impossible, the 
 irritation in some quarters and the sorrow in others 
 were indescribable. The Eoyalist party had hitherto 
 been spared any such trial, but they bore it well ; and 
 after surviving defeats, spoliation, and scaffolds it with- 
 stood a humiliation in some respects more trying, their 
 vigorous constancy receiving no little consolation from 
 a fortuitous circumstance. M. de Chateaubriand, who 
 under the Eestoration had fed too freely upon the 
 enjoyment of revenge, felt bound in honour to prove 
 after the revolution of July that he at last raised his 
 soul above all personal feelings. He was faithful 
 through honesty and pride as others were through 
 affection and temperament. A defeated and captive 
 mother re-awakened the faith of his youth, and he 
 uttered before King Louis Philippe, and for King Louis 
 Philippe's own ear, the cry, " Madame, your son is 
 my king ! " He made this the title of a touching 
 pamphlet, which was brought before the tribunals and 
 the trial attracted all political and literary Paris when 
 the startling despatch arrived from Blaye. 
 
 M. de Chateaubriand's first movement was to refuse 
 to appear ; he does not say this in his Memoires, but I 
 had proof of it through an accident which left no room 
 for doubt. 
 
 The first President Seguier, to whom I had the 
 honour of being related, was an original personage 
 full of wit. To all the ways of the old Parliament, to 
 all the traditions of the old style, he united very 
 modern opinions and epigrams. His hotel in the Eue
 
 FIRST YEARS OF THE JULY REVOLUTION. 59 
 
 Pavee-Saint-Andre-des-Arts, at once gave an idea of 
 its master. The first thing which met the eye was a 
 picture representing Chancellor Seguier in full costume 
 and in full state ; and under this solemn image of the 
 seventeenth century moved the most animated and 
 militant object of our own epoch, the first President 
 himself. His son, Armand Seguier, resigned himself 
 to the magisterial career during his father's lifetime, 
 and afterwards took up his vocation as savant, which 
 made him one of the most distinguished members of 
 the Institute. His daughter, Irene Seguier, had 
 married Baron de Brandois, a former officer of the 
 guard, very pious and very royalist. I confided my 
 ardent wish to Madame de Brandois, and she obtained 
 a formal promise of a special ticket from her father. 
 A day or two before the date fixed for the trial, she 
 told me, whilst expressing the sadness so generally 
 felt, that her father had just been informed that M. de 
 Chateaubriand had resolved not to appear before the 
 Court. At the same time an exclamation from M. 
 de Chateaubriand was repeated which clearly expressed 
 his first impression : " Do you wish me to appear, in 
 order to hear myself called the Georges Dandin of the 
 legitimacy ? " And he also allowed a quotation from 
 Moliere to escape him which betrayed his irritation 
 still more clearly. 
 
 But M. de Chateaubriand was not the only one sum- 
 moned to appear at the bar. The newspaper La Mode 
 was implicated in the same prosecution. M. Alfred 
 du Fougerais, a young and very distinguished barrister,
 
 60 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 was to defend Yicomte Walsh, the manager and chief 
 editor of La Mode. A rumour was also whispered of 
 M. Berryer's intervention, and this sufficed to make 
 me deeply regret the tickets that Madame de Brandois 
 had given back. I confided my disappointment to a 
 member of the bar, since appointed to the magistracy, 
 Alphonse de Baillehache, who advised me to borrow 
 a barrister's robe, and facilitated the accomplishment 
 of this petty offence by giving me his arm as I entered 
 the court and making me sit next to him. 
 
 M. de Chateaubriand appeared and M. Berryer 
 pleaded. M. de Chateaubriand has done himself a 
 great injustice in his Memoir es by the way in which 
 he has abridged his account of this trial. He only 
 speaks of himself and of the Attorney- General Persil ; 
 what he says is quite correct, but then, it is not 
 all. He does not pay sufficient homage to M. du 
 Fougerais and, by an inexplicable omission, passes over 
 M. Berryer's speech in absolute silence, although on 
 that day he won one of his most splendid triumphs. 
 The Memoires oV outre-tombe are perfectly veracious in 
 representing the Attorney-General as embarrassed, 
 fatiguing and insulting, without being vehement. 
 "You come here to gain popularity," cried he, "but 
 you are careful not to show yourselves to the people, 
 for they would tear you to pieces." M. Berryer, who 
 had been retained for the defence, rose leisurely, like 
 a man who wished to restrain and overrule his first 
 emotion, and fixed his eyes upon M. Persil with an 
 expression of even more sorrow than indignation ; he
 
 FIRST YEARS OF THE JULY REVOLUTION. 61 
 
 replied in a tone that can never be either forgotten or 
 described, "Did I hear correctly? What! I am in 
 the Palace of Saint Louis, himself called the great 
 justiciary of his kingdom. We have, you assert, 
 advanced from century to century in the path of 
 justice and liberty, and to-day, when men of conviction 
 and honour are brought before you, you, a magistrate, 
 rise up and say to them, 'Descend into the street; 
 you will find assassins there who will answer you.' " 
 Nothing could restrain the enthusiasm of the audience 
 at these words ; he never cooled during the remainder 
 of the speech, which continually reached the same 
 height and was crowned by a verdict of acquittal. 
 
 As soon as the acquittal was known the crowd made 
 a rush toward M. de Chateaubriand and M. Berryer. 
 One of the first at the head of this throng, I had the 
 pleasure of finding M. de Chateaubriand clinging to 
 my arm to avoid being thrown down, receiving this 
 ovation with unfeigned simplicity and an evident 
 wish to escape it. "I don't like this crush, I don't 
 like this crush," he said, without knowing me, as 
 soon as he could breathe a little. " I must beg you, 
 sir, to lead me quickly to my carriage." I therefore 
 aided him to elbow his way through the crowd ; but 
 on reaching the steps he was greeted by acclamations 
 still more numerous and above all still more noisy. 
 "Long live M. de Chateaubriand! Long live the 
 liberty of the press ! " cried the people with frenzy. 
 When I had succeeded in hoisting him into his 
 carriage they wished to unharness the horses, to draw
 
 62 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 it themselves, but M. de Chateaubriand, with his 
 head out of window, cried in a supplicating voice, 
 " Don't do anything of the kind ! you don't know 
 where I live ! It's very far away, very far away ; 
 it's impossible ! " At last his coachman obeying his 
 orders started at a rapid trot towards the house 
 of retreat of Marie Therese, followed during some 
 minutes by a demonstration, the object of which had 
 certainly not promoted it. The carriage disappeared 
 in the distance and as my small share in the triumph 
 was over, I started for home, my heart and mind 
 quite full of all that I had heard and seen. I was, in 
 fact, so full of it all that I forgot to return the 
 barrister's robe which I was wearing. I followed the 
 quai, and I do not know when I should have found 
 out my absence of mind if I had not been recognised 
 and warned by Alexis de Pomereu, who was also 
 leaving the court. But I retained not only the robe 
 that I had usurped but I had also a large portfolio 
 under my arm which belonged to M. de Chateau- 
 briand and contained his papers concerning the trial. 
 Unable to run after him, I went to the Marie 
 Therese hospice the same evening, carrying the 
 precious portfolio with me. My name, when 
 announced by the servant, was quite unknown to 
 M. de Chateaubriand, but as soon as he recognised 
 me he warmly held out both hands, crying " Madame 
 de Chateaubriand, here is the young barrister of 
 whom I spoke just now and who rendered me such 
 great service in the crowd." Madame de Chateau-
 
 FIRST YEARS OF THE JULY REVOLUTION. 63 
 
 briand also made much of me, and from that day I 
 was received by them both with a kindness which 
 never diminished. 
 
 M. de Chateaubriand went to no expense in his 
 receptions, but he was simple and genial. His 
 affectionate politeness gave a value to the few words 
 he uttered. He loved and encouraged youth, and 
 seemed happy in his ardent sympathies, never affect- 
 ing either showy attitudes or speeches. He never 
 asked a question, but when anybody put one to him 
 he answered politely and relapsed into silence. The 
 subjects of conversation appeared indifferent to him. 
 I have heard him discuss the various pastrycooks of 
 Paris and the varieties of small cakes for half an hour, 
 in order to please a companion who was very learned 
 on the subject. 
 
 It was always Madame de Chateaubriand who 
 introduced or aroused the piquant element in the 
 conversation. She said to me one day, "M. de 
 Chateaubriand is so stupid that, if I were not there, 
 he would never speak evil of any one." She was 
 delicate and rather reclined than sat in a very deep 
 arm-chair, which she shared with a magnificent 
 Angora cat which had been given to her by Leo XII., 
 during the embassy at Eome, and which sometimes 
 lifted its head above its mistress's shoulders and 
 sometimes lay upon her knees. She was certainly 
 not inimical to goodness, as she sometimes liked to 
 make it appear. Still, it is easy to conceive that she 
 did not have a soothing and pacifying influence upon
 
 64 MEMOIES OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 her husband's mind, which was all the more irritable 
 because his irritability was so much concentrated. 
 Madame de Chateaubriand's sincere piety had no 
 scruples in this respect, because it was not for herself, 
 but for M. de Chateaubriand that she roused herself, 
 whether in good or evil fortune, in power or in dis- 
 grace. Her mind, always very active, was sometimes 
 very brilliant, and most of her words struck home, 
 while there can be no doubt that if she had employed, 
 in order to soothe M. de Chateaubriand, the same 
 energy which she used to avenge him, she would have 
 rendered great service to France, to him, and to the 
 Memoir es oVoutre-tombe. 
 
 The reprisals against the Duchesse de Berry's ex- 
 pedition were much more active and much more 
 durable in the provinces than in Paris. I was struck 
 by this when I revisited Anjou ; several of my neigh- 
 bours had been obliged to expatriate themselves, 
 having been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment 
 in contumaciam. The smallest villages received a 
 garrison. Bourg d'Ire also received one, which was 
 installed in the Chateau de la Bigeottiere, the former 
 home of the Montmorencys, where the Comtesse de 
 Laval received her cousin Fenelon. At Noyant M. de 
 Cande's chateau was thought vast enough to be con- 
 verted into barracks, but in order to overcome the 
 resistance of the owner it was necessary to subject 
 him to a siege. "When M. de Cande was informed 
 that a detachment of infantry would be sent to him, 
 he sent for two slaters and ordered them to go up to
 
 FIRST YEARS OF THE JULY REVOLUTION. 65 
 
 the top of the chateau and take the tiles off at once. 
 The soldiers forced the men to discontinue their work, 
 by firing at them. M. de Cande then had recourse to 
 another expedient ; he replaced the intimidated slaters 
 by masons, and every door which could put him into 
 communication with his garrison was walled up, as 
 well as most of the windows. However his natural 
 kindliness soon got the better of him, he gradually 
 entered into conversation with the officers and soldiers 
 when he met them outside the chateau, passed fruit 
 and game to them over the improvised barriers which 
 represented bis protests, and when the hour of pacifi- 
 cation sounded their parting was that of true friends. 
 
 General Clouet, formerly General de Bourmont's 
 aide-de-camp at Waterloo, and still under his orders 
 in the rising of 1832, remained hidden in a farm in 
 Brittany. 
 
 He was a very tall powerful-looking man, and to 
 render his disguise more complete he took an active 
 share in the work of the farm. His fellow-labourers 
 became intimate with him, and one of them confided 
 to him one day his great distress because he could 
 not marry the girl he loved for want of a dowry. 
 
 " Your confidence touches me deeply," replied 
 General Clouet, " and I am going to prove it to you. 
 I am condemned to death for having fired on the blues. 
 A sum of money is promised to whoever will give me 
 up. I give you my secret ; you can now make your 
 fortune and marry whom you like." 
 
 The young man leant upon his spade and looking 
 
 vol. i. p
 
 66 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 steadily at him said, " Sir, one sleeps longer than 
 one lives, and I would not give my share of Paradise 
 for the largest fortune in the world ! " 
 
 They both resumed their work, and the story did 
 not come from General Clouet. 
 
 I had myself personal knowledge of an admirable 
 type of man, the last vestige of the vanished past. 
 Father Guinehut, still wearing the round hat, the 
 long hair, the short breeches, and high gaiters of the 
 first companions of Bonchamps, came to visit Madame 
 de la Paumeliere, his old acquaintance, or rather his 
 old friend. The following are, without any alteration 
 or comments, the words in which the veteran of 
 the first risings of the "West replied to our eager 
 questions : — 
 
 " Every one was reliable and faithful at the Chape- 
 ronniere. I could answer for my servants as for my 
 own children, and M. de Cathelineau would not have 
 perished had he not in his kindness resolved to save 
 my life. The Marquis de Civrac, M. de Cathelineau, 
 and M. Moricet had, at the Chaperonniere a hiding- 
 place which had saved many priests in the old times 
 without ever being discovered. These gentlemen 
 were at table with us, when one of my sons, who was 
 on the watch during the meal, ran in, saying, ' Here 
 are the blues ! ' The three gentlemen at once rushed 
 into their retreat, and a detachment of soldiers who 
 were patrolling the country followed closely upon 
 their heels. ' Look here, Father Guinehut,' said the 
 officer, addressing me, ' you are an honest man. You
 
 FIRST YEARS OF THE JULY REVOLUTION. 67 
 
 do not wish this war to go on without rhyme or 
 reason, own frankly that you have given refuge to 
 several of the former chiefs.' 'If you believe that 
 they are in my house you have only to look for 
 them ; ' for I wished neither to betray them nor tell a 
 lie. With this answer they were about to retire, 
 when a soldier caught sight of the Quolidienne, which 
 M. de Civrac had forgotten in a corner. * Ah ! ah ! 
 Father Guinehut, this tells more than you will ! ' 
 1 "What, sir ! a newspaper ; is it not a liberal one ? 
 Cannot I have a newspaper like every one else ? ' 
 ' Ah ! it's your paper ; very well, read it to us then.' 
 And as I did not know how to read I was much con- 
 fused. They then commenced to hunt all over the 
 house, forcing me to walk before them to open the 
 doors. When we entered the hayloft I at once 
 noticed a bit of straw, that had been caught in the 
 trap-door of the hiding-place, and was sticking out of 
 it. I went over to that side of the room, and with an 
 indifferent air placed my foot upon the straw. ' Now,' 
 said I to myself, ' all is well.' But the officer, getting 
 angry because nothing was found, said to me in a 
 rage, ' Now, you old Chouan, this comedy has lasted 
 long enough. Show us your hiding-place ; if not we 
 will shoot you, set fire to your hayloft, and in a few 
 hours there will be nothing left of you or your farm.' 
 At this threat I was a good deal troubled. I said to 
 myself, ' The farm is not mine, have I any right to 
 allow it to be burnt if I can help it ? ' but I answered 
 the question myself by saying, ' My master is a 
 
 f2
 
 68 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 Eoyalist ; if he were here he would do as I am doing. 
 Besides, when they have killed me, that will satisfy 
 them, and then perhaps they will not set fire to the 
 house.' I then said to them, ' Sirs, you are masters 
 here, shoot me when you please.' They then made 
 me fall upon my knees, put the muzzle of the gun to 
 my mouth, and broke the tooth which is missing just 
 here. But this all took place within a few steps of 
 the hiding-place ; the gentlemen heard it all, and 
 unfortunately they determined to sacrifice their lives 
 to save mine. They raised the trap, crying, ' Don't 
 fire ! don't fire ! ' and they all three appeared before 
 the astonished soldiers. ' Fire on the Chouans ! ' com- 
 manded the officer, but the soldiers not obeying him 
 at once, he snatched a gun from their hands and fired 
 upon the nearest of the gentlemen, who fell dead. 
 This was M. de Cathelineau. A cry of horror escaped 
 from the soldiers. M. de Civrac and M. Moricet 
 were taken prisoners." 
 
 Through respect for the French army I shall 
 leave the name of the officer in oblivion. I will only 
 add that he was expelled from his regiment, and died 
 soon after his shameful exploit. 
 
 This painful state of the country found a faithful 
 echo in my heart. Nothing was more agreeable to 
 me than to seek out and to soothe, since I could not 
 do more, the misery inevitably produced by this 
 crisis, for many of the peasants had been compromised 
 by their own attitude or that of their children. The 
 language of the Craonnais people has always been
 
 FIRST YEARS OF THE JULY REVOLUTION. 69 
 
 very dignified, for it has always been very Christian. 
 I asked a farmer one day, a metayer, as we called 
 those who give half of the crops to the owner instead 
 of paying rent, how his family had fared during 
 my absence. "Ah, sir," he replied, simply raising 
 his eyes to heaven, " God has gone shares with me 
 like my master ; I had six children, he has taken 
 three."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 
 
 1834—1835. 
 
 Unable henceforth to study Europe as a diplomatist, 
 I resolved at all events to visit it as a tourist. I also 
 determined at the same time that I would pay my 
 respects to the exiled royal family and thus judge 
 for myself, so far as the opportunity was granted 
 to me, what might be anticipated from the Due de 
 Bordeaux's natural qualities and education. I 
 passed, almost without stopping, through Belgium 
 and Holland, went up the Ehine as far as Mayence, 
 and reached Prague by way of Frankfort. 
 
 The capital of Bohemia cannot fail to strike the eye 
 and arrest the attention with its magnificent pano- 
 ramas, ancient monuments, historical souvenirs, 
 libraries, its statue of Saint Nepouski upon the 
 Moldau, and the "Wallenstein Palace. 
 
 All this was part of my programme, but my first 
 thoughts were for the Hradschin Palace, in which the 
 House of France was receiving hospitality. How my 
 heart beat as I crossed the threshold and mounted the 
 empty staircase guarded by two Austrian sentinels.
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 71 
 
 The Hradschin is an immense edifice, maintained 
 with the habitual simplicity of the Austrian Court, 
 and reserved by the imperial family for its visits to 
 Bohemia. ' King Charles X., the Dauphin, the Dau- 
 phine, the Due de Bordeaux, Mademoiselle, and their 
 few courtiers seemed almost lost in the innumerable 
 passages of this vast palace, rarely inhabited and very 
 barely furnished. However, in the evening the 
 King's drawing-room, where every one assembled, as- 
 sumed a thoroughly French aspect. The old monarch 
 retained his serene affability ; one felt that the mis- 
 fortunes which had befallen him had not altered him 
 in any way, and that he thought that no one could 
 have done better nor acted differently. He saw 
 Frenchmen with pleasure, but without emotion, and 
 it was hard to say whether we were contemplating 
 an admirable example of religious resignation or a 
 character a little too much disposed to indifference. 
 The Dauphin was taciturn and sad; one could see that 
 behind the natural respect which he paid his father 
 there were signs of painful struggles and anguish. 
 
 The Dauphine without comparison was the one 
 who had most to complain of from our country, and 
 she was also without comparison the one who loved it 
 the most. Her questions and answers always referred 
 to our country, and she pronounced the name of 
 France with an indefinable accent. Her eyes, always 
 red, would at times be suddenly lowered over her 
 wool-work, and her voice, naturally loud and almost 
 rough, would die away in an unfinished phrase, while
 
 72 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 tears which she would not allow to fall filled her 
 eyes. As to a complaint, as to a bitter word on 
 any subject, never ! Her head was never quite 
 raised, her face never quite illumined by a ray of 
 light except when she spoke of the children. By 
 this name she referred to her nephew and niece, who 
 on their side displayed a filial tenderness towards her. 
 Every evening the King played whist with Cardinal 
 de Latil, the Due de Blacas, and Prince Louis de 
 Eohan, who had settled in Bohemia since the July 
 Eevolution. If necessary, the Dauphin took the 
 place of any one absent, but w r hen free he preferred 
 playing chess. 
 
 Charles X. was a bad player and frequently lost his 
 temper ; but his partners were used to him and did 
 not mind. More than once I heard the Due de Blacas 
 reply coldly, "When the trick is ended your Majesty 
 will see whether you are right." The Dauphine occu- 
 pied herself with all the persons assembled in the 
 drawing-room, made the young princes give an account 
 of their studies, and visibly exerted herself to show 
 them off before strangers. When the children had 
 retired she loved to talk about them. The King 
 ended his whist about ten o'clock and graciously 
 dismissed his guests with a few words, every one rose, 
 the Dauphin left his game of chess unfinished, and 
 the Dauphine folded up her needlework. This was 
 called etiquette at Hradschin ; it might also be called 
 innate respect, a respect without effort and without 
 reserve.
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 73 
 
 On Sunday I had the honour of being invited to the 
 King's Mass. The cathedral is much older than the 
 palace. After passing through the long wings of 
 the chateau I reached a spacious pew facing the high 
 altar, and took a seat behind the royal family. I can 
 assert that in this small group the prayer for the King 
 was the prayer for France ; no one would have even 
 conceived the idea that these two interests could be 
 separated. 
 
 On the morrow, I witnessed an unusual excitement 
 in this rarely excited colony. Charles X. announced 
 his intention of inviting two Jesuit fathers to assist 
 Baron de Damas in the Due de Bordeaux's education, 
 and this news produced a storm. M. de Damas, who 
 had proposed the arrangement, defended it with calm 
 obstinacy. M. Barande, a very distinguished pupil 
 of the Ecole Polytechnique specially entrusted with 
 the Due de Bordeaux's scientific education, took an 
 opposite view, and so did M. de la Villatte, formerly 
 an officer of the royal guard, who, through loyal 
 devotion and a wish to preserve an unbroken watch 
 over the life of his young prince, had accepted the 
 title of First Groom of the Chambers. This position, 
 relatively inferior, did not detract anything from his 
 purely military dignity. The Duchesse de Goutaut, 
 having said to him before me with reference to some 
 topic or other, "You may feel sure, Monsieur de 
 Villatte, that I have a great esteem for you," he 
 replied, " Parbleu, duchess, I should think so ! " 
 The former governess to the royal children, who was
 
 74 MEMOIES OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 still governess to Mademoiselle, loudly expressed 
 her alarm at the King's new resolution and did not 
 scruple to appeal to every French person who came 
 to Prague. The Due and Duchesse de Guiche, in 
 attendance on the Dauphin, whose son, Agenor de 
 Gramont, was brought up with the Due de Bordeaux, 
 also opposed the project. The Dauphine was silent, 
 at least in public, but the opinions of her entourage 
 were divided. The Vicomtesse d'Agoult and the 
 Comte de Bouille agreed with the Baron de Damas. 
 The Comtesse de Bouille and Abbe de Moligny, the 
 King's almoner, were supposed to hold a different 
 opinion, and at all events refused to express any 
 ostensible approval. The King himself never alluded 
 to it, nor did he allow any one else to speak of it in 
 his drawing-room. One day, however, I heard him 
 say to Prince Louis de Eohan, whom he had drawn 
 on one side, "Beassure yourself, reassure yourself. 
 When God recalls my grandson to France the French 
 people will not split hairs with him to see if a Jesuit 
 is concealed inside one of them ! " 
 
 In spite of his unalterable confidence in the 
 decrees of Providence respecting his race, the resist- 
 ance or the silence of the small Court at Hradschin 
 at last troubled the King. The Due de Bordeaux 
 had nearly attained his fourteenth year, which was 
 to be his year of majority, and the Boyalist party 
 were preparing to celebrate this event. Some only 
 sought in it an opportunity for a demonstration ; 
 others wished to make it mark still more distinctly
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 75 
 
 the abdication of Charles X. and his son; others, 
 again, wished to prove that the Prince having nomi- 
 nally terminated his education, the presence of the 
 Jesuits would be superfluous. M. de Chateaubriand, 
 who took an active part in these questions, refers to 
 them in his Memoires. For my part I only heard 
 what was generally discussed, and knew nothing of 
 what passed in secret conclave. 
 
 However, the demonstrations in favour of the Due 
 de Bordeaux's emancipation becoming more marked, 
 the King suddenly resolved to free himself from them 
 by taking his grandson to Buschtiehrad, a dilapidated 
 and dull residence ten or fifteen miles from Prague. 
 At the same time the Dauphine left for the Carlsbad 
 baths. All receptions were suspended at Busch- 
 tiehrad, and I only had the honour of being admitted 
 to take my leave. I have found an account of it 
 in one of my letters to M. Brifaut, letters which he 
 had the kindness to preserve and which have been 
 restored to me by his heirs. After describing the 
 Due de Bordeaux's appearance, the gentle beauty of 
 his looks, the sound of his voice, the charm of his 
 natural vivacious manner, I added : " One cannot 
 lavish too much praise upon the care with which he 
 has been brought up, and all that is needed to make 
 this education produce its full fruits is the influence 
 of a distinguished tutor. He is a diamond in the 
 rough ! " The Due de Bordeaux lunched at noon, 
 and my audience was fixed rather before that hour. 
 
 " You have come from Prague," he said to me,
 
 76 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 " and must be hungry, so you shall lunch with me, 
 or else I shall be deprived of one half of your visit, 
 which I do not wish to be ! " He then took my arm 
 and led me to his little dining-room, making me sit 
 down by his side: "As you are going to see my 
 aunt at Carlsbad, on your way to Vienna," he con- 
 tinued, "you can tell her that you left me quite 
 well, but that I miss her a great deal. I have made 
 a sketch of the house she is living in, which I will 
 show to you that you may recognise it as soon as you 
 arrive." 
 
 Some allusion was made to Auvergne. " That is 
 a country where Monseigneur has many friends," I 
 observed. 
 
 "There is a very good specimen of them," the 
 Prince rejoined, pointing to M. de la Villatte. 
 
 After luncheon a bunch of lilies of the valley was 
 brought to him, and I made some remark upon the 
 white and green, which were then the Eoyalist 
 colours. 
 
 "Well, I decorate you with my order," he replied, 
 and he took a few sprays from his bouquet and placed 
 them in my button-hole. A little later I was present 
 at the riding lesson, and towards four o'clock in the 
 afternoon, I returned to Prague, my heart full of 
 emotion and hope. 
 
 At Carlsbad I received the Dauphine's commissions 
 for Yienna, not without being questioned at some 
 length about my visit to Buschtiehrad. 
 
 At Vienna my first visit was to M. de Montbel,
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 77 
 
 the ambassador in partibus of the exiled monarch. 
 An intelligent faithful servant, he had precisely the 
 one merit most pleasing to princes, a superficial apti- 
 tude, which was nevertheless sufficiently general to 
 apply itself a little to everything, and to solve small 
 difficulties in such a way as to lead any one to suppose 
 that he could also solve great ones. His varied 
 knowledge placed him in a position to keep up a 
 conversation, when those greater than himself were 
 glad to be silent or to avoid some embarrassment. 
 Incapable of anything like mean or dishonest ser- 
 vility, docility came easy to him ; he practised it as a 
 duty, and did not seek either in his conduct or in his 
 judgments for an independence which princes do not 
 like and which true courtiers never allow themselves. 
 During the eleven months of the Polignac Ministry 
 he had been entrusted with three different portfolios 
 in succession, that of Public Instruction, that of the 
 Interior and that of Finance, and he had not been 
 either very much above or below the average in any 
 of these three posts. 
 
 When I arrived he had just published a Life of 
 the Due de Reichstadt, a singular subject for such a 
 sincerely Eoyalist pen, but to which he devoted him- 
 self unhesitatingly because he believed he could find 
 two advantages to his cause in it — first, that of display- 
 ing its generosity, and secondly that of proving what 
 entire faith might be reposed in the future of the 
 monarchy freed from all fear of a Bonapartist 
 resurrection.
 
 78 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 M. de Montbel was good enough to welcome me 
 most cordially, and with affectionate solicitude gave 
 me very useful advice as to my sojourn in Vienna, 
 interspersing his hints with many amusing local 
 anecdotes. His devotion was as disinterested as it 
 was loyal, for, not receiving any salary, he lived in a 
 modest apartment on the third floor, looking over the 
 small Hohenmarch Platz. One day when he had 
 several visitors in his drawing-room, he drew me to 
 the bow window to say a few confidential words, and, 
 whilst listening to him, I watched the people passing 
 through the square. M. de Montbel noticed this, 
 and stopping in his conversation said, "Do you see, 
 among all these people on the move, those two men, 
 of whom one is standing quite still, whilst the other 
 is speaking. You may be sure that they are two 
 Germans, of whom one is waiting for the verb." 
 This expression struck me as a shrewd description of 
 Germany and the Germans. Their language is a 
 reflection of their character, and their habits are a 
 reflection of their language. Fenelon, alluding to 
 and perhaps satirising to some extent the methodical 
 regularity of the Trench language, thus analysed it : 
 " One always finds first a nominative substantive, 
 leading its adjective, as it were, by the hand. Its 
 verb is never far behind, followed by an adverb." In 
 German the opposite course is followed, the verb 
 always comes at the end of the sentence, and the 
 necessity of waiting for it of itself prevents any pre- 
 cipitation or mutual interruptions, for one cannot
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 79 
 
 guess the thoughts of the interlocutor from his first 
 words, as in French. M. de Montbel's witty observa- 
 tion thus warned me, from my first appearance in 
 Germany, of the care with which I must guard 
 myself from the vivacity and volubility natural to my 
 fellow-countrymen. 
 
 I was also introduced to Viennese society by my 
 uncles, the MM. de Bombelles, and by the Apponyis, 
 who were then on leave in Vienna. My ambition was 
 to be introduced to Prince Metternich, and I was 
 much surprised when I first saw him, to find how 
 different he was from what I had always fancied. 
 Having always heard him spoken of in Paris as the 
 supreme representative of retrograde ideas, I had 
 credited him with a face and figure to match. I 
 fancied him as wearing short breeches, his hair 
 powdered in a pigtail, like the portraits of Frederick 
 the Great. Prince Metternich was on the contrary 
 one of the handsomest and most elegant men of his 
 time. He still retained all the deference for fashion 
 which is compatible with the gravity which was the 
 distinctive mark of his character, as of his conversa- 
 tion. He always spent the summer at Hitzing, a 
 small village between Schoenbrunn and Vienna, where 
 he led a very simple life in a country house of equal 
 simplicity. He only received here his family and 
 most intimate friends, and when invited to dinner 
 there I had the good fortune to be seated close to the 
 Prince himself at table. His appetite was prodigious, 
 and he disposed of immense slices of rye bread during
 
 80 MEMOIKS OE A ROYALIST. 
 
 the meal. M. de Metternich very amiably suited his 
 conversation to my age, and spoke to me of his own 
 youthful recollections with much spirit and bonhomie. 
 Silvio Pellico's Prisons had just appeared, and 
 made a great stir in Europe. I did not dare allude to 
 it, but the Prince spoke of it first. He placed himself 
 upon the defensive, without any bitterness: "It is 
 not all false," he said, " but it is all exaggerated, and 
 I will give free permission to any one to visit the 
 dungeons of Venice and Spielberg." All I said in 
 reply was to speak highly of Silvio whose volume I 
 had devoured. 
 
 " Signor Pellico may be an honest man," he replied, 
 " but what he asked us to do was to give up Italy. 
 Could I propose this to the Emperor in order to please 
 a few men who would certainly not have enriched 
 Italy as we enrich it every day ? " 
 
 I was unable to discuss such a subject freely with 
 a personage like Prince Metternich, and I must also 
 own that apart from the sincere emotion which the 
 sufferings of Silvio Pellico and of Maroncelli had 
 excited, the cause of young Italy did not appear to 
 me in a very favourable light, and I only saw in these 
 abortive plots the revolutionary struggle of the carbo- 
 nari against the old European order and against the 
 Church. 
 
 The Princess Metternich, nee Comtesse Zichy, was 
 the third wife of the great Chancellor of the Austrian 
 Empire. He had first married an Austrian, then an 
 Englishwoman whom he met in Italy, and lastly this
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 81 
 
 young daughter of a great Hungarian house, who 
 perhaps justified the union more through the brilliancy 
 of her beauty than through the diplomatic assistance 
 which she could lend to him in his public capacity. 
 Her sister, the Princess Odescalchi, also lived at Hitz- 
 ing. She was not nearly so beautiful as the Princess 
 Metternich, but Viennese society usually credited her 
 with mental superiority. Two daughters of the Prince 
 de Ligne, the Countess Palfly and the Baroness von 
 Spiegel, were also numbered amongst the residents at 
 Hitzing. For me, all these people were great evoca- 
 tions of the past, and I contemplated rather than looked 
 at them. But I lost one of my favourite illusions, 
 which was the conviction that the sovereign houses 
 and aristocracies of Europe were profoundly legitimist. 
 Nothing could be further from the reality. My first 
 disenchantment in this respect took place in a journey 
 between .Prague and Vienna, when travelling with 
 young Count Kalckreuth, son or grandson of the field- 
 marshal of that name, who had played an important 
 part at the head of the Prussian armies opposed to 
 Napoleon. But while I had my doubts about Prussia, 
 Austria was, I had fancied, above suspicion. Not only 
 were the freest expressions used about Charles X., the 
 Ordinances, and the July revolution in the Viennese 
 drawing-rooms, but I was able to discover, without 
 the least effort of sagacity on my part, that the sove- 
 reigns and Courts of Europe had brought back from 
 Paris in 1814 and 1815 susceptibilities and jealousies 
 which neither the mutual interest nor common mis- 
 vol. i. o
 
 82 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 fortunes of sovereigns had dispelled. The fact of 
 Lonis XVIIL, when at the Tuileries, having to pass 
 before all the foreign kings in order to reach his own 
 table remained an indelible grievance. This recollec- 
 tion, which embodied many others, struck me from 
 the very day of my entrance into Austrian drawing- 
 rooms. I could see at the same time that the regret 
 felt for the Due de Eeichstadt was not due solely to 
 the melancholy destiny of the young Prince. A pacific 
 Napoleon, who would put the Austrian system into 
 force in France, was an ideal about which no great 
 secret was made. 
 
 The only salon in which I found pure Erench 
 royalism was that of the Countess Batthyanyi. The 
 mistress of the house had but a flicker of life sustained 
 through the most devoted care. Not only did she 
 never leave the house, but her guests were only 
 admitted to her presence after having passed through 
 three drawing-rooms, to make sure that they would not 
 bring in any of the exterior air with them. Countess 
 Batthyanyi had married a second husband, who was a 
 Piedmontese, Count de Yillette, but she never bore 
 his name, because the marriage, if officially announced, 
 would have deprived her of a considerable dowry. 
 The concealment was not, however, made with intent 
 to deceive any one, and the Batthyanyi family acqui- 
 esced in it, with full knowledge of its reason. Countess 
 Batthyanyi had with her a niece, the Countess Nina 
 Gygrai, a remarkably interesting and distinguished 
 young person. Her special mission was to detain
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 83 
 
 visitors in one of the two first drawing-rooms, and not 
 to allow them to approach her annt until they had 
 been well impregnated with the atmosphere rigorously 
 prescribed by the doctors. Count de Yillette also 
 occasionally played the sentinel, but with many gay 
 jokes. I heard him say to his wife one day, "Take 
 care, my dear, our neighbour is opening his window," 
 and he showed her through the double casements of the 
 drawing-room a window being opened on the opposite 
 side of the street. An intimate friend of " the Bat- 
 thyanyi," as they called her in Yienna, was a Land- 
 gravine of Furstenburg. She was eighty-two years of 
 age, and still wore a kind of hoop-petticoat and high- 
 heeled shoes, an instance of the old regime surviving 
 intact. 
 
 The surest means which young people have of 
 pleasing the old is to show them attention ; for my 
 own part this attention never cost me an effort ; I 
 found in it a pleasure and a study ; I listened to these 
 representatives of bygone times as though I were 
 turning over the pages of a book. At an early age I 
 formulated a maxim for myself which I recommend to 
 my young readers, if I should have any : " Qui 
 s'ennuie s'accuse" ("To bore oneself is to accuse one- 
 self"); and long experience has proved to me that 
 the maxim is a just one. There is not a single person 
 from whom one may not derive some profit, without 
 any skill except that of kindliness or curiosity, and I 
 can assert that, thanks to this simple receipt, I have 
 never bored myself. With the Countess Batthyanyi 
 
 g2
 
 84 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 and the Landgravine of Furstenbnrg my method needed 
 no effort of my own to make it work, for I had in 
 them a treasure-house of curious recollections. I soon 
 owed them more than passing enjoyment, for to them 
 is due one of the most profound and most salutary 
 impressions of my youth. 
 
 Countess Batthyanyi had been intimate with the 
 Comte de Maistre, and I was in the full tide of enthu- 
 siasm for the Soirees de Saint- Petersbourg. I first of all 
 obtained some echoes of this celebrated talker, after 
 which I was shown several of his letters, religiously 
 preserved, and lastly I was allowed to read the funeral 
 oration of Eugene Costa, then unknown in France. This 
 description of an accomplished young man attracted 
 me as a model example, and I begged Countess 
 Batthyanyi to allow me to copy the precious manu- 
 script, in order that I might make it my perpetual 
 guide. My emotion, my promise to copy it all at once 
 without losing a minute, all was in vain. " I have 
 never been separated from this manuscript," she 
 replied obstinately. " I could never expose myself to 
 the inconsolable grief of losing it through some un- 
 foreseen accident." However, my passionate desire 
 touched the Comte de Maistre's friend, and at last she 
 said to me, "Well, copy it here in my presence!" 
 I joyfully agreed, and during a whole week I went 
 and passed an hour at the foot of her sofa until my 
 copy was completed. From that day Eugene Costa 
 became my friend, my guide, and my second elder 
 brother, and I cannot find in my youth a single
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 85 
 
 worthy impulse or salutary resolve which he must not 
 have the credit for. I owe him still more. To my 
 love for the Comte de Maistre, to my worship for 
 Eugene Costa, is due the place that was soon after 
 accorded me in Madame Swetchine's maternal affection. 
 I cannot therefore quit the Countess Batthyanyi with- 
 out completing the sketch of her household. 
 
 It had been already remarked during my sojourn 
 at Yienna that the quarantine exacted in the first 
 drawing-rooms was prolonged beyond the usual time 
 when M. de Montbel found himself alone with the 
 Countess Nina Gygrai, and a reciprocal inclination 
 was speedily foreseen. 
 
 M. de Montbel had several children, the eldest of 
 whom was already serving in an Austrian regiment, 
 but the young Hungarian, brought up by elderly 
 people who made life very pleasant to her was easily 
 touched by M. de Montbel's noble qualities and did 
 not refuse her consent. 
 
 At the moment of the nuptial benediction being 
 given, every one present was much astonished, when 
 M. de Montbel, kneeling at the foot of the altar, rose, 
 turned towards his bride and solemnly exclaimed, 
 " Nina, swear to me that you will love me eternally ! " 
 He received no answer and knelt down again, but 
 when this strange incident was related to Countess 
 Batthyanyi she appeared much disturbed by it. u Bah ! 
 bah ! " said the Count de Villette, "do not trouble 
 yourself about it. These old Frenchmen have ideas 
 of gallantry that would never enter any other man's
 
 86 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 head." This explanation was accepted or apparently 
 accepted, and the newly married couple prepared for 
 their departure for Prague, where Madame de Montbel 
 was to be presented to the exiled Court. Her terror 
 was indescribable when, half way on the road, she saw 
 her husband open a portfolio, draw from it some letters 
 which the imperial family and Prince Metternich 
 had confided to him for the Eoyal family, break the 
 seals and read them with feverish agitation, broken by 
 incoherent words. Madame de Montbel could no 
 longer blind herself to the sad truth. She was taking 
 back a man stricken by mental derangement to a 
 Court where she herself was unknown. 
 
 The Dauphine, who was the first to be informed of 
 this terrible situation, at once displayed the most 
 touching kindness towards the unfortunate young 
 wife ; she undertook to give the opened letters to the 
 King, and behaved like a mother to the poor girl who 
 had then no other protection, The King's doctor 
 soon expressed himself sanguine that it was only a 
 passing attack, and as a matter of fact assiduous care 
 and delicate sympathy so far restored M. de Montbel 
 to health that, after a few months he regained for the 
 rest of his life his natural state. Madame de Montbel 
 did not so easily recover from the frightful shock, 
 and she passed away soon after, gently, angelically, 
 as she had lived. M. de Montbel was married a third 
 time to the daughter of M. de Montaignac. She had 
 assisted in the education of Mademoiselle. 
 
 I reached Italy by way of Gratz and Trieste.
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 87 
 
 Venice had been too much praised to me, some repre- 
 senting it as a sudden apparition from the bosom of 
 the ocean, others as an immense shipwreck, miracu- 
 lously upheld in the water. I arrived there by sea, 
 and the city appeared to me without relief, as though 
 standing upon a mound, of which it apparently 
 formed part. On leaving the steamer, I found all the 
 hotels crowded, and my guide, going to the nearest 
 in order to get rid of my heavy luggage, took me on 
 foot through the Queen of the Sea. I followed him 
 for three-quarters of an hour without catching sight 
 of either water or boat. This proved to me what all 
 sensational accounts disguise, viz., that Yenice could 
 be traversed in every direction through streets which 
 only differ from our own by their narrow depressing 
 similarity. 
 
 Once settled in my hotel, I instantly sent for a 
 gondola, and from that moment I was enchanted. I 
 went over all those palaces so full of poetry by their 
 architecture, by the display of every art, by their 
 great names, and still majestic in their mourning. I 
 then went and sat in the square of Saint Mark to read 
 the Italian and French papers, and the first news I 
 read in one of the Italian sheets was that M. de 
 Chateaubriand was in Yenice. To procure his 
 address and hasten to him was the work of an 
 instant. 
 
 M. de Chateaubriand received me with his usual 
 kindness. The Duchesse de Berry, transferred from 
 Blaye to Naples, had summoned him to Yenice to
 
 88 MEMOIRS OF A ROTALIST. 
 
 accompany her to Prague ; lie had been waiting for 
 her some days. The following morning I found him 
 impatient and morose, he had received painful letters 
 from Paris and little encouragement in the advices 
 from Prague. The Princess had not given any sign 
 of life. He did not conceal his anxiety, and asked 
 me to come and see him again towards the close of 
 the day. When evening came he asked me if I 
 would consent to sacrifice my sojourn in Venice to 
 him, and upon my eager acquiescence he begged me 
 to go by the shortest road to the Duchesse de Berry — 
 who, there was reason to suppose, was then at Florence 
 or Ferrara — and to tell the Princess that he found it 
 impossible to wait for her indefinitely. I went at 
 once to Ferrara, and from my first inquiries learnt 
 that the Princess had arrived there on the preceding 
 evening. She had taken care to send a messenger to 
 M. de Chateaubriand, who would no doubt arrive 
 very shortly. 
 
 It was evident that embassies were not my strong 
 point. I had the consolation of visiting Tasso's 
 prison with the captive from Blaye and the author of 
 the Itineraire de Paris a Jerusalem. The account and 
 the results of this voyage may be read in the Memoires 
 d' outre- tombe. 
 
 My mother and brother had preceded me to Flo- 
 rence, where I soon rejoined them. After devoting a 
 fortnight to Tuscany, we arrived in Pome at the 
 commencement of October, that is to say at the time 
 when the last splendours of nature and innumerable
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 89 
 
 pilgrimages presented Eome under her most favour- 
 able aspect. Every morning a sun which had lost 
 nothing of its brilliancy shone upon numerous groups 
 of peasants from the mountain, who came in families 
 to accomplish their devotions in the Eternal City ; 
 they filled the streets with their picturesque costumes, 
 halted before the Madonnas, sang in chorus hymns 
 accompanied by rustic instruments, went in crowds to 
 the Villa Borghese, and there danced their salterellas 
 in the midst of a circle of foreigners and Eomans, from 
 which neither priests nor monks were absent, thus 
 preserving in these pleasures, at once popular and 
 pious, the serious character which at that date dis- 
 tinguished everything in Eome without exception. 
 
 Gregory XVI., the last Pope who received and 
 transmitted intact the temporal inheritance of the 
 Sovereign Pontiffs, had been on the throne for a few 
 years, A Camaldulite, he retained under the tiara 
 the costume, simplicity, and austerity of the cloister. 
 His features were commonplace, but his expression 
 was benevolent and shrewd ; etiquette reigned in his 
 antechamber but disappeared in his presence, and 
 when kneeling before this old man one felt oneself 
 rather at the feet of a father than of a sovereign. 
 The welfare of foreigners in his States preoccupied 
 him a great deal ; he carefully enquired after them, 
 and even asked about their amusements, particularly 
 about music, of which he spoke as a connoisseur. An 
 expression of his was quoted which well describes the 
 Eome of that time and her charm. At farewell
 
 90 MEMOIRS Or A ROYALIST. 
 
 audiences he usually asked: "How long have you 
 been in Kome ? " If the reply were, " A month or 
 six weeks," he said "Adieu;" but if it were " Six 
 months," he said " Au revoir!" thus marking the 
 true character of Eome, for her greatest attractions 
 cannot be enjoyed at the first glance, nor in a single 
 day. 
 
 At our last audience we presented him with so 
 large a basket of rosaries, which we wanted him to 
 bless, that he exclaimed with a laugh, " Good gracious ! 
 how did you get that here ? " We replied that our 
 servants had carried it to the entrance of his apart- 
 ment. "Are they also from your good Vendee?" 
 he asked; "then you must call them in; I should 
 like to bless them as well as you." He then sent for 
 them, questioned the man and his wife with great 
 affability, without appearing to think that he was 
 setting the example of an equality of which Chris- 
 tianity was the first revelation, and is still the sole 
 example. 
 
 Kome being the most illustrious theatre of all ages, 
 one cannot visit it without the aid of the historians 
 of every century. Tacitus, Livy, Sallust, Muratori, 
 Botta, Sismondi, Ampere, and all the annalists of the 
 Papacy, become there the traveller's handbooks. 
 Nothing can be neglected, not one step is without 
 interest, everything should be examined upon, above, 
 and below the ground. From the height of Saint 
 Peter's dome to the depths of the catacombs all is 
 enjoyment and instruction.
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 91 
 
 At that date, Roman society, like the Pontifical 
 Court, still retained unbroken its traditional character : 
 magnificent architectural proportions for its palaces, 
 in their interior great wealth of pictures, statues, 
 medallions, very little furniture, and a negligence, 
 often carried to extremes, with respect to all that 
 concerns what we now call comfort ; while the lack of 
 proper superintendence often went so far that the 
 most magnificent staircase was not so clean as the 
 street, because it was treated with less ceremony. 
 
 The principal Eoman house, and the one most open 
 to foreigners, was then the Massimo Palace. The 
 Princess Massimo was a Princess Christina of Saxony, 
 and Prince Massimo, when a foreigner asked him if 
 he were quite certain that his family descended from 
 Fabius Maximus, would wittingly answer: "I can- 
 not really tell you, but it has been said so for the last 
 two thousand years." Visitors only reached the master 
 and mistress of the house after passing through a 
 suite of drawing-rooms, scarcely lighted, with a single 
 lamp in each; and the semi-darkness of this long 
 approach reminded one of the severity of an ancient 
 feudal possession where there is no need to make any 
 display. 
 
 The Under Secretary of State was Cardinal Bernetti, 
 very Austrian in his policy, very French in his con- 
 versation, very Italian in his witty good-humour. At 
 the news of the abrupt landing of the French at 
 Ancona in 1832 he uttered this first cry of indigna- 
 tion : " Since the time of the Saracens we have never
 
 92 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 seen anything like it ! " And he was inexhaustible in 
 imprecations of this nature. The French Ambassador 
 was ordered to make an official complaint about it. 
 France was then represented by the Comte de Saint- 
 Aulaire, who brought to the fulfilment of his mission 
 all the feelings of a Christian and the consideration 
 prompted by the most exquisite politeness. However, 
 he was obliged to use the language of reproach and 
 even of threats ; whereupon the Cardinal interrupted 
 him by this unlooked-for ejaculation : "I understand 
 you, sir. You have come to warn me that if you are 
 not pleased with the Holy See you will do us some 
 bad turn. "Well, I can give you warning for warning. 
 To destroy the Holy See is more difficult than you 
 may think at Paris ; we cardinals have been trying to 
 do so for some centuries, and we have never yet 
 succeeded." 
 
 Cardinal Bernetti had as competitor for the Secre- 
 taryship of State Cardinal Lambruschini, nuncio in 
 France at the time of the July Ordinances, who shortly 
 after this succeeded him. The two men resembled 
 each other in their tendencies, but were absolutely 
 dissimilar in their demeanour. 
 
 One of them was vivacious even to petulance, and 
 the distinctively Italian word desinvoltura might have- 
 been invented for him. The other carried his cold- 
 ness of language and dignity of manner so far that he 
 was positively rigid. Bernetti did not receive the 
 priesthood until the later years of his life. Lam- 
 bruschini had never known any but the ecclesiastical
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 93 
 
 state, and had edified Genoa, his native country, as 
 Archbishop before being called to a political career. 
 Neither of them belonged to the Italian aristocracy, 
 and both of them, each in his own way, paid great 
 deference to the advantages of good birth, an infirmity 
 of the Italian mind. 
 
 Variety in unity was the striking feature among 
 the members of the Sacred College, and it might be 
 said of most of the cardinals, "The stockings are the 
 same, but the sleeves often differ." Cardinal Micara 
 was the most original figure in this great assembly. 
 His Capucin's robe, his long beard, his proud and 
 noble head attracted the eyes of all foreigners at the 
 pontifical ceremonies. He was well known to be per- 
 fectly at one with his friend Father Ventura in boldly 
 advising the anti- Austrian policy which was to be 
 championed openly at the death of Gregory XVI., 
 twelve years later. The future Cardinal Mastai, after- 
 wards Pope Pius IX., was as yet only Bishop of 
 Imola, but he was already known for the innovating 
 tendency of his ideas. Gregory XVI. had noticed 
 him, and said of him with his indulgent smile, " In 
 casa Mastai, anche il gatto e liberale v ("In Mastai's 
 house even the cat is liberal"). The Pope's palace, 
 the seat of the Inquisition and of the Index, was 
 moderate and almost reforming in its aspirations. 
 Father Butaoni and his first assistant, Father Modena, 
 both belonging to the Dominican Order which had 
 the monopoly of these functions, welcomed foreigners 
 very cordially. Father Modena, a very brilliant talker,
 
 94 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 improvised sonnets in French as easily as in Italian, 
 and lie dnbbed his visitors " Mon cher " the first time 
 they called on him, not through vulgar familiarity, 
 but out of sincere cordiality, as I can vouch for. 
 
 One Eoman custom, which certainly contributed to 
 give rise to unjust prejudices against the morals of 
 the Eoman clergy, was the adoption of the eccle- 
 siastical costume by many of the lay officials. 
 
 The Minister of War, for instance, who was called 
 the Minister of Arms, had the rank and dress of a 
 prelate. The holder of this post during my visit to 
 Eome was very attentive to a young Frenchwoman 
 who did not speak any Italian, and some one expressed 
 astonishment at this assiduousness on the part of a 
 man who did not speak French. " It is true," some 
 one said, " that he always speaks Italian, but he has 
 got the translation before his eyes." 
 
 For me the principal attraction of the foreign 
 colony was the short appearance of Comte Xavier de 
 Maistre; I should rather say of the French colony, 
 for who could possess more of the French language 
 and genius than the two Comtes de Maistre ? Comte 
 Xavier de Maistre was accompanied by his sister-in- 
 law and his two nieces, both worthy of their father, 
 one of whom was often called " Ma pensee " by Comte 
 Joseph de Maistre. Both of them eventually were 
 married in France, one of them to M. Terray, great- 
 nephew of the celebrated minister of Louis XV., the 
 other to the Marquis Eugene de Montmorency, brother 
 of the Due de Laval, to whose title he soon after
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 95 
 
 succeeded. M. de Montmorency, already close upon 
 sixty, was very pious ; lie was not content with hear- 
 ing several masses every morning, he liked to take 
 part in them. It was asserted in Eome that he gave 
 a few pence to the choir boys to] give him up their 
 place in the church where the festival of the saint of 
 the day was being celebrated with most pomp. Be 
 this as it may, there is no doubt that his charity 
 equalled his piety. He related to us one day his first 
 and original interview with Madame de Stael. He 
 said that, " While staying at Geneva I thought it my 
 duty to pay my respects to my cousin Matthew's 
 friend, and I begged a resident at Geneva to intro- 
 duce me at Coppet. Madame Stael said to me, as she 
 received us, ' I am much indebted to Corinne, which 
 no doubt inspired you with the idea of consoling an 
 exile.' 'No, madame, no; for I have never read 
 Corinne. 1 And as Madame de Stael could not conceal 
 her surprise, I added frankly, ' I am going to astonish 
 you still more ; I shall never read it, and I wish that 
 every one else would imitate me in this respect. 
 How many disorders would have decreased if romantic 
 literature had never existed.' Madame de Stael re- 
 plied, i Are there not gifts from God the use of which 
 is compulsory ? Those who are endowed with imagi- 
 nation should no more refuse to use it than you, born 
 a Montmorency, can help being chivalrous and 
 courteous.' 'All comparisons limp,' replied the Mar- 
 quis, unwilling to understand the lesson or to show 
 he felt its force. ' I cannot help being born a Mont-
 
 96 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 morency, whereas those whose fingers itch can prevent 
 themselves from giving way to the craving.' " 
 
 I should have liked to ask M. de Montmorency 
 how his Geneva acquaintance took this unexpected 
 dialogue, but I did not venture to do so. I was 
 bolder on the subject of Louis XVII., who was one 
 of his habitual preoccupations. 
 
 " Can you tell me, sir, where he is ?" I said to him 
 one day. 
 
 "If I knew where he was I should not believe it," 
 he answered with a resolute air. " Everything about 
 him must remain mysterious until the hour of his 
 accession." 
 
 He then described, with what was probably un- 
 conscious humour, that the different interests of the 
 house of Bourbon would be easily reconcilable with 
 this certain resurrection. 
 
 " I myself advised the Duchesse de Berry to hold 
 herself in readiness to marry Louis XVII. ' But you 
 would then deprive the Due de Bordeaux of the 
 throne,' replied the Princess. ' No, madame, no ; 
 Louis XVII. will not deprive the Due de Bordeaux 
 of any of his rights. He will never have any children.' 
 1 I will not accept such a husband as that.' And this 
 reply from the Princess," added the narrator, lowering 
 his voice, " left a very painful impression upon me." 
 
 The Italians are marvellously skilful in their con- 
 trasts, and one may say without irreverence that the 
 Holy Week and the Carnival are two popular events, 
 the people taking an unanimous share in the solemni-
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 97 
 
 ties of the Church, the Church taking a very cordial 
 and open part in the enjoyments of the people. The 
 Roman carnival is a folly, but a folly so infectious, so 
 captivating, that the coldest and even the most dis- 
 dainful allow themselves to be drawn into it. 
 
 Reigning potentates, Roman princesses, the diplo- 
 matic corps, more particularly the Neapolitan Em- 
 bassy, were the first to descend into the arena ; every 
 class jostles, pushes, pelts one another with flour 
 from head to foot, without a single accident or a 
 single quarrel, and if an awkward blow be given, 
 it may be said without fear of a mistake, " That's a 
 foreigner." 
 
 When Shrove Tuesday came the popular ardour 
 for the games so nearly over redoubled, and on that 
 day only they are prolonged through the evening by 
 the light of moccoletti. But at the moment when, 
 amid this fantastic illumination, these thousands of 
 will-o'-the-wisps were running, skipping and howl- 
 ing, presenting an indescribable spectacle, seven 
 o'clock struck from the bell of the Capitol. The 
 senator's state carriage then drove off, giving the 
 signal for a general retreat. Instantly the tumult 
 ceased, the assailants ceased their mimic combat, the 
 lights were extinguished, the windows were closed, 
 and the masks retired in groups without the inter- 
 ference of a single police agent. Darkness once more 
 reigned in the Corso, which became silent as usual, 
 and the churches filled in preparation for the Lent 
 about to commence. I do not believe that this 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 curious mixture of folly and decency, of familiarity 
 and respect, of unlimited liberty and voluntary do- 
 cility, is possible anywhere but amongst the Eoman 
 population. 
 
 This was one of the attractions of Eome, the 
 Government was proud of it, attributing the pro- 
 priety of these popular amusements to its protective 
 indulgence. The bell from the Capitol only rang 
 under two circumstances — to warn Christians that the 
 Sovereign Pontiff had rendered his soul to God, or to 
 announce the day of national rejoicing. Such cus- 
 toms are only possible amongst a people filled with a 
 faith as naive as profound. The very nature of the 
 labour even which is most honoured amongst the 
 Eoman people invites and leads them to dignified 
 habits. 
 
 Naples and Eome, although so near together, are 
 absolutely dissimilar. In Naples nature seems to be 
 ever in holiday attire, under a sky brilliant in splen- 
 dour by day as by night. The people live almost 
 exclusively for the pleasure of living in easy comfort, 
 without taxes, almost without labour. In Eome the 
 natural effects are magnificent also, but of a graver 
 character. There, men love repose, but not idleness. 
 Unity reigns on all sides without imposing a narrow 
 or tyrannical yoke. All classes of society occupy 
 themselves with the same ardour in excavating, dis- 
 interring, reviving the smallest vestiges of antiquity, 
 all the change made being to surmount a few pagan 
 monuments with the cross. Thus it is that we find,
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 99 
 
 even in the midst of a great capital, not only a popu- 
 lation without a mob, but a multitude wonderfully 
 well-educated, any unit in which, if questioned as to 
 antiquity, the middle ages, or modern times, would 
 be able to give a concise and correct answer — a multi- 
 tude dignified and calm, with noble faces, reflective 
 expressions' and generous impulses. When Princess 
 Marco-Antonio Borghese, nee Talbot, died so prema- 
 turely and in the full exercise of that ardent charity 
 which had made itself felt throughout Eome, the 
 funeral car was unharnessed on the threshold of the 
 palace, and drawn by men to the Santa Maria Mag- 
 giore. Prince Borghese was anxious to know and to 
 thank those who had proposed this touching demon- 
 stration, but when he applied for their names, the 
 answer came, "Tell the Prince that it is the Eoman 
 people." Anywhere else this answer would have 
 seemed theatrical or false — in Eome it was the terse 
 expression of the simple truth. Cardinal Lambrus- 
 chini showed me one day the petition of a man who 
 asked for a decoration because he had made twenty- 
 five corpus doming which meant that he had escorted 
 the procession of the holy sacrament twenty-five years. 
 In this peaceful kingdom the greatest display of mili- 
 tary force always took place at these religious solem- 
 nities. Eome did not count or enter an appearance in 
 European conflicts, but the people lived free and happy 
 under the Pontiff's paternal government, of which 
 Chateaubriand said, " He is the only sovereign who is 
 a blessing to his subjects." I left Eome with deep 
 
 h2
 
 100 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 regret, but I found some consolation in the fortunate 
 coincidence of travelling in company with Marshal 
 de Bourmont. We passed through Italy and went to 
 Geneva, where his family awaited him, and this plea- 
 sant tete-k-tete lasted for twenty days. 
 
 The old and picturesque Chateau de Bourmont was 
 about fifteen miles from Bourg d'Ire. Of the Mar- 
 shal's five sons, one, Amedee, had met with a glorious 
 death in a skirmish between Staoueli and Algiers ; 
 another, Charles, was one of my lifelong friends. He 
 made me his representative during this journey, 
 remaining behind himself to take possession of Far- 
 nese, a beautiful estate near Yiterba, which the Mar- 
 shal had just acquired with exemption from all treasury 
 charges, by Gregory XYI.'s special order. After the 
 sad ending to the Duchesse de Berry's expedition, 
 M. de Bourmont, accompanied by his four remaining 
 sons, all equally devoted, equally soldierly, placed 
 himself at the disposal of Don Miguel, the claimant to 
 the Portuguese crown. General Clouet and a few 
 Frenchmen joined them, believing they could serve 
 the Legitimist cause in this way. They at first 
 obtained some success, but Don Pedro, openly sup- 
 ported by England and by the July Government, 
 finally triumphed. Marshal de Bourmont, defeated 
 in Portugal and proscribed in France, came with 
 several of his companions-in-arms to request the Eoman 
 States to extend to him that hospitality which had 
 never repelled nor humiliated any one. The man who, 
 in Algeria, had accomplished the work in which
 
 VISIT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 101 
 
 Charles V. and Louis XIV. had failed, presented a 
 combination of the most singular and attractive con- 
 trasts. He was very impetuous and very gentle, very 
 loyal and very shrewd, very fond of his military career, 
 and very modest in his tastes, indolent, negligent, so 
 long as it was not a question of duty, intrepid and 
 indefatigable when the bugle or the voice of honour 
 made themselves heard. A curious page of contem- 
 porary history had come under my eyes, and I felt its 
 value. Informed of my habit of keeping a daily jour- 
 nal, my travelling companion easity recognised my 
 respectful curiosity and amused himself by satisfying 
 it with extreme kindness. Our retrospective review 
 commenced by the great wars of La Vendee, in which 
 he had taken a very active part, and we then passed 
 on to his captivity in the citadel of Besancon. "We 
 had obtained, my comrade and I," he said, " permis- 
 sion to fence within the interior of the prison, instead 
 of taking the walk which was strictly forbidden us. 
 We broke our foils, sometimes accidentally, sometimes 
 on purpose, and whenever we did so we managed to 
 keep some small pieces of iron. With these we contrived 
 to make a hole in the wall through which, after many 
 hair-breadth escapes, we at last made our way out. 
 Once at liberty," added M. de Bourmont, who spoke 
 slowly, picturesquely, and with evident scruples about 
 exactitude, " the most difficult part was accomplished, 
 but still I felt that I was not yet safe. Daybreak 
 was near, the alarm would be given, and a man in 
 town dress wandering alone at this hour in the middle 
 
 LTBRATTT
 
 102 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 of the fields — for M. d'Andigne, M. de Suzannet, and 
 I had been careful to separate — could not fail to 
 be immediately suspected and arrested. I did not 
 know what expedient to try, when I heard a man 
 advancing on the high road behind me with hurried 
 steps. I slackened my speed, to enable me to open a 
 conversation with him, and just as he was about to 
 pass without paying any attention to me, I said to him — 
 
 u * You seem a good walker, sir, and so am I ; if you 
 like, therefore, we will see which of us two can do the 
 distance quickest.' 
 
 " ' "With pleasure,' he rejoined, ' but you will be 
 clever if you can beat me.' 
 
 " I began by boldly and advantageously supporting 
 my bet, but as I had not been in the habit of walking 
 for some time, I soon found myself in a perspiration 
 and out of breath, so I decided to change my plan. 
 
 " ' Sir,' I said, ' I have a secret to confide to you.' 
 
 "'If you have a secret, keep it to yourself. In 
 these times it is not well either to confide or to receive 
 secrets.' 
 
 " ' That may be,' I said, 'but I cannot resist taking 
 you into my confidence.' 
 
 " I then named myself, and described the danger of 
 my situation without reserve. He seemed at first 
 very disturbed, then touched, and after a visible effort 
 ended by saying to me — 
 
 " ' You have not misplaced your confidence. I am a 
 bailiff, and I am now going to a village sale, but my 
 clerk is not with me. You shall take his place, and
 
 VI8IT TO AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 103 
 
 then I will send you in a light van to one of my friends 
 with whom you will have nothing to fear.' " 
 
 M. de Bourmont acquitted himself of his duties 
 as a bailiff's clerk as well as he could, and in a few 
 days found himself safe from all pursuit. I asked 
 myself with some anxiety whether I could without 
 offence open the subject of "Waterloo, but M. de 
 Bourmont began it himself as though gratified to 
 explain the matter. " I never for one instant," he 
 said, "thought of re-entering the service for the 
 'Hundred Days.' I had proved this by ostensibly 
 voting in the negative on the additional articles. But 
 through accident I met Fouche, then Minister of 
 Police, and he took the initiative in an interview 
 which decided me. l The Emperor is mad,' he said, 
 1 and we cannot allow him to plunge France once more 
 into the abyss. The army yielded to its first excite- 
 ment, but it now understands that patriotism should be 
 stronger than an ill-timed enthusiasm. The Marshals 
 themselves daily repeat this language to me, and they 
 will find a way of ending this terrible adventure 
 before Europe has rendered it irreparable.' " Fouche 
 confirmed his statement with names and facts which 
 convinced M. de Bourmont that by resuming his post 
 as Lieutenant-General he would contribute to a 
 peaceful and rapid settlement. But Europe armed 
 more rapidly than had been expected, the army and 
 its chiefs were less shaken than Fouche had supposed, 
 and day by day M. de Bourmont found himself drawn 
 nearer to the fatal alternative which was destined to
 
 104 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 weigh upon the remainder of his career — either to 
 separate from his brethren in arms under the most 
 regrettable circumstances, or combat to the last the 
 King's allies, who also called themselves the allies 
 of France. As to having parleyed with Bliicher and 
 "Wellington on the eve of the battle, as to a shadow 
 of indiscretion which could have aggravated the 
 situation of the troops from whom he was about to 
 separate, M. de Bourmont repelled the idea in words 
 and with proofs which scattered every accusation to 
 the winds. The day when he consented to open his 
 heart with regard to this cruel episode, he was long 
 and visibly moved by it. Towards the evening we had 
 a small mountain to ascend and I proposed walking 
 up it. He consented, and forthwith the current 
 of his thoughts changed, he stopped from point to 
 point saying, " Here is a good strategic position; here 
 men and artillery could be stationed." His military 
 instincts overcame painful recollections, and his mind 
 regained its equilibrium. Moreover, this pleasure of 
 improvising plans and imagining battles was renewed 
 several times in the course of our journey, and made 
 me feel to what a degree a soldier's passion was innate 
 in M. de Bourmont. 
 
 I witnessed a touching meeting between the 
 Marshal and his family, and I then proceeded straight 
 to Anjou, impatient to impart to sympathising listeners 
 my hopes of Prague and my impressions of Eome.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 
 
 1835—1836. 
 
 The habits of the English aristocracy are very differ- 
 ent from French customs. In England people spend 
 the winter in their country houses, and the fine 
 weather in London. Consequently, I started for 
 England in the beginning of the month of April. 
 There, as elsewhere, perhaps more than anywhere 
 else, I felt the study of places would be incomplete 
 without the study of men, and in order to enter at 
 once that political circle into which I wished to 
 penetrate, I took with me several letters of intro- 
 duction, among them being one for Mr. Bellew, an 
 Irish member of Parliament, and another for General 
 Alava, the Spanish Ambassador. 
 
 General Alava had been the Duke of "Wellington's 
 aide-de-camp during the war in Spain against the 
 Emperor Napoleon. In a cavalry charge, a curious 
 wound had rendered him, to use his own expression, 
 a useless husband, had set him at variance with 
 Madame Alava, and had forced him to exchange a 
 military for a diplomatic career. He had many
 
 106 MEMOIES OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 friends in France. In England, the Spanish Chapel 
 served as a parish to a great number of Catholics, 
 and the old General enjoyed doing the honours of it. 
 He much liked to keep an open table, rather after 
 the campaigning fashion, that is to say without 
 luxury and without preliminary invitation. His 
 words were, u Come when you like, you will always 
 find an omelette ready, if there is not anything else." 
 His conversation, as cheery as that of a young man, 
 instructive as that of an old soldier and diplomatist, 
 was as hearty as his manner. I expressed to him 
 my wish to know the Duke of Wellington, and he 
 hastened to gratify it. 
 
 The Duke of Wellington had a strange appearance, 
 with an enormous head surmounting a small frail 
 body, and an inordinately long nose almost meeting 
 his prominent chin. No one was ever more easy to 
 caricature or more used for the purpose. With 
 all this, and in spite of all this, a natural dignity, a 
 very beautiful expression and a shake of the hand, 
 such as some Englishmen excel in giving, bespoke at 
 once his rank and quality. The Duke received me 
 very cordially for two reasons. I was presented to 
 him by one of his best friends, and I was an Angevin. 
 Angers possessed before the revolution, under the 
 title of the Eiding Academy, a school of cavalry 
 renowned throughout Europe. Arthur Wellesley, 
 afterwards Lord Wellington, had been sent to this 
 school, and retained a very pleasant recollection of it. 
 Angers had not forgotten him either, and his name,
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 107 
 
 inscribed upon the door of a small room, was pre- 
 served for a long time in this fine building, which 
 still bears the title of Academy, although it is now 
 only used for infantry barracks. 
 
 On every anniversary of the battle of Waterloo 
 the Duke of Wellington himself celebrated his victory 
 by a great banquet, when the whole service of glass, 
 silver, silver gilt ornaments, trophies and so forth 
 was exclusively composed of presents from all the 
 sovereigns of Europe. The not very modest impulse, 
 which induced or which authorised the great English 
 captain to glorify himself in this way, betrayed itself 
 in other ways. England took so much pleasure in 
 personifying herself in Napoleon's conqueror that this 
 conqueror would have deemed himself to be deficient 
 in patriotism and to be detracting from the triumph 
 of his own county, if he hadmade light of or declined 
 ovations which in his eyes had no longer any personal 
 meaning. His statue, the features of which were 
 very like his own, in the attitude of Achilles fighting 
 completely nude, was erected opposite his windows 
 a few steps from his house. A very fine bust of 
 Napoleon was placed as a holocaust at the foot of his 
 staircase. Putting out of the question the good taste 
 of all this, no one once in the presence of the Duke 
 of Wellington could possibly desire more simplicity 
 in distinction nor more affability, for if his manner 
 was cold, this arose not from haughtiness but simply 
 from his habit. 
 
 I felt much more in my element with O'Connell,
 
 108 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 and I became more intimate with. him. By a singular 
 coincidence he had also passed some years in a college 
 at St. Omer, in France, under the direction of a 
 religious order. O'Connell was not only the repre- 
 sentative of the Irish race, he was the personification 
 of Ireland herself, impetuous, vehement, with abrupt 
 gestures and unequal humour, careless and even 
 disorderly in his dress, his wig badly made and badly 
 placed on his head, incorrect and blunt, without ever 
 losing the stamp of good nature and kindness with 
 which his whole genius was impressed. M. de 
 Montalembert, who had seen him some years before 
 I did and upon more favourable ground, viz. in 
 Ireland, had experienced a certain disappointment 
 which astonished me at first, but which explained 
 itself to me when I met him. M. de Montalembert, 
 Who had also some impetuosity, was instinctively and 
 invincibly aristocratic. O'Connell, although of old 
 family, a fact which he did not disdain to recall, was 
 a democrat before everything else ; his education and 
 his demeanour recalled nothing of his origin, and one 
 felt in seeing him and still more in listening to 
 him that he had grown up outside the sphere of all 
 tradition, that he had lived under oppression and in 
 revolt, and that God had predestined him to break 
 rather than to build. His colossal figure, his fist 
 always ready to close, his vibrating voice which so 
 naturally raised itself to apostrophise everything about 
 him, announced the hero of a struggle of people 
 against people. M. de Montalembert was the boldest
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 109 
 
 of parliamentary orators amongst us. O'Connell never 
 separated action from speech and everywhere showed 
 himself the " great agitator." This characteristic, so 
 to speak, stood out in him, but did not exclude the 
 patriarchal side of his nature. He was really touching 
 in his home life, and repaid by the most expansive 
 affection the respectful veneration of which he was 
 the object. His London house was a little Ireland, a 
 faithful image of the greater one, and as the con- 
 versations which went on there generally turned upon 
 the country or the Church there was something very 
 elevated in their tone. I never saw him without my 
 respect for him increasing, and when later on, in 
 1848, I greeted him in Paris, the first halting-place 
 on a journey to Kome which he never completed, my 
 anxious admiration was not more tender than when in 
 the hour of sanguine confidence I bade him farewell 
 in London. 
 
 The House of Lords and the Commons were not 
 yet in possession of the magnificent Palace of West- 
 minster, and I do not know whether more solemnity 
 in the debates will result from more splendour in the 
 buildings. At the time of my visit, nothing could be 
 less imposing : the most serious debates produced no 
 change in the custom of night sittings, held after 
 the long meals still so fashionable in London, The 
 result was that many of the Lords and Commons 
 slept without scruple, and those who did not sleep lay 
 back in their seats as though regretting and invoking 
 sleep on their own account. Oratorical art naturally
 
 110 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 suffered from this custom, but this attitude of the 
 audience contributed perhaps quite as much as the 
 national common sense to preserve English eloquence 
 from bombast or from classical declamation. 
 
 The nation which has the most ease in its public 
 assemblies is the one which has the least in its draw- 
 ing-rooms, and even in its private relations. Whilst 
 in London I was present at many magnificent enter- 
 tainments. I saw there the highest and most brilliant 
 of the aristocracy, and I met, while in the zenith of 
 their fame, Lady Blessington, the Marchioness of Lon- 
 donderry, the Marchioness of Salisbury, and Lady 
 Holland ; I was present at sumptuous and intermin- 
 able dinners, where after the ladies had. left the room 
 the wine circulated round the table without interrup- 
 tion in small silver chariots. Everywhere my curio- 
 sity was satisfied, sometimes aroused, but the whole 
 atmosphere was much chillier than it would have been 
 at similar gatherings in France, Germany, or Italy. 
 
 The whole of London seems to me to have the 
 same character ; it dazzles more than it attracts. But 
 the whole scene changes when once you get beyond 
 its enormous circle, and England is then invested with 
 unrivalled charms. There is nothing to compare, I 
 will repeat for the thousandth time, not only to 
 English castles but even to simple country houses, to 
 the smallest parks, to the shaded winding lanes, which 
 twist and turn in order to save some venerable tree, 
 and which seem to have a horror of the regularity of 
 French roads. As regards traditional souvenirs, Wind-
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. Ill 
 
 sor is certainly superior to Versailles. The whole 
 history of England is summed up and continued in 
 the modern additions made without interruption or 
 contrast of style. Feudalism is perpetuated there with- 
 out however appearing either exclusive or oppressive ; 
 the very walks combine with their grandiose appear- 
 ance some show of utility, and blend in one magnifi- 
 cent harmony the venerable oaks centuries old, the 
 conservatories full of exotic plants, the hunting ken- 
 nels, and the breeding studs. It is the typical home of 
 monarchy amongst the people where monarchy is the 
 institution most respected by all, and at the same 
 time most respectful towards all. 
 
 Nowhere, except at Windsor, is the cordial alliance 
 between tradition and progress more visible than in 
 Oxford. I have never let a compatriot of my acquaint- 
 ance leave for England without recommending him to 
 visit Oxford and Windsor. I ventured to recommend 
 these excursions to M. Berryer, when in 1843 he 
 made what is called the " pilgrimage to Belgrave 
 Square." He remembered my advice and thanked me 
 for it on his return, assuring me that in all his journey 
 nothing had captivated him so much as Oxford. It is 
 a city full of Catholic monuments, preserved by Pro- 
 testants, like a kind of national Pompeii. The monas- 
 teries have become colleges where instruction in 
 Christian knowledge is still given, and the long clois- 
 ters are incessantly traversed by young men in velvet 
 caps and a dress very much like that of bygone ages. 
 The city itself is little more than an annex of the
 
 112 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 colleges, and on coming away from Oxford it seems as 
 if one had made a dive into the middle ages. 
 
 Scotland created much the same impression. In all 
 my recollections I cannot find anything analogous to 
 the commotion — the word is literally exact — which 
 the sight of the panorama of Edinburgh caused me. 
 I arrived there in the English fashion, then unknown 
 in France, perched upon the roof of a stage coach, and 
 when I first saw, with a glimpse of the sea in the 
 horizon, lying at the foot of the mountains, blending 
 harmoniously with the ruins of Holyrood, the pic- 
 turesque buildings of Edinburgh, her viaducts, her 
 streets built one above the other, some of them almost 
 aerial in effect, I could not help exclaiming aloud 
 to the great delight of my companions, who may, 
 perhaps, have been taught by me to feel greater admi- 
 ration for their marvellous country. 
 
 It is difficult to describe Scotland after Walter 
 Scott, and his name accompanies you from one end of 
 his well-beloved country to the other. I will confine 
 myself to saying that I felt deep interest and sympathy 
 for Abbotsford, where Walter Scott lived for many 
 years, and where he breathed his last. This residence, 
 built by himself, bore, like his novels, the visible 
 stamp of his genius. We find there a vivid reminder 
 of his goodness, for all the neighbours and the ser- 
 vants pronounce his name, or speak of his quite recent 
 death, with an accent which excludes all idea of the 
 homage paid to him being mere lip-service. The 
 study, upon which the owner had bestowed so much
 
 VISII TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 113 
 
 artistic thought, because it was there that he proposed 
 to spend the best part of his time, was shown me by 
 the woman in charge, who had grown old in the 
 service of the family. 
 
 She seemed to answer my eager questions with visi- 
 ble pleasure, but she was gradually overcome by her 
 feelings, and had great difficulty in keeping back her 
 tears, nor shall I ever forget the tone in which, after 
 a few minutes silence, she continued, " He was so 
 good to everybody ! " Who would not envy this 
 brief funeral oration ! * 
 
 On my return from Scotland I prepared to go back 
 to France, giving up my visit to Ireland on account of 
 my sufferings from sea-sickness in the rapid crossing 
 from Boulogne to Dover. Our poor human languages 
 have only one word to express each of our affections 
 or of our sufferings, without taking into consideration 
 the infinite variety of degrees. We say " grief," 
 but how many degrees are there in this feeling : and 
 how different it is with one man or with another even 
 when they are struck down by the same blow. We 
 say "joy," without distinguishing the abyss, which 
 separates the different impressions which this word can 
 include from the sensation excited by the most frivo- 
 lous pleasures to the emotion produced by the manliest 
 
 * When succeeding M. de Falloux in the Academie Franchise, 
 on January 19th, 1888, M. Greard quoted this anecdote in allud- 
 ing to him, adding, " I have heard that funeral oration at Bourg 
 d'Ire from more than one mouth. People never came away from 
 him empty handed. His granaries and cellars contained stores 
 always ready for those whom necessity brought to his door." 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 and most patriotic satisfaction. I venture to assert that 
 the word " sea-sickness " is equally insufficient. There 
 are not two passengers affected by it in the same 
 degree, and I believe that it is very rare for any one 
 to suffer so much as I do. For whilst most of the 
 sufferers are cured as soon as they land, I require at 
 least a week after each of my crossings before recover- 
 ing from the sufferings caused by a voyage which 
 scarcely lasts two hours. 
 
 I left England feeling much gratitude for the wel- 
 come I had received, and deriving much intellectual 
 benefit from all I had seen, while I also gained a clearer 
 insight into my own country. But the only durable 
 acquaintance I made was that of a Frenchman. I 
 cannot resist describing the singular birth of this 
 friendship, which will appear again at various inter- 
 vals during the rest of my life. I lodged at Grillon's 
 Hotel, Albemarle Street, a French house, which I had 
 seen mentioned in the newspapers. The Due d'Orleans 
 had stayed there the year before. Many Frenchmen 
 stayed there, and the Marquis de Gricourt, whom I 
 had known in Paris, introduced me to the Yicomte de 
 Persigny, his travelling companion. M. de Persigny 
 made a considerable impression upon me by his original 
 conversation and by the frankness of his political 
 opinions, which differed very much from my own. 
 
 In English hotels, and at Grillon's in particular, 
 callers are never received in the bedrooms, but only 
 in a public drawing-room reserved for the purpose. 
 I was therefore surprised one morning to see M. de
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 115 
 
 Persigny enter my room, and still more surprised by 
 what he said. It was much to this effect : ;{ I know 
 very little of you, but still enough for me to approach 
 you with confidence, and I hope that I have inspired 
 you with the same sentiment. An unexpected letter 
 compels me to leave England immediately, I cannot 
 even wait for the money which ought to be sent to me 
 from France. My luggage is more than enough to 
 pay what I owe at the hotel, where I shall leave it as 
 a pledge, but I beg you to allow me to confide to you 
 a few books and papers which I greatly value, and I 
 will ask you to be kind enough to take care of them for 
 me, and restore them to me when you return to our 
 country." I begged him to defer his departure until 
 the arrival of his money, but I soon saw that I could 
 never persuade him, and that his mind was made up. 
 So I said to him, " I can suggest a better plan than 
 your own; ask for your bill, take what you require 
 from my purse; leave quietly with everything that 
 belongs to you, and repay me when you can." He 
 thanked me cordially, warmly clasped my hand, and 
 left me to go and pack up. 
 
 I thought he had gone, when opening the door again 
 he came in and said, " Your kindness fills me with 
 gratitude, and I will prove it to you by not concealing 
 the true reason of my departure from you. Prince 
 Louis Bonaparte, to whom I am entirely devoted, has 
 sent me a pressing message to meet him in Switzerland. 
 Let me entreat you to go with me. You will see for 
 yourself that with him rests the future of our country, 
 
 12
 
 \ 
 
 116 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 and I know the Prince well enough to feel sure 
 beforehand that he will appreciate you at your real 
 worth." 
 
 I made no secret of the surprise which this confidence 
 created, and I added, "I must return frankness for 
 frankness. In offering you the small service, for which 
 you thanked me far beyond what it merited, I did not 
 obey any personal sentiment, but was actuated by a 
 purely French notion of honour. Had we met in an inn 
 in Paris I should have allowed you to have done as you 
 liked, without interfering with you ; but in England, in 
 an hotel where we have been seen together, a national 
 responsibility exists between us, and this fact reduces 
 your debt to me to a very small amount." 
 
 He would not be put down, and depicted in glowing 
 terms the greatness of the second and approaching 
 empire. I listened for some time with stupefied curio- 
 sity, and then, by way of bringing the interview to a 
 close, I said, "You know that I belong to a province 
 where Eoyalist fidelity is unchangeable : your perti- 
 nacity, flattering as it may be to me, must therefore be 
 absolutely useless." 
 
 A last effort having convinced him that my resist- 
 ance was really invincible, he used with no little solem- 
 nity these very words : " I respect your sincerity, but I 
 also know your patriotism. Your eyes will be opened. 
 Prince Napoleon will reign, and you will form part of 
 his first ministry." 
 
 In spite of the prophet's solemn tone I received the 
 prediction with a burst of laughter, and replied jest-
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 117 
 
 ingly, " Promise me, sir, that you will present me 
 with my portfolio." 
 
 " Very well, sir, I do promise it to you." 
 But the most painful thing was that the destinies of 
 France should be so agitated and so compromised that 
 two young men of five-and-twenty, making such a 
 wager in jest, should both ultimately be taken at their 
 word. When I reached the Ministry of Public In- 
 struction in December, 1848, I found there, placed by 
 M. de Persigny, the portfolio which he had promised 
 me in 1835. I retained possession of it upon my retire- 
 ment, and I never look at it without sadly repeating 
 to myself: " Unhappy, most unhappy is any country 
 where such an adventure can belong to the domain of 
 reality." 
 
 Upon my return from England, I spent, as usual, 
 my autumn in Anjou. I then returned to Paris where 
 I became more and more attached to Madame Swet- 
 chine's receptions and person. The Vicomtesse de 
 Virieu, who presented me to her, was, like her mother, 
 the Comtesse de Lostanges, a very clever woman, 
 well suited to appreciate Madame Swetchine and to be 
 liked by her. She had insisted upon introducing me 
 to the salon of Madame Swetchine, which I rather 
 dreaded entering, having an idea that the celebrated 
 personages who frequented it were pedantic and 
 constrained. However, it so happened that when 
 I gave way to Madame de Virieu' s affectionate per- 
 sistency I found Madame Swetchine alone. There 
 was nothing to affect those first impressions which have
 
 118 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 so deep an influence upon the views we form of a 
 person's character. I found simplicity, I may even 
 say timidity, where I had expected intellectual despot- 
 ism. I soon learnt, like all Madame Swetchine's 
 intimate friends, to feel grieved when the door opened 
 to admit some new comer, and I even believe that I 
 was ungrateful enough to upbraid Madame de Yirieu 
 for not having conquered my blind resistance sooner. 
 Madame Swetchine's friends also honoured me by 
 becoming mine. Abbe Lacordaire, who needed neither 
 success nor glory to impress others with the feeling of 
 his incomparable superiority, conspicuously striking in 
 his appearance as well as in his lightest word ; M. de 
 Montalembert, who was sometimes at variance with 
 Madame Swetchine about Poland, though there was 
 no necessity for this, as they had so many sentiments 
 in common ; and M. de Melun, Sister Eosalie's future 
 historian, and already her fellow-labourer, — were the 
 first to open to me the ranks of this small Christian 
 corps which boasted illustrious generals before it had 
 many soldiers. I need do no more than quote these 
 names, without dwelling upon the inspiration they gave 
 me, for they soon became blended with my very exis- 
 tence, while I do not wish to anticipate anything, or to 
 have to abridge what I owe them. I will therefore, for 
 the present, confine myself to mentioning the acquain- 
 tance which I formed with some of Madame Swetchine's 
 fellow-countrymen, with a view to the visit I proposed 
 making to Eussia. My glimpses into the country were 
 made under the most favourable auspices, through meet-
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 119 
 
 ing nearly every day Countess StrogonofF, whom M. 
 Thiers valued so highly, the Eussian Ambassador and his 
 brother, the two Counts Pahlen, Prince Johan Gagarin, 
 now Father Gagarin, and Count Gregory Schouvaloff, 
 who died a member of some religious community. 
 
 M. Labensky, who was attached to the Russian 
 Embassy or Consulate, put in an occasional appear- 
 ance. His title to regard consisted not in his official 
 position, but in a very noble character, and in a 
 literary talent which he concealed as much as others 
 would have boasted of it. Under the well-kept 
 pseudonym of Jean Polonius, M. Labensky published 
 several French elegies which might be attributed to 
 Millevoye. Perhaps he also had some secret reason 
 for the melancholy which his conversation revealed, 
 and which undoubtedly shortened his life. 
 
 An enterprise so long and distant as the exploration 
 of Eussia is not to be undertaken alone, and I joined 
 the Yicomte Francois de la Bouillerie, now Archbishop 
 of Bordeaux. We started in the first days of spring, 
 and, owing to the route we followed, we had the good 
 fortune to witness its first appearance everywhere on 
 our road, first in Germany and then in Eussia, where 
 it had scarcely commenced when we arrived. 
 
 Berlin was already the centre of the intellectual and 
 artistic movement of German autonomy. We made it 
 our first halting-place. Its Museum, which contains 
 some of the finest Eembrandts, was arranged and 
 guarded with a care which began to arouse the 
 jealousy of Dresden. The libraries also aimed at
 
 120 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 supremacy, and Spontini was regenerating the opera, 
 which had been just provided with a very fine house. 
 This universal activity was personified in Baron 
 Alexander von Humboldt, who was already getting 
 ready the publication of his Cosmos. His science was 
 eminently worldly, and rarely has the world been 
 so courted by a savant. Enjoying the close confidence 
 of the King, very proud of Prussia's new brilliancy, 
 Baron von Humboldt took his share in every political 
 deliberation, accompanied his sovereign to the opera 
 or to the German theatre every evening, and was 
 ready to start at a moment's notice for any capital in 
 Europe, if there was any delicate negotiation to be 
 opened or completed. He showed the same animation 
 and grace in his attentions to women, and I owed my 
 introduction to the Duchesse de Eauzan to one who 
 in Berlin was usually called Alexander the Great. 
 His prodigality both of mind and time was inexhaus- 
 tible, and foreigners availed themselves of it without 
 scruple. We had some experience of this, for he took 
 us over the Berlin Museum himself, and upon another 
 occasion enabled us to see a rehearsal of the Vestale, 
 when Spontini, who was conducting the orchestra, 
 flew into a rage, which was very amusing, because the 
 statues of the temple had missed their entrance just 
 when he had exclaimed, " Vier Statuen ! Vier Statuen /" 
 This excessive hospitality was shown to us not in the 
 dull season, but at a time when the sons of Louis 
 Philippe were paying their first visit to Prussia and 
 Austria, when they won a personal triumph, soon
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 121 
 
 followed by the marriage of the Due d'Orleans with 
 Princess Helen of Mecklenburg. 
 
 From Berlin we proceeded to Konigsberg, and 
 entered Eussia by Courland. Eiga is a very animated 
 commercial port. The souvenirs of King Louis XVIIL, 
 preserved with those of the old Princes of Courland, 
 detained us for a short time at Mittau ; and after a 
 brief halt at the small castle of Kleinropp, to pay our 
 respects to the Baroness de Meyendorff, so highly 
 appreciated in the artistic world of Paris, we reached 
 St. Petersburg. 
 
 The first thing to greet us was brilliant sunshine, 
 which never left us again during the whole of our 
 visit, for from the month of May Eussia makes up for 
 her interminable winter nights by a long series of 
 days, with little more than two or three hours of 
 darkness between them. 
 
 The official personages who then surrounded the 
 Emperor Nicholas were the contemporaries and coun- 
 terparts of those I had known in Vienna. The Count 
 de Nesselrode had for a long time held in Eussia much 
 the same position which Prince Metternich occupied 
 in Austria ; but the two men were very dissimilar in 
 appearance. Nesselrode was a small man with an in- 
 telligent glance veiled by thick spectacles. The grand 
 air which I had admired in the Austrian Chancellor 
 was to be seen here in the Countess Nesselrode, whose 
 face and figure were as noble as they were imposing. 
 Those who only saw her officially or casually had 
 credited her with being stiff and severe. This was an
 
 122 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 error and an injustice. I do not, on this point, refer 
 to the kindly reception she gave to us, for we owed 
 that to Madame Swetchine's introduction, but to the 
 thousand traits of generous kindliness attested by 
 witnesses who were the more to be believed because 
 they were almost involuntary; the wife of the 
 Prime Minister disliking flattery and not encou- 
 raging flatterers. The Countess Nesselrode possessed 
 at the Court, and even with the Imperial family, a 
 moral authority which was quite independent of her 
 high position. She remained erect where every one 
 else bowed down, and this without any affecta- 
 tion of liberalism, of which she certainly never 
 dreamt. She showed one by her attitude that personal 
 dignity can be maintained everywhere, and that it 
 depends less upon external conditions than upon 
 elevation of sentiment and nobility of character. The 
 Countess Nesselrode was the most prominent example 
 of this personal dignity, but she was not the only one 
 which I encountered at St. Petersburg. Courage of 
 this description is more frequent there than the 
 maxims and practices of the Government would lead 
 one to suppose. The Emperor was a despot in the 
 highest acceptation of the word ; but nevertheless 
 he had sincere pretensions to justice and even to 
 benevolence when political considerations did not 
 stand in the way. He listened to the truth when- 
 ever any one had the courage to tell it to him; 
 and Count Benkendorff, his favourite aide-de-camp, 
 who held the responsible post of Minister of Police,
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 123 
 
 was reported to be a persevering and often successful 
 advocate for clemency. 
 
 The Eussian aristocracy was at that date far from 
 desiring the emancipation of the serfs, but it foresaw 
 and tacitly prepared for the change. I was indebted 
 to the friendship of Prince Alexander Bariatinsky, 
 the future conqueror of Schamyl and Field-Marshal, for 
 the communication of a private memoir which his 
 father had bequeathed to him, and which contained as 
 regarded the abuses of serfage, the impossibility of 
 their continuance, and the desirability of the Eussian 
 nobility taking the initiative, the most far-seeing, 
 generous, and enlightened instructions. The Czar's 
 subjects reproach Peter the Great for having estab- 
 lished absolute power amongst them, and they render 
 him responsible for all the consequences of this inno- 
 vation. I had believed, on the authority of Voltaire, 
 in the enthusiasm of Eussia for this civilising savage. 
 I was not entirely undeceived until I reached Moscow, 
 but I got an inkling of it at Petersburg. It was pain- 
 ful to reflect that the French aristocracy might have 
 taken an initiative of this kind in the eighteenth 
 century, just as the Eussian autocracy and aristocracy 
 were preparing to do in the nineteenth. 
 
 Society in St. Petersburg under the Emperor 
 Nicholas was circumspect as regarded political con- 
 versation, but it made amends for this in literary 
 matters. English and French books, new novels, 
 reviews of various kinds were to be seen upon every 
 table, and M. de la Bouillerie and I myself had only
 
 124 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 to caution the friends who received ns against giving 
 credit too readily to authors who availed themselves of 
 the puffing, which, now so general, was then a recent 
 invention, foreigners being inclined to take French 
 writers at their own valuation. We were frequently- 
 obliged to submit to being considered illiterate, or to 
 convince our friends that they were being duped by 
 eulogies paid for so much per line. 
 
 The Eussian Journal Officiel was published in 
 French, and owing to the difference in the calendars, 
 we read in St. Petersburg the news from France on 
 the same date upon which they had appeared in Paris, 
 so one might have fancied that news already twelve 
 days old was the news of the same morning. At the 
 private theatricals, which were so frequent, the pieces 
 were always French comedies or vaudevilles. 
 
 The most popular poet after Pushkine was a still 
 young man named Koslof, who was blind and con- 
 fined to a couch by paralysis, which had at least 
 respected the brain. 
 
 In the summer, society removes a few miles from 
 St. Petersburg to the islands formed by the Neva, 
 which are covered with elegant and even sumptuous 
 country houses. The opera is also transferred there, 
 and a singular effect is produced when coming out 
 at midnight one finds that it is still broad day- 
 light. 
 
 The most hospitable houses in the islands at that 
 date were those of the Prince de Butera, the 
 Neapolitan Ambassador, whose wife was Eussian,
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 125 
 
 and of Count Ficquelmont, the Austrian Ambassador, 
 a laborious and distinguished political writer. The 
 Countess Ficquelmont, also a Eussian, was so beautiful 
 that, when ambassadress in Naples, she had the 
 satisfaction of finding her own name tacked on to 
 an Italian proverb : Vedere NapoM, la Ficquelmont e 
 morire. Her daughter, Elise-Alexiandra, the Emperor 
 Alexander's god-daughter, now Princess Clary, pro- 
 mised in all respects to follow in her mother's foot- 
 steps. The sceptre of society was not less successfully 
 wielded by Countess Sophie Bobrinski, one of the 
 most clear-sighted and strongest minds in a society 
 where distinction was widely diffused. 
 
 Our opinions debarred us from entering the 
 Embassy of France under King Louis Philippe, and 
 this was a great loss to us, for it was then confided 
 to M. de Barante. This selection would have been 
 happier in any other Court than that of Eussia. The 
 habits of the Emperor Nicholas were exclusively 
 soldierly, and outside them all personal success was 
 impossible. The most important audiences with him 
 took place on horseback, and the best opportunities 
 were lost when any one could not accompany him to 
 the reviews. A general or a distinguished horseman 
 had, therefore, a much better chance of acquiring 
 credit at the Eussian Court than an accomplished 
 academician like M. de Barante. 
 
 So far as sightseeing went, we had nothing to 
 complain of, thanks to the kindness of Madame de 
 Nesselrode and her friends. In fact, our principal
 
 126 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 ciceroni were her son, Dmitri de Nesselrode, an open- 
 hearted young man, more inclined to travel than to 
 work, who speedily abandoned the diplomatic career, 
 and two brilliant guardsmen, Prince Alexander Trou- 
 betzkoy and Baron Georges de Heeckeren. Alex- 
 ander Troubetzkoy insisted upon taking us himself 
 to the imperial palace of Tsarkoe-Selo, where his 
 father, who was aide-de-camp to the Emperor, gave us 
 a luncheon at which, as at all Eussian tables, cham- 
 pagne abounded. Eussia alone certainly consumes 
 more champagne than the champagne district pro- 
 duces, and hugs to herself the illusion that the various 
 white wines made in France, particularly in Anjou, 
 are the real article. Tsarkoe-Selo is a very fine 
 residence, upon which each sovereign has left some 
 special impress. The Empress Catherine covered all 
 the walls and even the ceiling of her favourite study 
 with amber. The immense park contains all kinds 
 of rare animals. 
 
 During luncheon, Prince Troubetzkoy questioned 
 me about my previous travels, and when I mentioned 
 Prague, he asked me if I had ever met Prince Louis 
 de Eohan there. Upon my answering in the affirma- 
 tive, he inquired most affectionately after him. "We 
 were once," he said, " placed in a very singular 
 predicament," and without any pressure on our part 
 he related the following story, which I reproduce 
 here for the instruction of all partisans of divorce. 
 
 " Prince Louis had married a Duchesse de ." 
 
 "But," I broke in, "Prince Louis de Eohan has 
 never been married."
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 127 
 
 u You young Frenchmen may think so, but I have 
 reason to know better, for I married his wife, and 
 in 1815 we all three met at the Belle- vue Hotel in 
 
 Brussels. The Duchesse de was a Protestant, 
 
 and could thus apply for a divorce, which she obtained 
 in order to marry me. Prince de Eohan, condemned 
 by the laws of his religion to perpetual celibacy, was 
 obliged to make the best of things. I became in my 
 turn the victim of the changing taste of the beautiful 
 duchess, but at all events I was able to console 
 myself by marrying the Princess Troubetzkoy, whom 
 you know, and who has borne me seven children, 
 
 Alexander being the eldest. The Duchesse de 
 
 has since married a Prussian Protestant. So you see 
 that there are two men in Europe who feel that they 
 are in duty bound to ask for news of Prince Louis de 
 Eohan whenever they have an opportunity." 
 
 Georges de Heeckeren was a Frenchman who had 
 taken service in Russia after a series of incidents 
 which are not devoid of originality. His father, 
 Baron d'Anthes, had been deputy for Alsace under 
 the Eestoration. Georges, his eldest son, was destined 
 for a military career when the July revolution broke 
 out. Having, like so many other Legitimist young 
 men, been thrown out of employment, he became very 
 intimate with the Grand Duke of Baden, his neigh- 
 bour. Georges de Heeckeren met upon one occasion at 
 his house the Duke of Lucca, a well-informed prince, 
 who was very eager for information and fond of tra- 
 velling. The young Legitimist was naturally intro-
 
 128 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 duced to him and received a cordial greeting. After 
 spending a few weeks together, the Duke of Lucca 
 said to him — 
 
 " It would really be a pity for you to vegetate here 
 in Alsace, and with your great natural abilities you 
 should, at any sacrifice, resume your interrupted 
 military career. Prussia is a very good school for 
 this, and as I am on excellent terms with the King 
 I will gladly write to him about you." 
 
 The Frenchman hesitated, but in the end his sol- 
 dierly instincts got the upper hand. He left for Berlin 
 with a strong letter of recommendation from his 
 august protector. Being referred to the Minister of 
 "War, he was told that he would be admitted into a 
 regiment as a non-commissioned officer. A non-com- 
 missioned officer was not the rack he had counted 
 upon. He would have left St. Cyr an officer, and he 
 refused to take lower rank. The King sent for him, 
 and said — 
 
 " You may perhaps think that a King of Prussia 
 can do whatsoever he likes. Undeceive yourself! 
 Our military regulations are so strict that no one is 
 exempt from them ; but what I cannot do for you here 
 I can ask for you from my son-in-law, the Emperor of 
 Eussia. He, no doubt, like myself, would be glad to 
 be of service to a French Eoyalist. I will send him 
 the Duke of Lucca's letter, and I will add my own 
 recommendation to it." 
 
 Georges asked for time to reflect, and finally he 
 gratefully accepted the King's offer. At St. Peters-
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 129 
 
 burg he was at once sent for to the cabinet of the 
 Minister of War, who told him : 
 
 " You will be examined on such a day, and imme- 
 diately afterwards you will be qualified to receive 
 your commission as officer." 
 
 " An examination," murmured Georges ; u this is 
 not what they promised at Berlin. I have forgotten 
 during the last two years what little I ever knew ! 
 Have I come all this way to sustain a personal 
 rebuff, and, what would be worse, to discredit the 
 French name ? I thank you sincerely, but I must 
 refuse." 
 
 The Minister did not pay much attention, but told 
 him, with a smile, that he carried his modesty too 
 far, and on the following day, when he woke up, a 
 summons was brought to him for an early examina- 
 tion. His first impulse was to refuse again, but, 
 recalling the benevolent smile with which he had been 
 dismissed, he finally resolved to try his luck, and on 
 the day named presented himself before the examiners. 
 As a matter of form they put a few elementary ques- 
 tions to him, and declared themselves satisfied with 
 his answers, while soon afterwards he received a com- 
 mission in the Empress's Guards. This gave him the 
 rank of Captain and admission to the Court. 
 
 Nothing more was required to fix all eyes upon 
 him. He bore the scrutiny very well, and henceforth 
 was invited to every entertainment. Upon one occa- 
 sion, he was introduced to the Baron de Heeckeren, the 
 Dutch Ambassador. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 " Your name is well known to me," said the am- 
 bassador. " One branch of your family is descended 
 from a Hasfeldt." "That is mine." " We are 
 related, then ! " 
 
 Genealogical explanations followed, and the two 
 relatives became fast friends. After some time the 
 ambassador said to the guardsman : 
 
 " The more I see of you the more attached I feel to 
 you ; I have no children, take my name and I will 
 adopt you." 
 
 " Sir," replied Georges d'Anthes, "I am filled 
 with gratitude towards you, but my father would 
 certainly be offended if I exchanged my name for any 
 other." 
 
 " I will write to him, and let him know the amount 
 of the fortune that I intend giving you, and I trust I 
 shall be able to overcome all his objections." 
 
 The ambassador wrote, and as Georges was the 
 eldest of five children his father did not refuse the 
 windfall, so Georges d'Anthes had become Georges 
 de Heeckeren, when he did the honours of St. Peters- 
 burg to us with true French grace. ISTo favourite of 
 fortune ever paid less court to the fickle goddess, but 
 for a long time she was all smiles, though she eventu- 
 ally showed her usual capriciousness, the romance 
 having a painful ending, of which I shall speak 
 presently. 
 
 Moscow surpassed all our expectations. The beauty 
 of its position, the interest excited by its monuments 
 which have survived the fire, its thoroughly Kussian
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 131 
 
 customs, all aided to instruct and charm us. The 
 Kremlin is still the arsenal and the true representation 
 of the old nationality. The churches are half oriental, 
 half Christian in style. The convents have a most 
 severe aspect, and the evening litanies in the Limanoff 
 Convent leave an impression of religious faith which 
 no one can gainsay. The city has been rebuilt since 
 1812 on a very fine plan and a very large scale. 
 Science and art are represented there by very dis- 
 tinguished academies where the aristocracy, less dissi- 
 pated or less engaged with military manoeuvres than 
 in St. Petersburg, occupies the first rank. The true 
 centre of national life is at Moscow, and no capital 
 despoiled by the master's will ever more proudly 
 re-grasped or more valiantly defended its intellectual 
 primacy. "We celebrated the Empress's fete at the 
 house of the Governor, Prince Serge Galitzin, who 
 received the whole population in his extensive 
 park. Dinner and supper were served in the interior 
 of the palace in the European style, while outside, 
 innumerable games, water jousts, and Muscovite dances 
 were prolonged far into the night. 
 
 "We here saw Eussia really at home. These dances 
 might be more justly called dramas or pantomimes, for 
 the songs and gestures are mingled with a plot of defi- 
 nite action, sometimes comic, more frequently interest- 
 ing and pathetic. Certain personages come out from 
 the main body of singers and appeal to the humorous 
 or pathetic feelings of the spectators, who themselves 
 by their applause take a very active share in the play. 
 
 k2
 
 132 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 The population is very handsome. The men are 
 tall ; their long beards come down to their bosoms and 
 give them all a martial air. The women are also 
 beautiful and are attired in elegant costumes, but 
 they would look better still if they would give up the 
 habit of washing their teeth with a certain varnish 
 which makes them look jet-black. 
 
 Moscow also contains numerous families of Tziganes, 
 Bohemians and their wives, who live apart, forming 
 no alliance with the Muscovites, and easy of recognition 
 through their costume, language, and music. 
 
 We were invited to hear a very select band in the 
 
 Cheremetief Garden. The first impulse was to run 
 
 away, so loud was the din, but a few softer notes 
 
 attracted the ear, which, accustoming itself to them, 
 
 afterwards welcomed these sounds which commence 
 
 with shrieks and end in deep and real accents of passion. 
 
 From Moscow we left for Nijni-Novogorod. This is, 
 
 at the annual fair, the meeting-place of European and 
 
 Tartar Eussia, and even, it may be said, of all Asia, 
 
 for China and several nations from the extreme East 
 
 are represented there. Mjni-Novogorod stands on the 
 
 summit of a picturesque hill ; the Volga flows at its 
 
 feet in a vast plain where the second city stands, 
 
 built almost entirely of iron as a protection against 
 
 fire. This second city, or rather this immense bazaar, 
 
 contains only shops, sheds, and the buildings absolutely 
 
 necessary for the foreign merchants. This incomparable 
 
 market only lasts one month, but during that month, 
 
 what activity ! what a display of merchandise from
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 133 
 
 all regions, of costumes of the most varied colours and 
 forms, of objects borrowed from the most savage 
 nations as well as the highly finished productions of 
 the most refined civilisations ! The French language 
 is much used there, and Frenchmen are treated with 
 much ceremony. 
 
 One day, when through the medium of the polyglot 
 Antonio we had made a few purchases of Asiatic 
 stuffs, the shopkeeper, who had not at first appeared, 
 came in to thank us, and begged us to enter the room 
 behind his shop, made us seat ourselves at a table 
 loaded with excellent fruit, and ended by opening a 
 bottle of champagne, saying' to us with each glass, 
 "You need not be afraid to drink, Count! I am 
 always in direct communication with the champagne 
 districts." And the bottle did not belie his words. 
 That evening there were fresh entertainments in the 
 upper city, of which the Governor- General Boutourlin 
 and Madame Boutourlin did the honours right nobly. 
 The variety of costume and language was the same as 
 in the lower city, but with more sumptuousness and 
 refinement. All this made us desirous of advancing 
 a little nearer to the east. We chartered, at a very 
 low price, a small boat, with a crew of six men, and, 
 half sailing, half rowing, we descended the Volga as 
 far as Kasan. 
 
 This voyage was charming, for when the river 
 banks provided no occupation for our eyes, the crew 
 never ceased to furnish us with fresh subjects for 
 curiosity. Our six sailors were superb men, who in
 
 134 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 France would have passed for colossi. Their genial 
 manner towards each other, and their prompt obedience 
 to the pilot, never varied. They sang sometimes in 
 chorus, sometimes in dialogue, in the fashion we had 
 already heard in Moscow. They took their meals with 
 every appearance of gaiety, and as soon as the repast 
 was ended, threw themselves into the Yolga, swim- 
 ming round the vessel, and playing all sorts of gambols 
 in the water like regular amphibians. After the first 
 performance of these exercises we asked them whether, 
 when they bathed while in a perspiration after row- 
 ing, or after a copious meal, they were not very im- 
 prudent. Our question stupefied them, and made 
 them laugh heartily. Their bodies were of iron, of 
 unparalleled agility, while their good-humour never 
 varied during the six days of our life in common. 
 They quickly learnt our usual habits and were very 
 attentive to them, carefully watched over us during 
 our sleep, and when we bade them farewell we parted 
 with sincere regret and like real friends. 
 
 Kasan is a fine city of oriental appearance in the 
 centre of a magnificent panorama. Eussia lavishes 
 both efforts and expense to assimilate this population, 
 but the Tartar element resists, and defends step by 
 step every one of its customs as though it were de- 
 fending its entire nationality. The University of 
 Kasan is famous, and the Emperor carefully retains 
 its renown by sending distinguished professors to it. 
 The libraries are rich and numerous ; the observatory 
 is provided with a most powerful astronomical instru-
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 135 
 
 ment. However, as soon as the traveller leaves the 
 focus of civilised and civilising science, he finds him- 
 self in the middle of Tartary once more. Evening 
 and morning the mosques are filled with the faithful, 
 who read the Koran together in a nasal, monotonous 
 voice. The harem also ranks amongst the most obsti- 
 nately protected institutions. One of the Governor's 
 aides-de-camp conducted us to the house of one of the 
 richest Tartars of Kasan, who offered us a repast of 
 dried fruits. He afterwards willingly showed us his 
 garden and some rooms in his house, but no women 
 appeared. The aide-de-camp expressed to him in the 
 Tartar language our great desire to see some of his 
 women in their national costume. He seemed little 
 inclined to gratify us. However, upon the persistence 
 of the aide-de-camp, and probably through fear of 
 offending so great a personage, he at last consented, 
 went away, and soon returned followed by two women 
 richly dressed and carefully veiled. We begged the 
 aide-de-camp to thank them for us, and to apologise for 
 a curiosity which was not intended to be either indis- 
 creet or offensive. A light laugh, rather merry though 
 stifled, was the only answer. Then, at a sign from the 
 Mussulman, the two women turned on their heels and 
 re-entered the house with hurried steps. When, on 
 leaving, we thanked the aide-de-camp for his obligiDg 
 courtesy, he shook his head smilingly. "You may 
 be sure," he said, " that the Tartar only showed us 
 two young boys disguised as women." Such, in 183G, 
 were the Eussian rule and Mussulman docility !
 
 136 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 Everything we saw led us to think that it wonld be 
 easier to drive the Mussulman races back into Asia 
 than to convert them. The Koran declares a war upon 
 the gospel that does not admit of either sincere peace 
 or of any real truce. Extermination, thank God, has 
 become an impossible barbarism ; reconciliation must 
 for a long time remain a hope, bordering closely on 
 chimera. May Europe at least be entirely restored to 
 Christianity at no distant date ! 
 
 To remount the "Volga would have taken far longer 
 than to descend it ; we therefore regained Nijni by a 
 high road, badly paved in wood, and after a last glance 
 at the splendours of the fair, and a visit of thanks to 
 Moscow, we started for Poland, following the course 
 taken by the Grand Army. 
 
 Eussia had left a vivid impression and a great idea 
 of her originality upon us. The Eussians are a fine 
 people in the true sense of the word. Handsome and 
 robust in their physical constitution, with a high con- 
 ception of their destiny and a religious faith shown 
 even in the smallest details of their private life, the 
 popular worship of holy images and of venerated 
 places, assiduous attendance at public prayer, un- 
 alterable respect for the clergy, who however left a 
 great deal to be desired, indefatigable ardour in hand- 
 work and military exercises, a quick understanding, 
 a remarkable aptitude for industry and commerce; 
 spontaneous assistance between fellow countrymen, 
 a cordial hospitality to foreigners, the only thing lack- 
 ing in Eussia is a Government capable of utilizing
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 137 
 
 all these natural qualities by elevating and regulat- 
 ing them. 
 
 Is this judgment, formed fifty years ago, still cor- 
 rect? To reply to this question, I should require 
 information which I have not at command respecting 
 the depth and hidden extent of revolutionary propa- 
 ganda. But I still think that if Eussia passes, like 
 other European nations, from a despotic to a demagogic 
 regime the sincere friends of regular order and wise 
 liberty will have to weep once more over a noble 
 victim. 
 
 A double patriotic sentiment led us to return to 
 France through Poland. "We wished to follow step 
 by step, from Moscow to "Warsaw, the halting-places 
 of our Grand Army and to visit at home the heroic 
 people which on so many occasions and with so much 
 devotion, had risked its own existence to defend ours. 
 What a pang we felt as we crossed the Beresina, an 
 imperceptible stream which on that day a horse could 
 have leaped easily, but which overflowed in 1812, and 
 was the cause and the scene of an irreparable disaster. 
 With what emotion we prayed in a chapel at the gates 
 of Minsk, kept up by a few French prisoners who had 
 remained in Eussia, but who faithfully preserved the 
 religion and language of their native land! With 
 what solemn sadness we traversed beneath a splendidly 
 star-lit sky, between two verdant lines of trees, that 
 country where so many of our fellow countrymen had 
 only encountered a gloomy sky, a merciless winter, an 
 icy and deadly desert !
 
 138 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 The journey lasted six days and six nights without 
 stopping, for the inns in the interior of Eussia have 
 one great drawback, which explains the habits of 
 the Eussian nobles of only travelling with a bed in 
 their carriage. Nearly all the houses are built of wood, 
 and large stoves, surrounded by benches on which 
 the peasants and woodcutters sleep during the eight 
 winter months, keep up a stifling heat, the result 
 being that bugs have attained the rank of a public 
 calamity. 
 
 Poland at this date had still a frontier of its own, 
 and our passports had to be examined at Bretz- 
 Lytofsky, where we arrived some hours after the 
 office had been closed. We were therefore obliged 
 to have supper, and pass the night at the Hotel de la 
 Poste ; but I should have preferred being locked up 
 in the coachhouse all night, even at the risk of a 
 severe illness, to sleeping in the bed offered to me. 
 But yet the hotel did not look bad, and the hostess, 
 who prepared a good meal for us, wore a black lace 
 cap ornamented by a plate of gilt metal inlaid with 
 such a profusion of turquoises that this diadem, as 
 it might be called, was, according to Antonio, worth a 
 thousand roubles. These headdresses were frequently 
 met with throughout the whole country, and descended 
 from generation to generation. 
 
 I was entrusted by some old Angevin friends with 
 a singular mission, which was to ascertain, as far as 
 possible, the truth about the death of Field- Marshal 
 Diebitch, who defeated the Poles at Ostrolenka. These
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 139 
 
 good ladies believed, upon the strength of some 
 vague prediction, that Diebitch was no other than 
 Louis XVIL, miraculously preserved and mysteriously 
 taken to Eussia on leaving the Temple. Their obsti- 
 nacy in this belief proved once more how difficult it 
 is for naive credulity to listen to reason. The Eussian 
 staff was still full of Diebitch's comrades in arms, and 
 I was, therefore, in a position to assure those who still 
 doubted that nothing could be more certain than that 
 the pitiless Marshal was a Eussian, and that he was 
 dead. His habits were soldierly, his features Kalmuk, 
 and nothing either in his person or in his origin 
 warranted the strange supposition of which he was 
 the object. 
 
 Marshal Paskiewitch, who replaced him, had ended 
 the war in Poland by his siege of "Warsaw, and still 
 governed the country at the time of our arrival. He 
 was a distinguished man, gifted with all the qualities 
 of a peacemaker. The Countess Nesselrode had given 
 us letters of introduction to him, which secured us 
 the kindliest welcome. "We did not conceal our Polish 
 sympathies, but this was not in any way resented 
 in Frenchmen like ourselves. We therefore visited 
 "Warsaw under official protection, but without any 
 restraint and without supervision, at least apparent. 
 The city was animated, the population calm, and even 
 resigned. Jews were met at every step, acting as the 
 mediums of all commerce ; holding out the hand in 
 return for the most trifling service, even that of 
 indicating by a gesture the number in a street. They
 
 140 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 were still, even as in the happiest days of Poland, the 
 resource and scourge of the Poles. 
 
 Marshal Paskiewitch inhabited the Lazinski Palace, 
 the sumptuous modern residence of the kings of 
 Poland. He gave us a grand dinner, after which he 
 invited us to follow him to the park. A curious 
 spectacle awaited us there. The whole population of 
 Warsaw was assembled in a vast amphitheatre rising 
 above the shores of a small lake. The Marshal seated 
 himself in the first rank, surrounded by officers in 
 brilliant uniforms and by his guests, amongst whom 
 were several Englishmen. At our feet flowed a very 
 clear stream ; in the midst of the lake there was an 
 island, where the performance was to take place; 
 trees, rocks, small buildings, served as decorations 
 adapted to the pantomime, which commenced as soon 
 as the Marshal was seated. A village wedding party 
 issued from the church, entered some boats already 
 decorated and illuminated, defiled before us, between 
 the island and the amphitheatre, returned to the island 
 on the opposite side to that on which they had 
 embarked, and prepared to dance. The music, which 
 had escorted the wedding party in the boats, com- 
 menced a very spirited air, and as soon as the first 
 bars were heard, prolonged and almost frenzied 
 applause broke out behind us. I asked the reason of 
 a Eussian official who was next to me, " It is," he 
 replied, " a national air, and a popular dance, the use 
 of which has just been restored to the Poles. You 
 hear the proof of their satisfaction." I was so touched
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 141 
 
 that I could not answer the officer except by a gesture 
 of thanks. 
 
 I did not lose one note of this music or one move- 
 ment of this dance, which summed up, as it were, the 
 whole situation. Eussia in the first rank, by right of 
 conquest, confident and even courteous in her strength; 
 in front and behind, a people, submissive but not won 
 over, to whom liberty in music and the dance was 
 accorded, and who seized this one opportunity of ex- 
 pressing the regrets and hopes which cannot be stifled 
 in the heart. However hospitable the victor, he must, 
 on that evening, have thought us very ungrateful, and 
 have noticed our sympathy for the vanquished. 
 
 In order that our last impression might be exclu- 
 sively Polish, we went into the country and visited 
 Count "Wielopolski, whom I had known in Paris. His 
 horses, which he bred in great numbers, and which 
 filled his immense stables, took us by relays to the old 
 castle, where he lived at that time, and which his 
 mother never left again. She wore the national mourn- 
 ing and never appeared again at Warsaw. We passed 
 a few days there exchanging thoroughly French ideas, 
 and were then conducted with the same abundance of 
 very fast horses and very simple carriages to the gates 
 of Cracow. 
 
 "Warsaw is the capital of modern, Cracow of ancient 
 Poland, and everything in it recalls its antiquity ; the 
 well-chosen military position, old monuments, and 
 venerated tombs. Contemplating in the gloomy cathe- 
 dral the mausoleums of the most illustrious founders
 
 142 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 of the Polish Eepublic and that of Kociusko, one 
 of her last martyrs, one cannot help deploring the 
 errors of devotion and patriotism which have con- 
 tinually compromised the destiny of a people so hap- 
 pily gifted. We ardently hoped that the lessons of 
 the past might prepare a better future, but our hopes 
 were not fulfilled. A few years later a deplorable 
 rising in Galicia led to a final occupation of Cracow 
 by Austria. A few years later Poland, once more 
 forgotten by a ISTapoleon dictating terms of peace to 
 Eussia, recklessly attempted a revenge more purpose- 
 less and still more fatal in its results than any of the 
 preceding enterprises. May this noble country at least 
 retain intact' in her defeat the honour of her name 
 and fidelity to her faith ! With these two stepping- 
 stones all may be rebuilt. 
 
 Entering Austria by Lemberg, we paused to visit 
 the mines of Wilishka. It is here that by mutual 
 consent Eussia, Prussia, and Austria draw from the 
 bowels of the earth the salt necessary for the three 
 empires, where a population of several thousands of 
 men live fourteen hundred feet below the surface, 
 seeing the sun but once in eight days, some of them 
 only once a month. This immense excavation is 
 reached by long winding paths, or by a direct descent 
 in a large tub. We preferred the most curious and 
 shortest way. 
 
 Yisitors are first enveloped in a great overcoat of 
 white cloth, to preserve their clothes from the saline 
 moisture ; they enter the tub, with a small lamp in
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 143 
 
 the hand, and descend by means of a cord into this 
 abyss, which appears bottomless, from time to time 
 passing other tubs and other small lamps, but when 
 they reach the ground at the end of the descent, they 
 are rewarded for their trouble by a scene which baffles 
 description. Each of the workmen is also provided 
 with a small lamp fixed upon his head when he walks, 
 and planted in the block of salt when he works ; the 
 result being an illumination as far as the eye can see. 
 
 In this subterranean city, with a vista of large 
 galleries, the workers find in abundance every object 
 necessary for them. In the centre is a vast chapel 
 cut out of the salt; the walls, altars, statues and 
 tabernacles are in salt. It has not the whiteness of 
 that prepared for eating, but is more the colour of 
 saffron. A damp greasy liquid exudes from the walls 
 without diminishing their strength. The rough salt is 
 only detached with great trouble, and in small blocks, 
 by incessant blows from the implements used. A 
 singular feature is the lake of sweet water found at 
 this depth, in the midst of banks and on a bed of salt : 
 a lake deep enough to float boats, and extensive enough 
 to admit of a fairly long row. If a visitor adds twenty 
 francs to the small sum charged for admission fee, 
 Bengal fires are suddenly lighted from distance to dis- 
 tance, and shine on the sheet of water with a fairy 
 brightness, reflected upon the roof of salt stalactites 
 suspended over head. On the whole, few excursions 
 can give a higher idea of human boldness and industry 
 than the exploration of the mines of "Wilishka.
 
 144 MEMOIRS OF A KOYALIST. 
 
 At Olmiitz we saluted the memorial of Silvio Pel- 
 lico, and reached Kirchberg, where King Charles X. 
 then resided. Politics compelling the Emperor of 
 Austria to pay more frequent and longer visits to 
 Bohemia, Charles X. had been obliged to leave Hrad- 
 schin ; Buschtiehrad was uninhabitable in winter, and 
 the aged King had gone to settle in the south of 
 Austria, at Goritz. The royal family were going there 
 by easy stages when the Due de Bordeaux was attacked 
 by an eruptive complaint, which prevented the journey 
 from being continued. The complaint had suddenly 
 seized the young Prince at a small inn, where, with 
 the best will in the world, he could not receive proper 
 care. The Due de Blacas, who never left the King, 
 hearing that a chateau was for sale in the neighbour- 
 hood, bought it in his own name, without ever having 
 seen it, and without demur as to the price, surprised 
 the King by this pleasant news, and had the youthful 
 patient conveyed to his new home. The doctors, the 
 King, and the royal family then found themselves in 
 possession of everything that the most generous and 
 intelligent devotion could have contrived at such short 
 notice. 
 
 At Kirchberg, as elsewhere, Frenchmen whom 
 distance did not deter were received ; but there was 
 no room for hospitality except at table. We slept at 
 the foot of the castle in a very small village, between 
 two feather beds, for mattresses and blankets were 
 unknown. However unpleasant this might be, we 
 never dreamed of complaining. We received there,
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 145 
 
 for the last time, King Charles X.'s cordial welcome, 
 he afterwards proceeded on his way to Goritz, where a 
 Christian death awaited him. 
 
 Munich had become, through King Louis's genius, 
 a new Athens, as the Bavarians delighted to call it. 
 We only paid a hurried visit to it, and at last re- 
 entered France through Strasburg. 
 
 Nothing was then more French than Alsace ; it was 
 believed to be protected for ever by the tomb of Mar- 
 shal de Saxe. The French opera there was an excel- 
 lent one, thanks chiefly to the choruses, notable as they 
 were for the purity and correctness which belong, in 
 an unrivalled degree, to the German method and 
 education. I had been listening to it with rapture, 
 and was leaving the theatre, when I was accosted by 
 the Comte de Bruc, a Breton by birth, with whom I had 
 slight acquaintance : u You will, I believe, hear with 
 pleasure, that M. de Persigny is here, but quite 
 secretly, and you know why." 
 
 " I should be very pleased to see him, but I must 
 beg you to express my regret to him ; I have, as you 
 see, a travelling companion, and our horses are ordered 
 for five o'clock to-morrow morning. Our families are 
 waiting for us impatiently after a long absence, and 
 we cannot delay our departure.'' 
 
 " Well, come at once." 
 
 "Why, it is close on midnight." 
 
 " That is exactly the hour of all Persigny's appoint- 
 ments ; I know how much he is attached to you. 
 Your refusal will cause him real grief." 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 I should mention that the Comte de Bruc was known 
 in his youth for his antipathy to Napoleon. He 
 would say to a regimental comrade, if he saw him 
 badly mounted, " Your horse is a regular Bonapartist." 
 And if his dinner were bad, " There," he would say, 
 " that dish is quite Bonapartist." I heard these details 
 later on from his former Colonel, the Marquis de la 
 Bourdonnaye, although I did not know them then. 
 
 At this period of my life, a taste of adventure never 
 displeased me, and I had really a great friendship for 
 M. de Persigny. I had seen him several times in 
 Paris since our meeting in England ; without entering 
 into indiscreet confidences, he had never failed to 
 repeat his hopes and to speak of his projects. I 
 laughingly used to say to him, " "We were born to 
 become friends, for you also are a Vendean in your own 
 way." In several respects this praise was deserved. 
 I shall have other opportunities of justifying it. He 
 came to my house whenever he liked, without telling 
 me where he lived, and I never asked him. I yielded 
 then to the Comte de Bruc's persuasions, saying to 
 him, " Yery well, I will at least return one of Ter- 
 signy's calls." Upon rejoining M. de la Bouillerie, 
 I told him that one of my fellow-countrymen from the 
 "West wanted to speak to me upon some private busi- 
 ness, and begged him not to sit up for me. I then 
 followed my mysterious guide, and after leaving the 
 centre of the city and passing through three or four 
 winding streets, a low door was opened and we went 
 up to a kind of attic, where I found myself in the
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND AND RUSSIA. 147 
 
 midst of six or seven young men who were lighting 
 a bowl of punch. This was Prince Louis's staff. M. 
 de Persigny was at first mute with surprise, then, 
 throwing himself upon my neck, he exclaimed " Can 
 we then count upon you at last ?" " As a friend always, 
 as a Napoleonist, less than ever ! " M. de Bruc and I 
 then explained our meeting, and my appearance, 
 although reduced to these modest proportions, was not 
 less cordially greeted. The spirit of proselytism never 
 deserted M. de Persigny, and he said : " You may feel 
 sure that Providence has sent you to us. Prince Louis 
 is here, only two steps from the frontier ; the garrison 
 is with us, and in two or three days we shall be 
 greeted by the whole of France." "No, you will all 
 be hanged, and you ought to admire my courage in 
 remaining here after all that you have told me. In 
 another minute, perhaps, the police will burst into the 
 room ; I shall be taken in the very 'act, and I shall 
 share your sad fate, although I have done very little 
 to deserve it." From jests of this kind we returned 
 to serious words, M. de Persigny and his companions 
 attempting to prove to me the grandeur of their en- 
 terprise, while I endeavoured to make them realise its 
 danger and uselessness. We could not succeed in 
 coming to any agreement, for my convictions were as 
 unalterable as their illusions. After an hour of 
 fruitless argument I rose, embraced M. de Persigny 
 affectionately, and sadly returned to my lodgings, 
 while at five o'clock in the morning I entered the 
 carriage with M. de la Bouillerie, without whispering 
 
 l2
 
 148 MEMOIKS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 one word of my secret. A few days later Prince Louis 
 was a prisoner at Strasburg, and M. de Persigny suc- 
 ceeded in crossing the frontier, saying as Barbes said 
 afterwards, on the morrow of the 24th February, 
 1848, "We must have a fresh try."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LITERARY STUDIES — CHARITABLE WORKS. 
 
 1837—1839. 
 
 I returned to Anjou with Rudolph Apponyi, who 
 had too often heard me speak of my dear country 
 not to desire to make acquaintance with it. After 
 staying a few weeks at Bourg d'Ird, I determined to 
 enlarge the circle of his excursions, and to extend it 
 as far as Nantes. Two of my friends, the Marquis 
 de Charnace', and the Vicomte de la Haye, offered to 
 accompany us. "We visited the Chateau de Nantes, 
 which still remains just as Cardinal de Retz described 
 it ; the house of Mesdemoiselles de Guiny, where the 
 Duchesse de Berry's hiding-place was shown us by 
 Marie Bossay, the devoted servant who indignantly 
 refused a considerable sum offered to her, if she 
 would betray the princess who had been committed 
 to her keeping. After admiring in the cathedral the 
 tomb of the Due de Bretagne, which had not then 
 the tomb of General de la Moriciere as rival, we 
 embarked upon the Erdre. This river, humble as it 
 is, is not unworthy of its neighbour, the Loire : its
 
 150 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 banks are so full of interest, with elegant parks, and 
 ruins which recall the first wars of la Vendee. 
 
 Our intention was to pay only a flying visit to the 
 Abbey de la Meilleraye, but we were detained a 
 whole day by the unexpected fascination of the 
 Father Abbe superior of the Trappists, M. Saulnier 
 de Beauregard, well-known in the West by the name 
 of Pere Antoine. A cavalry officer, and an emigre, 
 everything in him recalled the man of the world, 
 although he forgot that world in the most exemplary 
 way, in the full observance of the austerities of his 
 order. His political opinions were very frank and 
 very strong, and he only made one concession to 
 them — reading the newspaper. We had a proof of the 
 care with which he read it, for when I presented 
 Eudolph Apponyi to him, he exclaimed : "I must 
 congratulate you, Count, upon the order of the 
 Golden Fleece, which your father has just received : 
 after the order of Maria Theresa, I do not know of 
 any more flattering distinction in Austria." 
 
 While we walked through the fields where the Trap- 
 pists were silently performing their agricultural labours, 
 Pere Antoine discussed the most varied subjects with 
 great competency, questioned us shrewdly upon 
 politics, then from time to time paused and apolo- 
 gized for his return to the interests of the world, 
 while showing us his long white robe. This robe, 
 however, added to his merit in our eyes, for there is 
 nothing more touching than an old or lonely man, 
 who lives estranged from everything, without becom-
 
 LITERARY STUDIES — CHARITABLE WORKS. 151 
 
 ing indifferent to anything. He retained, until a 
 very advanced age, a vivacity of repartee from which 
 his abbey profited more than once. 
 
 "When he became superior of La Meilleraye, a 
 forest of old trees gave an agreeable but barren shade. 
 It was resolved to sacrifice them, but for this a 
 Government authorisation was required, and this 
 authorisation did not come. The Comte de la Bour- 
 donnaye, a Breton by birth, having been named 
 Minister of the Interior, the opportunity was con- 
 sidered favourable, and Pere Antoine was deputed 
 to go to Paris. The ministerial audience was easily 
 obtained, but when the venerable petitioner presented 
 himself, the welcome was not what he expected : 
 " Your request," said the minister to him, u has 
 already been remitted to M. de Yillele, who is not 
 inclined to grant it, although in your petition you 
 addressed him as Grand Ministre." 
 
 Pere Antoine was well aware of M. de la Bour- 
 donnaye's enmity towards M. de Villele. He felt 
 the point of this rejoinder, and bowing humbly, 
 replied : " Ah, Monseigneur, pardon me ; we poor 
 monks do not carry a compass in our eyes ! " 
 
 He returned to la Meilleraye, having gained his 
 cause. 
 
 At Chateaubriant, we visited the Castle of Fran- 
 coise de Foix, an old keep, where we looked for 
 romantic memorials, but which we found transformed 
 into constabulary barracks. We then returned to 
 Bourg d'lre* for affectionate farewells, in which our
 
 152 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 amiable travelling companions had their fair share. 
 In reference to one of them, Kudolph Apponyi said 
 to me: "I have often heard French gaiety spoken of 
 before foreigners, and I own that until now, people 
 seemed equally gay in Eome or Vienna, as in Paris ; 
 but from to-day I confess that I know what French 
 gaiety means." 
 
 I returned as usual to pass the winter in Paris with 
 my parents, and at last I entered,. but none too soon, 
 upon the serious business of my life. For this, I must 
 first give thanks to God ; and after Him, I owe them 
 to two friends who have not only charmed but guided 
 and edified my life : Madame Swetchine and Albert 
 de Eesseguier. 
 
 Albert de Eesseguier was six years younger than 
 me, and I ought to have been useful to him as a guide. 
 Our places were quickly reversed, and in a short time 
 I received from him more than I could give. His 
 family all joined in urging and encouraging me to 
 work. His father, Comte Jules de Eesseguier, was a 
 charming poet, yet more elevated by the nobility of his 
 character than by that of talent. He had sprung from 
 two military and literary races. His mother was a 
 Puysegur ; his great uncle, the Bailli de Eesseguier, 
 passed two years in prison, half in the Bastille, half at 
 Pierre-Encise ; and was afterwards exiled from the 
 kingdom for a pamphlet on the Court of Versailles, 
 entitled, Le voyage oV Amatonthe, and these four lines 
 against Madame de Pompadour : — * 
 
 * "Journal de Barbier," December, 1750.
 
 LITERARY STUDIES — CHARITABLE WORKS. 153 
 
 " Fille d'une sangsue et sangsue elle meme, 
 L'insolente poisson, d'une arrogance extreme, 
 Etale en ce chateau, sans crainte et sans efrroit 
 La substance du peuple, et la honte du roi." 
 
 At Malta, where he resided for a long time, the 
 Bailli de Eesseguier left a brilliant reputation behind 
 him, of which I found traces still existing even in 
 Anjou. "When Albert de Eesseguier came to see me 
 at Bourg d'Ire, our neighbour, M. d'Andigne, an old 
 Knight of Malta with a wooden leg, related many 
 anecdotes about the Bailli, whom he had known well, 
 and amongst others, the following. " A newly-arrived 
 knight thought he would display his success in Paris 
 by complaining bitterly of the dulness he experienced 
 at Malta. He so bored all his companions by these 
 complaints, that the Bailli de Eesseguier said to him 
 one day, " What ! you are bored ? . . . you even 
 bore yourself? . . . Ah ! that's only fair ! " 
 
 The Comtesse de Eesseguier, nee MacMahon, united 
 profound piety to inexhaustible charity. An incident 
 happened to her which we ought always to bear in 
 mind when tempted to indulge in useless expenditure. 
 While acting as Dame de Charite in the parish of Saint 
 Eoch, Madame de Eesseguier mounted, with her com- 
 panion, to the fifth storey. The two collectors were 
 received by a little old man, who opened the door 
 himself, ushered them into a sparingly furnished 
 apartment, and gave them his offering, carefully 
 wrapped up. Their surprise was great when, on 
 opening the packet, they found fully five louis in it.
 
 154 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 " This good man has made a mistake," thought the 
 two collectors, " he has given us, unintentionally, one 
 half of his income ! " They then remounted the stair- 
 case, rang once more at the door, and explained their 
 errand. The old man glanced round his room, then 
 at himself, and answered with a quiet smile, " I thank 
 you for your delicacy, ladies, but it is only by 
 living as I do that I can afford the pleasure of being 
 charitable ! " 
 
 My first, and I must own, my only literary school 
 was the house of M. de Eesseguier. Louis Yeuillot 
 said of me, in anything but a kindly spirit : " M. de 
 Falloux, who learnt to write by making his books ;" 
 and the remark is perfectly correct. 
 
 Madame Swetchine's house was my school of charity. 
 Madame Swetchine never preached — I think I have 
 shown this in her biography — but she awakened, she 
 fortified, she inspired the best sentiments, rendering 
 them, by her example, seductive and accessible. More- 
 over, I met at her house men who, by their indulgent 
 friendship also introduced me to what was a seriously 
 Christian life. Pere Lacordaire and M. de Monta- 
 lembert have been, as it were, two great towers in 
 their country, as I need hardly repeat ; yet for many 
 young men this assertion is unfortunately necessary. 
 Chenier has said — 
 
 " On n'aime que la gloire absente, 
 La memoire est reeonnaissante, 
 Lea yeux sont ingrats et jaloux." 
 
 This sad truth has no date, it belongs to all ages.
 
 LITERARY STUDIES — CHARITABLE WORKS. 155 
 
 The great Catholic champions will soon meet with the 
 justice due to them. At present ingratitude is still 
 struggling for the mastery, and will not relax its hold. 
 
 Pere Lacordaire and M. de Montalembert both 
 obtained, one in the pulpit and the other in the 
 tribune, a double triumph : both have destroyed fear 
 of the world, so far as fear of the world can be 
 destroyed. Both have substituted in many of 
 our contemporaries an open militant Catholicism for 
 a vague lukewarm sentiment. Pere Lacordaire has 
 drawn the masses into church ; has led men — we 
 might say classes — which had systematically held 
 aloof, from the foot of his pulpit to the foot of the 
 altar. M. de Montalembert has introduced into poli- 
 tical eloquence, into the press and into archaeology, 
 subjects, eulogies of the past, fearless criticisms of the 
 present, unprecedented until his day, which enable 
 those who imitate him from a distance to live by his 
 traditions whilst they misjudge or insult himself. 
 Never were errors and prejudices more firmly grasped, 
 never was a century more intrepidly and energetically 
 called to reflect upon itself, to historical repentance, 
 and to public reparations, than was the nineteenth 
 century during thirty years, by two of its sons who 
 had given it their sincere sympathy, yet who main- 
 tained in the forefront the principle of the duties 
 and even the severities of the ecclesiastical and lay 
 apostleship. 
 
 Pere Lacordaire and M. de Montalembert were too 
 fervent Christians not to be also very charitable, but
 
 156 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 their existence was passed in incessant labour, and, 
 though unsparing of their strength and their devotion, 
 they endeavoured to find some auxiliaries in the works 
 which were destined to translate their ardent faith 
 and burning words into daily action. Frederick 
 Ozanam, Armand de Melun, Le'on Cornudet, Adolphe 
 Baudon, Franz de Champagny, Werner de Merode, 
 Adrian Cramail, M. LepreVost, M. Ledreuil, and later 
 on Augustin Cochin, became the indefatigable lieuten- 
 ants of these two great captains. They personally 
 enlisted recruits amongst young men in society, who 
 did not possess all their knowledge and abnegation, 
 but who, nevertheless, followed in their footsteps, 
 paid tribute to them, and helped them. I was 
 fortunate enough to be included among the 
 number. 
 
 The Legitimist party — and no one can deny it this 
 merit — furnished the largest contingent. Excluded, 
 or rather excluding itself, from political employment, 
 anxious to disprove the reproach unsparingly levelled 
 at it, of repeating at home the errors of a previous 
 generation of Emigres, it understood that a fertile 
 and wide career was still open to it in the accomplish- 
 ment of social duties. The July government, which 
 had to defend itself both against those who lived in 
 the past and against rash innovators, rested almost 
 exclusively upon what is called the middle classes : it 
 was supported in this position by partisans of unques- 
 tionable worth, but these men, often personally inter- 
 ested in industrial questions, could not always forbear
 
 LITERARY STUDIES — CHARITABLE WORKS. 157 
 
 from private or political selfishness, which too often 
 also blinded or paralysed them. It was the duty of 
 the Legitimist party to discern this weak side, and 
 fill up the deficiencies. And, above all, it was the 
 party of landowners, who, on this point, could not be 
 too careful. 
 
 Kings and even popes have, as temporal sovereigns, 
 put off necessary reforms too long ; they have paid 
 for this adjournment by revolutions. Landowners, 
 under pain of sharing the same fate, should in our 
 century hasten to redeem their cause by good actions. 
 Those amongst us who did not perfectly understand 
 this had a presentiment of the truth, and already 
 warnings of this kind had been received by them all. 
 Lastly the Legitimists, as a rule, received a religious 
 education, and charity naturally entered into the 
 instruction of their youth and the example of their 
 families. 
 
 "When one has never known what it is to want a 
 roof, a fire, and daily bread, one cannot judge the 
 poor. One must see, come into actual contact with 
 misery, to really understand it, to thoroughly com- 
 prehend how much excuse there is for irritation 
 or the heroism of gentle resignation. When the 
 mind has been once directed to these questions, the 
 eyes fixed upon such sufferings, and these defects 
 in the laws considered, no one will, no one can 
 pause half way. The works undertaken by M. de 
 Crainait and the Abbe Bervenger were limited ; the 
 work of the new volunteers was much more extensive,
 
 158 MEMOIRS OP A ROYALIST. 
 
 but it had still some deficiencies. The master, the 
 workman, the apprentice were not yet sufficiently 
 enlightened, sufficiently restored to a religious life. 
 This thought gave birth to the work of Saint 
 Francis Xavier ; that was, as the name of its patron 
 indicates, a missionary zeal applied to Paris and 
 France. 
 
 Every Sunday evening the working population was 
 invited to lectures half pious, half industrial, with 
 orators, priests, and laymen, who came in turns to 
 speak to the workmen of their labour on earth and of 
 their reward in heaven. P. Moigno, then a Jesuit, 
 excelled in this preaching, which had a special 
 character. M. Ledreuil, a former workman, of rare 
 intelligence, first in secular costume, afterwards in a 
 cassock, gave utterance in the modest reunions to 
 everything that experience could suggest to devotion. 
 A young man, Claudius Hebrard, gifted with a happy 
 imagination, recited verses there which at times at- 
 tained real elevation. The delivery and appearance 
 of the youthful poet awakened sympathy, like his 
 talent. The workmen applauded, loved him, and no 
 better proof could be given than this poetic orator and 
 his audience of what may be obtained from the 
 uneducated classes when a sincere conviction awakens 
 innate generosity, that latent poem which almost 
 every man carries in himself. This little staff 
 transferred itself, increasing as it went, wherever the 
 work of Saint Francis Xavier appeared: from the 
 cellars of Saint Sulpice to Saint Laurent ; from Saint
 
 LITERARY STUDIES — CHARITABLE WORKS. 159 
 
 Laurent to Saint Jacques du Haut Pas ; from Saint 
 Jacques to Saint Pierre du Gros Caillou; and very- 
 soon in nearly every church, in Paris. 
 
 I was told off to expound the holy writings to an 
 audience which had not yet attained holiness, but 
 among which it was deemed good policy to sow 
 plenty of seed, in the hope that some little of it would 
 take root. I made my first appearance as a public 
 speaker upon this occasion. I had never frequented 
 any debating clubs, nor spoken a word in public, and 
 I commenced my apprenticeship by relating one 
 Sunday evening, from the churchwarden's stall in one 
 of the Paris churches, to five or six hundred workmen, 
 all very attentive and very easily affected, the history 
 of Saint John the Evangelist ; of the blessed La Salle ; 
 of St. Zita, and of many others who, in the name of 
 Christ and for love of Him, had been of great service 
 to humanity. 
 
 M. de Melun, inspired by Sister Eosalie, placed 
 day by day a wider experience at the service of the 
 new work. He soon perceived that to observe Sunday 
 as a day of rest was insufficient ; it was also necessary 
 to provide employment for the rest of the day, and to 
 render it useful to the health of children and young 
 men, as well as to their moral development. Establish- 
 ments were accordingly formed to provide games and 
 healthy exercises for the apprentices, and at the same 
 time to assist them in the accomplishment of their 
 religious duties. The work of Our Lady of the Fields 
 was created, preceding the formation of workmen's
 
 160 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 clubs, which were soon afterwards inaugurated by 
 Augustin Cochin. From Paris these good works 
 radiated to the departments, where they were further 
 developed and in some cases perfected. The social 
 wounds were not cured — when will they ever be ? — but 
 they were at all events dressed and put in a fair way 
 to healing. 
 
 It is a pleasure to me to sketch this picture, not 
 only out of honour to a few men, but to testify to the 
 power of French initiative and French charity, At 
 the time of writing, Catholics are pursuing the same 
 end, but some of them in a different manner. From 
 1830 to 1848, neither devotion nor energy were lack- 
 ing, but less faith was put in the efficacy of noisy 
 demonstrations, or of ostentation, however well-in- 
 tended. The standard of charity was not hid away, 
 but those who enlisted under it were more anxious to 
 avoid compromising it than themselves. This was the 
 time when Pere Lacordaire and Pere de Eavignan pub- 
 licly instituted the Easter Sacraments at Notre Dame, 
 a solemn review of practical Christians ; that petitions 
 for educational liberty were publicly signed ; that 
 several men of mark became schoolmasters in a garret, 
 either in the Quartier Latin or in some country 
 village; while many others devoted their existence 
 to the service of charity, and a few of them renounced 
 the joys of family life in order to devote themselves 
 more easily, more exclusively, to the great family of 
 the poor. There was a combined, a united effort to 
 instruct and to Christianise society, such as the course
 
 LITERARY STUDIES — CHARITABLE "WORKS. 161 
 
 of centuries had formed it, without declaring war 
 upon any party, without in any way mixing up 
 politics with charity. 
 
 I have lived long enough to be able to compare 
 the results of the two methods, one of which regarded 
 publicity as a danger, the other as a force; and I 
 might be suspected of partiality if I were to say what 
 I think of either the one or the other. I only assert 
 — and I could find proofs of my assertion on all sides 
 — that among the good fruits, which are still being 
 gathered, a great many spring from the seed and 
 the labour of former times. 
 
 This Catholic sap was not fermenting in France 
 alone, for I soon had an opportunity of remarking in 
 Germany a similar proselytism to that of Paris. 
 Albert de Eesseguier, with a zeal unusual to French- 
 men, but of which M. de Montalembert had also given 
 an example, determined to go and study German in 
 Germany. Munich was suggested to him as the 
 centre of a great religious and artistic renovation, and 
 Professor Dcellinger admitted him into his house as 
 a boarder at the same time as young Acton, who had 
 come from England for the same study. Dcellinger 
 was then one of the most venerated leaders of the 
 German Catholics. He took a great fancy to M. de 
 Eesseguier, and admitted me to the same hospitality 
 when, in the winter of 1838, I went and passed some 
 weeks with him. Goerres, although very aged, was 
 still teaching ; his son Guido Goerres was preparing 
 the poetic and touching book called God in History ■, 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 MEMOIRS OF A EOTALIST. 
 
 and Brantano had just published The Visions of 
 Sister Emmerich. Abbe de Cazales had already- 
 translated Brantano, while M. de Kesseguier was 
 about to undertake a still more arduous work — the 
 translation of Athanasius, which Gcerres had just 
 written, an eloquent and vigorous defence of the 
 Archbishop of Cologne, Monsignor von Droste- 
 Yischering, who had been cast into prison by the 
 King of Prussia. 
 
 What noble and ardent conversations, what enthu- 
 siasm for the Church and for its cause ! Nothing 
 could have more closely resembled the discourse of a 
 Christian Stoic than the burning apologia of the 
 aged Gcerres, the learned deductions of Dcellinger, 
 the original fancy of Brantano, or the naive candour 
 of Guido Gcerres, instructing in his lectures the young 
 ecclesiastical professors, such as the Abbe "Windisch- 
 mann and so many well-disposed listeners and disciples 
 of all nations, who carried home with them an inefface- 
 able impression and immovable convictions. 
 
 All these men were friends of M. de Montalembert, 
 and my new connection with Munich increased my 
 growing intimacy with him. I penetrated deeper into 
 his home which was very attractive. Everything was 
 in the same style as himself, not through the despo- 
 tism of his will, but by a natural attraction. He then 
 occupied a very modest apartment at the corner of the 
 Eues St. Dominique and St. Thomas d'Aquin. Like 
 all those who place ideas above enjoyment, or rather 
 like those who find the greatest enjoyment in the
 
 LITERARY STUDIES — CHARITABLE WORKS. 163 
 
 cultivation of elevated ideas and great causes, M. de 
 Montalembert had no taste for luxury, though his 
 appearance was always distinguished and his toilet 
 never neglected. He was passionately attached to his 
 library, and lavished much care upon the bindings of 
 his favourite books. Beyond that, he had no material 
 cares, and even if he had, he would have sacrificed 
 them to anything which had the Catholic propaganda 
 and charity for its immediate object. He was a great 
 walker, and I never knew him drive, either in Paris 
 or in the country, until his last illness rendered it 
 a painful necessity. 
 
 With regard to my personal occupations, I did not 
 hesitate long in the choice of my subject, and I de- 
 voted myself with all my heart to the studies which 
 were calculated in any way to advance the monarchical 
 cause. 
 
 In my early recollections, and in the creed of my 
 home, Louis XVI. appeared to me as the type of that 
 government, rather paternal than absolute, which had 
 raised our country to such a high standard of great- 
 ness and prosperity. This it was which decided me 
 to make a special study of his reign. 
 
 An old friend of Miss Newton, who afterwards 
 became Madame Victor de Tracy, said to her, " You 
 do not know how to read ; you read as though you were 
 eating cherries. When once the reading is over, you 
 do not think of what you have read, and nothing of it 
 remains. You must not read all sorts of things at 
 hazard ; you should be orderly in your reading, think 
 
 m2
 
 164 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 over it, and profit by it." I followed this counsel, 
 and resolved to change my method, or rather I adopted 
 a method for the first time. I began to read, pen in 
 hand, all the memoirs on the history of France, from 
 Villehardoun and Joinville to La Fayette and Mira- 
 beau. All my conscience, all the perseverance of 
 which I was capable, were applied to the unravelling 
 of our annals. 
 
 I questioned, I consulted, century by century, the 
 best informed witnesses and the most authorised 
 judges, and when at last I was brought into the pre- 
 sence of Louis XVI., I recognised in him, in his 
 intentions, and in his example, a disinterested com- 
 prehension and a generous appreciation of the needs 
 of his age. Unfortunately he could not count 
 upon the assistance of those around him and of 
 the great body of the nation. The King did not fail 
 in his mission from any fault of his own, but when 
 it became necessary to impose self-denial upon those 
 who did not feel any inclination for it themselves, 
 and to exact what he could not succeed in obtaining, 
 he was lacking in energy. He was vanquished, and 
 made a victim, but he is none the less a model and a 
 martyr in the abstract regions of devotion and duty. 
 The homage which I undertook to render to Louis XVI. 
 was the expression of my most sincere and deepest 
 conviction. Something of this sincerity pervaded the 
 book, and was the cause of what little success it ob- 
 tained. I was able to consult, apart from the libraries, 
 some survivors of the eighteenth century, and I did
 
 LITERARY STUDIES — CHARITABLE WORKS. 165 
 
 not fail to do so. One must be somewhat advanced in 
 life to thoroughly understand all the gratitude which 
 a young man owes to those who, in the full activity 
 of their career, devote a little of their time and atten- 
 tion to the efforts of a beginner. I owed this service 
 and I owe this gratitude to Baron Mounier, a son of 
 the old constituent, and himself a member of the 
 House of Peers. He took an active and laborious part 
 in the debates about Luxemburg, and yet two or three 
 times a week, during a whole winter, he laid aside his 
 own occupations to read, correct, and complete, page 
 by page, the manuscript of a young and unknown 
 man whose only claim upon him was the sentiment he 
 expressed in response to my first expression of thanks, 
 "Nothing excites my sympathy more than a young 
 man who is willing to work." 
 
 It was a tradition with the Academie Francaise to 
 appoint the Chancellor, the Archbishop of Paris, and 
 the Governor of the Eoyal Children. Thus, it elected 
 the Yicomte Mathieu de Montmorency, anticipating 
 the choice made by Charles X. for the education of the 
 Due de Bordeaux ; being glad also of the opportunity 
 of doing homage to the rare qualities of the friend of 
 Madame de Stael and M. de Chateaubriand. Imme- 
 diately after the election, M. de Montmorency sent for 
 M. Laborie and said, " My dear Laborie, I look to 
 you for my speech, and do not forget that the 
 Duchesse de Berry will be present at my reception." 
 Soon after M. Laborie brought a draft of the speech 
 in keeping with the rules of the Academy which for
 
 166 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 two centuries had continually selected literary men, 
 courtiers, and dignitaries of the priesthood and of the 
 magistracy, thus affording striking evidence that the 
 mind gains through not abandoning itself to the exclu- 
 sive cultivation of itself, but perfects itself by contact 
 with the higher social dignities and offices. M. 
 Laborie had given expression to M. de Montmorency's 
 intentions towards the Duchesse de Berry in the fol- 
 lowing terms, " How greatly the honour paid me by 
 the Academy is enhanced by the presence of that 
 august Princess, the accomplished model of virtue." 
 "That would do very well for the Dauphine," inter- 
 rupted M. de Montmorency. "But let us put it, 'the 
 accomplished model of all the virtues ' ! " The passage 
 was altered, and the phrase accordingly ran : "I seem 
 to hear the august mother who will so effectually 
 assist her son's tutor, seeing that, in order to inspire 
 him with a taste for literature and art, she has only to 
 show him the source of consolation whence she derives 
 her strength, while, to teach him courage and the 
 highest virtues, she has only to relate her own history 
 and misfortunes ! " 
 
 The whole speech bears, in fact, from beginning to 
 end, the stamp of the speaker, and might be well 
 summed up in these words, which were then the pro- 
 fession of faith of all enlightened men under the 
 Restoration : — 
 
 " I would fain seal here and on this day, which your 
 kindness will ever engrave upon my memory, the 
 treaty which should unite for ever three great powers
 
 LITERARY STUDIES — CHARITABLE WORKS. 167 
 
 under the protection of the throne, religion, literature, 
 and public liberty ! " 
 
 If I had undertaken to write the life of Louis 
 XVI. at the end of my career, instead of writing it at 
 the opening, I should, I ^trust, have dwelt more 
 strongly upon points which were too superficially 
 indicated. I should have laid more stress upon the 
 fact that it was the long disuse of the States-General 
 which created the danger of 1789. I should have 
 insisted more upon the prolonged blindness and con- 
 sequent responsibility of the privileged classes. Poli- 
 tical complaints are, like those of individual maladies, 
 too often the invalid's own fault. 
 
 The meeting of the States- General in 1789 is assigned 
 as a date for the Eevolution; it would be more 
 accurate to trace its origin back to the Assembly of 
 the Notables in 1787. The Assembly of the Notables 
 was but an amiable interview between the King and 
 the nation. At that time the Eevolution might still 
 have been averted by reforms, if the privileged bodies 
 had spontaneously and generously responded to Louis 
 XVI.'s generous appeal. They would have transformed 
 into a pacific reconciliation that keen struggle which 
 each day lost rendered inevitable between the new inte- 
 rests which fairly demanded a hearing, and the old inte- 
 rests which too obstinately refused to grant it to them. 
 
 I was so absorbed and touched by the misfortunes 
 of Louis XVI., as I retraced them, that I gave up 
 wintering in Paris and only left the country when I 
 could take my finished work with me.
 
 168 MEMOIKS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 My earliest visit, as usual, was to Madame Swetchine, 
 and the first person I met in her house was Madame 
 de Nesselrode. These two friends, separated by events 
 even more than by distance, rarely passed more than a 
 year without seeing each other. When the Emperor 
 Nicholas requested Louis Philippe to recall M. de 
 Barante, Madame de Nesselrode and Madame Swet- 
 chine made an appointment at Frankfort, Baden, or 
 some French provincial town which facilitated their 
 incognita ; and when the relations between Eussia and 
 France improved, Madame de Nesselrode came to Paris 
 for some weeks, and devoted nearly all her evenings to 
 Madame Swetchine, pleased apparently to meet there 
 a considerable portion of French society. For my part 
 I eagerly asked for news of St. Petersburg, and the 
 name of Georges de Heeckeren was one of the first 
 which came to my mind. I had left him in all the 
 brilliancy and full enjoyment of success. Only a 
 thunderbolt could put an end to it ; and the bolt fell, 
 as may be gathered from the following narrative, 
 which I received from an unexceptionable source. 
 
 One morning M. de Heeckeren was surprised to see 
 Pushkine, deservedly the most popular poet in Russia, 
 enter his room. 
 
 "How is it, Baron," he said, with apparent calm, 
 "that I have found these letters in your writing in 
 my house ?" exhibiting some letters containing expres- 
 sions of very warm affection. 
 
 " You have no reason to be offended," replied M. de 
 Heeckeren ; " Madame Pushkine only consented to
 
 LITERARY STUDIES — CHARITABLE WORKS. 169 
 
 receive them to forward to her sister, whom I wish to 
 marry." 
 
 " Then marry her." 
 
 "My family, however, will not consent." 
 
 " You must make them do so." 
 
 This dialogue put him in a very awkward situation, 
 for if the marriage could not be arranged Madame 
 Pushkine would be seriously compromised. Georges de 
 Heeckeren did not hesitate long, and soon afterwards 
 St. Petersburg congratulated him on his marriage. 
 
 Six months elapsed, and Pushkine again entered M. 
 de Heeckeren' s apartment, his face calm and gloomy. 
 
 "You thought you had deluded me; I come to 
 undeceive you. If you had killed me six months ago 
 you might perhaps have married my wife ; now you are 
 bound to do so, you will soon be a father. We must 
 fight ! " 
 
 Georges de Heeckeren had the moral courage to 
 exhaust every effort to avoid this odious duel ; but 
 it was of no avail, for Pushkine was implacable. An 
 appointment having been made, the seconds left St. 
 Petersburg with the two principals, cleared away the 
 snow from the edge of a small wood, and arranged, 
 according to an agreement with M. de Heeckeren, 
 that Pushkine should fire first. Pushkine took aim at 
 his brother-in-law, lowered his weapon, raised it again 
 with an insulting smile, fired, and the ball whistled 
 past his adversary's ear without touching him. M. de 
 Heeckeren had come resolved to fire in the air after 
 Pushkine had fired at him, but this cold hatred, bitter
 
 170 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 to the very last, made him lose his self-control, and 
 Pushkine fell dead. 
 
 The victim was the idol of Eussia, and if a riot had 
 been possible at St. Petersburg it would have broken 
 out at the news of this event. Mobs assembled even 
 under the very windows of the Emperor, and from all 
 sides re-echoed a cry for vengeance on the foreigner. 
 M. de Heeckeren was immediately arrested, thrown 
 into the citadel, tried and condemned with all the 
 harshness of Eussian laws. Soon afterwards the Em- 
 peror sent word to the prisoner that he had taken into 
 consideration the sincere efforts which he had made to 
 avoid the catastrophe, and that, as soon as the popular 
 excitement had calmed down, a teleck would meet 
 him at the door of the citadel and travel with him 
 night and day to the frontier. 
 
 Georges de Heeckeren was at all events compensated 
 by his domestic happiness. He resumed in Alsace, 
 under the eyes of his old father, his life as a sportsman 
 and a country gentleman. The Dutch Ambassador 
 more than once visited his young family, and in 1848, 
 universal suffrage overturning the Duke of Lucca, 
 opened up a new career for him.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 TRIAL OF PRINCE LOUIS BONAPARTE. THE LEGITIMIST 
 
 PARTY. — THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 
 
 1840—1848. 
 
 After having made a second journey to Italy in 
 1839 and spent nearly a year in that country, I 
 returned in the summer of 1840 to Anjou. For some 
 months I enjoyed in that much-loved retreat the happi- 
 ness which I always found there, and I then asked 
 M. de Resseguier to allow me to come and pay him a 
 visit at the Chateau du Marais, near Paris. 
 
 It was during this period that Prince Louis Bona- 
 parte's second expedition took me, as well as the whole 
 of France, by surprise. Landing at Boulogne with a 
 small escort on the 6th of August, 1840, defeated 
 without a battle, and immediately taken prisoner, the 
 Prince was transferred to the Luxemburg Palace and 
 tried by the Court of Peers. His trial commenced 
 towards the end of the month of September, amid the 
 utmost public indifference. I never voluntarily lost 
 an opportunity of hearing M. Berryer, and the skill 
 and elevation of his eloquence could not be put to a 
 more delicate test than in a case where the avowed
 
 172 MEMOlfiS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 leader of the monarchical party had loyally to defend 
 the man who aspired to the Empire. I hastened to 
 the ground-floor at the end of an obscure narrow 
 court in the Eue des Petits- Champs, the threshold of 
 which I never crossed without a feeling of respectful 
 emotion, and I asked M. Berryer, whilst apologising 
 for my indiscretion, if I might not be included among 
 the few fortunate enough to hear him. 
 
 " Nothing is easier," he replied, with his usual sim- 
 plicity. " You are the first to ask me for a ticket, and 
 no doubt I shall be able to send it to you to-morrow, for 
 I go daily to the Luxemburg to consult with my client, 
 in whom I have many chimeras to overcome before 
 the trial begins." 
 
 "As this is the case," I replied, " could you add a 
 second kindness to the first ? You will be surprised to 
 find that I have a friend in the Luxemburg prison 
 whom no one thinks or knows anything about. He is 
 called the Yicomte Fialin de Persigny ; and would not 
 the immunities enjoyed by a barrister enable you to let 
 him know that I am in Paris, and that it would be very 
 painful to me if I were to see him only from the public 
 galleries?" 
 
 On the following day, when I entered M. Berryer' s 
 study, he exclaimed, " How much I thank you for the 
 commission you gave me. I never saw warmer joy and 
 gratitude ! l My family disapproves of my action,' said 
 M. de Persigny, * and loads me only with reproaches, 
 so that but for M. de Falloux, I should not be able to 
 grasp a single friendly hand !' " M. Berryer at the
 
 LOUIS NAPOLEON. 173 
 
 same time gave me an order from the Chancellor 
 admitting me to the visiting-room of the prison. 
 
 This was a rather small room, in the centre of which 
 were raised two wooden railings, and a policeman was 
 walking up and down in the space between them. I 
 came in from one side and M. de Persigny from the 
 other. Melting into tears, he held out his hand across 
 the space that separated us, and whilst cordially re- 
 turning his grasp I felt him slip a paper into my hand 
 which I at once put into my pocket. Our conversation 
 was as unreserved as it could be in the presence of a 
 policeman who passed and repassed between us like the 
 pendulum of a clock. I had no sooner left the Luxem- 
 burg than I hurriedly read M. de Persigny's note. He 
 gave me the address of the house where his uniforms 
 were placed ready for the entry into Paris, begged me 
 to sell them, and indicated the use I was to make of the 
 small sum resulting from the sale. I fulfilled his 
 commission as well as I could, and I followed the trial 
 very closely, more convinced from day to day of the 
 emptiness of the Napoleonic hopes. 
 
 Prince Louis was dignified and calm; his ex- 
 pression was dull, his gestures awkward, and his 
 accent tinged with both German and English. "When 
 the grenadier Geoffroy, whom he had seriously 
 wounded at Boulogne by a pistol shot, was intro- 
 duced as a witness, a sharp movement of interest and 
 curiosity was seen in the galleries. All eyes were 
 turned at once on the mutilated face of the soldier and 
 the impassive features of the prince. When the
 
 174 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 Chancellor asked him in a severe tone if he had no 
 observation to make in answer to the evidence of the 
 witness, the Prince replied, " I have nothing to say, 
 unless it is that I deeply regret having by accident 
 wounded a French soldier, and that I am very glad 
 that the shot had not more serious consequences." 
 This awkward answer, and particularly the words "by 
 accident," produced a bad impression upon the Court 
 of Peers and the public. 
 
 The Procureur- General, M. Franck Carre, over- 
 whelmed Prince Louis and his companions with 
 scorn, so that when M. Berryer rose everybody felt 
 convinced that he must be quite discouraged, and 
 expected that he would have little to say beyond 
 what one expects from a barrister whom the Court 
 has appointed to defend a prisoner without counsel. 
 For my own part, I quite expected that the illus- 
 trious counsel for the defence would confine himself 
 to this, for, while going through the passages of the 
 Luxemburg, I had heard one barrister, M. Ledru, 
 say to another who was going with him to the seats 
 reserved for counsel, "I do not know what is the 
 matter with Berryer, he is in such an awful temper. 
 His Majesty the Emperor has certainly played him 
 some dirty trick ! " I had carefully examined M. 
 Berryer's expression ; it had not that anxious, almost 
 gloomy look, which usually distinguished him before 
 a great trial, that crise de la parole, as he himself 
 called it. He seemed nervous and irritable, and 
 passed his hand brusquely and mechanically across
 
 LOUIS NAPOLEON. 175 
 
 his face. Indeed, as he has since told me, the Prince 
 before he entered the Court had shown him the short 
 speech which he had prepared — a speech which much 
 complicated the difficulties of the defence, for it dif- 
 fered essentially from that which had been arranged 
 for some days previously. These were the conditions 
 under which the counsel for the defence rose before a 
 dissatisfied and sarcastic audience, to answer a very 
 vindictive speech for the prosecution upon behalf of 
 a client whose depressed attitude proved that he 
 perceived, though too late, the bad effect of his 
 provocations. 
 
 From M. Berryer's very first words the scene 
 changed; all present felt that he had regained his 
 courage, that he had collected all his strength, and 
 that he was about to plead to the utmost, addressing 
 himself not only to his present auditors, but to the 
 whole country. He did not indulge in the least 
 rashness of language, in a single offensive word, or 
 in the smallest omission of the respect due not only 
 to the law but to the audience, whom he held con- 
 stantly vibrating, yet invincibly charmed. Applause 
 was on the point of breaking out in the galleries and 
 even on the Peers' benches, but all this was restrained 
 and mastered by the irresistible logic of his ideas and 
 the irreproachable decorousness of his language. It 
 was all so transparent and easy of comprehension, 
 and more than one head was lowered before the force 
 of this crushing apostrophe : — 
 
 "There is an inevitable, eternal arbitrator between
 
 176 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 every judge and every prisoner ; before passing judg- 
 ment in the presence of this arbitrator, and in the 
 face of the country which will hear your sentence, 
 ask, without regard to the weakness of the plea, 
 keeping the right, the laws and the constitution 
 before your eyes, with your hand upon your heart, 
 before God and before your country, ask, I say, 
 had he succeeded, had he triumphed, should I have 
 denied this right, should I have refused all share in 
 this power, should I have ignored, should I have re- 
 jected it ? For my part, I accept this supreme arbitra- 
 tion, and whoever, before God and before his country, 
 can say to me, ' If he had succeeded I would 
 have denied his right, that man I accept as judge.' " 
 
 Nevertheless Prince Napoleon was condemned to 
 perpetual imprisonment, which he soon shortened by 
 escaping from the fortress of Ham. M. de Persigny 
 was detained at Doullens and then transferred to 
 Versailles, under circumstances in which I found 
 myself concerned, and which I shall refer to later on. 
 
 In 1841 I accomplished the most decisive action of 
 my life. I married ; and in this, as in all else, my 
 political convictions were not without their influence 
 upon my resolutions. Mademoiselle de Caradeuc de 
 la Chalotais possessed, in addition to all the qualities 
 which attracted me towards her, two things which 
 were essential in my eyes : an ardent royalism and a 
 predilection for Anjou. Her father, the Marquis de 
 Caradeuc, had been aide-de-camp to General d' Andigne 
 during the Hundred Days, and some of my neighbours
 
 THE LEGITIMIST PARTY. 177 
 
 were her nearest relations. Our affinities had there- 
 fore their root in the past ; I believed myself sure of 
 happiness, and I was not deceived. A Eoyalist in 
 heart and mind, I interested myself more and more in 
 political life, attentively following the conflict which 
 had been going on since 1832 between the partisans 
 of the appeal to arms and those who from various 
 reasons disapproved of it. The men who dreamed of a 
 monarchical restoration through an insurrection in the 
 west and south had as leaders the Due des Cars, and 
 General Auguste de la Rochejacquelein. The parlia- 
 mentary party rallied round MM. de Chateaubriand, 
 Berryer, Hyde de Neuville, and de Vatimesnil, and 
 it would have given its confidence in the same degree 
 to the Comte de la Ferronnays if this latter had not 
 almost constantly resided with his family in Naples 
 and Eome. Midway between the two parties stood 
 the Vicomte de Saint-Priest, created Due d'Almazan 
 upon his Embassy to Spain, and the Marquis de 
 Pastoret, son of the last Chancellor of the Restoration. 
 Their ambition was to serve as bonds of union between 
 the two groups of the same party, to render the military 
 faction more reasonable, and to prevent the parliamen- 
 tary faction from allowing itself to be drawn into too 
 liberal engagements. After the death of Charles X., 
 who had never accorded the least encouragement to 
 the plan of restoration by arms, the dissensions became 
 more and more marked, and the struggle ended by 
 concentrating and personifying itself in two men, the 
 Due des Cars and M. Berryer. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 I do not think I have traced M. Berry er's portrait. 
 He is fully depicted in the greatness of his eloquence, 
 for never was eloquence more sincere. Those who 
 wished to disparage him, but who could not deny his 
 power, were pleased to say of him, " He is an admir- 
 able barrister ! " Nothing could be more unjust than 
 these words in the sense in which they were used. 
 In that sense M. Berryer was never a barrister even 
 at the bar, for he only pleaded causes which com- 
 mended themselves to his conscience or to his compas- 
 sion. In the tribune he never said a word which 
 exceeded, which came short of, or which compromised 
 his convictions. His last letter, written on his death- 
 bed to the Comte de Chambord — " one of the most 
 sublime cries ever uttered by the human soul," as M. 
 de Montalembert wrote to me — summed up, with God 
 as his witness, M. Berryer's whole life. 
 
 The Due des Cars was, putting his loyalty out of the 
 question, his very opposite. He was a small, vigorous, 
 thick-set man, taciturn and dreamy, all the more 
 strongly attached to his chimeras because he never 
 mentioned them except to those whom he knew 
 beforehand would agree with them ; outwardly cold, 
 yet at bottom ardent even to rashness ; impenetrable 
 in his discretion, indefatigable in his activity ; as little 
 at home in the rooms as in the tribune ; never going 
 into society, and visiting his intimate friends at five 
 or six o'clock in the morning. 
 
 I myself at first belonged to both these parties, 
 although I had much the greatest confidence in that of
 
 THE LEGITIMIST PARTY. 179 
 
 M. Berryer. The fact of my being a west countryman 
 secured me an affectionate reception from the Due des 
 Cars, and I was touched at the sight of this old noble- 
 man, the undisputed owner of such a high position, 
 who was ready to risk everything on a single throw of 
 the dice, who quietly dispensed and finally exhausted 
 an immense fortune, without getting any recognition 
 for it. With the example of a leader who thus gave 
 up everything, one had naturally a desire to become a 
 soldier. 
 
 In the meanwhile I was assigned a place in Saint- 
 Priest's small battalion. He may be described as a 
 sociable, talkative and diplomatic Due des Cars, less 
 parliamentary than he would have had us believe 
 and than he believed himself to be, but sincerely and 
 honestly seconding every effort at all likely to prevent 
 or to tone down animosity between men devoted to the 
 same cause. 
 
 Another influence, less apparent but very efficacious, 
 also existed in the councils of the Comte de Chambord, 
 being that exercised by M. de Villele. As minister 
 under the Eestoration he had always dreaded the Ex- 
 treme Eight, and had often complained of it with some 
 reason ; but he conceded a good deal to it out of 
 calculation rather than sympathy, though the result 
 was that after seven years' power he lost both power 
 and influence. Defeat and solitude did not enlighten 
 him as to the errors of his method ; and he succeeded 
 in making it acceptable to the Comte de Chambord, 
 who resolved to practise it with this difference, that 
 
 n2
 
 180 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 he introduced into it more sympathy and less calcula- 
 tion. 
 
 M. Berryer's electoral committees and the secret 
 affiliations of M. des Cars beset the Prince's ear with 
 their conflicting arguments. " All is lost if you do not 
 make M. Berry er the real representative of your ideas, 
 the living programme of your future reign ! " " All 
 is lost if you do not accord full confidence to the Due 
 des Cars, and if you do not resolutely discourage the 
 liberal spirit which was the ruin of the Eestora- 
 tion ! " I believe that the Comte de Chambord had 
 not yet made his choice between ideas, and neither 
 would he do so between men ; so, under the inspiration 
 of M. de Yillele, he referred to election the composi- 
 tion of a directing Committee in Paris, which would 
 assume all the responsibility, relieving the Prince of it 
 entirely. Notoriety in devotion to the Eoyalist cause 
 was the best title to a place on this electoral list. M. 
 Leo de Laborde, a very ardent native of Avignon, was 
 entrusted by the Comte de Chambord to organise an 
 office for inquiries and correspondence. This office 
 was situated in the Eue St. Florentin. M. Leo de 
 Laborde summoned the well-disposed electors, received 
 them, and presided, with a few impartially chosen 
 friends, over the counting of the votes. M. Berryer's 
 name had what might be called an unanimity of votes. 
 The Marquis de la Eochejacquelein, whom the Gazette 
 de France extolled and supported very warmly, came 
 next, then the Marquis de Talaru, a friend of M. de 
 Chateaubriand, and then a few younger Eoyalists such
 
 THE LEGITIMIST PARTY. 181 
 
 as the Prince de Chalais, next to whom my name 
 found a place. Our powers were not sufficiently 
 defined, nor was our origin sufficiently regular or our 
 basis wide enough, for us to have great confidence in 
 ourselves or much authority in the departments. We 
 were an expedient rather than a serious organisation. 
 The party looked to us to elude difficulties rather than 
 to solve them. We felt this, and we were anxious 
 above all else to prove our good intentions'. But as 
 we perceived, after sincere efforts at reconciliation, 
 that we were striving against radical incompatibilities, 
 we quietly disappeared. 
 
 Nevertheless, this first attempt sufficed to initiate 
 me into the real weaknesses of the Legitimist party. 
 I saw that there were problems to be settled first 
 within inself, and afterwards in the mind of the chief 
 of the Bourbons, which could not remain in suspense. 
 I understood that no one, without himself knowing 
 what he wanted, or what he represented, could offer 
 himself to the country as a reparation for the past and 
 a safeguard for the future. Eeflection, study, and ex- 
 perience bound me to the line adopted by M. Berryer, 
 and I joyfully bear witness to the fact that from that 
 hour I have remained invariably faithful to this great 
 example of patriotism and fidelity. 
 
 There was but a step from a preference for parlia- 
 mentary politics to the duty of following and seconding 
 M. Berryer in Parliament. This step I resolved to 
 take. The Eoyalist newspapers had been unanimous 
 in their kindly reception of my Louis XVI., and
 
 182 MEMOIES OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 several Liberal organs, such as the Revue des Deux 
 Mondes, had praised its moderation. This success 
 redoubled the ardour of those friends who had already 
 conceived the idea of my coming forward for Parlia- 
 ment, and they urged me to offer myself at the 
 general elections of July 10th, 1842. 
 
 The then member for Segre was one of my cousins, 
 M. de Marcombe, a landowner, like myself, in this 
 district, who had rallied to the July Government and 
 was warmly supported by it. We were then under a 
 limited franchise and the ministry of M. Guizot, who 
 had succeeded M. Mole* after the coalition, and who 
 was already engaged in an ardent struggle with M. 
 Thiers, the latter having just returned from his brief 
 mission to London. I was defeated, but so also was 
 M. de Marcombe, the ministerial candidate. At the 
 third ballot I was left in with M. Jouneaulx, the can- 
 didate of the Left, who was elected by 143 votes 
 against 100 recorded for me. The new deputy, a 
 doctor in a small town, but a very honourable man, 
 was not less surprised at his success than the minis- 
 terial party at the defeat of its candidate. 
 
 We had been unprepared for the dissolution of the 
 Chamber, and at once occupied ourselves in arranging 
 for our revenge. A great many Legitimists who 
 might have registered their names at Segre were still 
 registered at Angers, where they had not the least 
 chance of making their votes tell. Others were not 
 registered anywhere. A schedule was prepared of the 
 taxes and votes belonging to each man. Papers and
 
 THE LEGITIMIST PARTY. 183 
 
 requests for registration commenced to pour into the 
 prefecture, which put a good face on the matter, and 
 declared that it also was about to double its contingent. 
 But its friends had been more foreseeing than mine, 
 and had not neglected to bring up most of their 
 recruits, so the ministerial numbers increased in less 
 proportion than ours. In 1846 I passed at the head 
 of the poll, with a majority of four votes, between M. 
 de Marcombe, the former, and M. Jouneaulx, the out- 
 going deputy. 
 
 A chance occurrence between my two candidatures 
 had given me a certain Angevin notoriety in the dis- 
 trict which was not without some influence over the 
 electors. 
 
 M. de Caumont, a learned archaeologist, had recently 
 instituted a series of scientific congresses. These 
 gatherings of theoretical science were intended to 
 encourage local study, and the annual meetings 
 were held sometimes in one department, sometimes 
 in another. Anjou's turn came in 1843. The 
 programme of questions to be dealt with was distri- 
 buted a year in advance. After assembling, the Con- 
 gress broke up into sections, which worked separately 
 during the morning, then held a plenary meeting in 
 the afternoon for public lectures and discussion. 
 Amongst the questions on the paper was the follow- 
 ing : u What share had the Church in the massacre of 
 Saint Bartholomew ? " I believed that this question 
 was not a bond fide one, and I was all the more anxious 
 to answer it because I was then plunged in the study
 
 184 MEMOIKS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 of the sixteenth century and of the history of 
 Pius Y. 
 
 I was appointed secretary of my section, and in this 
 capacity was charged with the reports of the morning 
 sitting, which was read at the opening of the after- 
 noon meeting before a small audience, which paid 
 little attention to this dry formality. The secretaries 
 had only from eleven to half-past twelve for their 
 work, and during that time they had also to breakfast. 
 Quickness at work has always been one of my advan- 
 tages and one of my defects. I was therefore the first 
 ready, and my report was listened to with surprise on 
 the first day, with favour on the second, and with 
 applause on the third, so that I was one of the favour- 
 ites of the Congress when, in a general meeting, the 
 question of the massacres came on. 
 
 Although emboldened by my previous success, I was 
 very intimidated when I had to ascend the platform 
 in the presence of a full meeting. My essay was 
 written, and I read it timidly, but my reply, to the 
 effect that the massacres were the work not of the 
 Church but of politicians, provoked vehement con- 
 tradictions. My opponents had not, like myself, been 
 studying the sixteenth century, and they made some 
 flagrant blunders. M. de la Saussaye, afterwards a 
 member of the Institute, spoke of what the Cardinal 
 de Lorraine had done in Paris, whereas in reality the 
 Cardinal reached Eome in August, 1572, to take part 
 in a conclave which resulted in the election of Gre- 
 gory XIII. Chance had put a great advantage in my
 
 THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 185 
 
 way, and I used it to the utmost. My reply, impro- 
 vised this time, gave me an opportunity of denouncing 
 my opponents in a flagrant error, and of peremptorily 
 completing my argument. From that moment I had 
 the public on my side ; and this emboldened me not a 
 little, my concluding words being : " Let me bring 
 this argument to a close by a purely moral but very 
 decisive consideration. Instead of Catherine de Me- 
 dici and Charles IX., that is to say instead of a reign 
 filled with duplicity, lust and tortuous doings, imagine 
 St. Louis and Blanche de Castille, that is to say a reign 
 filled with the true spirit of the Church, with the 
 most austere virtue and the most Christian loyalty — 
 would the massacre of St. Bartholomew have been 
 possible ? " * This appeal, made with very sincere 
 conviction and in a tone of great emotion, quite won 
 over my audience. I was overwhelmed with the 
 warmest congratulations : " You have won your spurs 
 for the Chamber," exclaimed one of my hearers. The 
 expression was well received, and I also was dubbed 
 by my adversaries with the title, which has since clung 
 to me, of the "apologist for the massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew." 
 
 I was all the more pleased at my election because I 
 owed it solely to the cordial and then unanimous zeal 
 of my friends. I was also glad of it because, as a 
 candidate, I had nothing to reproach myself with. 
 Contending against a man of the Left, patronised by 
 an anti-religious paper called Le Pr&urseur, I hurried 
 
 * Etudes et Souvenirs, p. 56, Perrin, 1885, Paris.
 
 186 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 on my Histoire de Saint Pie V., in order to publish 
 it before the election. Some of my friends were 
 much grieved at this, and said to me, " You are going 
 much too fast." I replied, " That may be, but I will 
 not risk being accused of duplicity. I do not want, 
 if I am elected, for any one to be able to say after- 
 wards, ' Ah ! if we had only known that.' " I look 
 back upon this recollection with great satisfaction. 
 It will prove to those who may be tempted to forget 
 it that the Catholics and the Legitimists of that time 
 knew how to assert their cause as resolutely as others 
 have done under other circumstances and at a more 
 recent date. 
 
 I had not only Le Precurseur and its friends to contend 
 with, I had also to fight against a ministerial rival 
 who, for ten or twelve years, had distributed all the 
 favours of the executive in the district. Unable to 
 draw water from the same spring, I resolved to com- 
 pensate Segre, then a very small and poor town, at my 
 own expense. But I kept silence as to my intentions, 
 and great was the surprise of my most intimate 
 friends, as well as of the population, when, about a 
 month after my election, I wrote to the Mayor of 
 Segre telling him of the share I intended taking in 
 the completion of a work of great public utility.* 
 
 It was thus that I entered the Chamber, with my 
 mind and conscience entirely free, and at an epoch 
 full of agitation. 
 
 M. Guizot and M. Thiers, after having in combina- 
 
 • The Oudon Canal.
 
 THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 187 
 
 tion overthrown M. Mole, had at first shared amicably 
 the fruits of victory, but this pleasant harmony was 
 of short duration. The incompatibility of character 
 which existed between these two men broke out once 
 more, and in 1846 there was war to the knife between 
 them. 
 
 At the same date M. Berryer fully justified M. 
 Boyer-Collard's saying, on hearing his first speech, 
 that he was a power. He was surrounded by a group 
 of talented men, including MM. de Larcy, Benoist 
 d'Azy, Hennequin, Bechard, General de la Bour- 
 donnaye, MM. d'Andigne de la Chasse, Blin de 
 Bourdon, de Staplande, and de Saintenac. He had 
 unfortunately lost, in 1838, the aged Due de Fitz- 
 James, his most powerful auxiliary. Eesigning his 
 seat in the Chamber of Peers in 1831, he was elected 
 at Toulouse to the Chamber of Deputies in 1834. A 
 thorough type of a great noble, eloquent, blending 
 through his double descent English dialectics with 
 French colouring, the Due de Fitz- James was one of 
 M. Berryer's warmest friends. I cannot resist the 
 pleasure of quoting here a striking and touching 
 proof of this. King Charles X. having died at Goritz, 
 in Austria, M. de Courson, a retired brigadier- 
 general, submitted a petition to the Chamber, request- 
 ing that the royal ashes might be brought to France. 
 This produced the most painful embarrassment for the 
 deputies on the Right. To refuse this homage would 
 be to sanction the persevering hostility of the July 
 Government, while to accept it would be to incur an
 
 188 MEMOIRS OP A ROYALIST. 
 
 obligation to it. Opinions were at first very divided. 
 At last they decided in favour of refusing, but upon 
 the condition that an explanation of the same should 
 be made from the tribune by the Due de Fitz-James, 
 one of the late king's earliest friends. On the 27th 
 January, 1838, M. Lacrosse, reporter for the com- 
 mission of petitions, proposed the order of the day 
 with regard to the petition of M. de Courson, that is 
 to say, its rejection. The Due de Fitz-James at once 
 followed him, and expressed himself in these terms : — 
 "Gentlemen, I cannot venture to hope that the 
 Chamber will accord much sympathy to the sentiment 
 which has brought me into the tribune, but I hope 
 that it will at least understand that, under the circum- 
 stances, an old servant of Charles X., one who was 
 honoured for so long a time by that Prince's kindness, 
 could not remain indifferent and silent upon his bench 
 as deputy when such a question as this was raised. 
 The principal mistake, in my eyes, of the petition 
 which has just been read to us is that it has been 
 presented without due thought. Far be it from me to 
 think of finding fault with the sentiments and inten- 
 tions of its author ! He wished to render a mournful 
 and parting homage to the memory of an unfortunate 
 king : all honour to him for it ! But it appears to 
 me that he had not calculated the possible consequences 
 of his imprudent step. In the ardour or blindness of 
 his zeal, he has forgotten that there was something 
 impious in thus arousing opinions and passions, in thus 
 summoning them, if I may so speak, to meet, and
 
 THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 189 
 
 wrangle over a coffin. (Sensation.) A royal funeral 
 is not only an act of duty and respect from a son, a 
 brother and a friend ; it is both a religious and 
 political event : the public authorities are present at it. 
 As a religious duty, the petitioner ought to have re- 
 membered that prayer, when it is enforced or insin- 
 cere, necessarily entails hypocrisy, blasphemy, and 
 maledictions — a sad throng, gentlemen, to gather 
 together at the solemnities of death. From a political 
 point of view, let it suffice for me to say that in the 
 fourteenth century, after the long troubles of a foreign 
 war, and of civil wars which had desolated France, it 
 was left to King Charles V. alone to lay the remains 
 of the King, his father, who had died a prisoner in a 
 foreign land, in the vaults of Saint Denis. These are 
 the grave reasons upon which I base my support of the 
 order of the day, which is proposed to you by the 
 Commission." (Approbation.) 
 
 These few words were very well received, and every- 
 one acknowledged that no one could have extricated 
 himself from a difficult situation more nobly. The Due 
 de Fitz-James gave dinner parties and receptions every 
 Thursday. On the Thursday which followed this 
 sitting he was overwhelmed with congratulations. 
 Some of M. Berryer's warmest opponents were the most 
 outspoken, declaring that only a thorough gentleman 
 could have thus evoked the souvenirs of the old 
 monarchy. M. de Fitz-James allowed them to proceed, 
 and, then raising his voice so as to be heard by all 
 present, he said : —
 
 190 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 "I can receive no compliments, except to transmit 
 them to M. Berryer. It was he who at my request 
 furnished me with the substance of my speech. It 
 was he who suggested to me the allusion to King 
 Charles V., which has gratified you all so much." 
 
 The Due de Fitz-James was so attached to M. Ber- 
 ryer that he was anxious that the latter' s name should 
 be preserved in his family, and, following the English 
 custom, he gave it as a baptismal name to a grandson, 
 and after the old Duke's death I saw little Henry 
 Berryer de Fitz-James enter M. Berryer's room and 
 present him with a large bouquet, saying, " This is 
 for grandpapa ! " 
 
 Toulouse elected as his successor the Due de Yalmy, 
 who shared the same sentiments and worthily occupied 
 the same place. 
 
 The elections of 1846 added several new recruits to 
 the Conservative camp, including the Marquis de Cas- 
 tellane, M. de Goulard, the Marquis de la Guiche, 
 Comte Werner de MeVode, afterwards the Marquis de 
 Contades, elected deputy in place of the Marquis de 
 Castellane, his brother-in-law, who had recently died, 
 MM. Paulmier, Sallandrouze, Blanqui, of the Insti- 
 tute, Moulin, a young magistrate full of promise. The 
 first appearances of this latter were much remarked, 
 and M. Yatou, alluding to the glass of sugared water 
 in the tribune, said of him, "We have got a capital 
 little mill there. He grinds ad libitum with one glass 
 of water ! n These men formed part of M. Guizot's 
 party, but with a good deal of personal independence,
 
 THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 191 
 
 and they resolved to make this felt at the first oppor- 
 tunity which presented itself without danger to the 
 Government. Among their predecessors in a moderate 
 policy was a young officer of hussars, the intimate 
 friend of the Due d' Orleans, patronised in Auvergne 
 by Madame Adelaide, and in the good graces of the 
 President of the Council. This was my old comrade, 
 M. de Morny. 
 
 The Legitimist party also included several impor- 
 tant recruits, such as M. de Genoude, whom M. de 
 Yillele, Head of the College of Toulouse, had some- 
 what precipitately substituted for the Due de Yalmy, 
 retained in the South by his health ; M. de Eainne- 
 ville, who in default of any great talent as an orator 
 gave us the benefit of his great financial experience ; 
 M. de Carayon-Latour, M. de L^hen, the Comte de 
 Quatrebarbes, the future companion of La Moriciere 
 at Ancona, who was nominated at Cholet at the same 
 time that I was at Segre. 
 
 The newly-elected Legitimists were, like myself, 
 disposed to follow M. Berryer's directions, M. de 
 Genoude, who was the only exception, meriting special 
 mention. His first political appearance was as editor 
 of the Utoile, which M. de Yillele, then President of 
 the Council, had confided to him, and in which he 
 soon revived the old name of Gazette de France. Young, 
 ardent, and laborious, M. de Genoude lent great bril- 
 liancy to the ministerial paper. He very legitimately 
 made a considerable fortune in it, and this fortune he 
 spent, in the years subsequent to 1830, as he had
 
 192 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 acquired it, viz. in the journalistic defence of the 
 Koyalist cause. He founded numerous offshoots of the 
 Gazette de France in the departments, and imposed his 
 programme upon them. By a bold stratagem M. de 
 Genoude placed the monarchical battle upon a fresh 
 ground, tracing back the policy of the Eight to the 
 cahiers of 1789, blaming the Eestoration for having 
 departed from them, and thorough in his logic to the 
 end, daily demanding universal suffrage, but, it is 
 only fair to add, with two degrees. 
 
 Being left a widower, he had entered the eccle- 
 siastical state, and even while continuing to edit the 
 Gazette he preached in the Temple Chapel sermons 
 previously printed in proof, which he read in the 
 pulpit, as he might a copy of his Gazette. Eeceiving 
 little encouragement in this laboured form of preaching, 
 he soon gave it up and returned entirely to the absorbing 
 life of a journalist. Men who had known him for a 
 long time asserted that his ecclesiastical vocation 
 was more political than religious — that in assuming 
 Cardinal Fleury's first robe he had the second in view 
 also, and was more occupied in securing his pre- 
 eminence than in satisfying his piety. I cannot 
 venture an opinion on the subject, never having 
 had enough acquaintance with him to penetrate the 
 secrets of his heart. His costume and manners were 
 somewhat eccentric. He assumed neither tonsure nor 
 cassock, but wore a long black overcoat, with which he 
 had, at the first glance, the appearance of a Protestant 
 pastor.
 
 THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 193 
 
 M. de Genoude's vanity was of a very unaffected 
 kind. Dining together one evening at M. de la Roche- 
 jacquelein's M. de Genoude, who was seated opposite to 
 our host in the place of the mistress of the house, 
 took and was allowed to retain the lead in the con- 
 versation, although M. Berry er was on the right of 
 M. de la Rochejacquelein. M. de Genoude began to 
 relate that in 1815 he was a Koyalist volunteer in the 
 South and that he had been under arms during the 
 Hundred Days. "I should, had I been so minded, 
 have got on well in a military career, for I have never 
 known what fear is." Some soldiers who were present 
 replied that they could not say as much, and I added, 
 "Well, Monsieur de Genoude, you are braver than 
 Turenne, for Cardinal de Eetz, who relates a very 
 amusing story of meeting with some imaginary ghosts, 
 said, 'See how brave M. de Turenne was; he was 
 dying of fear, and yet he kept on advancing ! ' " 
 
 " Assuredly," replied M. de Genoude with great 
 self-possession, u if Turenne were alarmed under those 
 circumstances, I have the right to say that I am 
 braver than he was ! " 
 
 By separating its policy from that of the July 
 Ordinances, by perpetual invoking the original docu- 
 ments of '88 and '89, by exhibiting the old regime as 
 itself demanding the reforms which would have 
 averted the Ke volution, the Gazette and its school had 
 rendered us unquestionable service. M. Berryer did 
 not ignore this ; but he had less confidence in universal 
 suffrage, and, in any case, he reproached M. de 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 194 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 Genoude with confining himself too exclusively to his 
 thesis, and with not dealing more frequently and 
 more frankly with those questions and facts which our 
 successive revolutions have produced. 
 
 M. de Genoude was very impatient under criticism 
 or even qualified phrase. He therefore became M. 
 Berryer's adversary, and although the latter rarely 
 contradicted him, he pursued him with the most in- 
 sulting imputations, and one day wrote in the Gazette 
 the following words, which left an impression never 
 effaced from my memory : " M. Berryer has passed 
 over to the enemy ! " Yet M. Berryer, whose natural 
 generosity never failed him, induced his friends 
 in Toulouse to vote for M. de Genoude, and when 
 M. de Genoude was elected, he very cordially 
 invited him to the first meeting of the deputies, 
 which was held at his house at the opening of 
 the session. At this first meeting M. de Genoude 
 resolved to hoist his flag. Eendering hare justice to 
 the intentions of the leader of the parliamentary 
 Bight, he dwelt upon the so-called faults committed 
 up to that day, and naively — I might say arrogantly, 
 if his tone had not affected gentleness — claimed the 
 commander's baton. M. Berryer replied without any 
 bitterness, courteously showed in what respects the 
 plans of his new colleague were inapplicable, prema- 
 ture, and problematical, and pointed out, above all, 
 how much it was to be regretted that just when the 
 Legitimists' ranks were being reinforced, they should 
 weaken themselves by their inexplicable divisions. M.
 
 THE CHAMBEE OF DEPUTIES. 195 
 
 Benoist d'Azy, with a few other veterans of the 
 Eight, warmly supported M. Berryer. Not a single 
 voice was raised on behalf of M. de Genoude. The 
 ambitious dictator then lost his temper and all sense 
 of propriety. "I see," he said, "that the monarchical 
 party is not represented here. I must continue to 
 bear the burden of this great struggle alone. "Well ! 
 I shall have the courage to do so, and whatever takes 
 place here, I shall proclaim it to the world ! " After 
 this emphatic phrase, pronounced in a tone and with a 
 gesture more emphatic still, M. de Genoude slowly 
 left the drawing-room, as though he expected some 
 one to retain him, but no one moved. People looked 
 at each other in dismay and humiliation. Like every 
 one else, I was silent. Being the youngest recruit, I 
 had seated myself near the door, which was draped 
 with a velvet curtain with embroidered bands. In 
 raising this curtain, M. de Genoude directed a last 
 glance at me, which seemed to say, " Will you then 
 allow me to leave ? " In reply to this look of interro- 
 gation, and also perhaps in a tone which involuntarily 
 betrayed my thoughts, I could not restrain these 
 words : " Well then, sir, leave ! " 
 
 M. de Genoude at once let the curtain fall back 
 again, returned to the middle of the room, and ex- 
 claimed in a most irritated tone, "You say to me 
 ' Leave ! ' Have you reflected upon all the misfortunes 
 which will result from this separation?" Kising 
 immediately, I took M. de Genoude by the hand, and 
 said, " Sir, you misinterpret my thoughts. I did not 
 
 o2
 
 196 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 exclaim ' Leave ' after the fashion of Bajazet. I 
 simply intended to express a regret for the course you 
 were taking without provocation from any one present. 
 The more you believe in the misfortunes which your 
 separation may entail, the more guilty you will be if 
 you let them loose, and upon you alone will the 
 responsibility fall." These few words met with 
 unanimous approval, and no one attempted a second 
 effort. M. de Genoude realised the situation he had 
 created for himself, he did not answer, and left our 
 meeting, never to reappear at another. 
 
 This scene, half serious, half comic, was very 
 bitterly commented upon by the Gazette and its 
 friends, but the isolation of M. de Genoude was none 
 the less definite. Although seated in the midst of us 
 all, he never spoke to one of us except to M. de 
 Eainneville, who unreservedly blamed him, but who 
 remembered their old intimacy under M. de Yillele ; 
 and to M. de la Eochejacquelein, who was foolishly 
 jealous of M. Berry er and was always much praised 
 by the Gazette. No one sought a reconciliation, for 
 every one knew that it would be inevitably followed 
 by new scandals. 
 
 I entered the Chamber, not certainly as a disciple 
 of M. Guizot, whom I scarcely knew by sight, but 
 full of admiration for the grandeur of his language, 
 for the strength of his character, and for his capacity 
 as a statesman. I soon understood that, at least on 
 this last point, there were some reservations to be 
 made. A few modifications of judgment, I would
 
 THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 197 
 
 not say a few deceptions, forced themselves upon me 
 before long. Words and actions are, perhaps, so far 
 like the hare and the rabbit, that at a short distance 
 they are easily mistaken for each other, but on a 
 closer approach they are found to be quite dissimilar, 
 and almost incompatible. 
 
 Did M. Guizot, who overruled a parliamentary 
 storm by these haughty words, "Your insults can 
 never attain the height of my contempt," import the 
 same energy into his actions ? I soon doubted it. I 
 saw him incline to the adjournment of questions, more 
 preoccupied about theories of the tribune than prac- 
 tical activity, too disdainful of the requirements and 
 daily needs of the country, admirable in the explana- 
 tion or defence of what he had conceived, but little 
 fertile in conception. Monotony in people of great 
 talent is not a common defect ; but M. Guizot was not 
 exempt from it. He had also one anomaly in his 
 character which would not have been suspected at a 
 distance. Upright and delicate on his own account, 
 indifferent to pomp and titles, he tolerated around 
 him abuses which caused him more than one cruel 
 anxiety. He lived poor, he died poor, and after 
 1848, during his noble retreat under the Empire, I 
 said to myself as I reached his small apartment at the 
 top of an interminable staircase, "Kespectfor such 
 men should increase with every storey we ascend." 
 Nevertheless, at the height of his political power, M. 
 Guizot had drawn around him some men of inferior 
 moral nature. He was also too lavish of small means
 
 198 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 of insidiously gaining credit, and during the sittings 
 of the Chamber he too frequently left the bench of 
 the Presidency of the Council in order to sit and 
 whisper on the benches of the Ministerial deputies, 
 without regard to the conjectures which would arise, 
 and which in fact did arise, from these confidential 
 colloquies under the eyes of the public and the 
 gallery of journalists. "When he did not himself 
 engage in these whispered interviews he would enlist, 
 without thinking of what would be said, the services 
 of well-known intermediaries, amongst others my 
 fellow-countryman, Eugene Janvier, who certainly 
 deserved a higher employment. The National, giving 
 an account of a sitting, said one day, "M. Janvier 
 may be discerned" (he was very short) "flitting from 
 bench to bench, and brushing all parties with his 
 humming-bird's wing ! " Thus, when M. Emile de 
 Girardin entered the tribune to accuse M. Guizot and 
 M. Genie, the chief of his cabinet, of the crime of 
 venality, when two former ministers, General de 
 Cubieres and M. Teste were summoned before the 
 Chamber of Peers for peculation, public opinion made 
 M. Guizot severely expiate his complacency towards 
 others. Posterity will justify him still less from the 
 reproach of sterility, and I believe myself to be quite 
 free from all remnants of the old party spirit when I 
 repeat this accusation. So long in possession of a 
 majority, which would willingly have taken a part 
 in initiating more new measures, he repulsed too 
 systematically and a priori every innovation. I am
 
 THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 199 
 
 not speaking of electoral or parliamentary reforms, 
 which foresight might have counselled but which 
 prudence might also have deferred. I am alluding 
 to purely administrative reforms, already adopted by 
 several of the neighbouring countries, and in no way 
 bordering on polities. M. Desmousseaux de Givre 
 was a man of average ability, no orator, no enemy to 
 the King, not irreconcilable with the Ministry; never- 
 theless, he produced a great effect, and gave, as has 
 been too often observed, the exact description of the 
 situation when he said in the tribune, " Here, gentle- 
 men, the whole system of the Cabinet may be summed 
 up in these words : Nothing, nothing, nothing ! " In 
 pronouncing these three words, without the least 
 pretensions to oratorical effect, M. Desmousseaux de 
 Givre turned in succession to the Left, to the Eight, 
 and to the Centre. If the shaft had not gone home, 
 the majority would have indignantly thrown it back, 
 or have allowed it to fall to the ground. But the 
 very reverse was what happened. The Opposition 
 rapturously applauded, the Ministerial party was silent 
 and dismayed. This sitting was tremendously talked 
 about in the country, and for several days the name 
 of M. Desmousseaux de Givre was upon every one's 
 lips. 
 
 This incident would have been a useful lesson to 
 the President of the Council if he had kept his 
 eyes fixed more upon the public and less upon him- 
 self. 
 
 M. Guizot's Memoirs bear the stamp of the same
 
 200 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 moral impassiveness. We find in them, well sketched 
 pictures, the most naturally eloquent portraits, the 
 most specious thoughts and views, everything except 
 a reflection upon his own conduct, a personal reproach 
 or a regret. He never accuses fortune, he has not a 
 single bitter word for any of his adversaries or ene- 
 mies ; but that is the expression of the serenity which 
 arises from magnanimity of heart, and there is no senti- 
 ment of a single fault of conduct, or error of judgment, 
 mingled with it. The members of the Cabinet were 
 men of real worth, but all of them — M. Dumon, M. 
 Duchatel, and even M. de Salvandy — willingly effaced 
 themselves before a leader who had no dread of respon- 
 sibility. Admiral de Mackau was Minister of Marine. 
 "Without breaking off my family ties, I seldom entered 
 the Ministry in the Place Louis XV., and I doubt 
 whether my uncle himself really wished me to be 
 elected. 
 
 One question only could have drawn the Govern- 
 ment and the Legitimist Eight together upon solid 
 ground : this was the religious question. M. Guizot 
 had in this a good opportunity for widening the basis 
 of his Ministry and securing loyal support. He did 
 not dream of it more than of any other novelty, and it 
 was this lack of goodwill, very shortsighted on his 
 part, which led me to make my delmt in the tribune 
 much sooner and more boldly than I should have 
 deemed possible beforehand. 
 
 The Chamber, entirely renewed, held, in the month 
 of August, a short session which was devoted to the
 
 THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 201 
 
 verification of the elections. The bureau in which I 
 was sitting had to examine the election of M. Prault, 
 a barrister at Poitiers, elected by the Left, with the 
 aid of the Catholics, who had obtained from him a pre- 
 liminary engagement in favour of educational liberty. 
 The Ministerial party maintained that this was an im- 
 perative undertaking which vitiated the election and 
 ought to annul it. The question had been thoroughly 
 argued in my bureau, and had therefore been well 
 elucidated before me, with the result that if this view 
 prevailed, educational liberty would be indefinitely 
 adjourned by means of invalidation. 
 
 The occasion was a tempting one, for I was well 
 primed by the discussion at which I had been pre- 
 sent. In treating upon the subject in the tribune, 
 I could give the alarm to my friends in the Chamber 
 of Deputies, and the hand to my friends in the Chamber 
 of Peers. The report was promptly brought forward at 
 a public sitting, and the majority were about to pro- 
 nounce the election invalid, when I asked to speak. 
 Motives of curiosity always ensure silence for a first 
 appearance. At first I had this advantage, then the 
 attention was continued, and I was allowed to unfold 
 my thesis to the end. I hurriedly regained my place, 
 impatient to question the colleagues in the midst 
 of whom I usually sat. They all surrounded and 
 congratulated me, with the exception of M. Benoist 
 d'Azy, which surprised me, for he was an Angevin by 
 birth, and had known me from childhood. He ap- 
 proached me after a few minutes: "I am the last,"
 
 202 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 said he, " but I have been writing to your mother ! " 
 These words, and his manner, moved me so much that 
 I had not even thought of watching what was passing 
 in the Hall. "What was my astonishment, in raising 
 my eyes, to see M. Gruizot himself in the tribune, 
 waiting until the agitation of the majority had calmed 
 down, before he intervened. In his speech he scarcely 
 alluded to mine, he went straight to the imperative 
 engagement, expatiated magnificently upon this thesis, 
 and imperiously moved for the annulling of the elec- 
 tion of Poitiers. This was then voted, but by a 
 public ballot which at once prominently brought 
 forward the new elements of independence introduced 
 into the Ministerial ranks, and sufficed to render 
 the Ministry and the majority more circumspect 
 in verifying the rest of the elections. Moreover, M. 
 Drault was re-elected with a higher number of votes 
 than on his first election. From that time the authori- 
 ties ceased to treat loyal explanations between the 
 electors and their representative as a criminal arrange- 
 ment, involving ipso facto the invalidation of the elec- 
 tion. Several members of the majority went further 
 still, they demanded educational liberty, and urged M. 
 de Salvandy, who was personally well disposed towards 
 it, to plead its cause in the Council itself. 
 
 M. Gruizot was in principle favourable to educational 
 liberty. He had deposited the first germ of it in the 
 law of 1833, to which everybody pays homage. But 
 he was intimidated by the storm which this question 
 raised in the country, and by the motives for oppo-
 
 THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 203 
 
 sition which it furnished to M. Thiers and the Left of 
 the Chamber. He was also intimidated because it 
 was an innovation. I have already pointed out the 
 singular contrast which existed between the habitual 
 amplitude of his language and the narrow range of 
 his policy. I may quote a notable instance of this 
 characteristic. He opposed some unpretentious postal 
 reforms with as much eagerness as the electoral or 
 University reforms. 
 
 At this period, the delivery of letters was divided 
 into numerous zones. Each zone had a special tariff, 
 which varied from six to thirty-two sous, and 
 involved a complicated reckoning with the postman for 
 each letter. Moreover, a prejudice existed against 
 pre-payment ; no one resorted to it except with their 
 tradespeople, and it was extremely impolite to prepay 
 a letter to any one who was unprepared to accept an 
 imputation of poverty. A member of the Eight Centre, 
 M. de Saint-Priest, whose name was written like that 
 of the Due d'Almazan, but who did not belong to the 
 same family, had been during several seasons the 
 persevering adversary of these intolerable postal regu- 
 lations. The Ministry had several times defeated his 
 attempts at reform, but in the Chamber of 1846 M. 
 de Saint-Priest had gained some adherents. He had, 
 moreover, secured some supporters in the press, and 
 M. Emile de Girardin, who had been newly elected, 
 took up this question with characteristic energy in his 
 paper, as well as in the Palais Bourbon. This formed 
 another unfavourable prejudice in the mind of the
 
 204 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 President of the Council, for M. de Girardin was 
 gradually becoming his passionate opponent. 
 
 Holding entirely aloof from all these disputes, I 
 thought that postal reform ought not to suffer from 
 them, and I devoted myself seriously to the study of 
 this question, fully realising that my inexperience 
 was still unequal to taking any share in great political 
 debates. If necessary, I might have learnt this at my 
 own expense, for in the debate on the address I had, at 
 the suggestion of M. de Montalembert, supported the 
 paragraph referring to Poland, and all my success con- 
 sisted in hearing M. Odilon Barrot say, turning to some 
 of his colleagues, " But listen, I pray you, gentle- 
 men ; there are some good points in this young man's 
 speech ! " I therefore myself took the hint, which I 
 now give to every young man on his first appearance in 
 a political career : commence by conscientiously study- 
 ing some business questions. I obtained the most com- 
 plete information in my power respecting the post in 
 France and in neighbouring countries, then I tested 
 myself in my bureau when we had to nominate a 
 committee to examine the proposition of M. de Saint- 
 Priest. I was appointed commissioner in my bureau, 
 a favour rarely accorded to a Legitimist. M. Emile 
 de Girardin was also appointed the same in his, and 
 this was a good omen for postal reform but a very bad 
 one for M. Guizot's omnipotence, as he had no more 
 unrelenting personal enemy. The committee wavered 
 at first, but the majority soon pronounced resolutely 
 in favour of reform, and when about to nominate a
 
 THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 205 
 
 reporter several of my colleagues designated me. 
 Through his technical knowledge, M. de Girardin 
 seemed to me more capable of performing this task 
 than I was ; he greatly wished to be entrusted with it, 
 and I voted for him, thus securing his election. For 
 this I received a lecture from several of my colleagues, 
 who told me that under no circumstances should any 
 one vote for a rival, and that if you did not care to 
 write your own name you should ask a colleague to 
 do it for you. Without repenting of my candour, I 
 determined to make up for it in the tribune. 
 
 In this, as in the question relating to M. Drault's 
 election, I found guidance in the preliminary debate 
 in the bureau, and got well posted in the objections 
 raised, the result being that I was very favourably 
 received by the Chamber. As to M. Guizot, he per- 
 sisted in his opposition, but seeing that the majority 
 had decided upon a concession, adopted a middle 
 course. At the opening of the session of 1848, the 
 Minister of Finance, even while retaining the system 
 of zones, proposed a reduction, and the maximum of 
 the progressive tax was reduced to fifty centimes ; 
 the application of this diminished tax was, however, 
 to be postponed until the 1st January, 1850. 
 
 From this date M. de Girardin nearly every day 
 brought forward instances of electoral corruption, 
 by which, true or false, public opinion was much 
 excited. M. Guizot lost the habitual calm of his 
 attitude; he introduced the name of General Alex- 
 andre de Girardin into the debate, and carried his
 
 206 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 reprisals so far as to mention from the tribune, " Mon- 
 sieur votre pere," * which caused, I must own, great 
 surprise and painful emotion amongst the members of 
 the majority. General de Girardin also lost all his 
 self-control on that day. He waited for M. Guizot in 
 the Salle des Pas-Perdus, loudly proclaiming his 
 intention to assault him at the close of the sitting. 
 "Warned by his friends, M. Guizot stole away by the 
 small door leading into the Eue de Bourgogne ; the 
 evening was employed in calming the general, and 
 that scandal, at all events, was hushed up. 
 
 During this time educational liberty was also making 
 its way. Comte Werner de Merode, the most witty 
 and genial of men, very intimate with his brother-in- 
 law, M. de Montalembert, made an active and suc- 
 cessful propaganda in the ranks of the majority which 
 was attached to the Ministry. M. de Carne, a Legiti- 
 mist by birth, and an ardent Catholic, showed equal 
 zeal ; and M. de la Farelle, deputy for Nimes, belong- 
 ing, like M. Guizot, to Protestantism, powerfully 
 assisted the Catholics, through pure fidelity to a loyal 
 liberalism; lastly, M. de Salvandy, held in suspicion 
 by the University, and himself for many reasons suspi- 
 cious of the University teaching, had more than one 
 affinity with us. The literary and political disciple 
 of M. de Chateaubriand, his assistant in the Journal 
 des Debats in its most royalist phase, M. de Salvandy 
 had belonged to the Council of State under the 
 
 * Note of the Translator. — Emile de Girardin was the natural 
 son of General Alex, de Girardin.
 
 THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 207 
 
 Eestoration. He had rather submitted to the Revolution 
 of July than desired it, and had joined the Government 
 of King Louis Philippe with no little reluctance. He 
 had a beautiful head, thick black hair, a tall figure 
 and a rather affected carriage. He posed too much for 
 the aristocratic liberal, or the liberal aristocrat. But 
 if you went behind an attitude which sometimes gave 
 rise to jests, and which often provoked them, you found 
 grand qualities, sincerity, generosity, conscientious- 
 ness and much talent. He gave many proofs of this. 
 His great ambition was an embassy ; but though he 
 obtained that of Madrid, a question of etiquette pre- 
 vented him from going there. It was then suggested 
 to send him to Turin as a compensation. He dreamt, 
 it was said, of greatness and of raising his estate of 
 Chantemerle to a duchy. "Due de Chantemerle ! " 
 exclaimed a deputy before whom the news was 
 being discussed ; u that would not be enough for 
 Salvandy, he must at least be entitled Due de Can- 
 tosmerlos ! " 
 
 M. Yiennet said with a sigh, " In this world there is 
 nothing like luck ! My eccentricities have ruined me, 
 and Salvandv's eccentricities have been the making of 
 him ! * These words were, if not intentional calum- 
 nies, at least serious mistakes ; and if M. de Salvandy 
 attached too much value to small things he at least 
 knew how to sacrifice them to great ones. 
 
 Thus in the debateon the flbtrissure, at the time of 
 the Legitimist pilgrimage to Belgrave Square, placed 
 between his souvenirs, his affections, his monarchical
 
 208 MEMOIKS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 gratitude, and an unjust vote, he never hesitated, but 
 openly voted against the motion. Some hours later, 
 at an evening reception in the Tuileries, the King, 
 having led him into a bow window to reproach him for 
 this vote, seized him by his cordon of the Legion of 
 Honour, with a violence unusual to him, but to which 
 he sometimes yielded, exclaiming, "Was it in order 
 that you should betray me thus, that I gave you this ? " 
 M. de Salvandy remained passive, but on the following 
 day he sent in his resignation as ambassador, believing 
 that he was not only closing his diplomatic career, but 
 that he was also closing all chance of future power at 
 the same time. The King was touched ; he knew how 
 to atone for his violence, and showed M. de Salvandy 
 marked kindness when M. Guizot placed him at the 
 head of the Ministry of Public Instruction. 
 
 M. Salvandy as Minister did not belie his character ; 
 he retained his friendships and remained faithful to 
 salons which in various degrees and for various 
 reasons represented the Opposition. 
 
 By proposing a bill for educational liberty he knew 
 he should arouse displeasure, but he believed he was 
 rendering good service and he persisted in his intention. 
 If his bill were not better, if the emancipation of educa- 
 tion was not more complete, it was not the Minister 
 who was to blame, but the resistance which he en- 
 countered from the Cabinet and from the University 
 staff. M. de Salvandy was liked for his excellent 
 conduct, but he was regarded with suspicion by the 
 esprit de corps. He endeavoured to remove his
 
 THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 209 
 
 difficulties by abandoning himself to complicated 
 combinations which could not effectively solve the 
 problem. This was the reproach which we made 
 against him and which I explained in my bureau, even 
 while paying homage to his good intentions, and to a 
 commencement of progress which it is only just to take 
 into account. 
 
 Such was the situation when the heavy storm clouds 
 suddenly burst over us. The 24th of February arrived. 
 Chambers, Ministers, and Monarch were carried away 
 in a single day, and, so to speak, in the twinkling of an 
 eye. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 
 
 1848. 
 
 It has been said more than once that " the February- 
 revolution was an effect without a cause." I do not 
 regard this as quite a correct description. It would be 
 truer to say, "The February revolution was an effect out 
 of proportion to its cause." It had no tyranny to break, 
 no provocations to repulse, no real culprits to punish. 
 It interrupted the legal course of progress, which one 
 might have wished to be more rapid, but of which 
 there was no need to despair ; of progress which 
 might be accomplished, not without effort but without 
 a shock. Effort is the duty, the honour, of the country 
 as of the individual ; abrupt and violent shocks, that 
 is to say revolutions, are a formidable lottery, a lottery 
 often fatal to those who risk a heavy stake upon them, 
 often ruinous even to those who have not staked any- 
 thing. However, the February revolution is a fact; 
 it was followed by results from which the country still 
 suffers, and one cannot but endeavour to explain it to 
 oneself. I saw it in preparation, in its execution, and
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 211 
 
 in its immediate consequences, and this is my candid 
 opinion about it. 
 
 It would be easy to attribute the 24th of February, 
 1848, to the 30th July, 1830. The example of right 
 ignored, of respect forgotten, of violence suddenly 
 raised to a principle, are so many doors opened to 
 moral disorder in the first place, aud so on to anarchy. 
 These doors having been opened with the intention of 
 shutting them again, remain ajar for a long time, and 
 the moment the watch upon them is relaxed, a surprise 
 presents itself and passes through. • This is, however, 
 a philosophical thesis, an historical thesis, which is 
 beyond my subject, and I purpose confining myself to 
 the recital of what I saw. 
 
 The February revolution had in the first instance 
 a very unexpected cause : this was King Louis 
 Philippe's weakness at the moment of the struggle. 
 In the course of his long career as Due d' Orleans 
 he had given proofs of his personal courage. He had 
 been a courageous volunteer in the first battles of the 
 revolution, he had shown equal coolness under the 
 balls of would-be assassins, and calm amid the car- 
 nage of the Fieschi attempt, he had impressed those 
 present at the time with his intrepidity. I have often 
 wondered how it is that, in many a crisis, extraor- 
 dinary weakness suddenly takes the place of habitual 
 energy, and I have formed an opinion on the subject 
 which I believe to be justified by experience. Strength, 
 in such a case, does not only arise from courage, it 
 also comes from the foresight which measures the 
 
 p2
 
 212 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 danger beforehand and which enables it to be faced 
 coolly. When this foresight is wanting, surprise pro- 
 duces a sudden dizziness accompanied by insuperable 
 weakness. A man thrown from the towers of Notre 
 Dame on to the pavement below would be quite ex- 
 cusable if he failed in presence of mind upon his pick- 
 ing himself up, should he ever do so at all. Certain 
 moral shocks produce the same sensation, and no one 
 can escape their consequences. 
 
 The Emperor Napoleon, who had so often risked his 
 life in battle, was absolutely beside himself at Fon- 
 tainebleau, what with his attempt at suicide and his 
 abdication. In the tergiversations of the Elysee, and 
 the puerile revolts at Saint Helena, he certainly never 
 experienced any vulgar dread of that death which he 
 had so often braved, but he could not accustom him- 
 self to the infidelity of fortune, which he thought 
 he had enchained and made subject for ever. King 
 Louis Philippe's aims were certainly different, but he 
 also had his ideal, and when this ideal vanished he 
 remained stupefied. Corneille makes Cinna exclaim 
 under like circumstances, " Je demeure stupide ! " 
 
 Louis Philippe had seen Napoleon perish by war, 
 and he had declared for peace. He had seen Charles X. 
 perish through an infraction of the Charter of 1814, 
 and he had persuaded himself that a scrupulous obser- 
 vation of the Charter of 1830 would protect his throne 
 from all danger. Eaised to power by the National 
 Guard of Paris, the contemporary and friend of La 
 Payette, he had never contemplated the possibility of
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 213 
 
 a rupture with the city force, and when this rupture 
 was notified to him on the Place du Carrousel by cer- 
 tain battalions of the National Guard shouting, " Vive 
 la Eeforme ! " he took to his heels, confused by the 
 cry and incapable of repressing it. Pale, depressed, 
 and ready to submit to any influence, he soon re- 
 entered the Tuileries, took up, without demur, the pen 
 offered him to sign his abdication, and allowed himself 
 to be carried into exile, without giving a single order, 
 without taking a single measure in favour of a regency, 
 to which he paid little heed or in which he no longer 
 believed. It may be, too, that he was assailed by 
 some remorse, for he was overheard several times 
 repeating in a low tone, u Like Charles X. ! Like 
 Charles X. ! » 
 
 Unable to accustom himself to this last exile, he 
 lost strength rapidly, without any illusions as to a 
 return of fortune, only basing the future of the 
 monarchy upon a reconciliation of the royal family. 
 It is said that, when speaking of the past, he often 
 returned to the scene in the courtyard of the Car- 
 rousel, and that raising himself in his arm-chair he 
 went through it in pantomime, as though he again saw 
 the National Guards crowding round his horse and 
 shouting " Vive la Eeforme ! " 
 
 The ingratitude of the National Guard was what so 
 deeply wounded him, and affords, in my opinion, the 
 most plausible explanation of his inertia in regard to 
 a riot which for forty-eight hours he might have 
 prevented from becoming a revolution.
 
 214 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 In the case of the Eestoration, the Prince de 
 Polignac was the immediate cause of its fall, bnt one 
 of the causes of its mortal weakness was the irrecon- 
 cilable antagonism of M. de Yillele and M. de 
 Chateaubriand. If M. de Yillele, with more penetra- 
 tion and more grandeur of mind, had been able to 
 understand and esteem M. de Chateaubriand; if M. 
 de Chateaubriand, with more disinterestedness or less 
 temper, had held out his hand to M. de Villele, the 
 Eestoration would have been saved. 
 
 Under different circumstances, yet under circum- 
 stances which made them more guilty because they 
 had more constitutional experience, M. Thiers and M. 
 Guizot reproduced the same drama. They also led to 
 its fall a monarchy which they did not wish to destroy, 
 but in which each wished to exercise exclusive sway. 
 However great M. Guizot's contempt for objections to 
 his policy may have been, his mind was too open, and 
 his ear too experienced, to have remained thus blind 
 and deaf, had he not embodied in his own person a 
 powerful cause of his stubbornness in error, viz. a 
 personal and absolute antipathy. With M. Thiers the 
 blindness was equally great and sprang from the same 
 cause. In M. Guizot's eyes, to share power with M. 
 Thiers was not tantamount to doubling the strength 
 of the Conservative party and rendering it invinci- 
 ble ; to do so was to bow and humiliate himself before 
 a rival. M. Thiers, on his side, would willingly have 
 joined forces with M. Guizot in a struggle, but would 
 never have shared in a triumph with him. M. Guizot
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 215 
 
 had only to enter a Ministry for that Ministry to 
 be guilty in his eyes, and if the sovereign did not 
 submit to this judgment, then he became as guilty 
 as the Ministry. 
 
 At the instigation of M. Thiers, M. de Ee'musat 
 brought forward, in 1846, a motion against the ex- 
 cessive number of officials in the Chamber of Deputies, 
 a motion which in 1840 M. Thiers, then in the 
 Ministry, had energetically opposed. This recantation 
 did not pass unnoticed, and in the sitting of the 17th 
 of March M. Guizot's most skilful associate, the 
 Comte Duchatel, Minister of the Interior, replied 
 with well-merited sarcasm to M. Thiers : " No doubt, 
 when the honourable gentleman was at the head of 
 affairs, the Opposition which then talked about corrup- 
 tion, as it is doing now, was very wrong : the reproach 
 was then premature. (Laughter). The reproach only 
 began to assume an air of truth on the day when 
 power passed into other hands." 
 
 Almost all M. Thiers's grievances on questions of 
 internal reform were open to the same taunt : but 
 this was still more keenly felt in external questions. 
 The principal accusation of the Left against M. 
 Guizot was his excessive subordination to the English 
 alliance, and yet, when in concluding a double 
 marriage with the royal house of Spain, M. Guizot 
 openly, we might almost say audaciously, defied 
 England, he had no accuser more bitter than M. 
 Thiers. 
 
 This oratorical duel was the most brilliant, but as
 
 216 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 regards the sincerity of the Opposition the most pain- 
 ful of any which I remember under the July Govern- 
 ment. Like all great minds, M. Guizot and M. Thiers 
 were given to historical studies and took a pleasure in 
 alluding to them in their speeches ; M. Guizot seeking 
 in them noble antecedents and high maxims, while 
 M. Thiers sought to make them fit in with his thesis. 
 On this occasion he became paradoxical, and compar- 
 ing the relations between Spain and France since the 
 time of Philip V., he exerted himself to prove that 
 the accession of the Bourbons to the throne of Spain 
 had been more detrimental than advantageous to 
 France, pretending to forget that the most threatening 
 danger for France would have consisted in abandoning 
 the succession of Spain to the house of Austria. 
 
 The attacks of M. Thiers, and of the whole Opposi- 
 tion, reached under these circumstances such a height 
 of injustice that shortly afterwards, in connection 
 with a question of internal policy, M. Odilon Barrot, 
 the chief of the dynastic Left, thought fit to bring 
 forward a vote of want of confidence against the 
 Ministry which cannot be read even now without 
 surprise and sadness. In it M. Guizot was formally 
 accused of having "betrayed the external honour and 
 interests of France, of having falsified the principles 
 of the constitution, violated the guarantees of liberty, 
 ruined the State finances, and thus compromised the 
 national strength and greatness." 
 
 These exaggerations, signed by MM. Duvergier 
 de Hauranne, Leon de Maleville, Leon Faucher,
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 217 
 
 Ferdinand de Lasteyrie and Drouyn de Lhuys, bore 
 at the same time the signatures of the most advanced 
 members of the Extreme Left. This explosion was 
 apparently caused by the prohibition of a banquet in 
 honour of electoral reform ; but such violence, upon 
 such futile grounds, would have been impossible, if 
 for some years, and from session to session, the tone 
 used by M. Thiers and his friends had not prepared 
 the public for every exaggeration and accustomed 
 them to it. 
 
 The men who sound the tocsin for revolutions 
 would sound it in vain if they had not previously 
 been assisted by the moderate men, who make them- 
 selves accomplices by exciting anarchical passions, 
 and by placing their personal resentment before their 
 duty to the country. 
 
 To-day, in the enforced calm produced by years 
 and solitude, going over in my conscience my inmost 
 recollections, I venture to assert that this was not a 
 fault which can be imputed to M. Berryer or his 
 friends. He constantly set us an example of patriot- 
 ism, overruling that collective selfishness called party 
 spirit. To sacrifice every private view so as to 
 remain absolutely faithful to the permanent interests 
 of the country, this was the rule which M. Berryer 
 perpetually inculcated, and which he invariably prac- 
 tised himself. All his speeches go to prove the truth 
 of this, but nowhere does this sentiment appear in a 
 clearer light than in his support of the Spanish 
 marriages, a support which he did not hesitate to
 
 218 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 declare from the tribune, although it was not shared 
 upon any of the benches of the Opposition. In the 
 debate on the address of 1847, it had been frequently 
 asserted that the marriage of the Due de Montpensier 
 with an Infanta of Spain, and that of the young 
 Queen Isabella with her cousin Don Francis d'Assisi, 
 isolated France in Europe, and placed her in the 
 inferior position of one against four. 
 
 M. Berryer's pride would not listen to this argu- 
 ment, and the tone in which he rejected it was worth 
 hearing. " One against four ! " he exclaimed ; "I do 
 not want to bluster, but I say, it is not in action that 
 such a position is detrimental to France, it is in the 
 negotiations, in the conferences, in the secret arrange- 
 ments of diplomatic conferences, it is in what you call 
 the European concert, that this position of France, 
 one against four, is a treason. But in the broad 
 open light of day, it is quite another thing! .... 
 They have their jealousies, their distrusts, their rival- 
 ries. We have our powerful unity, our attachment 
 to the right, our resolution to protect all those who 
 need that the right should uphold them in the world ; 
 we have that for our strength. We do not feel our- 
 selves dragged down by a Poland or an Ireland. We 
 are free, we have not even among us, thanks to our 
 character, to that which forms that character, on the 
 soil of France, the embarrassment of parties. I do 
 not know of any. . . . allow me to say it, I do not 
 know of one which contains a man so guilty, so little 
 worthy of being French, who, when you nobly,
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 219 
 
 proudly and sincerely lay the question of these great 
 French interests before Europe, when you deal with 
 the integrity of our influence and our rights, could 
 still feel party sentiments. No, I do not know of one 
 anywhere who could be so hateful ! "* 
 
 His language and conduct were equally loyal 
 at the approach of the revolution of February. M. 
 Berryer refused to join in the campaign of the ban- 
 quets, and he unceasingly pointed out its danger. 
 There was a temptation, no doubt, to applaud men 
 who turned against a Government formed by them- 
 selves those weapons which they had used with so 
 much effect against the Eestoration. We might have 
 found in this more than one cruel satisfaction, we 
 might have sought in it the sanction of those prin- 
 ciples to which we remained faithful in spite of many 
 reproaches. But this satisfaction, this sanction, ques- 
 tionable or not, might become fatal to France, and 
 this sufficed for conscience to make her scruples 
 heard and obeyed. 
 
 This revolution, which was allowed to approach 
 with such disregard of its possible consequences, this 
 revolution which M. Berryer discerned much more 
 clearly than those who were about to bring it about, 
 would it be the certain work of the justice of God 
 and the indispensable preface of a monarchical restora- 
 tion ? or would it be the blind outburst of passion and 
 hatred, the prelude to successive revolutions and the 
 
 • Berryer, " Discours parlementaires," vol. iv. pp. 181 and 
 182. (Paris, 1874.)
 
 220 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 continued progress of public demoralisation ? M. 
 Berryer would not take upon himself to boldly decide 
 this alternative; he resolved to abstain from the 
 campaign of banquets, and he induced his friends to 
 abstain from it with him. Not wishing to speak or 
 act in the name of a monarchy, the origin of which 
 he disapproved, he would not either speak or act 
 against the fundamental interests of society. When 
 these interests were in peril he defended them as 
 sincerely and as warmly as if the crown were still on 
 the head of his king and the power in his own hands. 
 I have already said, and I repeat, not, perhaps, for 
 the last time, that if M. Berryer possessed one quality 
 even higher than his genius, it was his character. 
 
 When it came to a direct and, so to speak, hand- 
 to-hand struggle with the Government, when M. 
 Duchatel had officially announced his intention of 
 forbidding the banquet at the Chateau Eouge, the 
 Left itself hesitated. It was in the habit of assem- 
 bling in the entresol of the Cafe de la Madeleine. A 
 general convocation of all sections of the Opposition, 
 including that of the Eight, was made for the even- 
 ing of the 21st or 22nd of February. M. Berryer 
 attended it, he spoke twice, and made the most 
 generous efforts to prove to the Opposition that it 
 was placing itself upon ground which would give 
 way under its feet. M. de Lamartine, in passionate 
 words, rejected all councils of prudence and modera- 
 tion. He was then enjoying, with a kind of intoxi- 
 cation, the return of popularity which his History of
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 221 
 
 the Girondins had won for him. He boldly posed as 
 a man who, no longer content to narrate great 
 events, aspired to play his part in them. 
 
 M. Odilon Barrot presided over the meeting with 
 ill-humour and visible discouragement. He had always 
 — I have since been able to convince myself of this — 
 the most loyal intentions, but he was rarely in the 
 secret of what he did. He was an eloquent La Fayette, 
 always as ready to harangue the National Guard as 
 General de La Fayette had always been to assemble it. 
 Both of them sincerely lamented on the morrow the 
 mistakes and crimes of the previous day, but neither 
 of them ever dreamed of guarding against them. M. 
 Odilon Barrot did not, therefore, come to this meeting 
 primed with carefully thought-out resolutions or con- 
 clusions. "There is no man in the whole world who 
 thinks so deeply — of nothing ! " said his friend M. 
 Bersot to me one day. It would be truer to say 
 that M. Odilon Barrot thought and saw, but that he 
 had neither forethought nor foresight. On the 22nd 
 and 23rd of February he did not conceal the danger 
 of the attack, but he did not understand in time the 
 urgency of retreat. M. de Lamartine dazzled and led 
 him on. 
 
 As to M. Thiers, he found means of being neither 
 absent nor present, and of passing his troops in review 
 without taking the chief command. At the meeting 
 in the Cafe de la Madeleine he remained at the door of 
 the room all the time, seeing and hearing everything, 
 sometimes laying stress by a sign of the head or a
 
 222 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 gesture of the hand upon the most vehement expres- 
 sions, but never once uttering a word, and I should not 
 be astonished if his name never appeared in the official 
 report of the evening. When the discussion became 
 quite tumultuous, when it was quite clear that reason- 
 able language had no longer a chance of being heard, 
 M. Berryer retired : we followed him, and M. Thiers 
 came away with us too. M. Berryer, going to the Eue 
 des Petits Champs, took the boulevards ; M. de Eain- 
 neville and I, who lived on the left side of the river, 
 directed our steps towards the Place Louis XV. ; and 
 M. Thiers, who was going, if I remember aright, to 
 the Hotel d' Albufera, accompanied us as far as the Eue 
 du Faubourg Saint Honore. During this short walk 
 I said to M. Thiers, " Are you not alarmed at all that 
 we have just seen and heard ? " 
 
 " Not at all." 
 
 "But surely it greatly resembles the eve of a 
 revolution ! " 
 
 He lightly shrugged his shoulders and answered in 
 a tone of the frankest security, " A revolution ! a 
 revolution ! One can easily see that you are strange 
 to the Government, and that you do not know their 
 strength. I know it well ; it is ten times superior to 
 any possible riot. With a few thousand men under 
 command of my friend Marshal Bugeaud, I will answer 
 for anything. Excuse me, my dear M. de Falloux, for 
 telling you with a frankness which cannot offend you 
 that the Eestoration died foolishly, and I guarantee that 
 we shall not die as it did. The National Guard will
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 223 
 
 give Guizot a good lesson. The King has a quick ear, 
 he will listen to reason and yield in time." 
 
 "With that M. Thiers left us. M. de Eainneville and 
 I went on our way repeating to ourselves, " After all, 
 M. Thiers may be right ! The King and his Ministers 
 are so well prepared for defence that no one will dare 
 to attack them ! " 
 
 On the morrow the Chamber of Deputies seemed to 
 realise this prophecy. The majority arrived full of 
 confidence in the strength of the Cabinet, and M. 
 Guizot full of confidence in the King's firmness ; but, 
 suddenly, the President of the Council mounted to the 
 tribune, and with a depressed air, but calm voice, 
 announced that M. Mole had been summoned to the 
 Tuileries to form and preside over a new Cabinet. 
 No one can form any idea of the explosion of murmurs 
 which greeted this unexpected declaration. " This is 
 treachery ! It means a revolt ! It means the King's 
 abdication ! It's a revolution ! " M. Guizot's im- 
 passiveness was in striking contrast to these clamours. 
 It was soon understood that it did not suit him either 
 to complain or to accuse, and the cry, " To the 
 Tuileries ! to the Tuileries ! " was raised. Most of the 
 deputies rushed headlong from the hall, some to 
 represent to the King that by abandoning M. Guizot 
 he was abandoning his own cause ; the others, that if 
 his intention was to calm Paris by the sacrifice of a 
 minister, it was not M. Mole* but M. Thiers who would 
 succeed the best under the circumstances. 
 
 The Legitimist group, which had not the right to
 
 224 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 offer any counsels at the Tuileries, remained sitting 
 patriotically anxious, and asking itself with real 
 sincerity, as it had continually done for some days, 
 in what direction the safety of the country, and 
 consequently its duty, lay. 
 
 The whole day was allowed to pass without any re- 
 solution being come to ; kf the evening, or during the 
 night, M. Thiers was sent for by the King. At six 
 o'clock in the morning he was Minister, at seven he was 
 reduced to impotence. The troops received orders, some 
 to withdraw, others to pile arms. By noon the King 
 had abdicated. At the same hour M. Thiers and M. 
 Odilon Barrot left the Ministry of the Interior and 
 entered the Palais Bourbon, but their attitude differed 
 very much : M. Thiers, very agitated, too much so for 
 a man who had assumed so grave a responsibility, 
 passed quickly through the hall in which the tribune is 
 placed, and I heard him ask by what door he could get 
 out, although the door was open in front of him. His 
 personal friends followed him to watch over his safety. 
 M. Odilon Barrot, less quickly undeceived, better 
 upheld by his optimism, relates in his Memoires how 
 much trouble he had to understand, and even leaves it 
 doubtful whether he ever did understand, the move- 
 ment of which he believed himself to be the master for 
 several hours. The hope of securing the Eegency for 
 the Duchesse d'Orleans had not yet left him, and in 
 this hope he laboured loyally and courageously to the 
 end. 
 
 Between one and two o'clock, the Duchesse d'Or-
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 225 
 
 leans was introduced into the Palais Bourbon, and 
 took her seat in the interior of the Chamber on the 
 raised benches in the centre. History has recorded 
 the events of this dramatic and unlucky day. I need 
 not then retrace it here, and shall only mention what 
 concerns the honour of my friends. 
 
 We had reached the Chamber, now declared to be 
 permanently sitting, at eight o'clock. Fresh tidings 
 succeeded each other from minute to minute, and 
 everything showed how the crisis was hurrying on. 
 None of us, I venture to assert, had any idea of making 
 sport of the vanquished. Besides, the catastrophe had 
 something so strange and sudden about it that men 
 sank and disappeared as though in a whirlpool. 
 
 M. Lamartine shared for a moment M. Barrot's 
 illusions, but he had received more confidential infor- 
 mation, and when in the tribune changed the con- 
 clusion of his speech, and deserted the Eegency for the 
 Republic, securing the first place in it for himself. 
 At the same time he endeavoured to calm the move- 
 ment, and managed to bring up the least dangerous 
 names from the improvised ballot. He invited M. 
 Berryer, who told me of the proposal at the time, to 
 enter the Provisionary Government, but M. Berryer 
 unhesitatingly refused. 
 
 M. de Gcnoude did not scruple to enter the tribune, 
 and in a moment of relative silence he brought forward 
 the proposal of universal suffrage. " Gentlemen," he 
 said, " nothing can be done without the assistance of 
 the country. In 1830 you neglected to appeal to the 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 country, and you see where you now are. It will be 
 the same thing to-day ! " M. de Genoude was 
 promptly forced to descend from the tribune. He 
 had not gained either authority or sympathy in the 
 Chamber. M. Barrot undertook to refute him. " Is 
 it possible," he exclaimed, "that any one wishes to 
 recur to the great questions which were decided by 
 the revolution of July?" Then M. Barrot, in his 
 turn, was replaced and refuted by M. Ledru-Eollin. 
 " You pretend that this ephemeral Government of July 
 exists," cried the ephemeral dictator of the 24th of 
 February. " In the name of the rights of all, I pro- 
 test against this usurpation of the people's rights. I 
 demand a Provisional Government, and the immediate 
 appeal to a convention ! " To this declaration he added 
 the proclamation of universal and direct suffrage. He 
 nad the last word. 
 
 M. de Lamartine and M. Ledru-Eollin remained the 
 representatives and the living personifications of that 
 day, even while they reserved, as we then believed, 
 the right to separate and oppose each other when the 
 time for doing so came. 
 
 From the moment of the hall being invaded by the 
 rioters, although in small numbers, we fixed our eyes 
 upon the Duchesse d' Orleans and the two sons whom 
 she held by the hand with respectful solicitude. 
 Legislators can only represent legal force. When 
 they are suddenly brought into direct contact with 
 violence their position becomes very painful and bor- 
 ders on the ridiculous. To leave one's post resembles
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 227 
 
 an act of personal prudence; to remain immovable 
 and unarmed upon one's bench is the only possible 
 protest under the circumstances. We therefore re- 
 mained in our seats, quite resolved to close round the 
 Duchesse d' Orleans and her children, and to defend 
 them in concert with their friends, if any one had 
 attempted to lay hands upon them. But our surprise 
 increased when we found that the President of the 
 Chamber did not send for a single battalion, and that 
 General Bedeau, stationed on the Place Louis XV., 
 at the head of a brigade, did not take upon himself to 
 march to the scene of danger, as in a campaign a 
 general would march upon the cannon, without waiting 
 for orders. How this suspense ended every one knows. 
 A sufficient number of rioters were allowed to cross 
 the Place Louis XY. to scatter the Eegency to the 
 winds, and the Duchesse d' Orleans was hastily got 
 out of the Palais Bourbon. 
 
 It was only after these events had been accom- 
 plished, after our powerlessness was painfully proved, 
 that the small group on the right dispersed. On 
 leaving I met in the area reserved for the peers the 
 Due de Fezensac, conducting the Baronne de Vins, 
 the lady in attendance on the Duchesse d' Orleans. 
 M. de Fezensac was in a hurry to reach the Luxem- 
 burg, lie confided to me the duty of seeing after 
 Madame de Yins, and I did not leave her until I had 
 placed her in safe hands. Once free, I returned to 
 the Place du Palais Bourbon, by the small door lead- 
 ing from the Eue de Bourgogne. Everything was as 
 
 q2
 
 228 MEMOIES OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 peaceful as usual. I had scarcely made a few steps 
 up the street when I was accosted by the Marquis de 
 Goutaut St. Blancard : " Well, well ! what has hap- 
 pened ? " he said quickly. 
 
 "Why, a revolution," I rejoined, " and the leaders 
 of it are now leaving for the Hotel de Yille ; " and in 
 a few words I related all the details of our sitting. 
 While listening he said — 
 
 "But I can't get over my surprise." 
 
 " I who have just seen it cannot get over my sur- 
 prise either." 
 
 We went up the Eue St. Dominique together, he 
 on his way to the Hotel Goutaut, and I to go to 
 Madame Swetchine, who was not less astonished than 
 M. de St. Blancard. 
 
 From there I hurried to my own house in the Eue 
 du Bac to reassure my family, for the excitement 
 quickly spread through Paris. The evening was very 
 tumultuous. The Marseillaise made its usual appear- 
 ance ; songs and sinister cries were mingled with it. 
 Guns were fired, and petards exploded nearly all 
 through the night in sign of joy. It was evident that 
 the life of the Provisional Government would not be 
 pleasant, and that it would be outflanked, if not pulled 
 up short. 
 
 One of the veterans of the Eoyalist press, M. Pou- 
 joulat, thus describes, with the most perfect accuracy, 
 the day which followed this strange and sudden revo- 
 lution :
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 229 
 
 "Church, magistracy, all the political parties, were merged 
 in the mutual assent, in the common encouragement given to 
 the men who were sincerely struggling against anarchy. The 
 Legitimists, who were not the defeated party, and whose per- 
 severing opposition was justified by events, entered into this 
 movement, with a satisfaction easily understood, and with sin- 
 cere patriotism No government was ever founded with 
 
 more true and general support." * 
 
 This assent explained itself, moreover, by the situa- 
 tion of the monarchical party itself. The royal house 
 was not yet reconciled, the august representative ot 
 the principle of hereditary succession being separated 
 from his heirs, a free career was therefore open to 
 the Eepublic, which would only have found itself con- 
 fronted by adversaries without cohesion, and conse- 
 quently without strength. This was universally felt 
 without any preliminary arrangement and by spon- 
 taneous instinct. For this once the Eepublicans 
 themselves were well aware of the advantages of 
 their position. 
 
 The Moniteur of the Provisionary Government, 
 that is to say the Moniteur of M. Ledru-Eollin and of 
 M. Louis Blanc, not only was afraid of saying one 
 hostile word to the Legitimists, but made a point of 
 addressing an appeal to the old parties and of 
 announcing each morning the pledges of pacification 
 which came in from all sides. 
 
 On the 29th of February this journal invoked the 
 patronage of one of the most important and respected 
 
 • Poujoulat, Hutoire de France, depuit 1814 jusqu'au tempt 
 present (1814—1869), vol. iv. p. 329.
 
 230 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 men in the Eoyalist provinces of the "West, Comte 
 Theodore de Quatrebarbes, afterwards a brother-in- 
 arms of La Moriciere in the service of the Sovereign 
 Pontiff Pius IX., and wrote as follows : — 
 
 " M. de Quatrebarbes, deputy, and a member of the Legiti- 
 mist party, has just left for the departments of Brittany and La 
 Vendee charged with a political mission from his friends in Paris. 
 They have decided that, under the circumstances in which our 
 country now finds itself placed, it is necessary for all Frenchmen 
 to use their influence and their authority to prevent divisions s 
 and to put an immediate end to them if, unhappily, they should 
 break out at any point." * 
 
 It is difficult to realise at the present day, when 
 women are wont to refrain from joining such move- 
 ments, that then they were willing enough to do 
 so. Thus, in its issue of 11th of March, 1848, the 
 Moniteur announced that the leaders of the Faubourg 
 Saint - Germain, the Marquise de Lagrange, the 
 Comtesse de la Bouillerie, the Marquise de Bien- 
 court, &c, &c, had joined in a charitable work with 
 Mesdames Dupont (de l'Eure), Ledru-Eollin, Flocon, 
 Cremieux, &c, &c. 
 
 The same attitude was assumed by the Catholics. 
 Pere Lacordaire and Pere de Eavignan at Notre- 
 Dame, and M. de Montalembert in the Chamber of 
 Peers, had since 1830 strenuously endeavoured, under 
 the auspices of the episcopate, to place the religious 
 apologia and controversy quite outside all dynastic 
 affections, substituting for the alliance between the 
 
 * Moniteur, the 29th of February, 1848.
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 231 
 
 throne and the altar the reconciliation between the 
 Church and liberty. They had fully succeeded and 
 had made unquestionable progress in this direction, 
 when their efforts received an unexpected encourage- 
 ment, we might say a coronation, by the accession of 
 Pius IX. 
 
 The Sovereign Pontiff, elected in 1846, had had 
 two years in which his magnanimous intentions had 
 been welcomed and blessed by the whole of Europe, 
 not even excepting Constantinople. The popularity 
 of his name was unequalled when the consequences of 
 the February revolution made themselves felt in 
 Pome, as in Vienna and Berlin ; but if the revolu- 
 tion of February was fatal to the reign of Pius IX., 
 Pius IX., on the contrary, rendered a great service to 
 the February revolution. He freed it from the old 
 revolutionary routine. He taught it that minds could 
 be opened to every modern aspiration while making 
 the sign of the cross. He raised up allies, defenders 
 even, for the Church amongst those who a few years 
 previously had uttered blasphemies or threats. At 
 the time when these lines are being written, one 
 would not always be believed, if content to assert a 
 fact in words only ; witnesses must be called and they 
 must be authentic. 
 
 The movement of the clergy was a very earnest 
 one. On the 7th of March the Archbishop of Paris, 
 accompanied by two grand vicars, addressed to 
 M. Dupont (de l'Eure), the President of the Pro- 
 visional Government, the following words : —
 
 232 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 "I have not come to make a formal manifestation 
 to you. You know my sentiments ; I have expressed 
 them in my public actions. But I am happy to tell 
 you that you may feel sure of the loyal assistance of 
 all the clergy in Paris. This is not a protest about 
 which I am uncertain. I have seen ecclesiastics in 
 every part of my diocese display the most ardent wish 
 /to assist public order, so far as the functions with 
 which they are charged will allow them to do so." 
 
 M. Dupont (de l'Eure) replied : "The Provisional 
 Government receives your adhesion to the Govern- 
 ment of the French Eepublic with the liveliest satis- 
 faction. Liberty and religion are two sisters equally 
 interested in living harmoniously together. We rely 
 upon your assistance, and upon that of the clergy, 
 as you may rely upon the kindly feelings of the Pro- 
 visional Government." * 
 
 A few days afterwards M. Carnot,f the then 
 Minister of Public Instruction and Worship, ad- 
 dressed to the Archbishop and Bishops of France a 
 circular which ended thus : "Do not allow the priests 
 of your diocese to forget that, citizens by their par- 
 ticipation in every political right, they are children 
 of the great French family, and that in the electoral 
 assemblies, on the benches of the National Assembly 
 to Avhich the confidence of their fellow-citizens may 
 call them, they have only one interest to defend, that 
 
 * Moniteur of the 8th March, 1848. 
 
 f The father of the President of the Eepublic, recently 
 deceased.
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 233 
 
 of the country, closely bound up with that of 
 religion." * 
 
 The Apostolic Nuncio wrote to M. de Lamartine, 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs : — 
 
 " Monsieur le Ministre, 
 
 ' ' I have the honour to inform you that I have received the 
 communication which you have made to me, dated to-day, the 
 27th of February, and I will at once forward it to our Holy 
 Father, Pope Pius IX. 
 
 "I cannot resist taking advantage of this opportunity to 
 express to you the warm and profound satisfaction with which I 
 have been inspired by the respect shown by the people of Paris 
 towards religion, in the midst of the great events which have 
 just taken place. I am convinced that the paternal heart of 
 Pius IX. will be profoundly touched by it, and that the common 
 Father of the Faithful will invoke the blessings of God upon 
 France with all his soul. 
 
 " P., ARCHBISHOr OF Nice, N.A." f 
 
 Finally, the Sovereign Pontiff himself deigned to 
 write to M. de Montalembert as follows : — 
 
 " Important and unforeseen events have changed the aspect of 
 France. We give many thanks to God in the humility of our 
 hearts, in that, amid all these great changes, no insult was 
 offered to religion or to its ministers. We take pleasure in the 
 thought that this moderation is partly due to your eloquence and 
 to that of the other Catholic orators, who have endeared our 
 name to this generous people. 
 
 "Kome, 16th March, 1848." 
 
 The Univcrs—a,t that date the chief organ of the 
 Catholics and clergy — the Univers, always extreme in 
 the various causes it successively espoused, or rather 
 embraced, published on the 27th of February, the 
 following article : — 
 
 • Moniteur of the 13th March, 1848. 
 
 f Mgr. Fornari, Moniteur of the 29th of February, 1848. 
 
 S
 
 234 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 " Who dreams to-day of defending the Monarchy in France? 
 Who can dream of it ? France believed herself to be still 
 monarchical, she was already republican. Yesterday she was 
 amazed at this, to-day she is not even surprised. Recovering 
 from her first troubled impulse, she ■will wisely, courageously, 
 invincibly endeavour to give herself institutions which harmo- 
 nise with the doctrines that she has long since definitively 
 accepted. 
 
 " The Monarchy succumbs under the weight of its faults : no 
 one contributed to its ruin so zealously as itself. Immoral with 
 Louis XIV., scandalous with Louis XV., despotic with Napoleon, 
 unintelligent even in 1830, crafty, not to say worse, even in 1848, 
 it has seen the numbers and energy of those who believed it to 
 be still necessary successively diminish. To-day it no longer has 
 any partisans .... we do not believe in the inabenable right 
 of crowns. The Gallican theology has exclusively consecrated 
 the divine right of kings. Before it and above it Catholic theo- 
 logy has proclaimed the divine right of the people. There is 
 only one will which should always be more respected than the 
 will of all men : this is not the will of another man, it is that oi 
 God. 
 
 "If we had been able to believe that the salvation of the 
 Church was linked to such or such a form of government, the 
 spectacle which Monarchy has given us for the last century and 
 a half throughout the world, and the last trial of it which we 
 have just had in France, would have undeceived us. 
 
 " What was it that the Church liked in the Monarchy? A 
 
 principle of order. What was it she dreaded in the Republic, 
 
 •previous to the encouraging spectacle which the United States 
 
 gave to her and to the world ? The lamentable recollection of 
 
 an anarchy which was for her the negation of all Hberty. 
 
 " Let the French Eepublic at last place the Church in posses- 
 sion of that liberty which thrones refuse her or seek to deprive 
 her of, and there would be no better or more sincere Republicans 
 than French Catholics. 
 
 " Among the social principles which have just triumphed, and 
 which are about to form themselves into institutions, what are 
 those which the Church rejects?" * 
 
 * Univers of the 27th of February, 1848.
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 235 
 
 In Paris the movement was summed up in a striking 
 and really solemn occurrence. At the height of the 
 struggle, on the very scene of their triumphs in the 
 Tuileries, the invaders were seen to suspend the 
 pillage, to pause on the threshold of the chapel, to 
 uncover, and, in compliance with the voice of a pupil 
 of the ficole Polytechnique, march silently towards 
 the altar, detach the crucifix from it, withdraw the 
 sacred vases from the tabernacle, and respectfully 
 escort them to the church of Saint Eoch, where they 
 deposited them in the hands of the clergy. 
 
 Upon the Sunday following the Revolution, Pere 
 Lacordaire calmly appeared in the pulpit of Notre- 
 Dame, robed in the habit of the Dominicans, as if 
 nothing had happened on the previous evening, and 
 he was obliged to repress in the course of his sermon 
 not murmurs but applause. Thus justice and grati- 
 tude spoke by his mouth when he pronounced these 
 words : — 
 
 "We are at one of those hours when God discovers himself. 
 Yesterday He entered our walls ; all the earth saw Him. Can 
 I then he silent before Him ? Dare I restrain, upon my trem- 
 bling lips, the prayer of a man who, once in his life, has seen 
 his God near at hand ? 
 
 " God ! who hast struck these terrible blows — God, tho 
 judge of kings and the arbiter of the world — look favourably 
 upon this ancient French people, the eldest son of Thy right 
 hand and of Thy Church. Remember its past services and Thy 
 early blessings ; renew with it the old alliance which made it 
 Thy servant, appeal to its heart which was so full of Thee, 
 and which, in the first flush of a victory where nothing royal 
 was spared, gave Thee the pledges of the empire which in future 
 it only acknowledges in Thee. God, just and holy! by this
 
 236 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 cross of Thy Son which their hands carried from the profaned 
 palace of the kings to the spotless palace of Thy Spouse, watch 
 over us, protect and enlighten us ; prove to the world once more 
 that a people which respects and loves Thee is a people saved ! " * 
 
 In the departments this adhesion made itself mani- 
 fest by unexceptional symptoms. The people applied 
 to the priest to bless the tree of liberty, and on the 
 / day of the elections, in most of the communes and in 
 all parts of the country, the electors put the priest at 
 their head, or in their ranks, as they marched to the 
 poll. 
 
 " This did not turn out well," will be said in chorus 
 by those, both priests and laymen, to whom these 
 quotations are distasteful. 
 
 They will be wrong, for to this the Eoyalists owed 
 their being aroused in greater numbers from an inac- 
 tion which since 1830 had enchained their devotion 
 and weighed on their patriotism. They also suc- 
 ceeded in getting themselves better understood by 
 causing their principles, their loyalty and their talents 
 to be more justly appreciated, in coming to an under- 
 standing with their former adversaries, who from that 
 time became their faithful allies, in thus acting upon 
 events more than they had been able to do for many 
 years, and in regaining in 1871 the public esteem 
 and receiving at that time of universal suffrage a new 
 vote of confidence. 
 
 The Eepublicans gained by repudiating the horrible 
 traditions of their forerunners of 1793, by showing to 
 
 * Conferences de Notre-Lame, vol. ii. pp. 486, 487.
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 237 
 
 France for a time a republic which seemed to escape 
 from the terrible dilemma shadowed forth by M. Thiers. 
 They are still to-day gaining by having survived the 
 failure of monarchical attempts and by remaining, 
 according to their wisdom or their folly, masters of 
 their own duration. 
 
 Lastly, everybody gained by mutually defending 
 and safeguarding the fundamental principles of social 
 order, and in our age that counts for something. 
 
 In his youth, Alexis de Tocquevillc wrote (24th 
 July, 1836):— 
 
 "What has always impressed me most in my country, espe- 
 cially for the last few years, is to find arrayed upon one side the 
 men who value morality, religion, and order, and upon the other 
 those who love liberty and the equality of all men in the eyes of 
 the law. This strikes me as the most extraordinary and deplor- 
 able spectacle, for all these things which we thus separate are, 
 I am certain, indissolubly united in the eyes of God. 
 
 ' ' From this time forth, it has seemed to me as if one of the 
 noblest enterprises of our time would be to show that all these 
 things are not incompatible, that, on the contrary, they are 
 linked together by a necessary bond, in such a way that each of 
 
 them is weakened by separation from the other If pure 
 
 and honourable men would love liberty as they love virtue, these 
 two things would rehabilitate each other, and we should be 
 saved." • 
 
 "There is no chance of mastering the evil passions of the 
 people except by sharing those which are good." f 
 
 In his riper years, M. de Tocquevillc saw for a 
 time the realisation of his noble wishes. He himself, 
 as he had hoped, had been able to take part in an 
 experiment the fruits of which have not yet disap- 
 
 • Correspondance de Tocqtieville, vol. i. p. 432. 
 f NonveUe Correspondance de Tocqucrille. p. 183.
 
 238 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 peared. He at all events survives as a great example 
 of what liberty would gain by remaining Christian, 
 "i:he example of what the Catholics would gain by 
 remaining friends of liberty. 
 
 We could not do anything with regard to the 
 power that had just installed itself at the Hotel de 
 Yille ; we could not do anything to calm or to 
 enlighten the faubourgs of Paris, in which a growing 
 fermentation was excited or maintained. Henceforth 
 what concerned us the most was to know how the 
 new revolution would be received in the departments. 
 Very naturally, the departments of the West became 
 the object of my first consideration. The Legitimist 
 party included numerous adherents in Poitou, Anjou, 
 and Brittany. What use would be made of these 
 forces ? Would the parliamentary Legitimists protest 
 by their candidature, or by their abstention ? Would 
 the Legitimists, who received their instructions from 
 the Due des Cars, think that the moment had come 
 for them to display their military organisation ? There 
 was not an instant to lose in making a decision and 
 giving some advice. The first impulse might save or 
 compromise everything. The Comte de Quatrebarbes 
 and myself, both deputies for the Maine-et-Loire, 
 were quite agreed. 
 
 We resolved to leave for Anjou immediately, to 
 exhort our friends to beware of the least attempt at 
 civil war, the sole and infallible result of whicli 
 would be to attract the scum of Paris to the West, 
 and to bring incalculable misfortunes upon popula-
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 239 
 
 tions which it was our duty to warn before they 
 committed themselves to a fatal course. M. de 
 Quatrebarbes' approbation of this line of conduct 
 was a great reason for my confidence in it. He was 
 an accomplished model of chivalrous honour, and at 
 the same time a very original type, a singular mixture 
 of great intelligence with a few weaknesses of judg- 
 ment. He had a legitimate and aristocratic pride, in 
 the best sense of the term, and combined charming good 
 nature with a perfect comprehension of modern society. 
 Perhaps he admired the past, as a whole, a little too 
 much, but no one could study modern requirements 
 more conscientiously, and what he had not learnt by 
 study would certainly have been revealed to him by 
 his own heart, his natural generosity and his piety, 
 which was as enlightened as it was ardent. 
 
 On his return from a voyage in Germany, ho 
 wittily said to me, " I will summarise in two words 
 what I see in the Comte de Chambord : He is Henry 
 IY. corrected by Saint Louis." To which I answered, 
 "May God hear you, my friend, for, as far as I am 
 concerned, I could content myself with Charles X. 
 corrected by Louis XVIII." Something of his defini- 
 tion might he applied to himself. M. de Quatrebarbes 
 was a knight of the thirteenth century, completed by 
 a clever man of the nineteenth. 
 
 The Comtesse de Quatrebarbes was not in Paris at 
 the time of the February revolution. M. de Quatre- 
 barbes was therefore free to leave for Angers 
 immediately, and he started full of firmness and
 
 240 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 animated by the sentiments which we shared in 
 common. My preparations for the journey did not 
 take much longer; but the means of communication 
 were not at that time what they are now, and as I 
 did not wish to leave my wife and daughter on the 
 road, I was forced to stop at Tours, which was then 
 the railway terminus. The rest of the journey had to 
 be made in public coaches, which we found very 
 crowded. Posting was impossible at that date, so we 
 were obliged to remain forty-eight hours at Tours. 
 Unable to confer with my friends in Anjou as soon 
 as I had intended, I determined at all events to write 
 to them, and I addressed myself to one of them, M. 
 Bougler, a clever scholar, who was very familiar 
 with the history of the revolution, and who was 
 well known and very influential in Angers. I 
 depicted to him in three hurried pages my impres- 
 sions of the events which I had just witnessed. I 
 begged him above all things to oppose anything 
 like inconsiderate action. Instead of spinning out my 
 letter in the Union de V Ouest, of which he had the 
 ear, and making it appear as if it was his own, M. 
 J3ougler thought my signature would be useful, and 
 without consulting or waiting for me he printed the 
 premature expression of my thoughts, word for word. 
 However, I never reproached him for it. My letter 
 was reproduced, and very generally praised in the 
 Legitimist papers, which adopted it as more or less 
 the programme of the moment. 
 
 Later on, this letter was made the object of a
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 241 
 
 double accusation. The organs of the Left treated it 
 as a concerted and deliberate manifesto, and they took 
 the opportunity to exclaim against the recantation, 
 and even the treason, of the whole Royalist party. 
 On the other hand, when the extreme Right con- 
 sidered that it would be advisable to break with the 
 moderate Right, my so-called manifesto was once 
 more brought forward against me. " How can a man,, 
 who spoke in these terms in 1848," they said, " aspire 
 to the honour of representing or of advising true and 
 pure Legitimists ? " In presence of these contra- 
 dictory accusations I never withdrew or disowned 
 any of it. After a lapse of thirty years, I neither 
 withdraw nor disown any of it. At home, no appeal 
 to violence, but a persevering appeal to moral and 
 legal forces, the only efficacious weapons of our time ;. 
 abroad, no emigration, no trust reposed in foreign 
 sympathies, which was the fatal error made by our 
 forefathers. It was still more fatal to France and to 
 the Monarchy ; and to make the same error after so* 
 many and such cruel experiences would be inexplic- 
 able and inexcusable. 
 
 As to the respect shown to religion by the Febru- 
 ary revolution, we must, to thoroughly understand it, 
 go back two years. 
 
 Before assuming the tiara, and calling himself 
 Pius IX., Cardinal Jean Mastai represented in the 
 Sacred College, with Cardinals Gizzi and Micara, a 
 liberalism based upon the most incontestable virtues. 
 The questions then disturbing Italy were not only 
 
 VOL I. R
 
 242 MEMOIES OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 political, they were above all Italian, and Cardinal 
 Masta'i was not less Italian than liberal. This Guelph 
 of ancient race, having ascended the pontifical throne, 
 was anxious to indicate immediately and effectually 
 the direction which he intended giving to his reign, 
 a bold attitude, which was greeted from East to West 
 by an almost unanimous cry of enthusiasm and confi- 
 dence. Italy vibrated with an electric commotion, 
 Germany became anxious, and France rejoiced. The 
 political world commenced to speak in a new tone, 
 hailing — while it also endeavoured to moderate in order 
 to render it practicable and durable — -this opportune, 
 this necessary rapprochement between the Papacy and 
 modern society. 
 
 Pius IX. attained, from the first day of his acces- 
 sion, a popularity which surpassed anything that is to 
 be found save in a very distant past. The generous 
 ambition of Pius IX. for the Holy See and for Italy 
 would, perhaps, have succeeded ; we should, perhaps, 
 have seen a Pope marking with a sure and respectful 
 hand the exact limit between ancient and modern 
 times but for the sudden shock of February. This 
 revolution disturbed the equilibrium in all countries, 
 in Yienna and Berlin as well as in Paris. Eome 
 shared the common danger ; for a few months longer 
 the bark of St. Peter rode the waves ; and when the 
 abominable murder of M. Eossi forced Pius IX. to 
 seek for an asylum in the heart of Italy, the fugitive 
 Pope remained, like the Pope on the throne, the 
 object of the respect and love of humanity. French
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 243 
 
 Catholics willingly entered the path traced out by 
 Pius IX. Like him, they won favour in public 
 opinion by so doing, with all the advantages which 
 naturally flow from a good moral position. This 
 spectacle of strict unity was presented to us from 
 one end of France to the other. The anxieties of the 
 first hour rapidly calmed. The clergy did not take 
 alarm ; the Legitimist party understood that the hour 
 of a new revolution was certainly not the hour for the 
 Monarchy. The fraction of the Legitimist party 
 which would willingly have qualified as a military 
 party good-humouredly followed the common im- 
 pulse, and no one advised or set the example of ill- 
 advised rashness. In spite of this sincere agreement 
 in a thoroughly loyal policy, the departments were in 
 the meanwhile involved in the greatest confusion. 
 
 Universal suffrage and the vote by scrutin de liste 
 came unexpectedly upon populations which could 
 not understand an electoral machinery so vast and so 
 different from that to which they were accustomed. 
 Each elector at first directed his attention and 
 made his combinations in the strict limits of his own 
 surroundings. Men of unquestioned seriousness and 
 intelligence were heard to say, after much reflection : 
 " Let us choose such and such of our neighbours. 
 They will have at least three thousand votes ! " By 
 degrees, and after great efforts, it began to be under- 
 stood that the successful candidates must have at 
 least fifty or sixty thousand votes, and that to obtain 
 them the electoral list must combine the well-balanced 
 
 r2
 
 244 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 representation of the various interests and various 
 districts of the whole department. 
 
 "When these indispensable preliminaries had been 
 got through, the serious elaboration of the lists com- 
 menced. M. de Quatrebarbes and I, the two out- 
 going deputies, would not conclude or even propose 
 anything, without being conscientiously assured of 
 the opinion of our friends from all parts of the depart- 
 ment. In order to ascertain this, we took the initia- 
 tive by summoning to Angers all the most influential 
 men. The place named for the meeting was the vast 
 drawing-room of Comte Anatole de Caqueray, the 
 eldest son of the venerable Comte de Caqueray, for 
 many years deputy for Maine-et-Loire, and univer- 
 sally esteemed in Anjou. This meeting was not 
 intended to be public. But the Eepublicans heard of 
 it, and took umbrage at it. M. de Caqueray received 
 a long letter, in which it was pointed out to him 
 that the Legitimist party could not be allowed to 
 conspire in secret, that this official warning was sent 
 him in his own interest and that of his friends, 
 with the addendum that if no notice were taken 
 of it M. de Caqueray would be held personally 
 responsible. 
 
 Certain unmistakable symptoms confirmed the tone 
 of this letter, and we were forced to take them into 
 account. Some of our friends proposed to counter- 
 mand the meeting and to substitute for it individual 
 and written arguments ; others proposed meetings in 
 various districts and at various intervals. I opposed
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 245 
 
 both these proposals, maintaining that we were face to 
 face with the commencement of a terrorism which must 
 be resisted from the first, and that if, by a retreat 
 more or less disguised on our part, threats prevailed, 
 and violence secured the right to dictate, there would 
 be an end, first to electoral liberty, and afterwards to 
 many other liberties as well. 
 
 I therefore proposed that we should only abandon 
 our private meeting in order to summon a public one. 
 My motion was ultimately adopted, and we had then 
 only to consider what place we should select. We 
 were anxious for that which would contain the largest 
 audience, and we decided upon an old building in the 
 very centre of the town, which had been used already 
 for several popular meetings, and which was called the 
 Merchants' Palace. 
 
 The meeting was fixed for Sunday, the 12th of 
 March : the Union de V Ouest invited all its readers ; 
 no one was refused admission, and the hall was 
 crowded. M. de Quatrebarbes and myself were chosen 
 to speak, and we arranged in the morning as to what 
 we were to say in the evening. 
 
 " The more I reflect upon your advice," said M. de 
 Quatrebarbes, "the more I believe that we were right 
 to follow it ; but I confess that I find it rather em- 
 barrassing to know what to say. As the February 
 movement assumes a more definite form, it inclines 
 more and more towards the traditions of the worst 
 days of previous revolutions. Proudhon's socialism 
 outdoes Ledru-Rollin's Jacobinism, and I cannot
 
 246 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 "bring myself to utter praise which my conscience 
 does not confirm." 
 
 "I quite grant you that; but no one dreams of 
 asking you to express an unqualified approbation, 
 which, for my own part, I shall certainly not 
 give." 
 
 "That is not all," he resumed. " I feel reluctant 
 to pronounce the word Eepublic itself." 
 
 "Beluctance to pronounce the name when we sub- 
 mit to the thing, does not appear very reasonable, for 
 one cannot make anything disappear by passing it 
 over in silence. However, do not be anxious about 
 that : I shall, if necessary, be a little more logical 
 than you are, and I will pay toll for us both. I will 
 pronounce the name of the Eepublic as soon as I begin 
 to speak, without assuming any responsibility for it. 
 Far from following the example of the Univers and of 
 a few Catholics, far from insulting the past, I shall 
 clearly allude to the contingency of a return to the 
 Monarchy." 
 
 Hereupon M. de Quatrebarbes showed himself much 
 relieved. However, he commenced by expressing a 
 fear that I might go too far, and he went on to say, 
 with visible anxiety, "Well, what do you intend to 
 say ? " 
 
 "I intend to tell the truth such as you and I pro- 
 fessed it before the 24th of February. I intend to say 
 that preoccupation about the poorer classes is a 
 Christian sentiment, that the Church has been from all 
 times the patroness, the mother, of working men, and
 
 THE REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY. 247 
 
 I venture to assure you that I shall gain some applause 
 by my eulogy of the Pope." 
 
 When the evening arrived, M. de Quatrebarbes and I 
 went together to the Merchants' Palace. We went up 
 by ourselves to a large platform, whence we were 
 visible from all parts of the hall, and from which we 
 could distinctly see everybody in it. The leaders of 
 the local democracy, several of whom could speak very 
 effectively, occupied the first benches. The natural 
 mildness of the Angevin population and the parliament- 
 ary appearance which the February revolution still 
 wished to affect excluded any fear of personal danger, 
 but we were necessarily prepared for systematic hos- 
 tility. There were present in the hall more than 
 enough men of talent to interpellate us and to stifle our 
 answers by clamour, to take advantage of our so-called 
 defeat on the morrow, and to boast of having forced us 
 to repent of our bravado. This was the plan formed, 
 as we afterwards learnt, but it was baffled, and, as I 
 maintain, baffled chiefly through the prestige and the 
 ascendency of the name of Pius IX. 
 
 Not only were we not interrupted, but no one replied 
 to us, and the most settled determinations were modi- 
 fied after a few minutes. The gloomiest countenances 
 expanded, signs of approbation were given, and then, 
 the ice once broken, applause broke out, was renewed, 
 and at last turned into a veritable ovation, which 
 pursued us even into the street. My speech and that 
 of M. de Quatrebarbes were printed on the following 
 day with as much accuracy as our memories would
 
 248 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 allow, and they afterwards became what was called 
 " one of the Machiavelian acts of the Legitimist party." 
 
 After the success of our meeting, our list of candi- 
 dates for the Constituent Assembly was speedily and 
 easily drawn up. It contained only three names 
 belonging to the Monarchical party : M. de Civrac, M. 
 de Quatrebarbes and my own. All the other candidates 
 nominated with us belonged to the rather advanced 
 liberal, yet conservative section, which styled itself the 
 Eepublican party. 
 
 My two friends and myself obtained nearly the same 
 number of votes, but I alone obtained the necessary 
 majority. The regrettable check experienced by MM. 
 de Civrac and de Quatrebarbes was, however, due solely 
 to local differences, without any political significance.
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. THE INVASION OF THE 
 
 ASSEMBLY. THE FIFTEENTH OF MAY. THE DAYS 
 
 OF JUNE. 
 
 1848. 
 
 Universal suffrage, which took the Conservative 
 party by surprise, did not find the revolutionary party 
 much better prepared. The despotism of the com- 
 missioners imposed upon every department by Ledru- 
 Kollin was disconcerted by the passive resistance of 
 the rural and even of the urban populations. The 
 date of the elections was fixed for Easter Day, with 
 the evident intention of preventing, as far as possible, 
 the Catholics from attending the poll ; but the choice 
 of such a day shocked the public instead of paralysing 
 it. The Provisional Government had decreed that the 
 votes should be taken in the chief town of the arron- 
 dissement. The Bishops gave full latitude for chang- 
 ing the hours of service. The priests marched 
 resolutely at the head of their parishes, and in many 
 districts which were not supposed to be very religious, 
 the electors made a point of having the clergy in their 
 ranks. The result of the poll was, therefore, the almost
 
 250 MEMOIKS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 faithful picture of France herself— resignation to the 
 Eepublic, anxiety without panic— a deliberate wish to 
 'struggle patiently against all excesses. The majority 
 of the candidates who put patriotism above party 
 spirit were elected. M. Guizot, who had left France 
 for a short time and had gone to England, did not 
 dream and could not dream of offering himself. M. 
 Thiers would have been less affected by the events of 
 the 24th of February, if he had not publicly shown 
 his discouragement. He, therefore, like M. Guizot, 
 did not figure in the general election, and it needed 
 the alarm of the 15th of May to induce the Conser- 
 vative party to remove from M. Thiers the ostracism 
 which had been passed upon him. M. Dufaure, M. 
 de Eemusat, and M. Odilon Barrot returned to take 
 their places on the Left, with a slight advance in 
 opinions, particularly M. Dufaure. M. Berryer could 
 not remain in a retreat which, if prolonged, would 
 have been a cause of mourning for the national 
 tribune. He reappeared in the Constituent Assembly 
 with several of his former comrades-in-arms — MM. 
 Benoist d'Azy, de Larcy, and de la Eochejacquelein. 
 Important reinforcements accompanied them, amongst 
 others, M. de Kerdrel, M. de Yatimesnil, the Due de 
 Luynes, M. de Parieu, and the Marquis de Vogue. 
 As to M. de Genoude, universal suffrage was very un- 
 grateful to him ; not one of the lists which bore his 
 name was successful. This distressed him greatly, and 
 perhaps accelerated the rapid decline of his health. 
 He left Paris to seek for strength in the climate of the
 
 THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. 251 
 
 South, and died soon afterwards at Hyeres in depres- 
 sing isolation. 
 
 The most unexpected apparition was that of many 
 priests upon the benches of a political assembly. To 
 the Left was Pere Lacordaire, robed in his Dominican 
 habit, nearer to the Centre, the Bishop of Langres, 
 M. Parisis, who had published, under the title of Cas 
 de Conscience, a very liberal catechism ; the Bishop of 
 Quimper, M. Graverand, who owed his election entirely 
 to the veneration which he had inspired throughout 
 his diocese ; lastly, the Bishop of Orleans, M. Fayet, 
 who seemed much more comfortable in his new career 
 than his two colleagues, having, with this object, ex- 
 changed his cassock for the small cape worn under the 
 old regime. The characteristics of the three prelates 
 were quickly distinguished, and they were nicknamed : 
 Magnificat ; JEdificat; Cotificat. The majority also 
 included a certain number of professors from the 
 seminaries and priests. Abbe de Cazales, formerly 
 page to Charles X and son of the great orator in the 
 old Constituent, promised a great deal, but failed to 
 fulfil the expectations of his friends, not because he 
 did not really possess the talent attributed to him, but 
 through an invincible supineness which paralysed his 
 whole life. Madame Swetchine said of him, " One 
 would think that Cazales had been promised at least 
 two lives ! " The voice of Pere Ventura, who in 
 O'Connell's funeral oration had, when speaking of 
 the democracy, caused this fine expression, " We 
 must baptize this savage heroine ! " to be heard in
 
 252 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 Eome itself, not in Notre-Dame de Paris alone, for 
 the same thought and the same tone were reproduced 
 in several of the provincial pulpits. 
 
 The old Chamber of Peers was quite as well repre- 
 sented in the New Assembly as the old Chamber of 
 Deputies. M. Mole and M. de Montalembert speedily 
 acquired considerable ascendency in it. M. Mole 
 accustomed himself with the most perfect grace to the 
 animation, noise and manners of a democratic assembly. 
 He rarely ascended the tribune, but when he did so, 
 it was always with decorum and authority, and he was 
 treated with as much deference by his adversaries as 
 by his own friends. Yery well seconded at home by 
 his son-in-law and his daughter, the Marquis and 
 Marquise de La Ferte, he converted his drawing and 
 dining rooms into a useful addition to the Palais 
 Bourbon. A still rarer merit was that he knew how 
 to efface himself, never disputed for precedence with 
 any one, and sometimes even credited others with 
 ideas which they had never had. I think that I am 
 bestowing very exceptional praise upon Comte Mole, 
 in saying that, for three years, nearly all the good 
 which was done noiselessly, by tact, by private per- 
 suasion, and by indefatigable efforts at reconciliation, 
 came from him. M. de Montalembert appeared under 
 quite a different aspect ; he attacked every question by 
 assault, but with such audacity and such spirit ! and, 
 when he did not press forward too eagerly for victory, 
 with such success ! The February revolution had 
 come upon him, without breaking him down as might
 
 THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. 253 
 
 have been feared, at the height of his genius. In the 
 question of the Sonderbund, he had stirred the Cham- 
 ber of Peers with an enthusiasm which it had never 
 felt before. Without intending to outrage or over- 
 throw M. Guizot's Government, he had inflicted the 
 most severe punishment upon it. He had depicted 
 a the great and little criminals" in words of fire; he 
 had proved to the French Government that by re- 
 nouncing the secular policy of France towards 
 Switzerland, by sacrificing its own instincts, its own 
 convictions, to Lord Palmerston's spiteful, blundering 
 temperament, he opened the door to the worst passions 
 and the most formidable revolutions. The prophecy 
 had scarcely been uttered when it was realised with 
 startling fidelity and speed. M. de Montalembert, 
 therefore, on entering the Assembly, found himself 
 called upon to pursue in France the campaign com- 
 menced with regard to Switzerland, and to repeat 
 before present adversaries the arguments he had 
 already addressed to adversaries at a distance. It was 
 felt that his courage would not fail at the sudden 
 transformation of the struggle, and public expectation 
 was not deceived. 
 
 The interval between the 24th of February and the 
 4th of May, the day fixed for the meeting of the 
 Assembly, had witnessed in Paris incessant disturb- 
 ances, which, on the 17th of March and the 16th of 
 April, almost became new and formidable revolutions. 
 But the departments remained relatively calm, and the 
 anxiety, continually fostered, even by those who ought
 
 254 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 to have reassured the country, had rather strengthened 
 than shaken the conservative feeling. The decree 
 which, on the eve of our convocation, ordered us to 
 assume as our official dress the Eobespierre coat and 
 waistcoat, excited universal reprobation. Only the 
 members of the Provisional Government appeared in 
 this odious and ridiculous costume. Upon their first 
 appearance before the Assembly the impression was so 
 strong that this sinister revival was never enforced. 
 
 We should have preserved the same attitude of ener- 
 getic and calm independence if, from the first sitting, 
 our more ambitious and awkward colleagues had not 
 succeeded in throwing confusion into our ranks. We 
 were asked over and over again to proclaim and welcome 
 the Eepublic. Then General de Courtais, who showed 
 himself in his true colours on the 15th of May, got into 
 the tribune and called upon the Provisional Govern- 
 ment and the Assembly to go out on to the peristyle 
 of the Palais Bourbon and fraternise with the people. 
 This demonstration was quite in keeping with the 
 Eobespierre coats, and those who wore them hastened 
 to accede to the proposition, taking with them the 
 whole Left. The Centre and the Eight, astonished 
 and irritated, at first resisted. The incessant pressure 
 of the Faubourgs upon the Convention was present 
 to every mind, and none of us were blind to the danger 
 of a first step in the same direction. But what could 
 we do, in this half-empty hall, without any government 
 on the official benches, without a president in the chair? 
 We had resolved to inaugurate our labours in the
 
 THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. 255 
 
 sincere spirit of peace, and we were about to commence 
 by a startling secession ! These considerations induced 
 those representatives who had remained in the hall to 
 join those who had preceded them to the peristyle. 
 Nothing, therefore, could have been less spontaneous 
 than this demonstration, which to the public assumed 
 the appearance of unanimity. I was one of the last to 
 go, and I joined Pere Lacordaire, for whom I felt 
 some anxiety, perceiving him in the midst of a most 
 suspicious - looking crowd. Fortunately my fears 
 were ill-founded. On the contrary, Pere Lacordaire 
 became the object of special ovation. Applause 
 and shakes of the hand made him go outside the 
 railings of the peristyle. The deeper he plunged into 
 the crowd the greater the enthusiasm he met with, 
 and it was only after much difficulty that he got back 
 to the Chamber by the Place du Palais Bourbon. 
 
 In the evening we assembled in rather large numbers 
 at M. de Lamartine's, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 
 then situated in the Kue des Capucines. We pro- 
 posed to congratulate him upon his heroic struggles 
 in March and April. We also wished to let him see 
 how much we disapproved of the theatrical scenes of 
 the morning. So long as we confined ourselves to 
 congratulations, we were listened to with kindness, but 
 as soon as we wished to make our reservations, the 
 interview changed its character. M. de Lamartine 
 could not express an ill-humour, which was not in his 
 nature, but he seemed to feel great surprise. Alarms, 
 precautions, a plan, a constitution ! . . . who could
 
 256 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 think of that ? Were not Beranger and Lamennais 
 there to draw up some decrees ? Moreover, would not 
 M. de Lamartine suffice for it all. This last thought, 
 which M. de Lamartine took no pains to conceal, was 
 confirmed by his familiars, who took us on one side and 
 said to us individually, " Why do you trouble yourself 
 about it ? Hasten to organise the executive power 
 and give him the widest prerogatives. The executive 
 power will be M. de Lamartine ; let him act freely and 
 everything will be saved ! " 
 
 We left the Hotel des Capucines still less reassured 
 than when we entered it, sadly asking each other if, 
 under the weight of such great responsibility, pre- 
 sumption and levity could be carried further. M. de 
 Lamartine liked to say of himself, " I am a politician 
 who for a short time Jlost himself in poetry." The 
 truth is exactly opposite ; the true Lamartine was a 
 poet who lost himself in politics. He laid hold upon 
 the emotions of the public and, finding himself ac- 
 claimed and raised to power by the whole of France, 
 he forgot the fate of Mirabeau and Sieves, thinking 
 rather of Amphion or Apollo, creating cities by the 
 sound of his lyre. Just before the 4th of May he 
 appeared in front of what used to be the royal box at the 
 opera, and upon unanimous applause greeting him, his 
 gesture of thanks encouraged them, and it seemed as if 
 he could not have enough of cheers. At seeing this 
 the Duchesse de Maille exclaimed, " Good gracious ! 
 We are lost ; he takes for himself the cheering ad- 
 dressed to what he represents ! "
 
 THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. 257 
 
 This very shrewd and correct observation was con- 
 firmed, in my eyes, by a still more significant fact. 
 On the day after my visit to the Hotel des Capucines 
 I confided to my colleague Leon de Maleville my 
 painful impression on the preceding evening. 
 
 "I am no longer surprised at M. de Lamartine," 
 he replied, " and I will tell you why. I had, as you 
 know, an old and close intimacy with Marrast, the 
 secretary of the Provisional Government, and I was 
 consequently initiated into every deliberation. I was 
 curious to question him, and we arranged to dine 
 together and talk over matters at our ease, Marrast 
 being also anxious to gratify his curiosity upon cer- 
 tain points. He wanted to know what old liberals 
 thought of him and of his Provisional Government. 
 He particularly inquired about M. Thiers' opinions, 
 and I did not conceal from him the astonishment 
 which the latter had expressed. ' He was much sur- 
 prised,' I said, ' when reading Lamartine's admirable 
 harangue against the red flag.' ' This is really better 
 than I expected from him,' M. Thiers had said to me ; 
 ' I thought he would yield more quickly to the wind 
 that blows, and I fancied I could hear him saying to 
 the excited crowd, " You are right, every new situa- 
 tion demands a new symbol, and I salute the red- 
 flag ! " ' ' That Thiers is very shrewd ! ' replied Mar- 
 rast with his arch smile. ' How did he say that ? ' 
 • In these very words.' ' Well, that is word for word 
 what M. de Lamartine did say to us in private ; he 
 warmly supported this thesis, but, defeated by the 
 
 vol. i. s
 
 258 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 majority, he loyally gave in, and soon used, invested 
 with all the power and prestige of his genius, the 
 same arguments which had just been employed against 
 himself!'" 
 
 This anecdote, the truth of which could not be 
 doubted, accompanied as it was by this precise array 
 of facts, and related by M. de Maleville, filled me with 
 dismay. To speak without thinking or to speak 
 against one's convictions, to improvise not only one's 
 speech but to surrender oneself in the twinkling of an 
 eye to the most opposite convictions, without a pause 
 in one's eloquence, without the crowd being able to 
 detect in the voice, in the tone or in the gesture the 
 trace of a single effort, the shadow of hesitation, what 
 a fatal gift ! Fatal for the man who is dazzled by it 
 himself, fatal for the nation which he fascinates and 
 subjugates ! On that day M. de Lamartine rendered 
 France a signal service ; a few weeks later, by means 
 of the same prestige and with the same ease, he was 
 about to imperil her existence. 
 
 Each day, in fact, threw new light on the perils of 
 the situation. We had arrived from our provinces 
 quite resolved to show indulgence to the Provisional 
 Government on the condition that it endeavoured to 
 inaugurate a sensible and serious Eepublic in the 
 place of that declamatory and sterile Eepublic which, 
 from the 24th of February to the 4th of May, had 
 exhausted itself in demonstrations which were either 
 vain or extremely imprudent. We were thankful to 
 MM. de Lamartine, Marie, and Garnier-Pages for
 
 THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. 259 
 
 their hand-to-hand struggle against MM. Ledru-Eollin 
 and Louis Blanc, and we thought that we were enter- 
 ing into the views of M. de Lamartine in saying to 
 him, "It is no longer a question of Paris alone now, 
 it is the whole of France which supports you. Re- 
 spond to her appeal and rely upon her ! " 
 
 To our great surprise, M. de Lamartine would not 
 listen to this language nor grant our wish. Did he 
 believe that by separating from M. Ledru-Rollin he 
 would compromise some ulterior ambitions which 
 were still unacknowledged ? Did he flatter himself 
 that he would efface and absorb his antagonism more 
 easily by keeping him at his side ? I cannot say ; 
 but it became evident from the first that M. de 
 Lamartine intended to place all the personal ascend- 
 ency that he still retained over the Conservative frac- 
 tion of the Assembly at the service of the Revolu- 
 tionary party. 
 
 After a painful discussion, after the uncandid 
 speeches of M. Ledru-Rollin as well as of M. de 
 Lamartine, the Assembly decided that it would re- 
 place the Government tumultuously proclaimed on the 
 26th of February, half in the Palais Bourbon, half in 
 the Hotel de Yille, by a committee of five members 
 regularly elected. In the vote taken on the 10th of 
 May, the numbers were divided thus : M. Arago, 725 
 votes; M. Garnier-Pages, 715; M. Marie, 702; this 
 being equivalent to something like the unanimity of 
 the Assembly. M. de Lamartine only obtained 643 
 votes; a first warning to the deceived Conservatives. 
 
 s2
 
 260 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 M. Ledru-Kollin only obtained 458 votes, and this 
 may be regarded as marking the displeasure of those 
 whom his moderate speech had not deceived. 
 
 As soon as it had thus formed the executive power 
 the Assembly occupied itself in organising its own 
 work. It first divided itself, according to custom, 
 into bureaux drawn by lot ; but, besides this, it 
 grouped itself into fifteen special committees, entitled 
 Committee of Finance, Committee of Foreign Affairs, 
 Committee of Public Instruction, Committee of Labour, 
 &c, &c. Each representative registered his name for 
 one of these committees, according to his studies or 
 preference. I chose the Committee of Labour, to 
 M. de Montalembert's great displeasure, for he re- 
 proached me with not having followed him to the 
 Committee of Public Instruction. "It is precisely 
 because you are there that any one else would be 
 superfluous," I replied. "Leave me to the Committee 
 of Labour, where important questions which have not 
 been so much studied, cannot fail to arise. We must 
 not abandon the monopoly of them to M. Louis Blanc. 
 Since, to my great regret, M. de Melun is not amongst 
 us, allow me to profit by the small experience I have 
 gained while working with him. Allow me to place 
 real solicitude for the working classes in opposition to 
 a quackery which is much more anxious to work 
 upon the wounds of society than to relieve or cure 
 them ! " 
 
 Having once joined the Labour Committee, I 
 speedily perceived that the demagogic party was
 
 THE INVASION OF THE ASSEMBLY. 261 
 
 thinking less of a pacific and regular organisation 
 than of preparing, as soon as possible, for an assault 
 against the Assembly and against every civilised 
 Eepublic. This undeniable plot had its army in the 
 national workshops, and I shall not have much trou- 
 ble in clearing myself from the reproach which has 
 been made against me on the subject of the suppres- 
 sion of these workshops ; but, before replying to such 
 grave and ill-founded accusations, I must give chrono- 
 logical precedence to the 15th of May. 
 
 The composition of our Assembly, Eepublican as it 
 was, had profoundly surprised and irritated the party 
 of which M. Louis Blanc was the theorist and M. 
 Ledru-Eollin, somewhat in spite of himself, the man 
 of action. It was resolved to put an end to our 
 existence by the invasion of the Palais Bourbon and 
 the dissolution of the Assembly, but it was difficult 
 to find a pretext. We had been in existence for ten 
 days, and during those ten days we never resisted 
 anything. Poland was taken as a pretext, but any- 
 thing else would have done just as well. Thus, 
 among the invaders of the 15th of May, there were 
 two quite distinct categories, that of the naive per- 
 sons who were unconscious of the part which it was 
 meant they should play, and that of fanatics who 
 wore, under a borrowed blouse, arms which they fully 
 intended to use. 
 
 Fortunately, the naive element predominated in the 
 crowd, the real criminals being few in number. The 
 crowd itself was a material obstacle to the execution
 
 262 MEMOIRS OF A eoyalist. 
 
 of the premeditated design; the ringleaders were 
 scarcely visible in this ever-rising flood; they had 
 great difficulty in coming together to concert their 
 plans, and the pass-words were lost in the storm of 
 talk. Many of the invaders had entered the hall out 
 of sheer curiosity, some to assist in keeping order, 
 others in order not to miss a manifestation, and so 
 complete the collection of their souvenirs. The latter 
 were more anxious to have a story to tell than to 
 help make it a bloody one. We noticed twenty in- 
 different or even smiling faces for every two or three 
 savage and threatening ones. Here and there, too, 
 individuals were to be seen ready to follow a bad 
 impulse as easily as a good one. 
 
 I found myself by the side of M. de Heeckeren, 
 the representative of Alsace, and close to us we saw 
 an old man who was not a member of the Assembly 
 exhorting his turbulent neighbours to peace, while 
 they replied by threats. M. de Heeckeren, with 
 his Herculean frame, rushed towards the invaders, 
 roughly turned them out, and the crowd applauded 
 this energetic action. M. de Heeckeren then quietly 
 resumed his place, saying, " If they had come from 
 my country they would not have waited for me!" 
 
 But our benches were not long respected, more for 
 want of space than through evil intentions. This 
 sudden rush soon did us the service of exempting us 
 from resistance to the vote which some of the rioters 
 who had climbed into the tribune wished to impose 
 upon us. In this indescribable confusion, no one
 
 THE FIFTEENTH OF MAY. 263 
 
 could hear himself speak, all was chaos. Close to 
 me, and nearly upon my knees, were two Parisian 
 street Arabs about fifteen years old. One exclaimed, 
 when the President rang his bell in despair, "Halloo ! 
 listen to the cocoa merchant over there ! " The other, 
 whose political education was no doubt more ad- 
 vanced, thus interpellated us, "Well! citizen repre- 
 sentatives, what do you think of the right of 
 visit? . . ." 
 
 Thus the 15th of May turned into a simple revolu- 
 tionary orgie, and the plot failed, not through lack 
 but through excess of performers. If the Govern- 
 ment had not been composed of accomplices and 
 dupes, the manifestation would have come to an end 
 and met with chastisement much sooner ; but nothing 
 can give an idea of the inertia of the men then in 
 power, several of whom were, however, really trust- 
 worthy. Our President, M. Buchez, elected by the 
 Conservative majority, was not only unequal to his 
 task, but, on that day, he was absolutely idiotic. His r^"- 4 * 
 large honest face smiled at everything and every- 
 body; he did not listen to the debates or did not 
 understand them, he forgot whose turn it was to 
 speak, confused the amendments with the bills, and 
 never looked better pleased than when he had plunged 
 the Assembly into inextricable embarrassment and 
 into feverish impatience, as happened several times 
 in each sitting. He was unanimously deposed from 
 the Chair at the end of six months of his presidency, 
 but we had, as yet, only reached the fifteenth day of
 
 264 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 the month and we were forced to endure his strange 
 incapacity on an occasion when presence of mind 
 would have been so invaluable. The invaders just 
 made him sign an order to the National Guard not 
 to beat to arms, and when they expelled him, in 
 order that ten or twelve of them might sit in his 
 chair and finally pronounce the dissolution of the 
 Assembly — which was the real object of the day — he 
 did not go either to the Hotel de Ville, which the 
 revolution had made its meeting-place, nor to the 
 President's Palace, from whence he could have given 
 orders. He went alone to the Luxemburg, then the 
 seat of government, without knowing what could be 
 done there, and where in fact nothing was done. 
 
 The dissolution of the Assembly was accepted by 
 the majority of the representatives with astonishing 
 facility. The Eepublicans never even dreamt of 
 struggling against a fact accomplished through their 
 old superstitious reverence for everything which, 
 rightly or wrongfully, could be styled the "national 
 will." The deputies of the last Chamber, too, 
 remembered that, three months previously, they had 
 been expelled in the same way without anywhere 
 finding a single basis of support for resistance. Some 
 of us, however, understood that on the 24th of Febru- 
 ary the situation was very different; that the Chamber 
 not being supreme, its responsibility was as limited as 
 its authority; while on the 15th of May, unable to 
 look for any outside assistance, it became necessary 
 to act accordingly. Far from being an example for
 
 THE FIFTEENTH OF MAY. 265 
 
 us, the recollection of February ought to have served 
 us as a lesson. Those who thought thus, and I was 
 among the number, hurried to the Presidency, con- 
 soled themselves at the thought of not finding the 
 President, and offered their eager assistance to the 
 two Vice-Presidents, MM. Senard and Corbon. 
 
 M. Senard took some measures to organise the 
 repression of this audacious riot, and M. de Puysegur, 
 after having with some trouble obtained paper and 
 pens, worked as his secretary. M. de Kerdrel, M. de 
 Dampierre, and myself, seeing the Gardes Mobiles in 
 the garden under our windows, went and exhorted 
 them to defend the Assembly. Our appeal was well 
 received ; some of the troops, with their officers at 
 their head, grouped themselves round M. Senard to 
 assure the execution of his orders ; others rallied the 
 National Guards, who were arriving in numbers on 
 the quays; lastly, M. de Kdmusat opportunely remem- 
 bered that a regiment of dragoons, perhaps the only 
 cavalry regiment then in Paris, was quartered at the 
 neighbouring barracks. The colonel, M. de Goyon, 
 at once put himself at the head of his men, and 
 cleared the approaches to the Palais Bourbon in a 
 trice, while the National Guards and the Gardes 
 Mobiles expelled from the Hall a remnant of the 
 invaders, who were seized with indescribable panic. 
 
 The riot, vanquished without a fight in the Palais 
 Bourbon, endeavoured to revenge itself in the Hotel 
 de Ville. We were rapidly informed of their move- 
 ments, and finding MM. de Lamartine and Ledru-
 
 266 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 Rollin taking refuge in an office together, perplexed 
 and equally distrustful of each other, we urged them 
 to march to the Hotel de Yille without further delay. 
 Some of us even offered to accompany them, first from 
 a sentiment of duty, secondly on account of the little 
 confidence with which these two representatives of 
 the executive power inspired us. On the 24th of 
 February I had heard M. de Lamartine terminate in 
 a Kepublican sense a speech commenced in favour of 
 the Regency of the Duchesse d' Orleans ; I had just 
 seen M. Ledru-Kollin, less compromised than M. Louis 
 Blanc by the enthusiasm of the invaders, none the 
 less receive and reciprocate some very suspicious greet- 
 ings. I was therefore tempted to see with my own 
 eyes how things would turn out, and to carry on to 
 the end my conscientious efforts for the Republic en- 
 trusted to us. The Marquis de Mornay, the Duchesse 
 d'Orleans' devoted knight on the 24th of February, 
 had been actuated by the same idea as myself, and 
 when M. de Goyon had placed two horses from his 
 regiment at the service of MM. de Lamartine and 
 Ledru-Bollin to take them to the Hotel de Yille, M. 
 Mornay and I walked at their horses' heads. This 
 / really symbolised the situation ; the Eepublic attacked 
 by Eepublicans and defended by Monarchists ! 
 
 This march upon the Hotel de Yille secured the 
 triumph of order. Each step we took, the National 
 Guards swelled out the procession ; the news that an 
 imposing force was advancing preceded us and encou- 
 raged the battalions of the district ; the leaders of the
 
 THE DAYS OF MAY. 267 
 
 insurrection, Blanqui, Barbes, and Sobrier, were para- 
 lysed and held in awe.' When, at last, we had succeeded 
 in making our way through the crowd, bristling with 
 bayonets, in the great hall of the Hotel de Ville, 
 neither M. de Lamartine nor M. Ledru-Eollin had 
 any longer any choice left them as to which line they 
 would follow, and no one any longer defended the 
 criminals whose arrest they countersigned. Twelve 
 hours had sufficed to see the birth and the collapse of 
 this movement, and the readiness with which it was 
 suppressed ought to have enlightened its abettors and 
 secured some sort of a future for the Eepublic. Those 
 who anticipated this were speedily undeceived. 
 
 The day following the 15th of May was also curious 
 to watch. The Eepublicans of the day before yesterday, 
 as they liked to style themselves, made it a point of 
 honour not to appear too much dismayed at such an 
 outrage ; they were far more anxious to palliate than 
 to punish it and to prevent its repetition. The Ee- 
 publicans of the morrow, that is to say the sincerely 
 resigned Monarchists, displayed much more solicitude. 
 They asked their colleagues what Eepublic could pos- 
 sibly exist in a country where the Assembly, elected 
 by the most free and universal suffrage which can be 
 imagined, was brutally attacked without the shadow 
 of a motive ? for the avowed aim of the invasion was 
 to present a petition in favour of Poland, and Poland 
 was not once mentioned in the course of the riot, 
 either in the groups, in the tribune, or at the Hotel de 
 Ville.
 
 268 MEMOIES OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 We were exchanging this sorrowful reflection with 
 our colleagues, when an usher brought me a note from 
 Madame Swetchine, begging me to go to her house 
 as soon as possible. Any initiative from her was so 
 rare that I felt certain the question must be a serious 
 one. I therefore hurried to her house in the Eue 
 Saint-Dominique hard by, and I found Pere Lacor- 
 daire with Madame Swetchine. He had consulted her, 
 and he honoured me by wishing to consult me also 
 upon his plan of resigning. Pere Lacordaire was 
 Monarchical by reason and taste; as far as he was 
 personally concerned, he carried his love of order to 
 such a point that he wished to see it reign in the 
 State. But he loved liberty quite as much, and if 
 the Eepublicans had accorded it to him, as they had 
 promised, they would have had no firmer partisan. 
 But from the first contact with that Left in the midst 
 of which he was about to seat himself, as soon as his 
 delicate correct ear had detected the diapason of those 
 whom he was to call political friends, alarm and dis - 
 gust took the place of his illusions. "I quite feel," 
 he said, " that it will not look well to leave the Assem- 
 bly on a day which may be called a day of peril, but 
 what can a man do to avert this peril ? My faith in 
 ^the Eepublican future of France is destroyed ; and 
 without faith I can neither speak nor act. Eepublican 
 anarchy will infallibly bring back Monarchical compe- 
 titions. From that date politics will enter a sphere into 
 which I have not and do not wish to have an entrance ; 
 I have misled myself with good intentions, God knows;
 
 THE DAYS OF MAY. 269 
 
 but the shortest errors are the best. God has blessed 
 my apostleship ; there only is my place marked, and I 
 must return to it." 
 
 Madame Swetchine and I did not oppose him in 
 principle — far from it ! But in her maternal tender- 
 ness Madame Swetchine would have liked him to 
 adjourn his decision. She had known too long and 
 had seen too much of Pere Lacordaire's enemies not 
 to foresee the advantage which they would take of his 
 resignation at that date. I did not deny this objec- 
 tion, but I resigned myself to it more easily. I there- 
 fore agreed with Pere Lacordaire, doing so upon the 
 following ground: "Pere Lacordaire has no other 
 alternative than to remain altogether, or to retire at 
 once. So far as I can see into the future, I do not 
 discern a single day of calm or serenity when this 
 resignation would not produce the effect which you 
 dread. Alas ! the 15th of May is not the end, it is 
 but a beginning, and whoever does not care to brave 
 the risks which await us, has no other alternative 
 than to leave ! " Madame Swetchine was at last con- 
 vinced, and Pere Lacordaire sent in his resignation 
 with the concurrence upon which he set so high a 
 value. 
 
 After this interview I returned to the Assembly 
 more enlightened as to my own sentiments, for Pere 
 Lacordaire always threw a strong light upon every 
 question which he examined or expounded. I was, 
 therefore, confirmed in the sad apprehensions which 
 had assailed me on the 24th of February, and which
 
 270 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 had been increasing ever since. But I was not a 
 monk; I had not Pere Lacordaire's sublime excuse 
 for declining the struggle, and I returned to the 
 thorny task which awaited me in the Committee of 
 Labour. Everybody was concerned by the lamenta- 
 tions of trade in general, and of Paris trade in 
 particular. Workmen complained of having no 
 work, masters of having no workmen, and it was 
 unanimously declared that the maintenance of the 
 national workshops offered temptations to idleness 
 which it was necessary to get rid of. These work- 
 shops had been represented, immediately after the 
 February revolution, as a provisional resource im- 
 posed by imperious necessity. 
 
 The Government had, even before the meeting of 
 the Assembly, promised to close the national work- 
 shops ; but neither M. Louis Blanc nor M. Ledru- 
 Eollin had been able, perhaps did not feel inclined, to 
 fulfil this promise. M. de Lamartine never thought 
 of it for a single instant, and we found ourselves, on 
 the 4th of May, faced by an agglomeration of a 
 hundred thousand men embodied and paid by the 
 State for fictitious work, and become, clandestinely at 
 first, openly afterwards, a dangerous army of social- 
 ism. To bring the evil to light and to endeavour to 
 remedy it seemed to the Labour Committee the first 
 thing they had to do. A sub-committee, formed of 
 three members — MM. Beslay (the same man who 
 took a relatively moderate share in the Commune of 
 1871), Victor Considerant, and myself — were invested
 
 THE DAYS OF MAY. 271 
 
 with power by the Committee to proceed to an in- 
 quiry and to obtain or exact the assistance of the 
 Government. The dissolution, or at least the radical 
 transformation, of the national workshops was the 
 design of every fraction of the Assembly without 
 exception. At the same time they also wished to 
 take great precautions to reach the really guilty with- 
 out attacking innocent victims through undue precipi- 
 tation or harshness. The Labour Committee was so 
 much at one on this point that the first deliberations 
 were very short, and by the 29 th of May I was in a 
 position to read my report from the tribune of the 
 Assembly. Those who may deign to read it will find 
 in it a peremptory answer to the retrospective accusa- 
 tions, which were not formulated until after the days 
 of June, and which mala fides will, no doubt, keep 
 alive for a long time. 
 
 This report was received with equal good-will by 
 the Assembly and by the Government. Its principal 
 passages were even placarded on the walls of Paris in 
 the official form, and the debate on the draft of 
 the decree was fixed for the morrow, the 30th of 
 May. The discussion was marked by the same spirit 
 of equity towards the master and the man, and in 
 bringing forward the report I thought that I could best 
 characterise the debate by saying from the tribune, 
 11 We have not attempted to close the door against 
 an abuse without opening two doors to labour ! " At 
 the same sitting the decree was almost unanimously 
 voted without a division.
 
 272 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 Still, however, this perfect understanding was, on 
 the part of the Government, more apparent than real. 
 M. Ledru-Eollin was anxious to retain and even to 
 augment under his hand a better embodied army than 
 that of the 15th of May, and one which would serve his 
 ulterior designs. M. de Lamartine no doubt saw, but 
 affected not to see, this peril, in order to avoid or 
 adjourn his rupture with M. Ledru-Eollin. The 
 Minister of Public Works, M. Trelat, was a sincere 
 but chimerical philanthropist : a very charitable doc- 
 tor of the Salpetriere, who was too much given to 
 believe that social maladies should be treated like 
 individual maladies ; and he owned in the tribune that 
 he looked at public affairs more as a doctor than as a 
 politician. He belonged, with the most innocent in- 
 tentions, to that class of men which did the most harm 
 during the first Eevolution — the men who, through 
 weakness, prejudice, lack of foresight or logic, go, 
 without intending to do so, wherever others more 
 vicious than themselves may lead them. 
 
 M. Trelat received our decree very well, but he did 
 not put it into execution. Piece-work was not intro- 
 duced into the workshops; there was no regularity 
 about the pay ; the census was not taken ; very few 
 workmen were sent to the departments. We there- 
 fore found ourselves reduced to the painful alternative 
 of becoming, in our turn, the accomplices of the 
 Minister of Public Works, or of laying the facts before 
 the Assembly and inducing it to intervene once more. 
 I did not hesitate to adopt the latter course.
 
 THE DAYS OF JUNE. 273 
 
 On Wednesday, the 14th of June, M. Trelat, who 
 ought to have done it sooner, asked for a* vote of three 
 million francs from the Assembly for the execution of 
 the decree voted on the 30th of May. These funds, 
 wasted like the preceding supplies, had been spent in 
 advance. They had paid, they were going to pay 
 again, for a continuation of the abuses. I ascended 
 the tribune immediately after M. Trelat, and I enu- 
 merated our just grounds for mistrust. "The question 
 is too grave," I said, " for three members to be able 
 or willing to accept the responsibility in future." 
 And I asked the Assembly to nominate a special 
 committee in its bureaux, to thoroughly examine all 
 the questions which referred to the vote of three 
 millions asked for by the Government. The decree 
 was ultimately laid before a special committee formed 
 in the bureaux, without either support or opposition 
 from M. Trelat, who was visibly annoyed. His anger 
 increased with my persistency, but he could not find 
 one argument in his conscience wherewith to oppose 
 me, nor in his character sufficient energy to second 
 me. 
 
 For some days I could not conceal from myself 
 that a formidable struggle was impending, and I did 
 not wish to accept my share of it unless I was sup- 
 ported by an imposing majority representing every 
 fraction of the Assembly. On the following day the 
 Assembly nominated a committee, which, like the 
 Committee of Labour, unanimously demanded the sup- 
 pression of the national workshops. It nominated M. 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 Goudchaux as president, again confiding to me the 
 office of reporter. 
 
 I had drawn up, since joining the Committee of 
 Labour, and I now presented to the new committee, a 
 draft of the measures concerted with M. de Melun. 
 They included ameliorations which had been desired 
 by the working classes for a long time, and which I 
 had just studied in the charities of Paris : an endow- 
 ment for the societies for mutual help, the improve- 
 ment of savings banks, the protection of children in 
 factories, draining and sanitary arrangements for 
 populous districts, the demolition of unhealthy dwell- 
 ings, &c. I may say here, without bitterness against 
 any one, but as a homage due to truth, that these 
 improvements were so foreign to Eepublican minds at 
 that date that they excited innocent surprise. When 
 I first communicated my plans, the president, M. 
 Goudchaux, interrupted me, looking at me with a 
 stupefied air, raised his hands above his head and 
 exclaimed, "Pray allow me time to breathe. I am 
 drowned by this flood of innovations ! " But for my 
 persistency in co-ordinating these various institutions 
 and forcing them forward parallel with the dissolution 
 of the national workshops, this dissolution would have 
 been voted in twenty-four hours. Far from pressing 
 it on, I delayed it ; but in order to realise my plan it 
 was necessary that the internal reform of the work- 
 shops, seriously and sincerely undertaken, should 
 give us the necessary time to prepare all these 
 measures. But this wish was defeated through want
 
 THE DAYS OF JUNE. 275 
 
 of knowledge or want of will on the part of the 
 Government. 
 
 We were foiled, again, by the same defects in M. 
 Trelat ; he always showed himself on the eve of an 
 action, never on the day itself. The schemes most 
 easily executed were not managed any better than the 
 most complicated. Five million francs were due to 
 the city of Paris ; this sum might have restored 
 activity to many works, but it was left in the hands of 
 the Minister of Finance, then M. Duclerc, while 
 other resources, the details of which need not now be 
 given, were equally neglected, and there was the 
 same unanimity in the committee of fifteen members, 
 which had been already visible in the sub-committee 
 of three, to insist upon the almost immediate sup- 
 pression of the national workshops. M. Dupont de 
 Bussac, who belonged to the most advanced Left, was 
 as much at one with us as M. Beslay and M. Consi- 
 derant. On the 19th of June I was charged to pre- 
 pare a fresh report for the Assembly, which ordered 
 me to read it immediately. I announced that, to my 
 regret, the execution of the formal clauses of our 
 decrees had scarcely been commenced. I requested 
 that the grants asked for by the Minister of Public 
 Works should be voted, but with the addition of a 
 clause for supervision ; I also asked that the powers 
 of our committee, entrusted with the examination of 
 the decree in question, should be continued. 
 
 The debate was opened at the sitting of the 20th 
 of June by a speech from M. Victor Hugo. His 
 
 t2
 
 276 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 language had already assumed the declamatory form 
 which never changed afterwards, but in his ideas he 
 still belonged to the Conservative party, and he made 
 no secret of this. 
 
 "We were already acquainted with the idleness of 
 opulence," he said, "you have created the idleness 
 of misery, a hundred times more dangerous for itself 
 and for others. The Monarchy had its idlers; the 
 Eepublic will have sluggards. This slothfulness, so 
 fatal to civilisation, is possible in Turkey, but not in 
 France. Paris will never copy Naples, still less 
 Constantinople. Never, even did we wish it, could 
 we succeed in converting our worthy intelligent 
 workmen, who read and think, who speak and listen, 
 into lazaroni in time of peace and janissaries in war. 
 Never!" (Sensation.) 
 
 M. Goudchaux, the president of our committee, inter- 
 vened at the close of the debate, which had been 
 very barren and unprofitable, to demand the closure 
 of the general discussion and an immediate division 
 upon the clauses. The closure was carried, and the 
 three clauses of the decree, just as we had presented 
 them, were carried then and there, almost unani- 
 mously. 
 
 On the following day, the 21st of June, we set to 
 work afresh. We deliberated regularly as to the 
 most efficacious measures for softening the transition, 
 when we were interrupted by the very insurrection 
 which we were seeking to avert. The ringleaders, 
 who plotted while affecting to help, who sought to
 
 THE DATS OF JUNE. 277 
 
 work upon misery in order to urge it to revolt, had 
 at last understood that they could not deceive the 
 vigilance of the Assembly. The sitting of the 20th 
 of June left them no further illusion ; they therefore 
 resolved to anticipate us, and were nearly succeeding. 
 On the 21st and 22nd of June the ferment amongst 
 the workmen, already only too visible, exploded. 
 Delegates conveyed a summons to the executive 
 committee then sitting in the Luxemburg. M. Marie 
 vainly attempted to make them listen to reason, or, 
 at least, exercise a little patience ; and at daybreak 
 on the 23rd of June barricades were erected on all 
 sides, and the first shots fired by the insurgents. 
 
 Paris had then only two defensive forces, the 
 National Guard, almost as unanimous as the Assem- 
 bly, and the Garde Mobile. The Garde Mobile had 
 been created in February. On the 15th of May a 
 few of its battalions had obeyed the voice of duty, 
 but this youthful militia, chiefly composed of Pari- 
 sians, had on that day been put to a very severe 
 test, and its spirit was still doubtful. The army of 
 order had, therefore, great need to feel itself sup- 
 ported by the energy of the Assembly, already 
 accused of delay ; and when our committee met on 
 the morning of the 23rd of June it had only one 
 point to consider ; Should it wait for the end of the 
 contest already commenced before declaring itself, or 
 should it immediately give to the National Guard 
 and to the Garde Mobile a pledge of its firm assist- 
 ance and a proof of its own joint responsibility in all
 
 278 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 risks and perils? Two members only were inclined to 
 remain on the expectative. One made his vote pub- 
 lic by sending in on the 23rd of June itself his resig- 
 nation as a member of the Committee of the National 
 Workshops. This was M. Dupont de Bussac. The 
 second, M. de Montreuil, voted against the opinion 
 of the majority, but did not go beyond this, and 
 remained with us. I had therefore only to sum- 
 marise the vote of the committee in a few words. I 
 hastily . wrote my report, and about three o'clock I 
 laid it before the bureau of the Assembly. 
 
 When I entered the hall, M. Senard, who was 
 presiding, had already stopped the debate, in order to 
 read the first bulletins of the struggle. M. Flocon, 
 Minister of Commerce, was in the tribune, and, taking 
 care to state that he was speaking for the public and 
 not for the Assembly itself, said : " At this moment, 
 war is not being waged with soldiers, but with lying 
 rumours which have been spread in the public 
 squares, with the gold which serves to purchase 
 poverty and to draw it away from the virtuous abne- 
 gation in which it has patiently been waiting until 
 our efforts should bring it relief. Let all Eepublicans 
 listen to this, and let them, when they see an appeal 
 made to disorder, know well that this appeal has as 
 its sole aim, whatever mask may be used to cover it, 
 whatever colour may be assumed, whatever flag may 
 be concealed beneath, the overthrow of the Eepublic 
 and the re-establishment of despotism ! " * 
 * Le Moniteur, 24th of June, 1 848.
 
 THE DAYS OF JUNE. 279 
 
 I ascended the tribune after M. Flocon, and, laying 
 my report upon the President's table, I thus expressed 
 myself : — 
 
 " Gentlemen, the majority of the Committee of the 
 National Workshops has expressly charged me to pre- 
 sent to you, at this time, the report upon the decision 
 which you are expecting from it ; it has continued its 
 deliberations on this subject with the most perfect 
 calm, and if you desire a proof of this you will 
 find it in the report which I am here to submit to 
 you." 
 
 Several voices : — "Lay it on the table." Other 
 voices :— " No ! no ! Eead it ! " 
 
 The Assembly, upon being consulted, decided that 
 the reading should take place. It moved the dissolu- 
 tion of the national workshops, with a vote of three 
 millions for indemnities and assistance at home for 
 those workmen who would be temporarily without 
 employment. 
 
 Could the Assembly, in commanding me to read my 
 report, and could I, in reading it, have had any 
 thought of provoking a civil war ? No, for we had 
 not even sought to appoint a fixed date for the dis- 
 solution, in order to leave the Assembly always free 
 to advance or to defer, as it should judge advisable, 
 the debate which must precede the dissolution. "What 
 the majority of the committee wished, the Assembly 
 also wished, viz. at the moment when the soldiers, the 
 National Guards, and the Gardes Mobiles, were ex- 
 posing their lives, each of us should publish his name,
 
 280 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 and that if civil courage had not the same lustre as 
 military courage, it should, at least, have the same 
 frankness and the same devotion. We were reduced 
 to the role of legitimate defence, and owed all our 
 moral strength to the battalions which, for some hours 
 already, had been repulsing with great difficulty an 
 aggression long premeditated, coldly resolute, auda- 
 ciously executed. 
 
 After a short debate, the Assembly, more and more 
 stimulated by rumours of the growing sedition, 
 declared itself in permanence, and thought solely of 
 providing for the defence of society, or even its own 
 defence, for it was aware that it was directly 
 threatened. 
 
 At such a juncture, the Executive Committee no 
 longer inspired confidence in any one. By tacit agree- 
 ment every one avoided raising an irritating debate ; 
 but in the sitting of the 24th of June General 
 Cavaignac was invested with full executive powers. 
 M. de Lamartine and M. Ledru-Eollin could not mis- 
 take and did not mistake the manifest object of this 
 measure. As soon as it was communicated to them, 
 they addressed their resignation to the President of 
 the National Assembly in these terms : — 
 
 "Citizen President, 
 
 "The Committee of the Executive Power would have 
 failed both in its duties and its honour by retiring before sedi- 
 tion and in a time of public danger. It only retires before a 
 vote of the Assembly. 
 
 " In resigning the powers with which you entrusted it, it re- 
 enters the ranks of the national representatives, to devote itself
 
 THE DAYS OF JUNE. 281 
 
 with you to the common danger and to the safety of the 
 Republic. 
 
 " The Members of the Committee of the Executive Power, 
 "Abago, Ledbu-Rollin, Gabnieb-Pages, Lamabtine, Mabie. 
 
 " The Secretary, Pagnebbe." 
 
 The question as to what personal share the members 
 of the Assembly could or should take in this struggle 
 was brought forward under several forms. It was 
 settled that the duty of the representatives was to 
 remain at their post, and to take, hour by hour, every 
 measure which the situation might render necessary. 
 However several members mingled individually in the 
 ranks of the National Guards, and some of them were 
 seriously wounded there. M. Bixio, a member of the 
 Left, was, I believe, the first struck down. The 
 second was a member of the Eight, and in the course 
 of the sitting of the 24th the President expressed 
 himself in these words : — 
 
 " I have received a communication from one of our 
 colleagues. M. de Saint-Georges begs the Assembly 
 to receive his apologies for his absence from the sitting 
 of this morning. He is with his son, who was seriously 
 wounded yesterday while defending the Eepublic in 
 the ranks of the National Guard." 
 
 Both father and son were members of the Eight and 
 deputies for Morbihan. 
 
 Several of our colleagues, trusting in their Ee- 
 publican notoriety, attempted to carry words of peace 
 behind the barricades. They were ill-treated, and 
 would have encountered the most serious danger had 
 they gone a step further. I was told this by one of
 
 282 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 them, M. Jamet, deputy of Mayenne, au old Re- 
 publican, but very conscientious, who lost on that day 
 all the illusions which had been so dear to him. The 
 frenzy of the faubourgs could not have been greater, 
 as the duration and intensity of the struggle, as well 
 as the number of victims, proved only too well. 
 France lost, in those four days, more generals than she 
 had lost in the most memorable battles of the Empire. 
 All the witnesses of any one of these blood-stained 
 episodes were both stupefied and broken-hearted. 
 
 For my own part, unable to flatter myself that I had 
 the least influence over the minds of the combatants, 
 I resolved to afford myself at least the consolation of 
 carrying some comfort to them, and I went towards 
 the Hotel-Dieu, with my colleague, M. Jobez. Suffer- 
 ing ought to have extinguished all anger there, but it 
 did not succeed any more than reason. Before in- 
 troducing us to the ward where the wounded had been 
 placed, the sisters and house surgeons begged us to 
 take off our insignia as representatives. " They would 
 excite great agitation in most of our wounded, and we 
 have so much trouble in restoring to them a little of 
 the calm so necessary for their treatment, that we 
 must avoid everything likely to increase the fever ! " 
 We then passed along innumerable rows of beds, 
 hastily improvised, in addition to those which the 
 Hotel-Dieu already contained. Most of the faces still 
 shone with the excitement of the struggle ; it was still 
 visible in the eyes when weakness prevented them 
 showing it in any other form. In the first instance,
 
 THE DAYS OF JUNE. 283 
 
 the wounded belonging to the National Guard or to 
 the insurgents had been brought in and placed beside 
 each other, but the hospital attendants were promptly 
 forced to separate them by placing them either in 
 different wards or, if that was impossible, in groups 
 apart. The insurgents had been seen to crawl from 
 their beds, to throw themselves on to a neighbouring 
 couch where they recognised an uniform, biting until 
 the blood spurted out those whom they could not 
 wound in any other way. One must have seen this 
 lamentable spectacle, or have heard it related by eye- 
 witnesses, still full of emotion from it, to form any idea 
 of the passion which falsehood, deliberately and per- 
 severingly distilled, can excite in the masses,to appre- 
 ciate the crime of the instigators of this mad passion, and 
 to measure all the evil which a few men can work 
 amongst an innumerable multitude. During these sor- 
 rowful hours no power could have torn from the heart of 
 these mistaken unfortunates the conviction that the As- 
 sembly was the people's enemy, that it thirsted for their 
 blood, and that the barricades had only been erected 
 for the protection of the workman, his wife and chil- 
 dren, against merciless barbarity. On leaving the' 
 Hotel-Dieu I met outside Notre-Dame the Archbishop 
 of Paris and M. Jacquemet, his Grand- Vicar. They 
 were going to General Cavaignac, in order to warn 
 him that they intended proceeding themselves into the 
 heart of the Faubourg St. Antoine, the stubborn centre 
 of resistance. I entreated the heroic bishop to allow 
 me to have the honour of accompanying him, but,
 
 284 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 putting one hand upon his violet robe and the other 
 upon the representative's sash which I had put on again 
 on leaving the Hotel-Dieu, he replied with a smile, " I 
 think that for my protection this is worth more than 
 that." I persisted, but he still refused, and resumed, 
 well knowing the danger, his road to martyrdom. I 
 never saw him again, except as he lay dead. 
 
 A short time afterwards I re-encountered M. Jacque- 
 met, then appointed to the bishopric of Nantes. 
 The recollection of our meeting upon the pavement of 
 Notre-Dame formed an affectionate link between us 
 which I never thought of without emotion. He had 
 only escaped death through his extremely short 
 stature, for his hat was pierced by several balls. The 
 dying Archbishop had given him his pectoral cross, 
 stained with blood — a sacred relic which M. Jacque- 
 met wore to his dying day. He treasured up with 
 equal sanctity the elevated lessons of wisdom and 
 foresight which he had received in the archiepiscopal 
 palace of Paris, and remained a striking example of 
 the triumph of mind over matter. 
 
 From Notre-Dame, I went to the Place de la 
 Bastille, where I had the grief of seeing General 
 Negrier fall like a valiant soldier, mortally wounded 
 by a ball fired close to him. Close to him fell also 
 our colleague, M. de Charbonnel. The Marquis de 
 Vogue and I helped to place him on a stretcher and 
 carry him to a wineshop, which, although very near 
 the firing, was yet sheltered from it. M. de Charbonnel 
 was quite aware of the gravity of his condition. With
 
 THE DAYS OF JUKE. 285 
 
 the most gentle serenity he expressed to us the wish, 
 which was at that same moment being emitted by 
 Mgr. Afire, that he might be an expiatory victim, and 
 that this effusion of blood might terminate the dis- 
 cords and misfortunes of our country. He confided 
 his portfolio to M. Vogue, entrusted us with some 
 touching words for his family, and some patriotic fare- 
 wells for his colleagues in the^Assembly. He soon 
 lost consciousness and expired a few hours later. 
 
 This battle on the Place de la Bastille soon rendered 
 us masters of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. The 
 struggle was ended at last, but at what a price ! 
 What were we to think of the future, and what were 
 we to do for it ? The universality and liberty of the 
 suffrage could not be extended further ; the Assembly 
 was the sole and unquestionable representative of the 
 whole nation. The Kepublicans had not formed a 
 single wish which had not been granted or surpassed; 
 the men in power were still those who had made and 
 proclaimed the Eepublic in the Hotel de Ville ; the 
 majority of the Assembly were notoriously Eepub- 
 lican, and if there were any doubts in certain minds, 
 any regrets in certain hearts, there had not been one 
 instance of systematic resistance from any party. Yet 
 this budding Eepublic had not been exempt from the 
 attacks of the Eepublicans for a single day. The 
 Provisional Government had had its assaults in 
 March and April ; the Assembly in May and June. 
 Was not this trial sufficient, was it not decisive? 
 How many misfortunes, how much blood was still re-
 
 286 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 quired to prove that the Eepublic is not a talisman of 
 repose and prosperity for France ? For how much 
 longer must we still make these dangerous experi-r 
 ments, or allow them to he made upon our country, as 
 upon a corpse in the dissecting-room ? 
 
 These questions were put to us on all sides, and we 
 had the right to put them to ourselves. However, 
 we could not do anything yet. The royal family was 
 not reconciled; no prince considered that the hour 
 had come for a monarchical attempt ; not one of the 
 Count de Chambord's habitual counsellor's advised 
 him to take the initiative, since he did not appear to 
 think that the opportune moment had arrived for it. 
 Under these circumstances every one was agreed in 
 maintaining the statu quo, in endeavouring at all 
 events to secure for it all the benefits of so costly an 
 experiment. We had placed General Cavaignac at 
 our head during the civil war ; we retained him in 
 power during peace, or rather during the truce.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 GENERAL CAVAIGNAC'S GOVERNMENT. ABD-EL-KADER. — 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 1848. 
 
 I have, in the preceding chapter, done as the 
 Assembly did. I have forgotten the national work- 
 shops and occupied myself solely with the battle, and 
 I must now return to the close of this lamentable 
 question. 
 
 For more than thirty years it has been either 
 calumniously or erroneously repeated that, in voting 
 for the suppression of the national workshops, we had • 
 given, more or less intentionally, more or less treacher- 
 ously, the signal for civil war — a curious example 
 of the duration of historical mistakes, when a de- 
 liberate attempt is made to mystify public levity ! 
 The curious point is that this suppression was never 
 voted at all. It was decreed and executed dictatorially 
 on the 3rd of July by General Cavaignac and by the ' 
 thoroughly Republican ministry with which he had 
 surrounded himself. When, scarcely recovered from 
 the fatigue of so painful a contest, the General came
 
 288 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 before the Assembly to justify his decree, he expressed 
 himself in these words : — 
 
 " The organisation of the national workshops was, 
 I must say, a formidable organisation on the 23rd of 
 last June. The idea which had presided over this or- 
 ganisation was good and pure, but there is no doubt 
 that, owing to the march of events, this creation had 
 become completely diverted from the purpose for which 
 it was intended, and I repeat, the organisation of 
 
 ''the national workshops had become formidable and 
 menacing to liberty." 
 
 Thus the only result of the June insurrection, which 
 
 --had no avowable motive and which was utterly inex- 
 cusable, was to compromise and adjourn, in the Con- 
 stituent Assembly, every measure that we intended 
 taking in favour of the working classes. The Legis- 
 lative Assembly met with the same hindrance. The 
 post-scriptum riot, that is to say the abortive riot of 
 the 13th of June, 1849, landed it, from its birth, in 
 prosecutions and political trials ; and it was certainly 
 not at the initiative of the Left that the study of 
 popular requirements was resumed, when tranquillity 
 was once more re-established. This initiative came 
 from the Eight. A speech from M. de Melun, received 
 with unanimous applause, scored an even greater 
 success for true Christian philanthropy than for the 
 orator. M. de Melun obtained the nomination of a 
 committee of thirty members, instructed to draw up 
 in legislative form the schemes proposed by the 
 solicitude of the political for the working classes.
 
 GENERAL CAVAIGNAC's GOVERNMENT. 289 
 
 This committee appointed M. Parisis, Bishop of 
 Langres, as its president, M. de Melun as secretary, 
 and M. Thiers as reporter. The endowment of the 
 societies for mutual assistance, the improvement of the 
 savings banks, the demolition of unhealthy dwellings, 
 and the protection of children in factories, were pro- 
 posed by this committee and voted by the Legislative 
 Assembly. Irritating discussions, the precursors of 
 the 2nd of December, once more hindered this notion ; 
 but when the Empire was born of the Coup d'Etat and 
 believed itself to be firmly established, it drew from 
 the minutes of the committee, and from M. Thiers* 
 voluminous report, a regular arsenal of popular bills — 
 the measures of which it boasted before universal 
 suffrage, without even alluding to their first and real 
 origin. 
 
 But to return to 1848. When General Cavaignac 
 was appointed Head of the Executive Power, who 
 opposed him ? who defended him ? 
 
 His first, we might say his sole adversaries, were 
 the remnants of the government of the Hotel de Ville. 
 Their Opposition had neither a well-defined programme 
 nor an openly avowed reason. They were malcontents 
 rather than enemies, who seized upon pretexts rather 
 than alleged grievances. MM. Jules Favre, Pagnerre, 
 Garnier-Pages were the orators of this group ; the 
 reliable supporters, the declared partisans of General 
 Cavaignac, met in the Eue de Poitiers, in the lecture 
 hall of the Academy of Medicine. 
 
 According to custom, this parliamentary meeting 
 
 vol. i. u
 
 290 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 was named after the street in which it was held. It 
 would have been difficult, moreover, to find a political 
 name to express the opinions which preponderated in 
 its midst. It was a foregathering of all the well- 
 disposed men who were desirous of concerning them- 
 selves exclusively with the difficulties of the moment, 
 of solving them loyally by the construction of a power 
 which should be the personification of order. The 
 party of the Eue de Poitiers admitted into its deliber- 
 ations, without difficulty or recrimination, Legitimists, 
 Orleanists and Republicans. Anxiety to be impartial, 
 the desire to break every link with the past, in order 
 to be and seem to be more free in the present, were so 
 great that at the opening meeting every representative 
 who had belonged to the old Assemblies was rigorously 
 excluded. 
 
 After the terrible days of June the party became 
 alarmed at its responsibility, and, although it included 
 many men who might have served it usefully as guides, 
 such as MM. de Kerdrel, Berard, Denjoy, Baze, and 
 Baraguay d'Hilliers, it resolved to withdraw the 
 ostracism which weighed upon the most experienced 
 men in the Assembly, and it requested the admission 
 of MM. Odilon Barrot, Duvergier de Hauranne, 
 Dufaure, Mole and Thiers. The influence of these 
 illustrious parliamentary men did not therefore spring 
 from a spontaneous movement, nor from a plot, nor 
 even from an afterthought. It was, like many other 
 events of this date, the enforced result of our misfor- 
 tunes, and due to resignation rather than desire. It
 
 GENERAL CAVAIGNAC's GOVERNMENT. 291 
 
 was the same thing with General Cavaignac's acces- 
 sion. The Eue de Poitiers party would have preferred 
 General Changarnier, but he had not yet left Africa. 
 The party might legitimately have chosen General de 
 la Moriciere or General Bedeau, who had taken a 
 valiant share in the days of June and who offered 
 every political security. However it contented itself 
 with the one being at the Ministry of War, the other 
 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it un- 
 hesitatingly confided the executive power to General 
 Cavaignac, precisely because he was Republican by 
 birth and conviction. It thus flattered itself that it 
 had dissipated all cause for umbrage, and was anxious 
 that this disposition should not be in doubt for a 
 moment. 
 
 The Rue de Poitiers party then unanimously pro- 
 posed to place itself in communication with General 
 Cavaignac by means of an official deputation com- 
 posed of six members. This deputation was to inform 
 the General that a feeling of confidence in him 
 induced the party to renounce the direct nomination 
 of ministers — a nomination which members had at 
 first thought of demanding as a reaction against MM. 
 Ledru-Rollin and de Lamartine ; that it would openly 
 and firmly support the new administration ; that it 
 desired that the portfolios should be confided to men 
 who would not awaken any suspicion amongst the 
 Republicans ; and that it wished, in consequence, 
 that this administration should be largely recruited 
 from among the Republicans of long standing. No 
 
 u2
 
 292 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 individual names were directly or indirectly recom- 
 mended to the six members of the deputation from 
 the party, these six representatives being MM. 
 Yivien, Baze, de Seze, Yesins, Degousee, and myself. 
 The same evening we asked for an interview with 
 General Cavaignac, and it was granted us for the 
 following morning at seven o'clock. The General, still 
 exhausted by the fatigue of the battle, received us 
 lying upon a camp bedstead, in one of the small 
 drawing-rooms of the Hotel reserved for the Presi- 
 dent of the Assembly. He declared to us, with 
 dignified and cordial good nature, that he did not 
 know any of us, as M. Degousee, his old comrade, 
 had, for some reason which I cannot recall, been 
 unable to join the deputation. " I do not know your 
 opinions," he said to us, "I am a soldier from Africa 
 unexpectedly transported to a new soil. But I do 
 not, at the same time, require more ample informa- 
 tion in order to respond very frankly to your over- 
 ture." 
 
 He then told us that negotiations were already 
 commenced for forming the new Ministry as speedily 
 as possible ; that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was 
 intended for General Bedeau, of War for General de 
 la Moriciere, the Interior for M. Senard, Finance for 
 M. Goudchaux. These, it will be seen, were the four 
 most important posts, and they were given to men 
 who had borne the burden of the struggle, General de 
 la Moriciere and General Bedeau on the barricades, 
 M. Senard in the Presidency of the Assembly, M.
 
 GENERAL CAVAIGNAC's GOVERNMENT. 293 
 
 Goudchaux as President of the Committee of the 
 National Workshops. These four names at once ob- 
 tained our support, while the names of MM. Beth- 
 mont and Thouret, suggested for the Ministries of 
 Justice and Agriculture, met with equal approval. 
 
 General Cavaignac added that he did not foresee 
 any objection to M. Carnot retaining the Ministry of 
 Public Instruction. Until then M. Vivien had been 
 our spokesman ; some of the others now requested 
 leave to speak, and greatly astonished General Cavaig- 
 nac by telling him that several circulars by M. Carnot 
 had produced considerable anxiety in many parts of 
 the country ; that his ideas, too sincere to vary, would 
 be sooner or later a stumbling block to the majority ; 
 that it was necessary to foresee these crises and to 
 prevent them from hampering the authority which he 
 was endeavouring to reconstitute. General Cavaignac 
 replied to us that only a vague echo of the educa- 
 tional controversies had reached him in Algiers ; that 
 he had never paid much attention to them ; that he 
 could not answer us as to facts and views which now 
 presented themselves to his mind for the first time ; 
 but that he at the same time understood the character 
 of our objections to M. Carnot ; that he would refer 
 to those of his colleagues whom we might consider 
 as already forming part of the Ministry ; and that he 
 would gladly speak to us again in the course of the 
 day. The explanations given by General Cavaignac 
 and the sentiments that he had expressed had not 
 fully satisfied us ; but we could see that he was above
 
 294 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 all things a soldier, and that we ought at least to give 
 him time to acquire a strategy which he could not 
 study either in Yauban or in Jomini. We were at 
 all events sure that we had inspired him with con- 
 fidence as to our support. The General was expected 
 at eight o'clock for a large review of the provincial 
 National Guards. We then separated, adjourning till 
 the afternoon the only point remaining in dispute, 
 viz. as to M. Carnot's remaining in office. 
 
 We returned to the drawing-room at the Presi- 
 dency about one o'clock ; the General was absent, but 
 M. Senard received us in his place. He told us that 
 the incident relative to M. Carnot had placed them 
 in great embarrassment ; that he perfectly appreciated 
 the reasons for our resistance, but that the General 
 had, on the spur of the moment and not dreaming 
 that the course could produce any difficulty, on the 
 preceding evening asked M. Carnot to remain in the 
 Ministry ; that he considered himself bound to him, 
 and that if M. Carnot did not set him at liberty, the 
 difficulty might become a very serious one. M. 
 Senard complemented his speech by positive assur- 
 ances of the desire which the Ministry felt to see 
 Public Instruction directed in a less imprudent way. 
 
 We then offered to take upon ourselves the re- 
 sponsibility of the first overtures to M. Carnot. 
 M. Senard appeared enchanted at our offer, and 
 after a few moments sent him to the room, where 
 we had waited for him. With much frankness we 
 explained to our honourable colleague the sentiments
 
 GENERAL CAVAIGNAC's GOVERNMENT. 295 
 
 of esteem and the motives for dissent which induced 
 us to make him the confidant of our opposition; 
 that his presence in the Ministry would certainly 
 lead to an early and in every respect regrettable 
 crisis; that we appealed to his loyalty and begged 
 him to extricate General Cavaignac from a false 
 situation. 
 
 M. Carnot, habitually smiling and impassive, 
 because he rarely took any objection or difficulty into 
 account, replied that he was far from being offended 
 by our language, that General Cavaignac was not in 
 any way bound to him, that he was consequently free 
 to deprive him of his portfolio or to retain him at his 
 post, and that his preparations for going into the 
 country were already commenced. We replied that it 
 was not a question of knowing whether General 
 Cavaignac was or was not really pledged, since he 
 believed himself to be so. We assured M. Carnot 
 that he indeed felt this scruple. M. Carnot confining 
 himself to the same answer, we persisted in the same 
 reply. We were then forced to send for M. S^nard a 
 second time, in order that he might explain his views 
 as to how far General Cavaignac was pledged. M. 
 Senard unhesitatingly ranged himself on our side, not 
 concealing from M. Carnot that he considered his 
 resignation would help to strengthen the new Ministry. 
 M. Carnot retired, telling us that he would explain 
 himself to the General, and that certainly he would 
 not complicate nor prolong on his own account the 
 difficulties of the situation. We considered (M.
 
 296 MEMOIRS OP A ROYALIST. 
 
 Senard and ourselves) that M. Carnot's resignation 
 was an accomplished fact, and we suggested several 
 names which might, in our opinion, be usefully- 
 suggested to General Cavaignac, taking care always 
 to confine ourselves to the narrow circle of Kepub- 
 licans of long standing. 
 
 While all this had been going on the Assembly had 
 
 commenced its sittings. Our colleagues questioned 
 
 us eagerly, and we told them that a Ministry would 
 
 be formed and proclaimed that evening, for the 
 
 Assembly was still sitting permanently, adding that 
 
 in all probability, nay certainly, M. Carnot would 
 
 not be part of it. The suspended sitting was resumed 
 
 at eight o'clock that evening. One of the Ministers, 
 
 taking us hurriedly on one side, informed us, with 
 
 undisguised annoyance, that M. Carnot retained his 
 
 portfolio. A few moments later the Ministry was 
 
 proclaimed in the tribune, and an explosion of 
 
 murmurs greeted the name of the Minister of Public 
 
 Instruction. A few days later one of the most 
 
 eminent men of the party of the Eue de Poitiers, a 
 
 stranger by reason of his age and career to every 
 
 ancient coterie, M. Bonjean, the future and courageous 
 
 hostage of the Commune, produced in the tribune 
 
 several volumes authorised by M. Carnot in the 
 
 primary schools, and a very large majority at once 
 
 passed the vote of censure moved by the speaker. 
 
 This time M. Carnot did not hesitate about resigning. 
 
 He had not been overthrown by surprise or through 
 
 caprice, nor with a desire to inflict a check upon the
 
 GENERAL CAVAIGNAC's GOVERNMENT. 297 
 
 Ministry. This was so well understood that not one 
 of his colleagues thought it necessary to join him in 
 resigning. I did not know what had passed at the 
 Presidency the week before between General Cavaignac 
 and M. Carnot, nor what had decided them both to 
 brave this rash venture. I imagine, however, that 
 the incident may be explained in this way. 
 
 M. Carnot cared little for office, but he was much 
 attached, in educational matters, to the ideas of his 
 party. He made it a point of honour to shield them 
 with his name and to insist upon their acceptance. 
 General Cavaignac, upon the other hand, without 
 caring for M. Carnot himself, cared a great deal for 
 the memory of the elder Carnot, his father, and for 
 all the souvenirs attached to it. Allowing themselves 
 to go astray as to the gravity of the general circum- 
 stances, and making a personal matter of it, M. Carnot 
 compromised his personal dignity not a little, while 
 the new chief of the executive power gratuitously 
 offended the party of order, which had lavished proofs 
 of their esteem upon him. The majority, although 
 alive to this objectionable conduct, did not retain any 
 ill-feeling towards him. It had rejected in M. Carnot 
 what it deemed to be incompetent obstinacy ; it did 
 not wish to go beyond that, and did not insist upon 
 the selection of a minister who would be either the 
 representative or the precursor of the ideas which it 
 preferred. Its constant preoccupation was to show 
 itself free from impatience or party spirit, and it was 
 satisfied with M. de Yaulabelle, who, like M. Carnot,
 
 298 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 was not particularly distinguished by special abilities 
 or oratorical talent. He also belonged, like his pre- 
 decessor, to the Eepublicans of yesterday, but he was 
 inoffensive and fairly independent of the yoke of his 
 dangerous friends. His manner of entering the 
 Ministry made some sensation, for he arrived with a 
 trunk carried on the shoulders of a street porter, kept 
 this trunk open in his room, took from it whatever he 
 wanted, and packed it up on the day of his departure, 
 leaving behind him an almost Spartan reputation. 
 Several of his friends even reproached him for an 
 austerity, not of habits, but of tastes, which would 
 have spoilt the Eepublic for them had his example 
 been followed. 
 
 Our union with the Government was therefore 
 maintained as long as its continuance depended upon 
 ourselves. General Cavaignac had very high and 
 rare qualities. His distinguished appearance, his 
 proud soldierly bearing, naturally inspired respect; 
 his sober, energetic speech, sometimes eloquent in its 
 brevity, recalled the heroes of Plutarch. There was 
 nothing either affected or unreal in him. If the 
 envelope were a noble one so was the character. His 
 language was not brilliant as a mere matter of chance, 
 for his ideas were really elevated, and in matters 
 which he quite understood they were also just and 
 firm. He had at the same time not humility — the 
 word is more Christian than he was himself — but 
 modesty. No speaker ever surpassed the effect which 
 his gesture and accent produced when, pointing to
 
 GENERAL CAVAIGNAC's GOVERNMENT. 299 
 
 General de la Moriciere, he said, " What astonishes 
 me is to see him in the second rank when I am in the 
 first." 
 
 What, then, was lacking in General Cavaignac ? 
 The answer must be : an education worthy of him. 
 He had a deep rich nature which had not received 
 the good cultivation it deserved, but, what was 
 far worse, had received a bad one. He was born and 
 grew up in a circle full of unjust passions and narrow 
 prejudices. Son and brother of men more ardent than 
 himself, he accepted, as a point of honour and as an 
 heritage, opinions and habits which, had he been a 
 free agent, he would certainly neither have sought for 
 nor adopted. This starting point at first appeared of 
 service to him, but it soon compromised, paralysed, 
 and finally ruined him. When his deficiencies and 
 his errors were perceived, one could but part from 
 him with regret, sadly turning one's head to see if he 
 would not rejoin you, or if you could not return to 
 him ; and when the rupture became final, regret and 
 sympathy were still felt for him. These sentiments 
 are, in all sincerity, those with which he inspired me 
 at different periods, and I venture to assert that for a 
 long time they were shared by the whole Conservative 
 party. The facts which I have to relate will prove 
 this. 
 
 However prudent and moderate the majority might 
 be, the abettors of anarchy could not console them- 
 selves for the outcome of the June days, and they 
 endeavoured to awaken passions by pointing out the
 
 300 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 spectre of the monarchy at every turn. Proudhon, 
 who was reckless in his opinions even to cynicism, 
 said before the Committee of Inquiry instituted by 
 the Assembly — 
 
 " On the 23rd of June I believed there was a 
 conspiracy of pretenders to the throne, using as their 
 instruments the workmen of the national workshops, 
 but, like others, I was mistaken. On the following 
 day I was convinced that the insurrection was 
 socialist ! " 
 
 Such evidence, from such a quarter, ought to have 
 exonerated all the parties who were being charged 
 with the responsibility of the bloodshed which had 
 occurred ; but personal ambition and preconceived 
 assertions are very difficult adversaries to discourage. 
 The almost universal reprobation which then weighed 
 upon the insurrection was heavy to assume. One 
 Eepublican, little respected even by the Kepublicans 
 themselves, M. Laurent (de FArdeohe), then endea- 
 voured to mislead public opinion by soliciting an 
 inquiry into the monarchist participation in the days 
 of June. This proposition, warmly supported in the 
 demagogic journals, met with a very different recep- 
 tion in the bureaux of the Assembly, which put 
 it quite upon one side. I did not consider this tacit 
 condemnation sufficient for my friends and for myself. 
 I publicly demanded that the motion of M. Laurent 
 (de PArdeche) should be promptly discussed, sum- 
 ming up the reasons for my persistency in these 
 words : " We must arm justice, or disarm calumny ! "
 
 GENERAL CAVAIGNAC's GOVERNMENT. 301 
 
 General Cavaignac loyally but awkwardly intervened 
 in this short skirmish. It was not the only time that 
 he did disservice to the true interests of the Eepublic, 
 through fear of appearing unfaithful to the Eepublic 
 itself. We soon had a much more serious proof of 
 this. 
 
 On the evening of the 15th of September, the 
 meeting of the Eue de Poitiers was suddenly informed 
 that it had that morning been decided by the Council 
 of Ministers to choose from among the members of 
 the Assembly seated on the Left, commissioners to be 
 sent to each department, with almost unlimited powers, 
 in order that they might rally the country to Eepub- 
 lican sentiments. We were not less surprised than 
 annoyed in the meeting. This strange measure was 
 evidently meant as a token of mistrust for the regular 
 administration, an attempt to intimidate the country, 
 an undisguised effort to imperiously extend the yoke 
 of Paris over the whole of France. It was, in fact, an 
 inopportune and perhaps very dangerous evocation of 
 the worst souvenirs of the Convention. Not fore- 
 seeing the revelation which was to be made in the Eue 
 de Poitiers, I had gone that evening to hear Guillaume 
 Tell at the Opera, with my colleague and friend M. 
 Fresneau. It was, therefore, only the next day, when 
 entering the Hall of the Assembly, that I was in- 
 formed of what had passed. M. Baze was in the 
 tribune, putting a question to M. Senard, then Minister 
 of the Interior, who admitted that the report was 
 true, but failed to justify it. My first impulse, far
 
 302 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 from being hostile, was one of courtesy towards 
 General Cavaignac. I went to his seat and asked him 
 in an undertone for some explanations, which he gave 
 me in terms as embarrassed and as little reassuring 
 as those of M. Senard. Illusion as to the object of 
 the scheme was no longer possible. I ascended the 
 tribune, and I expressed my apprehensions with a 
 sincerity to which the Assembly rendered justice, even 
 beyond my expectations. I especially dwelt upon 
 the puerility of the assumption to be incessantly 
 founding the Eepublic, just as if on the 4th of May, 
 the 15th of May, and the 23rd of June we had not 
 given it the most unequivocal pledges. General 
 Cavaignac, visibly annoyed, interrupted me more than 
 once, but I completed my speech, eliciting not only 
 the warm approbation of the Eight but also applause 
 from several benches of the Left. The Minister of the 
 Interior vainly endeavoured to regain the lost ground. 
 The sitting was suspended in order to seek for some 
 means of reconciliation. 
 
 At this moment the Eight had it in their power to 
 inflict a decisive check upon General Cavaignac. I 
 was urged on all sides to bring forward, at the 
 resumption of the sitting, some very aggressive mo- 
 tions. There was a medley of such exclamations as, 
 "It is all a trap!" "It's juggling with universal 
 suffrage ! " " They want to carry the presidential 
 election by arbitrary means ! " 
 
 M. Jules Favre, convinced that he was paying me 
 a compliment, whispered this strange compliment in
 
 GENERAL CAVAIGNAC's GOVERNMENT. 303 
 
 my ear, " They said that I was the most perfidious 
 man in the Assembly, but I yield the palm to you ! " 
 I protested, sincerely declaring that my opposition 
 was only directed against the measure which I con- 
 sidered injurious, [and that it was not in any way 
 aimed at overthrowing General Cavaignac. At the 
 same time I refused all the orders of the day pre- 
 sented to me. The Government, upon its side, under- 
 stood that all it could do was to draw up the clauses 
 of an honourable capitulation. The President of the 
 Assembly, M. Marrast, himself undertook this duty, 
 and proposed an order of the day agreed upon between 
 the General and his Ministry. The censure was not 
 mentioned in so many words, but it was implicitly 
 admitted. The commissioners already nominated 
 made no use of their power, and this measure, pro- 
 bably revolutionary in intention, extra parliamentary 
 in any case, was never put into execution. 
 
 For the nonce, we had heard the last of the phan- 
 tasmagoria of monarchical plots, which were hence- 
 forth relegated to the backstairs of the demagogues. 
 But, at the same time, we only escaped difficulties of 
 detail to enter upon the most laborious part of our 
 task, viz. the production of a definitive constitution. 
 
 Before relating all that passed under my eyes on 
 this subject, I must record a loss which touched me 
 in my warmest and tenderest affections. M. de 
 Ress6guier had just lost at Pau a wife worthy of him. 
 She was only twenty- six, and he was thirty- two. From 
 that hour he commenced a life of sacrifice and devo-
 
 304 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 tion which never varied. God rewarded him in this 
 world by the two daughters who make their mother 
 live again in all her charm and all her virtues. 
 
 I paid a short visit to Pau at this painful juncture. 
 The castle, which had been the birthplace of Henry 
 IV., was then occupied by Abd-el-Kader, and in this 
 picturesque residence the rigours of captivity had 
 been moderated by courteous consideration. The 
 vicinity of this representative of Islamism reawakened 
 many illusions in my mind. I was still convinced 
 that France had a duty to fulfil or rather to continue 
 in the East, and that railways, invented at* an oppor- 
 tune moment, were really to become the " seven- 
 leagued boots " of Christianity. But my hopes had 
 been neither satisfied nor discouraged by the events in 
 Algeria. The conquests of the last reign had at first 
 been coldly adopted by the new ; colonisation seemed 
 to advance rather haphazard, but still it advanced. 
 Sometimes a general had the whiphand of the Gover- 
 nor, sometimes a Governor overruled the Minister ; it 
 was never the soldier who said, "It is enough ! " 
 never France who said, " It is too much ! " 
 
 Even at this time, in the midst of the perils of the 
 scarcely repressed sedition in Paris, Africa offered to 
 us an admirable outlet for the most pressing exigencies 
 of the general situation. Each day, La Moriciere, the 
 Minister of War, sent fresh contingents of emigrants 
 into Algeria, and Algerian questions became more and 
 more French questions. During this time, what work 
 was being accomplished in the hearts of the native
 
 ABD-EL-KADER. 305 
 
 populations? Abd-el-Kader had represented resist- 
 ance in its supreme degree ; to what extent did he 
 now represent submission ? To me this was a curious 
 problem ; the Emir's captivity would perhaps enable 
 me to study it. 
 
 Like Napoleon at St. Helena, Abd-el-Kader refused 
 all walking exercise in order not to subject himself 
 to a supervision which could not, however, as yet be 
 dispensed with ; but he gladly welcomed a few visitors, 
 and showed especial interest in interviews which 
 related to religious questions. I therefore easily 
 obtained through M. de Kess^guier, unhappy as he 
 was, a letter of introduction to Captain Boissonnet, 
 the prisoner's usual iaterpreter. 
 
 Abd-el-Kader, seated upon a bed, his legs crossed 
 and concealed beneath ample white woollen draperies, 
 received and saluted me without rising. His bed 
 was placed in the darkest corner of a spacious gallery ; 
 a square carpet spread before it indicated the place 
 reserved for strangers, and seats were already pre- 
 pared there. I was first and chiefly struck with his 
 physiognomy, his eye, full of fire, questioned and 
 responded before he had opened his lips. His beard, 
 black as jet, brought into relief the startling white- 
 ness of his teeth. He was scarcely above middle 
 height. While the interpreter repeated his words, 
 one might have thought that he had lost all interest 
 in them ; his eyes were lowered, and he appeared to 
 murmur a prayer or a few pious verses. One Arab only 
 was present at our interview, but he took no part in it. 
 
 vol i. x
 
 306 MEMOIKS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 He was an uncle of Abd-el-Kader, an infirm old man 
 struck with deafness and usually plunged in a reverie 
 which bordered on somnolence. He was at the other 
 extremity of the gallery, stretched upon a thick car- 
 pet surrounded with cushions, and only at rare inter- 
 vals cast a chance look at the foreign visitor. Nothing 
 appeared to trouble or distract him. 
 
 After a few preliminaries, which can have no in- 
 terest, Captain Boissonnet kindly interpreted between 
 the Emir and myself the following dialogue : — 
 
 " You have not the same God as I have," I said to 
 him, " but you fervently believe in your own. You 
 know that they both condemn untruthfulness in our 
 words. Are you willing that we should call them 
 to witness for what we are about to say ? " 
 
 " Our Gods are not so different as you say. We 
 are children of two different mothers, but of the same 
 Father. I, like you, take God as witness of my sin- 
 cerity. Question me as you please, I am like a sick 
 man awaiting a remedy," and slightly raising his 
 sleeve as he extended his left arm with a noble ges- 
 ture. " I prefer," he added, " severe bleeding to a 
 plaster, which is painless, but useless." 
 
 " I will frankly avail myself of your permission. 
 There are two ways of being vanquished in this 
 world : the weapons fall from the hand, or hatred falls 
 from the heart. I only recognise this second order of 
 pacification as definitive or durable. Is it the one 
 which you intended to contract with us ? Are you 
 inclined to esteem and love Christians as brothers
 
 ABD-EL-KADER. 307 
 
 whom God himself points out to you, and not as mas- 
 ters whom he imposes upon you ? " 
 
 " We have accepted the Turkish rule for a long 
 time, why then should we not readily accept the 
 French ? " 
 
 " Neither as a Frenchman nor as a Christian can I 
 accept any comparison with the Turks. It is a quite 
 new and very different fraternity which you ought to 
 contract with us." 
 
 u France has already received a proof of the senti- 
 ments which you ask me for. I might have sur- 
 rendered to the Emperor of Morocco. I preferred 
 surrendering to your Sovereign." 
 
 " I gratefully recognise the feeling which guided 
 you ; but do you not now feel a desire to be faithful 
 to it by initiating yourself, of your own free will, in 
 the study of our customs and of our religion ? " 
 
 " Man resembles a mirror : the mirror can only 
 reflect the image of heaven when it is clear : the mind 
 can only nourish great thoughts when it is free. I 
 cannot, in the state of captivity in which I am re- 
 tained, nourish any thoughts but those of my sorrow." 
 
 u I accept your comparison. The breath which 
 dims the surface of a mirror is effaced almost imme- 
 diately and it resumes its brilliancy. Over a heart 
 like yours adversity can only pass like a breath, and 
 your courage ought to restore to you the strength to 
 think, as you would promptly regain that of acting if 
 your horse were given back to you, or your prison 
 doors thrown open to you." 
 
 x2
 
 308 MEMOIRS OF A EOTALIST. 
 
 " My thoughts to-day are the same as when I laid 
 down my arms. I only wish for one thing ; a pil- 
 grimage to Mecca. I look upon myself as a dead 
 man. I have, therefore, no other ambition than to 
 spend my last hours in meditation and prayer." 
 
 "I cannot, knowing the activity of your genius 
 and considering the youthfulness of your face, look 
 upon you as a dead man. At the most, I can only 
 regard you as a man asleep, but that is not enough 
 to reassure me. A man asleep awakens with all the 
 feelings which possessed him before sleep. I could 
 wish that events had produced some new sentiment 
 in your soul, and how much I wish to penetrate those 
 sentiments ! " 
 
 " I have no other thoughts than those I have named 
 to you. My career is ended, I am now only a man of 
 prayer." 
 
 " Do you not consider that you have hereditary 
 rights to dominion over the soil of Africa, through 
 your birth ? " 
 
 " I firmly believe in my descent from the Prophet, 
 but many others share this honour with me." 
 
 "No one has claimed it with the same energy and 
 the same ascendency as you have." 
 
 " You are mistaken, I did not make events, they 
 made me what I have been. When they changed, I 
 ceased to exist. It requires great exertion to excavate 
 a canal and keep it full of water ; it requires none to 
 allow a river to flow. My fortune has now flowed back 
 to its natural bed; it must not leave it again."
 
 ABD-EL-KADER. 309 
 
 " Since circumstances sufficed to arouse great ideas 
 of war within you, does it not seem to you as though 
 your captivity were also an indication that God intends 
 to inspire you with great ideas of peace ? " 
 
 " What do you mean by great ideas of peace, and 
 what would you think if you were in my place ? " 
 
 "We both look upon the events of this world as 
 scattered fragments of the Divine will, but we diaw 
 different conclusions from it. With you Mahometans, 
 your submission is passive, and you base your piety 
 upon blindly submitting to what you call fatality. We 
 Christians, on the contrary, only take these events as 
 signs, and we seek in them the direction of the new 
 efforts which heaven expects from our liberty. I, 
 therefore, find it difficult to put myself in your place. 
 However, placed as I see you, I should believe that 
 God had sent me amongst Christians to consult with 
 their learned men, with their priests, and to aid in 
 drawing together two races and two religions which 
 have been too long separated." 
 
 "Every day I study my own religion (Abd-el-Kader 
 then raised a pile of Arab books buried under his 
 pillow), and I am not yet equal to this study, but if 
 freedom of worship is guaranteed to us in Africa our 
 children and yours can be brought up together." 
 
 "You know that the freedom of your creed is 
 respected in Algeria ; but do not let us speak of that 
 country, since I have no mission to regulate its desti- 
 nies. Let us only speak of the movements of your own 
 mind, of the thoughts that are born in it, and of the
 
 310 MEMOIES OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 impulse which you give them. I again ask your per- 
 mission to examine into your heart more closely, if 
 my persistency does not annoy you." 
 
 " Far from this conversation being disagreeable to 
 me, it appears to me that your mind and mine blend 
 like water and milk." 
 
 "I thank you, and I also assure you that my heart 
 is full of all the sympathy and good wishes for you 
 which you could possibly have poured into it yourself. 
 Let us then continue to talk, not like men who artifi- 
 cially discuss the clauses of a treaty, but like friends 
 who seek the same way out of the same difficulty." 
 
 " Well, yes, let us speak like friends, for I sincerely 
 pray to God that the soil of France may be con- 
 solidated." 
 
 " It is consolidating itself, and will become, you may 
 rest assured, the most hospitable on earth. But we 
 must not turn away from the only subject which can 
 usefully occupy the short hour that is allowed us. 
 Your body is captive, but your soul is free. Your 
 arm has renounced warlike weapons, but your heart 
 cannot renounce prayer and contemplation of God's 
 will. Instead, then, of telling me that you are dead, 
 tell me that you feel yourself full of youth and life, tell 
 me that you wish to render this second part of your 
 life still more brilliant than the first, that after having 
 distinguished yourself more than any one else in war 
 you will now work for peace in harmony with us ; that 
 you have renounced the might of ancestry and arms, 
 but that you are still ambitious for that of speech and
 
 ABD-EL-KADER. 311 
 
 truth ; tell me that you wish to love us, and before 
 loving to know us." 
 
 " I like the French whom I know, and the French- 
 men who know me like me." 
 
 " Yes, but they are drops of water in an ocean. You 
 have, in order to advance in this knowledge, two great 
 paths before you ; the study of our religion and that of 
 our history. God has revealed Himself to us by great 
 miracles, by admirable writings ; will you read them 
 and allow our priests to comment upon them to you ? 
 The God of a people reveals himself also in the history 
 of that people, by the great deeds with which He 
 inspires them, by the civilisation which He develops 
 amongst them. Will not you compare our civilisation 
 with your own ? Will you not dive deep into its laws 
 with our savants and politicians ? " 
 
 " What you say responds to my most earnest wishes ; 
 I have frequently thought of this. More than once, I 
 have expressed such a desire to Captain Boissonnet, 
 but, I repeat, alone and isolated I can do nothing. 
 The Arabs even would no longer listen to my voice." 
 
 "Ah, I quite realise the implied meaning of those 
 last words ! I understand your reserve and your pride, 
 I understand that you would not leave this castle like 
 a deserter from your own faith, and reappear before 
 your brethren like a man who has gained freedom by 
 apostasy. But do you not know that our God has a 
 vicar upon earth whom he calls the Pope, and that 
 this, the most venerated representative of our faith, 
 possesses a capital where, for eighteen hundred years,
 
 312 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 all nations meet together and all languages are spoken. 
 "Would you not find some pleasure in staying in Kome, 
 and would you not gladly inquire into the origin of 
 Christianity ? " 
 
 "I respect the Pope, and I am acquainted with the 
 existence of his capital. I look upon him as a friend 
 of sincere believers whoever they may be. I have 
 asked that the vessel which is to take me to Mecca 
 should enable me to rest for a short time in Eome. If 
 the Pope would like to form a Council there between 
 his priests and mine, I shall be happy to take my 
 place in it. Ask the Frenchmen who have been with 
 me since I surrendered to you if these wishes are not 
 habitual to me." 
 
 This unexpected overture surprised me greatly. I 
 saw in it a great and noble perspective, which it 
 was not for me to examine in the details of its execu- 
 tion ; but it moved my heart and made me pause. 
 Unfortunately for me an accident closed our inter- 
 view. An Arab, escorted by three young children, 
 entered the gallery and pronounced a few words in a 
 low voice. He was one of Abd-el-Kader's numerous 
 servants, who came to warn him that his family 
 awaited him for evening prayer. Abd-el-Kader 
 descended from the bed where he had been sitting^ 
 and, without advancing a step towards me, held out 
 his hand. I cordially clasped it, he again expressed a 
 few grateful sentiments, then, opening my fingers and 
 crossing them with his own, said, " This is the most 
 friendly farewell among Arabs ! "
 
 ABD-EL-KADER. 313 
 
 During this short farewell the three young children 
 who belonged to him, grouped themselves round him. 
 He introduced them to me, I embraced them, and 
 he seemed pleased at my doing so. I offered the 
 eldest some bonbons that I had brought for his 
 brothers and himself. As he received them he said, 
 with a very French accent, "Merci" This Christian 
 word, falling from that childish mouth under the folds 
 of a burnous, in the foreground of this thoroughly 
 Arab scene, produced a singular impression. Three 
 generations were present there, like three symbols : 
 the Emir's old uncle, holding aloof in the silent 
 majesty of his grief, the ear and heart closed to the 
 movements surrounding him ; Abd-el-Kader, upright 
 and friendly, hesitating between the Oriental impas- 
 siveness which he had broken through and the attrac- 
 tion to which he yielded with constrained sympathy ; 
 the child, who was, in a few years, to take the place 
 of the old man going down into the grave and of the 
 man in his prime going down into old age, the child 
 pronouncing, like a word natural and pleasant to him, 
 the expression of his gratitude. Was all this a vision 
 of the future ? Even now I do not yet know, and few 
 people think of it. As for Abd-el-Kader, he has 
 really remained what he showed himself to me, 
 fervent, loyal, a friend of the Christians, without 
 making one decisive step towards Christianity. I was 
 to have seen him later on at Amboise, but an unfore- 
 seen obstacle prevented me from doing so. But his 
 face, at once warlike and serious, has very often come
 
 314 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 back and presented itself to my thoughts. Abd-el- 
 Kader died thirty-five years after this interview, and 
 this death consecrated a long existence faithfully 
 devoted to the same sentiments of sympathy towards 
 Christians. 
 
 On my departure for Pau I had left the Assembly 
 peaceable ; I found it on my return much agitated by 
 an imminent ministerial crisis. 
 
 A weak act of General Cavaignac, with regard to a 
 demagogic banquet at Toulouse, an impolitic speech 
 from M. Senard, although tempered by an impetuous 
 sally from his colleague La Moriciere, had again sur- 
 prised and irritated the majority, and it was found 
 necessary to give it some satisfaction. On the 13th 
 of October M. Senard was replaced in the Interior by 
 M. Dufaure, M. Eecurt in Public Works by M. 
 Vivien, M. de Vaulabelle in Public Instruction and 
 "Worship by M. Freslon. This last, a deputy of the 
 Maine-et-Loire, was an old Eepublican of whom 
 every party thought very highly, but much less suc- 
 cessful in the tribune of the Assembly than at the bar 
 in Angers. MM. Dufaure and Yivien were the most 
 eminent representatives of the Left Centre under 
 Louis-Philippe. It was thought that their eloquence 
 and their moral authority would give great ascendency 
 to common sense and foresight in the debates on the 
 constitution. But the hopes of their friends and the 
 expectation of the public were disappointed. Through 
 lack of strength they would not do even what they 
 might have accomplished. M. Vivien, less of a
 
 THE CONSTITUTION. 315 
 
 statesman than a lawyer, was more skilful in working 
 out and classifying details than in grasping and bring- 
 ing forward his views of a whole question. In his 
 eyes the trees hid the forest, to quote an Oriental 
 proverb. M. Dufaure, who had much less amenity 
 than M. Vivien, displayed no more energy ; he had 
 the mind of a superior but the character of a mediocre 
 man ; his abilities were great, his views and ambi- 
 tions were mean. Afraid of responsibility, he pre- 
 ferred descending the current to mounting against 
 it, and he was much less suited to fight out a 
 question than might have been supposed from his 
 abrupt tone, his rigid manner, and the austerity of 
 his private life. If the comparison might be allowed 
 me, I should compare him to one of those horses the 
 qualities of which depend upon the companion to 
 which he is harnessed. Coupled with M. Yivien, 
 under the hesitating guidance of General Cavaignac, 
 he was sure to give full scope to all his defects, and 
 he did not fail to do so. 
 
 The Constitution had another obstacle to encoun- 
 ter, probably the most dangerous of all, viz. to decide 
 upon the mode of electing a President of the 
 Eepublic. The first impulse of the majority was to 
 claim this right for itself, and if it had retained this 
 right, it would certainly have been used for General 
 Cavaignac. He and his friends knew this well. 
 Perhaps they allowed their reliance upon it to be 
 too clearly seen beforehand. The unmeasured am- 
 bition of some led to the conclusion that the person
 
 316 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 most interested was equally ambitious. It was felt 
 necessary to ask General Cavaignac for some guaran- 
 tees or personal engagements. They were refused, 
 or, what was still worse, were given in evasive 
 terms. 
 
 Hence distrust and hesitation were produced, and 
 General Cavaignac' s adversaries cleverly turned these 
 sentiments to their own purpose. Still, the Con- 
 servative forces were not seriously weakened ; the 
 proposal to confide the election of the President to 
 universal suffrage came from two different sides, from 
 the extreme Left and the Bonapartist group. But 
 these two parties inspired the majority with more 
 umbrage than the victor of June j and its numerical 
 superiority would have remained unaltered, but for 
 an intervention which threw the Assembly into very 
 unforeseen agitation. M. de Lamartine suddenly 
 emerged from the shade in which he had remained 
 since the humiliating check to the Executive Com- 
 mittee. He had allowed many suspicions to calm 
 down, and no one had placed himself on his guard 
 against the snares of his genius. 
 
 M. de Lamartine's speech opened by depicting the 
 long fluctuations of his conscience, he then lavished 
 congratulations or rather adulations upon the Assem- 
 bly itself, to which a body of intelligent men ought 
 to have been less susceptible. "When the sympathy 
 of his audience was once conquered, M. de Lamartine 
 gradually unfolded his idea, and in language which 
 he himself qualified as splendid — and it really was
 
 THE CONSTITUTION. 317 
 
 so — he disguised his hardihood beneath the most 
 ingenious metaphors. 
 
 This speech was not only distinguished by great 
 wealth of eloquence ; it stooped to professional 
 trickeries. By insinuating to impatient Eoyalists 
 and eager Bonapartists that they were defeated 
 beforehand in the Assembly, and had no other 
 resource but universal suffrage, he entrapped all who 
 were more selfish than patriotic, and carried a very 
 different vote from that which seemed certain a few 
 hours previously. After M. de Lamartine's speech, 
 pronounced during the sitting of the 6th of October, 
 all the amendments reserving the election for the 
 Assembly were rejected, particularly the radical 
 amendment of MM. Grevy and Flocon, which 
 excluded the idea of a Presidency at all. On the 
 10th of October the Assembly voted by a majority 
 of 627 votes against 130 the 46th and 47th articles, 
 thus worded : — 
 
 "The President is elected by secret ballot and the absolute 
 majority of votes, by the direct suffrage of all the electors in the 
 French departments and Algeria. 
 
 "If none of the candidates obtain more than half of the 
 declared suffrages, and at least two million votes, the National 
 Assembly will elect the President of the Eepublic by an absolute 
 majority and secret ballot from among the five eligible candi- 
 dates who have obtained the most votes." 
 
 In this vote of the National Assembly, the minority 
 of 130 votes ought not to be taken as the exact 
 number of the opponents. To them should be added 
 a certain number of abstentions, not only because
 
 318 MEMOIES OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 many hesitated between two systems, but because 
 they hesitated between two men. MM. Berryer, 
 Thiers, and Odilon Barrot were among those who 
 abstained from voting. 
 
 I was away on leave during this memorable debate, 
 but I doubt whether I should have been carried 
 away by M. de Lamartine's charm, for, when reading 
 his speech, I felt stupefied and depressed. I asked 
 myself whether the orator had complacently aban- 
 doned himself to the audacious enjoyment of a genius 
 in love with itself, and anxious to display its power, 
 or whether he had knowingly committed the crime 
 at once smaller and yet more odious, of a personal 
 calculation. M. de Lamartine despaired of the 
 Assembly which had pronounced his downfall three 
 months previously. Did he expect more success from 
 universal suffrage, which judged him from afar, and 
 was he coolly abandoning us to the chances of revolu- 
 tions which so rarely fulfil what they promise, and 
 which exact such a heavy payment even for what 
 they give ? 
 
 Shortly after the vote out of which Prince Louis 
 Napoleon came triumphant, I allowed myself to put 
 these questions to the Comte de Marcellus, one of M. 
 de Lamartine's most true and faithful friends. " There 
 must be bitter disappointment at the Chateau de Saint- 
 Point ? " I said to him. 
 
 "More than you can imagine," he replied. 
 
 " Did M. de Lamartine really cherish an illusion 
 respecting the Presidency ? "
 
 THE CONSTITUTION. 319 
 
 " Not at first, but this is the view he has frequently 
 expressed in his domestic circle : ' With universal 
 suffrage,' he said, 'no one can obtain an absolute 
 majority. Prince Louis, M. Ledru-Eollin, and myself 
 will inevitably be sent back to the Assembly, accord- 
 ing to the Constitution. I shall get into the tribune, 
 speak in the plentitude of my political inspiration, 
 trace irresistible pictures, and depict so magnificent a 
 future that the Assembly will elect me by acclamation 
 and perhaps unanimously ! ' This is the chimerical 
 height from which M. de Lamartine fell ! His last 
 days were sorrowful, and any one who refused to pity 
 him would be very severe. But what consolation and 
 what pardon could he give himself ? When a man has 
 ruined his country through fanaticism, fanaticism 
 survives and absorbs itself; but when one has only 
 yielded to ambition, how can conscience or patriotism 
 endure the complaints and reproaches of the country ? 
 
 In a very short time the Assembly recognised its 
 irreparable mistake, and anxiety succeeded to illusion 
 when it realised the extreme difficulty of presenting 
 a candidate of whom it knew anything to universal 
 suffrage. General Cavaignac and Prince Louis Bona- 
 parte, probably finding themselves alone in this 
 situation, were about to dispute for the government 
 of the Eepublic, without any possibility of escaping 
 from either one or the other by a third combination 
 which would have any possible chance of success. 
 
 I should certainly have been found amongst General 
 Cavaignac's warmest partisans if the General himself
 
 320 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 had not, according to his usual custom, applied him- 
 self to repel adherents rather than to conciliate them. 
 Always beset by suspicious friends, General Cavaignac 
 referred in the tribune without any provocation to his 
 father's regicide vote. In the same speech, as though 
 to double this painful impression, he did not hesitate 
 to declare that he would immolate himself, even to his 
 honour, for the Eepublic. 
 
 Finally, on the 7th of December, three days before 
 the vote for the Presidency, a list was shown to the 
 Assembly which had been presented to the Committee 
 of National Eewards, and in which appeared, so it 
 was said, the names of Nina Lassave, Fieschi's mis- 
 tress, the wife of Pepini, Fieschi's accomplice, the sister 
 of Lecomte, the author of an attempt to assassinate 
 Louis Philippe, and several malefactors of all kinds. 
 
 The revelation of this list produced so great an 
 effect upon the Assembly that M. Dufaure himself, the 
 scrupulous M. Dufaure, delayed the departure of the 
 mails in order that the departments should not hear of 
 the scandal until attenuated by the explanations of the 
 Government. This dealt the last blow to General 
 Cavaignac's candidature. Public opinion detached 
 itself completely from a party of which the most hon- 
 ourable members displayed such complacency towards 
 crimes which they certainly would not have committed 
 themselves, but against which they did not display 
 that energetic reprobation which ought to assert itself, 
 at the head of society, as a warning to some and a 
 reassurance to others.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 PRESIDENCY OF PEINCE LOUIS BONAPARTE — EDUCATIONAL 
 
 LIBERTY. 
 
 1848—1849. 
 
 The ballot of the 10th December, 1848, was only- 
 deceptive in that it exceeded the expectations of the 
 Conservative party. It was unmistakably a direct 
 protest against the Republicans, who had, immediately 
 after the 24th February, seemed eager to alarm France 
 instead of reassuring and rallying her. The party of 
 order then found itself officially charged with the 
 direction of affairs. As its responsibility increased it 
 was bound to show something in justification for 
 assuming the responsibility, and as its work on the 
 picture advanced to disperse the shadows from it. If 
 before the election secret connivances had existed, 
 they would now be revealed ; if previous professions 
 of faith had only been a move in the game, the mask 
 would now be thrown aside, and the party would feel 
 free from any engagements in the first joy of success. 
 The electors of the 10th December did not conceal 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 322 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 their sentiments. Why should we now dissimulate 
 our own? 
 
 The Assembly was reproached with the timidity of 
 its movements and its caution. The intention mani- 
 fested by the choice of a Napoleon was not the 
 reawakening of the gigantic ambitions of the Empire, 
 but it was solely and simply the expression of all that 
 this name implies, of antipathy, of antagonism, of 
 ^mortal aversion to the Eepublic. If the party of order 
 had some hidden thoughts, they were now at rest ; if 
 passions had lost patience, they could now find ex- 
 pression ; if political men had made bargains, the hour 
 for their fulfilment had arrived. 
 
 The party of order had been sincere and disinte- 
 rested, and order was still, after even as before the 
 10th December, its sole preoccupation. The chiefs of 
 the majority, M. Mole, M. Thiers, M. Odilon Barrot, 
 who with much spirit had seconded the vote for the 
 President, and M. Berry er, who had followed them 
 with more reserve and caution, had not allowed the 
 emergency to arise without first obtaining some defi- 
 nite pledges. Those guarantees could be summed up 
 in one sentence : the promise that the Ministry should 
 be a parliamentary one, that is to say, that it should 
 be taken from the ranks of the majority, and that 
 every fraction of that majority should be fairly repre- 
 sented in it. 
 
 We read in the Memoires of M. Odilon Barrot : — 
 
 "The selection could not be made from the Legitimist party 
 without some difficulty ; it was necessary that the minister
 
 PRESIDENCY OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 323 
 
 chosen to represent his party should possess its full confidence, 
 and yet that he should ally himself on some point or other with 
 the ideas of progress and liberty to which a ministry of the 
 Republic could not fail to respond." 
 
 M. Odilon Barrot mentions that the choice fell upon 
 me, and he kindly adds — 
 
 " M. de Falloux combined with very pronounced catholic con- 
 victions unquestionably liberal sentiments. I saw him at this 
 time, and was fortunate enough to induce him to accept." * 
 
 M. Odilon Barrot is mistaken ; it is true that he 
 proposed the office to me, but it was the Abbe Dupan- 
 loup who persuaded me to accept it. 
 
 In the beginning of December, 1848, M. Odilon 
 Barrot called upon me. He came in the name of 
 Prince Louis Napoleon, who considered his election 
 secure, to offer me the portfolio of Public Instruction 
 and Worship. I received this overture with real 
 surprise, and replied by a distinct refusal. M. Odilon 
 Barrot did not strongly urge me to accept, but went 
 away at once, with the air of a man who says in a tone 
 of indifference, " We will try some one else ! " 
 
 At the sitting of the Assembly, I felt it my duty to 
 seek out Prince Louis in one of the lobbies, and thank 
 him for the honour he had paid me. I then spoke to 
 him for the first time, and intended to restrict myself 
 to a simple expression of thanks. But the Prince 
 graciously expressed a wish to converse with me for a 
 few moments, and in order that our interview should 
 not be interrupted by the public, we, finding the com- 
 
 * Odilon Barrot, Memoiret, vol. iii. p. 41. 
 
 12
 
 324 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 mittee-rooms all occupied, passed into the old Chamber 
 of Deputies, which adjoined our provisional house. 
 We were alone in that vast hall, with its marble walls 
 and columns ; the temperature was at freezing point, 
 and as we had left our hats in the cloak-room we both 
 began to sneeze. The Prince briefly assured me of 
 the regret my refusal had caused him, and with the 
 same brevity I excused myself on the score of my 
 health. 
 
 " If you are alarmed at the work of the combined 
 ministries," he replied, " only take one of them, and 
 choose whichever you prefer." 
 
 "I am as incapable of filling one as of two," I 
 responded. 
 
 "We then sneezed again. The Prince shook my hand, 
 saying, "It's very cold here, but I hope your answer 
 is not final." 
 
 We then separated, and ended our conversation by 
 both making for the nearest stove. This was my first 
 connection with any member of the Imperial family. 
 
 Nevertheless, the Prince's parting words made me 
 reflect. In refusing to second the candidature of Prince 
 Louis I had given offence to the men whom I habit- 
 ually recognised as leaders of the Assembly. I could 
 foresee that in refusing to enter a Ministry which they 
 were endeavouring to form I should incur their dis- 
 pleasure to a still more pronounced degree. I there- 
 fore left the sitting with the firm intention of not 
 reappearing at the Palais Bourbon before the minis- 
 terial list was finally closed.
 
 PRESIDENCY OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 325 
 
 The first attack that I received was from M. de 
 Montalembert. Not finding me at home, he asked me 
 to come and meet the P. de Eavignan upon the follow- 
 ing day. I was punctual to the hour named, but 
 found that this admirable priest, who has won the 
 unanimous veneration of his contemporaries, had pre- 
 ceded me. No one ever more fully embodied Madame 
 Swetchine's beautiful idea, the depth of which the 
 experience of each succeeding day renders more 
 transparent, " I should like every one to be a saint, but 
 I wish still more that every one should be first and 
 above all else an honest man." 
 
 In the presence of the P. de Eavignan and of M. 
 de Montalembert, I felt myself before the two men, 
 the two hearts, the two minds, who could best vanquish 
 my resistance by persuasion, or overrule it by my 
 respect for them. I listened to them with a beating 
 heart, which would have deprived me of speech 
 had I wished to say anything before hearing them, and 
 when each of their arguments had penetrated my 
 conscience, I replied to them much to this purport if not 
 in the following words : " "We are all at this moment 
 chiefly concerned with the interests of religion, but in 
 this instance, while you think you will be advancing 
 them, I believe you will compromise them. There is 
 not, you may feel sure, any difference in our devotion, 
 but simply in our appreciation of the circumstances. 
 It is not any monarchical scruple which stands in the 
 way, for the monarchy is not now in question, and the 
 Due de Cars urges me to accept quite as much as you 
 
 (X
 
 326 MEMOIES OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 both do. It is simply a question of religion, which 
 can never be separated from the public interest. If I 
 hoped to serve it I should not hesitate to sacrifice all 
 my scruples, but the traditions of the Bonapartes, 
 Prince Louis's education, his antecedents in Italy, do 
 they authorise this hope ? In pledging ourselves to 
 follow him we assume a grave responsibility. If we 
 appear to ignore the venture into which we may pre- 
 cipitate our country we shall deservedly lose all 
 political reputation. If while foreseeing it we lend 
 him our aid, we shall risk far more than our self- 
 respect, for we shall have launched our cause and 
 ourselves upon a decline, along which we shall know 
 neither when or how to stop. If, as I fear, France is 
 mistaken in her choice, let us give her time to recog- 
 nise her errors, leaving the name and the man to bear 
 their own fruit. But, as far as regards ourselves, let 
 us continue, in the second phase of the Eepublic, to be 
 what we have been in the first, the servants of order, 
 the servants of society, without sacrificing to our 
 individual advantage the right of telling the truth to 
 the country. And, in order to give force to our words, 
 we must always preserve the first claim to be listened 
 to, viz. disinterestedness." My two illustrious com- 
 panions were not easily moved, and their eloquence 
 was out of all comparison with my powers of speech ; 
 but my conviction was so profound, it assumed at times 
 an accent of so much emotion, that after a struggle of 
 three hours it was ultimately successful. On M. de 
 Montalembert's own table, and by mutual consent,
 
 PRESIDENCY OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 327 
 
 I wrote to M. Mole, in whose name the P. de Bavig- 
 nan and M. de Montalenibert had constantly spoken, 
 that my refusal, irrevocable, and sanctioned by them, 
 would soon, I ventured to hope, be also sanctioned by 
 him. The same evening the following answer un- 
 deceived me : — 
 
 "Sib, 
 
 " You have received the approbation of men who com- 
 mand too much respect for their opinion not to have influenced 
 your decision. I also find in it a warning and a lesson. I can- 
 not concern myself in any question in which I should be so much 
 at variance with those whose views must prevail and whom I 
 deeply revere. For the future I must confine myself to good 
 wishes for a cause which I feel I am perfectly incapable of aid- 
 ing. I trust that your health will not long prevent your attend- 
 ance at the Assembly, and that I shall soon have the pleasure of 
 meeting you there. 
 
 "Accept, sir, the assurance of my sincere esteem. 
 
 "Mole." 
 
 The undisguised bitterness of M. Mold's displeasure 
 grieved me a good deal, but did not shake my resolu- 
 tion. But this note foreshadowed other remonstrances, 
 and I persevered in my intention of remaining absent 
 from the Assembly for a few days. Knowing that I 
 could not well close my door against my friends, I 
 determined to go for a walk in the Jardin des Plantes, 
 feeling sure that no politicians would go there in search 
 of me. At the same time I asked Madame Swetchine 
 if she would invite me to dinner, and shelter me in 
 her drawing-room, until the hour when the Assembly 
 usually met. 
 
 I had then in my service a Yendean, Marc Sejon,
 
 328 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 known and liked by all my friends, under the nick- 
 name of Marquet. The son of one of my father's 
 gamekeepers, he had been born and brought up in 
 the house, and no one could be more full of political 
 passion and of personal devotion than he was. Un- 
 known to me, he had followed me unceasingly during 
 the memorable days in June. Being sure of his 
 unwavering obedience to orders, I confided my plan 
 of campaign to him, telling him to bring me a cab to 
 the Eue Saint Dominique at nine o'clock, without 
 telling any one the secret of my retreat. 
 
 All went well until half-past eight, and I chatted 
 gaily, like a man who had escaped from some great peril, 
 when the drawing-room door, which I had thought 
 was strictly closed to visitors, suddenly opened, and 
 Abbe Dupanloup appeared. In a few words he 
 apologised to Madame Swetchine, and then said to 
 me — 
 
 " I have been at your house since six o'clock, 
 vainly entreating Marquet in the name of the most 
 serious interests, to tell me where I should find you. 
 He unmercifully let me go without dinner, but seeing 
 the time draw near when you ought to return home, 
 he placed me in the cab which was sent to fetch you, 
 and here I am." 
 
 " "Well, what do you want me for ? " 
 
 " To make you feel the full weight of your respon- 
 sibility. Your refusal has been laid before Prince 
 Louis, who replied coldly, ' I understand what this 
 means. At M. de Falloux's age a man does not
 
 PRESIDENCY OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 329 
 
 willingly refuse a Ministry. His party will not allow 
 him to accept. This is a declaration of war. I wished 
 to lean upon the Conservatives ; since this support is 
 withheld I must seek one elsewhere. To-day the 
 Legitimist party raises its standard, to-morrow the 
 Orleanists will do the same. I cannot remain thus in 
 mid air, and must ask the Left for the assistance 
 which is refused by the Eight. This evening I will 
 see M. Jules Favre ! ' So you see, my friend," added 
 Abbe" Dupanloup, "this is the situation created by 
 your obstinacy. You will abandon Italy to its con- 
 vulsions, leave the Pope helpless at the mercy of his 
 worst enemies, throw France back into anarchy when 
 she only wishes for freedom, and cover the most 
 eminent representatives of the Conservative party 
 with confusion before her." 
 
 I was startled when Abbe Dupanloup unfolded this 
 picture of the situation. All Madame Swetchine said 
 was — 
 
 " But who told you all this ? " 
 u First M. Mole, and then M. de Montalembert, 
 who is dining, a few doors from here, with Madame 
 Thayer, and who is very anxious to see you." 
 " Very well, take me to him." 
 I left Madame Swetchine a prey to the greatest 
 anxiety, for she knew my inmost thoughts too well 
 not to realise the extent of my sacrifice. 
 
 Madame Thayer, a daughter of General Bertrand, 
 was a woman at once of great distinction and great 
 piety. She was closely associated with the action and
 
 330 MEMOIES OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 desires of the Catholics. I had scarcely entered when 
 M. de Montalembert exclaimed — 
 
 "We ought not to have given way to you ! "We 
 ought to have foreseen this ! Have things rectified, 
 I entreat you, if it is not already too late ! " 
 
 All present joined in the appeal. 
 
 " Well," I answered, " so far as I am myself con- 
 cerned I will give way, but I must make certain con- 
 ditions in your interest as well as in my own. Let us 
 go at once to M. Thiers, whilst Abbe Dupanloup 
 returns to M. Mole." 
 
 The drawing-room in the Place Saint-Georges was 
 already beginning to fill. M. de Montalembert entered 
 alone, and quietly told M. Thiers that I was waiting 
 for him in another room. He at once hastened to me, 
 both hands extended. 
 
 "Do not thank me yet," I said; "I am come to 
 you because the priests send me." I purposely used 
 this expression in order to place my interlocutor at 
 once face to face with the difficulty. " I will accept 
 office if you will promise me to prepare a bill for 
 educational liberty and to support it. If not — no — " 
 
 "I promise, I promise," effusively replied M. 
 Thiers; "and you may rest assured that I feel no 
 difficulty in giving you this pledge. You can rely 
 upon me, for my convictions are the same as your 
 own. We have made a mistake on the religious 
 question, both my Liberal friends and myself, and we 
 may as well admit it freely. I had better at once go 
 and see Prince Louis, who is even now listening to
 
 PfiESIDENCY OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 331 
 
 detestable counsels ; for perhaps in a few hours it 
 will be too late to win him away from these sinister 
 influences." 
 
 M. Thiers hastily bade farewell to his visitors. M. 
 de Montalembert wished to go, on my behalf, to 
 M. Mole and acquaint him with all that had passed 
 between M. Thiers and myself. I returned home, 
 saying, as I entered the house — 
 
 "Well, my good Marquet, you are going to join 
 the Ministry. Who would have expected it ? " 
 
 " I certainly should never have," he replied sadly. 
 "However, since Monsieur has done it, I have no 
 doubt that it is for the best, and we must resign 
 ourselves." 
 
 In this way, and at this price, I entered office, for 
 which I was so little prepared. 
 
 M. Barrot, when informed of the change in my 
 resolution, offered me one of the two ministries, but I 
 told him that, having made the sacrifice, I wished to 
 render it as useful as possible to the cause of religion, 
 and I therefore preferred the union of the two posts, 
 which were, as a matter of fact, confided to me. 
 
 On the 20th December, 1848, the President took 
 the oath to the Constitution before the Assembly, and 
 the following list appeared in the Moniteur — 
 
 Minuter of Justice and President of the Council : M. Odilon 
 Barrot. 
 
 Foreign Affairs : M. Drouyn de Lhuys. 
 Interior : M. Leon de Malleville. 
 War : General Eulhieres. 
 Marine : M. de Tracy.
 
 332 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 Finance : M. Passy. 
 
 Agriculture and Commerce : M. Bixio. 
 
 Puhlic Works : M. Leon Faucher. 
 
 Pullic Instruction and Worship : M. de Fallonx. 
 
 The former Left, it will be observed, predominated 
 in this combination, but it was represented by men 
 who had always professed a sufficiently elastic Liberal- 
 ism to prevent them from unreasoning hostility to any 
 honest conviction. M. Bixio alone belonged to the 
 old Eepublican school, but he had just given proof of 
 his adhesion to the Conservative Eepublicans at 
 the June barricades, where he had been seriously 
 wounded. 
 
 The relations between Prince Louis Bonaparte and 
 his Ministry were at first very embarrassed, and 
 sometimes rather ludicrous. With the exception of 
 M. Odilon Barrot, the Prince had little previous 
 acquaintance with any of us. One might even add 
 that, outside the small Napoleonic group in the midst of 
 which he habitually lived, he had never been familiar 
 with any one. He had now to become acquainted with 
 the whole of France. Under these circumstances he 
 felt himself exposed to every kind of slight, and his 
 foreign accent, which the Charivari was always taking 
 off, added to his embarrassment. It was easy to 
 detect his ignorance of men and things, an ignorance 
 one would never have expected to find in a pretender 
 who had always aspired to govern them. He was 
 well versed in the exact sciences and knew much that 
 many others did not know ; but, on the other hand,
 
 PRESIDENCY OE LOUIS NAPOLEON. 333 
 
 he had very little of that general knowledge which 
 most people have at their fingers' ends. He had 
 scarcely any correct notion of literature or art. One 
 day some one presented an album to him, requesting 
 him to write something in it, and he wrote — 
 
 " Le premier qui fut roi fut un soldat heureux. 
 
 "Eacine." 
 
 And yet if there were one line of Voltaire's with 
 which a Bonaparte should have been familiar it was 
 this. 
 
 Having some occasion to mention to him the in- 
 numerable good deeds of the Duchess de Luynes in 
 the faubourgs, and of the great acquirements of the 
 Due de Luynes, whom there was then some talk of 
 placing at the head of the administration of Paris : 
 
 "The Due de Luynes ?" he said, with the air of a 
 man trying to refresh his memory. " But is not he a 
 duke of the Empire ? " 
 
 " No, monsieur le President, he is the descendant of 
 a Constable of the old Monarchy." 
 
 " Ah ! Then he is a Legitimist ? " 
 
 "Yes, monsieur le President." 
 
 " That does him credit." 
 
 But, for all that, he never missed an opportunity of 
 doing honour to a worthy sentiment, and that in the 
 most natural way. More than once when we were 
 entering the Council of Ministers, he said to me — 
 
 "Monsieur de Falloux, I have heard something 
 which will please you. My cousin, the Duchess of
 
 334 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 Hamilton, heard from the Duchess of Parma this 
 morning. The Comte de Chambord is very well." 
 
 Our first official meeting took place on the 17th or 
 18th December, in a mansion in the Eue d'Anjou. 
 The drawing-room in which we were received was very 
 handsome, and very richly furnished in the style of the 
 empire. The Prince was waiting for us alone, and he 
 held out his hand to each of us with a cordial air, 
 saying very unaffectedly, " I thank you." 
 
 When we had all arrived, he requested M. Odilon 
 Barrot to explain the object of the meeting. The 
 President of the Council announced that we were to 
 discuss the general terms of a programme which he 
 was to lay before the Assembly in our name. In 
 speaking for the first time in the name of the executive 
 power, M. Odilon Barrot allowed traces of his long- 
 deferred satisfaction to escape him, but in the tone of 
 a man who believed himself called to a high mission, 
 not with the boasting accents of vulgar ambition. 
 One felt that mentally he indulged in illusions, but 
 that no thought which would not bear the light of day 
 troubled his conscience. Thus his programme was 
 composed of those commonplaces which appeal to all 
 parties, and which no one dreams of contradicting. 
 This gave me time to quietly take stock of the 
 place, and I asked my right-hand neighbour, M. de 
 Tracy, in an undertone, "Whose house is this?" 
 for no host had appeared. 
 
 M. de Tracy replied in the same tone, " The Queen 
 of Sweden's."
 
 PRESIDENCY OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 335 
 
 I could not, without impropriety, pursue the query- 
 further while the President of the Council was speak- 
 ing, but I did not feel any the wiser ; so after a few 
 minutes I turned to M. Passy, who was on my left, 
 and repeated my question. He replied, " Madame de 
 Clary's." 
 
 I then understood that the house we were in 
 belonged to the family of the lieutenant of the First 
 Napoleon, who had exchanged the marshal's baton for 
 the royal crown of Sweden, and the name of Berna- 
 dotte for that of Charles XIV. 
 
 M. Odilon Barrot in the meanwhile went on to dwell 
 upon the importance of the era now commencing, and 
 after the new President and his colleagues had ex- 
 pressed their approval, M. Drouyn de Lhuys, as 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs, called our attention to 
 the state of Europe, and particularly to the effect 
 which the reappearance of a Napoleon presiding over 
 the destinies of France would produce in England. 
 An animated conversation ensued, and when M. Barrot 
 considered enough had been said, he made an imposing 
 gesture and said solemnly — 
 
 "Well, gentlemen, a messenger must bring us 
 Lord Palmerston's decision in the course of twenty- 
 four hours, and we shall then be immediately able to 
 reassure France, which desires nothing better than 
 peace." 
 
 This combination of confidence and simplicity did 
 not excite any opposition, and curiously enough it 
 succeeded, the prestige of France being then so great
 
 336 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 that every one dreaded a rupture with her, or even the 
 appearance of not being on good terms with her. 
 
 M. de Maistre said of Frederick the Great, " He is 
 only a great Prussian," his meaning no doubt being 
 that this prince, ambitious for Prussia only, did not 
 seek to include the whole of Europe in the sphere of 
 his policy, as Charles V., Henry IV., and Louis XIV. 
 had done. In this sense we may also say that Lord 
 Palmerston was only a great Englishman, but that he 
 was a great Englishman there is no doubt. He was 
 the last of a school of statesmen who, whether Whigs 
 or Tories, would have considered that they were 
 lowering their country had they not attached the 
 prosperity of Great Britain to their influence in 
 Europe. Lord Palmerston had little faith in the 
 resurrection of a second Empire. In the event of a 
 resurrection, he had little faith in its duration ; but in 
 the event of its duration he was quite prepared to 
 make terms with the lucky adventurer, and was far 
 from declaring a war of principles or of recommencing 
 the policy of Lord Castlereagh and the Duke of Wel- 
 lington. I must add that M. Mole and M. Thiers had 
 profited by their former relations with the European 
 Cabinets to plead the cause of peace with great energy, 
 and to impress upon them how important it was that 
 Europe should not provide a Napoleon with any pre- 
 text for war, however pacific this Napoleon wished to 
 appear. The new Government was therefore installed 
 in the midst of great internal party agitation, but in 
 the fullest external security.
 
 PRESIDENCY OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 337 
 
 When, not without some timidity, I took possession 
 of M. de Fontanes' office chair, carefully preserved in 
 the Ministry of Public Instruction, the first object 
 which attracted my notice on the writing-table of the 
 great master of the University was a very handsome red 
 morocco portfolio, the cover bearing these words, "De 
 la part de M. de Persigny. Souvenir de Londres, 
 1835." It might be supposed that the donor of the port- 
 folio had contributed to its being offered to me, but it 
 will have been seen that he had nothing to do with it. 
 
 Our subsequent relations were as follows. Con- 
 demned by the Chamber of Peers after the attempt at 
 Boulogne, M. de Persigny was transferred to the 
 prison at Doullens, and he requested me to send him 
 some books, leaving the selection to me. I forwarded 
 My Prisons, by Silvio Pellico, St. Augustine's Con- 
 fessions, and the Philosophical Studies of M. Nicolas, 
 speaking freely to him of the Christian consolations to 
 which a long captivity should awaken his heart and 
 conscience. He was far from taking it unkindly ; on 
 the contrary, he gave me encouragement, assuring me 
 that studies of this kind were agreeable to him, and 
 might eventually be of use. He continued during 
 this same period a scientific work upon the Pyramids 
 of Egypt, to which he devoted himself so passionately 
 that he nearly lost his sight. A serious form of 
 ophthalmia declared itself, and enforced idleness aggra- 
 vating the hardships of imprisonment, the governor of 
 the prison, touched by his patient endurance, obtained 
 permission for him to be transferred to an infirmary. 
 
 vol. i. z
 
 338 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 As he had no private fortune, he was sent to the 
 hospital at Versailles, where the various authorities 
 exercised the necessary surveillance over him in the 
 kindliest manner. 
 
 The Mayor of Versailles, M. de Rumilly, treated 
 his guest with real cordiality, and through his inter- 
 vention M. de Persigny received permission to come 
 to Paris once a week to consult the libraries there, 
 and to submit his Egyptian theories to some members 
 of the Institute. I often saw him on the occasion of 
 these weekly visits, and each time he touched me by 
 the invariable serenity of his resignation. Having 
 one day returned his visit at Versailles, the sight of 
 his attic in the hospital made me resolve to solicit 
 his release, but I was not in favour, and no oppor- 
 tunity presented itself until, in 1846, I was elected 
 to the Chamber. Among the colleagues who showed 
 me the most kindness was the Due d'Elchingen, the 
 second son of Marshal Ney, aide-de-camp to one of 
 the Orleans Princes, and I at once determined to 
 utilise his favour to M. de Persigny's advantage. 
 One day when we were sitting on the same com- 
 mittee, I said to him — 
 
 ""Will you allow me, Duke, to bring to your notice 
 one of my friends, who ought rather to be one of 
 yours, for he has suffered in the Napoleonic cause for 
 a long time." 
 
 My overture was graciously received, and a few 
 days later in the Chamber the Due d'Elchingen came 
 across to my bench and said to me —
 
 PRESIDENCY OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 339 
 
 " That business of yours is settled. If M. de Per- 
 signy writes to one of the Princes, or if he prefers 
 to the Minister of the Interior — then M. DucMtel — 
 basing his request on the state of his health and his 
 scientific work, a full pardon will be promptly granted 
 him." 
 
 " The business is not so thoroughly settled as you 
 are good enough to suppose," I answered, "if a per- 
 sonal application is exacted from M. de Persigny. 
 He knows nothing of my request to you, which was 
 entirely my own doing, and from what I know of 
 him I am convinced that, though in future his time 
 will be entirely devoted to studies apart from politics, 
 he will not even appear to disown his cause by any 
 direct communication, nor give pain to the Prince to 
 whom he is so passionately devoted." 
 
 I then made a fresh appeal to the Due d'Elchingen, 
 and step by step I obtained the promise that a letter 
 simply addressed to me, and by me delivered to him, 
 should suffice. 
 
 "Under these conditions I do not despair," I said 
 to my good-natured colleague, thanking him most 
 cordially ; and on the following day I went to Ver- 
 sailles, where I related all the details of this negotia- 
 tion to M. de Persigny. 
 
 " I can never thank you enough," he replied with 
 emotion, "and if I accepted, it would be solely in 
 order not to appear ungrateful towards a friend like 
 yourself; but it is impossible that I should accept ! " 
 
 " "What ! Impossible ! You are mad ! " 
 
 z2
 
 340 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 " Yes, you may well believe it. However, you 
 will soou see that it is you who are mistaken. I 
 will not ask for any favour even in the most indirect 
 way, for to ask in any fashion whatever would be to 
 promise, and I can promise nothing, because I should 
 not keep my word." 
 
 I endeavoured to shake his resolve, but my efforts 
 were useless, and when I left him he clasped my 
 hand and said — 
 
 " Eemember this, what I tell you, in a year's time 
 we shall be in their places/' 
 
 This happened in 1847. 
 
 When in the following year we found ourselves 
 both sitting in a Eepublican Assembly, with the July 
 Monarchy in the past and the Empire in prospect, 
 M. de Persigny, I must admit, appeared in quite 
 another light to my eyes. Until then I had treated 
 him as a loyal fanatic and a chimerical genius, who 
 was not to be taken too seriously. When he showed 
 himself a true prophet I understood that it would be 
 a mistake to trifle with him. He for his part, when 
 he came to see me in the political arena, realised how 
 deeply my convictions were rooted, how immutable 
 they were, and how they formed the rule of my whole 
 life. By mutual consent we never alluded to our 
 differences of opinion, and out of mutual respect and 
 esteem we ceased to speak of politics from the day 
 when we both became politicians. He never even 
 offered to present me to the Prince, whom I met 
 daily in the Assembly, and he never once reminded
 
 PRESIDENCY OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 341 
 
 me of the ministerial promise about which we had 
 so often jested since 1835. I no longer needed his 
 confidential information to foresee the completion of 
 his projects, and I was more inclined to feel alarmed 
 at their probable success than to laugh at them. 
 
 Simultaneously with the portfolio from M. de Per- 
 signy, I found on my writing-table at the Ministry 
 the following letter from Pere Lacordaire. 
 
 "Dijon, 23rd December, 1848. 
 " My dear Friend, 
 
 '•So you are a Minister. At any other time I should 
 congratulate you, I should congratulate religion and the country 
 upon the fact. But under present circumstances I chiefly con- 
 gratulate you upon not having accepted until after prolonged and 
 sincere refusals. For there is a probability that your accession 
 to office will prepare for a monarchical return through the Em- 
 pire. Now, feeling persuaded that this return would be fatal to 
 France, because it would only lead to a sterile and inferior repeti- 
 tion of the past, I dread seeing your name and that of the 
 Catholics compromised by a share in this work, one of the 
 smallest drawbacks from which is that it can lead to nothing. 
 But if blood, chaos, and a relapse of twenty-five years were also 
 to follow it my regret would be still more bitter and painful. 
 At all events, you have prepared for yourself the consolation of 
 having accepted with reluctance and even with obstinate reluc- 
 tance. Thank God for that. If I prove mistaken, and if the 
 President of the Republic should listen to other inspirations than 
 those suggested by an ambitious vulgar heart, or even by the 
 impatience of a country astonished that it has to suffer from the 
 revolutions which it has itself provoked, in this case I do more 
 than congratulate you ; I am delighted at and proud of your 
 presence in the Ministry. You will be the first Catholic Minister 
 France has had for sixty years ; you will bear your share in the 
 arduous work of regulating an unsettled and inconsistent epoch, 
 you will attach your name to liberties which are doubly precious 
 from the fact of their being brought to being upon the shores of
 
 342 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 anarchy. You will not re-establish the Monarchy of Clovis, nor 
 that of Charlemagne, nor that of Louis XIV., nor that of 
 Louis XVIIL, but the Monarchy of right and justice. Lastly, 
 if you are not a man to cope with rioting, you will be a man to 
 promote the only order of things which lasts, the things which 
 involve time, pain, and virtue. 
 
 " To compensate for my little sermon, here is a petition from 
 a Pole, an estimable and good Christian who has lost the in- 
 demnity granted to him after the Posen expedition, which had 
 been authorised by the Provisional Government. It is addressed 
 to the Minister of the Interior. If you can aid it in any way 
 you will greatly oblige me. For my part, I shall never ask you 
 for anything except to keep me a corner of your heart, wherever 
 it may be. 
 
 "Prom Henri Dominique Lacordaire, 
 des Preres precheurs." 
 
 This letter would have eloquently called me to a 
 sense of my duty had I been tempted to forget it, but 
 I desired nothing better than to justify myself in my 
 own eyes by undertaking, without losing an hour, my 
 double task of assuring religious liberty in France and 
 the Pope's safety in Italy. I applied myself, therefore, 
 to hit upon the exact medium between prudence and 
 timidity when a strange incident abruptly warned us of 
 how precarious our tenure was. 
 
 "We were scarcely installed in our ministerial duties 
 when we received a note from M. Odilon Barrot, 
 hastily summoning each of us to the Chancellery. "We 
 hurried there, and M. Barrot in a trembling voice read 
 to us the following letters. The first was a letter from 
 the Minister of the Interior to the President of the 
 Council. It was thus worded —
 
 PRESIDENCY OF LOUTS NAPOLEON. 343 
 
 "Monsieur le Ministre and dear Colleague, 
 
 ' ' A serious disagreement which has arisen between the 
 President of the Republic and myself renders it quite impossible 
 that I should continue in office. I place my resignation in your 
 hands. Kindly lay it before the President of the Republic. 
 " Your affectionate and devoted colleague, 
 
 "Leon de Mallevllle. 
 
 "P.S. — Kindly request one of my colleagues to undertake to- 
 day the duties of the Minister of the Interior ad interim. I wish 
 to retire immediately." 
 
 Here is the letter which produced this precipitate 
 resignation. 
 
 "Elysee, 27th December, 1848. 
 
 " Monsieur le Ministre, 
 
 " I have asked the Prefect of Police whether he did not 
 sometimes receive reports of diplomatic questions ; he replied 
 in the affirmative, adding that yesterday he sent you some copies 
 of a despatch upon Italy. These despatches, as you will under- 
 stand, should have been sent on to me at once, and I must ex- 
 press my displeasure at your delay in communicating them 
 to me. 
 
 ** I must also beg you to forward to me the sixteen reports I 
 asked you for.* 
 
 ' ' I wish for them by Thursday. Moreover, I do not intend 
 that the Minister of the Interior should draw up the articles 
 which refer personally to me. This was not usual under Louis 
 Philippe, and must not be done now. 
 
 " Por the last few days I have not received any telegraphic 
 despatches. In fact I perceive that the Ministers whom I have 
 nominated wish to treat me as though the famous Constitution of 
 Siezes were still in force, but I will not allow it. 
 
 "Receive, Sir, my compliments. 
 
 "Louis Napoleon Bonaparte." 
 
 * This referred to a bundle of papers relating to the Stras- 
 burg and Boulogne affairs, and to the trial of Prince Louis Bona- 
 parte before the Court of Peers.
 
 344 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 This letter was so singularly offensive that not one 
 of us hesitated as to the decision which he would take. 
 M. Barrot, who was the most affected, because he was 
 the most astonished, stopped reading several times to 
 exclaim, "This country is very unfortunate ! France 
 believed she was safely in harbour, and now she is 
 thrown back into the trough of the waves. This 
 country is very unlucky ! " But although ME. Barrot's 
 thoughts were clothed in the formal language from 
 which he rarely departed, he was not less sincere in his 
 patriotism and honesty. Perhaps, indeed, M. Barrot 
 was more modest than many of the men who would 
 have paid more heed to their attitude and expression. 
 Thereupon he indited rapidly, and with restrained 
 indignation, the following letter: — 
 
 ' ' MONSIEUE LE PkESIDENT, 
 
 "It is with profound regret that we now place our 
 resignations in your hands. In accepting office under difficult 
 circumstances, we were inspired solely by the hope of aiding you 
 to repair the misfortunes of our country. We see by the letter 
 you have addressed to M. Leon de Malleville that it will be im- 
 possible for us to realise this hope. In form, it wounds our 
 dignity; in substance, it fails to recognise the duties imposed 
 upon us by our responsible position. 
 
 "We were well aware of all the difficulties which the double 
 responsibility, still imperfectly defined, of the President of the 
 Eepublic and of his Ministers might produce in our official rela- 
 tions ; we relied upon our own deference on the one side, upon 
 your confidence on the other, to overcome them. We were mis- 
 taken. That others may be more fortunate is our unanimous wish. 
 " We have the honour to remain, &c." 
 
 After we had all signed the letter M. Barrot entered
 
 PRESIDENCY OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 345 
 
 his carriage to take it to the Elysee. We were won- 
 dering with resigned curiosity what reception he 
 would meet with, when we saw him abruptly re-enter 
 the room where he had left us. " I have just found out," 
 he said, " that I had started, not without my head, but 
 without my hat." Our hats were scattered about the 
 room, and M. Barrot being unable to recognise his 
 we each put on our own. M. Barrot, joining in the 
 laugh which this incident provoked, put on the hat 
 that remained unclaimed and made a fresh start. He 
 was not long gone. M. Barrot had two expressions by 
 which we could at once tell what impression he wished 
 to convey respecting the President. "When it was an 
 expression of displeasure or mistrust he said, "The 
 Prince President." When it was an expression of 
 confidence and mutual agreement, he called him u That 
 excellent young man." He began his account by the 
 second formula. " That excellent young man," he 
 said, " is really as much to be pitied as blamed. 
 His education has not in any way prepared him for 
 his parliamentary duties. His character is still some- 
 what imperious and irascible. But his intentions are 
 good, and you would have been touched, as I was, by 
 the spontaneity of his regret. But, of course, I could 
 not be satisfied by a verbal, uncertain assurance. Here 
 is a declaration written and signed." 
 
 We were stupefied by this complete and sudden 
 change, and listened to the following document, which 
 was then read : —
 
 346 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 " MONSIEUK LE MlNISTRE, 
 
 "I was extremely surprised and pained at receiving 
 the letter which you addressed to me in the name of your col- 
 leagues. It is impossible for me to accept your resignation ; it 
 would be a calamity for the country, and the interest of our 
 country must be the first consideration. 
 
 4 ' I ought to tell you that I deeply regret that the terms of my 
 letter should have wounded you. Nothing was further from my 
 thoughts, for I had the fullest confidence in you and all your 
 colleagues. I was, it is true, much displeased yesterday for a 
 short time, thinking that I was scarcely treated as the responsible 
 Head of the State, and I intimated my displeasure to the Minister 
 of the Interior. But, I repeat, if I have offended M. de Malle- 
 ville and the whole Cabinet I deplore it with all my heart, and 
 I trust that after this explanation my sincere regret will be the 
 only trace of this difference. Receive then, sir, for yourself and 
 colleagues, the renewed assurance of my esteem and confidence. 
 
 "Louis Napoleon Bonaparte." 
 
 After this formal apology, it was impossible for us to 
 persevere in a resignation which we could not possibly 
 have justified to the Assembly. The Conservative 
 party would have refused to understand how, through 
 a susceptibility the reason for which no longer existed, 
 we could run the risk of allowing M. Jules Favre, 
 still so near the door of the Cabinet, to be called in a 
 second time. We accordingly all resolved to take, 
 on the following morning, some measures to persuade 
 M. de Malleville not to separate himself from us, a 
 step which M. Barrot, in his Memoires, has inadver- 
 tently given on a wrong date. But nothing could 
 heal M. de Malleville' s wounded feelings nor change 
 his resolution. M. Bixio, who had shared our feelings 
 and withdrawn his resignation, also now persisted in it
 
 PRESIDENCY OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 347 
 
 to avoid deserting M. de Malleville, his old and 
 intimate friend. 
 
 Some ministerial changes were, therefore, imperative. 
 M. Leon Faucher replaced M. de Malleville at the 
 Interior, M. Lacrosse took the place of M. Faucher 
 as Minister of Public "Works, and at my express 
 desire M. Buffet succeeded M. Bixio in the Ministry 
 of Agriculture and Commerce. 
 
 We all remarked that the President took a great 
 deal of trouble to efface any painful recollections which 
 might have remained from the incident of the 27 th 
 December. On our side, we endeavoured to re-estab- 
 lish, by reciprocating his consideration, the good terms 
 which were indispensable to our common action. We 
 understood that the words of a taciturn man are not 
 always as carefully meditated as they are few, and 
 that he does not necessarily pass in reflection the time 
 which he allows to elapse without speaking. We 
 knew, henceforth, that the Head of the State might 
 suddenly pass from a condition of somnolence to one 
 of violent action, and that we might, almost without 
 warning, be roused from our calm by an abrupt shock, 
 perhaps by a sudden catastrophe. The proverb, 
 " Silence gives consent," was never less true than with 
 him. He never supported his opinion, but he re- 
 nounced it still less. Lord Palmerston said of 
 him — 
 
 " His mind is as full of projects as a warren is full of 
 rabbits, and, like the rabbits, his projects bury them- 
 selves to avoid being interfered with."
 
 348 MEMOIRS OF A royalist. 
 
 We soon recognised the justice of this picturesque 
 comparison. 
 
 Upon the accession of a definite Government, an 
 amnesty for those condemned and exiled in June 
 became the watchword and cry of the extreme Left. 
 The President proposed to grant it full and entire to 
 mark the date of his election. M. Parrot protested, 
 and replied for us all that, in the state of the public 
 mind, before receiving some security for a real and 
 sincere reconciliation, an amnesty could only be a lure 
 and a snare ; those who demanded it, not thinking of 
 relieving victims, but of recruiting and encouraging 
 soldiers. He added that the Assembly having decreed 
 these measures after the terrible days of June, to annul 
 them within six months after their promulgation, 
 would be to oifer a terrible insult to the Assembly 
 itself. While he was speaking, the impassiveness of 
 the President never relaxed for an instant, and when 
 M. Barrot had done, he said in his slow calm voice — 
 
 " I understand that this question must be adjourned ; 
 we will discuss something else ! " 
 
 On leaving the Elysee we congratulated ourselves 
 on this result, and breathed more freely. Twelve or 
 fifteen days later at the outside M. Passy explained 
 our financial situation to the Council, ending with 
 these words : " Everything will soon recover its 
 equilibrium if the public regain confidence." 
 
 " You are quite right, M. Passy," answered the 
 President. " Everything depends upon the public 
 confidence, and a country only shows confidence in a
 
 PRESIDENCY OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 349 
 
 strong Government. The best sign of this strength 
 would be the amnesty. It must be asked for at the 
 same time as the vote for the Budget." 
 
 These words, which nothing had led up to, and 
 which nothing followed, struck us all dumb with 
 astonishment. But M. Passy, one of the men best 
 acquainted with the Assembly, was not long silent. 
 Eaising his forefinger — a favourite gesture of his in 
 hot argument — and half rising, like a man ready to 
 leave his chair, 
 
 " M. le President," he said, "I resign my portfolio 
 to whoever will have the hardihood to present at the 
 same time the Budget, which should heal wounds, 
 and an amnesty, which would reopen them all." 
 
 " Ah, if that is your opinion," replied the President 
 with a good-humoured expression, " I leave it to 
 you." 
 
 And we resumed the discussion of the Budget as 
 though it had not been interrupted. On leaving the 
 Council we sadly said to each other : " He is a mono- 
 maniac, upon whom reasoning has no hold. However, 
 we must be patient so long as he adheres to his reso- 
 lution of not letting his natural obstinacy get the 
 better of his amiability." M. Passy 's decided answer 
 had been pronounced in such a decided tone, and the 
 President had been so visibly disconcerted by it, that 
 we believed the matter was at an end ; but far from it. 
 A few weeks later M. Drouyn de Lhuys was describ- 
 ing the state of our external relations, and not dis- 
 guising his anxiety, when the President said —
 
 350 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 * 
 
 " You have not sufficiently indicated the means of 
 overawing Europe. This might be done by showing 
 that all our parties are reconciled, and as a pledge of 
 this reconciliation proclaiming an amnesty." 
 
 This deduction, quite as unexpected on this as on 
 the preceding occasion, caused us to exclaim with so 
 much unanimity that the President could not help 
 laughing, and he said — 
 
 "I see that the amnesty is decidedly not in favour 
 with you all." 
 
 Upon this we all laughed too, feeling that the 
 victory thus acknowledged was decisive, and, in fact, 
 the subject was not alluded to again. Henceforth he 
 knew us better, and we knew him better too. "We 
 thus had a proof that if it were impossible to convince 
 it was not impossible to restrain him. 
 
 For my own part, from the first, and ever after- 
 wards, I had every reason to be pleased with him. 
 He knew perfectly well how far and under what 
 circumstances he could rely on my support, and since 
 I never gave him any cause for self-deception, so I 
 never caused him the least annoyance. Upon one 
 point, however, I was quite in the dark about him, 
 and this was precisely the point that I had most at 
 heart, viz. the religious question. In this respect, too, 
 M. de Persigny was not better informed than myself, 
 and when I said to him, " Try to prevent your Prince 
 from making the situation too difficult for us ; it will 
 be bad enough without his endeavouring to aggravate 
 it," M. de Persigny answered by a very sincere
 
 PRESIDENCY OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 351 
 
 assurance of his personal sympathy for Catholicism, 
 but without guaranteeing in any way the President's 
 dispositions towards it. Every day, moreover, showed 
 me, without any explicit avowal from M. de Persigny, 
 that his friends and councillors in misfortune were 
 not the only ones who surrounded Prince Louis, that 
 success had already brought its usual crowd of new 
 men, and that the most devoted servitors were no 
 longer those most listened to. 
 
 In reality the President, very anxious to do more, 
 and to act differently from the Governments which 
 had preceded him, adopted, a priori, every Utopian 
 idea, nattering himself that he could destroy pauperism 
 by a single stroke, and increase the fortune of France 
 a hundredfold by chimerical schemes. M. Emile de 
 Girardin inspired him with absolute confidence. His 
 first impulse had been to commit to him the Ministry 
 of Finance, then the Directorship of the Post Office. 
 Meeting with equal opposition to both plans, he con- 
 soled himself by making him his private adviser. 
 "When leaving one of the first councils held at the 
 Elysee I mistook the door as I went out, and found 
 myself face to face with M. de Girardin, who was 
 waiting in a small drawing-room until our meeting 
 should- be over, before in his turn having his almost 
 daily audience. 
 
 In the midst of all these impediments I determined 
 to proceed quietly forward, confining myself strictly 
 to the duties of the two offices confided to me, but to 
 maintain my full freedom of action there.
 
 352 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 To play this part properly, all I had to do was to re- 
 frain from spoiling it by my personal blunders. I had 
 only to follow the impulses given by my friends, who 
 were at the same time my predecessors and my 
 masters. My errors could only be of two kinds : either 
 to allow an opportunity to escape, or to attempt to 
 make of free education an exclusive triumph for my 
 party and myself. I was not, thank God, tempted to 
 do either the one or the other. 
 
 The law of 1850 has been sometimes imputed as a 
 crime, sometimes as an honour, to me. In reality, I 
 have no right either to these reproaches or to this 
 praise except to a very limited extent. My sole 
 merit consists in knowing when and how to efface 
 myself. I had not much faith in the future of the 
 Ministry of which I formed part, nor in my own 
 future. I felt that I must devote myself to a work 
 capable of surviving me, and one which could, in case 
 of my failure, be justified by others. How was I to 
 act towards this end ? I could only call upon the 
 representatives of every sincere party to aid in a 
 common task, in which each would have its own work 
 and its own responsibility to protect. This concep- 
 tion was clear enough, and M. de Montalembert sug- 
 gested the idea to me, if indeed it did not arise spon- 
 taneously from our mutual inspiration and our equal 
 deA^otion. 
 
 Accordingly, we at once agreed upon the principal 
 line of conduct to be observed: to invite the assist- 
 ance of every party without guaranteeing the pre-
 
 EDUCATIONAL LIBERTY. 353 
 
 ponderance to any one except to the party of freedom; 
 to appeal to the honour of those who had taken part 
 in the preceding struggle, ascertaining, however, 
 that they believed that the hour of peace had come ; 
 to invite the University itself through its most eminent 
 representatives to recognise the necessity and to secure 
 the credit of loyal assistance; lastly, to take as our 
 watchword liberalism enlightened by experience, 
 and sincerely resolved to repair its injustices and 
 errors. This plan once accepted, suitable names 
 immediately suggested themselves. 
 
 On the 4th of January I published in the Moniteur 
 a report to the President, and the names of the two 
 committees, which were almost immediately joined 
 into one, and entrusted with the preparation of a wide 
 legislative reform of primary and of secondary educa- 
 tion. This Committee was composed of twenty-four 
 members, and with regard to the interests which each 
 member represented, it could be analysed in this 
 way:— 
 
 For the University, MM. Cousin, St. Marc Girardin, 
 Dubois, Poulain de Bossay, Bellaguet and Michel; 
 for the Catholics, partisans of freedom in education, 
 MM. de Montalembert, de Melun, Laurentie, 
 Augustin Cochin, Henri de Riancey, de Montreuil, 
 Roux-Lavergne, Abbe Sibour, cousin to the Arch- 
 bishop of Paris, and Abbe Dupanloup ; for the State 
 and the Assembly, in order to maintain, in case of 
 dissension, the balance between the different parties, 
 MM. Thiers, Freslon, de Corcelle, the pastor Cuvier, 
 
 VOL. I. A A
 
 354 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 Eugene Janvier, Peupin, Fresneau, Buchez, and Corne. 
 The two last, after some hesitation, sent in their resig- 
 nation, and were not replaced. 
 
 I have sometimes been reproached for not having 
 appointed on the Committee — in place of M. Boux- 
 Lavergne, one of the principal editors of the Univers 
 — M. Louis Yeuillot himself, just as I had appointed 
 M. Laurentie for the Union and M. de Eiancey for the 
 Ami de la Religion. It was thought that I might thus 
 have avoided the dogged attacks directed by the 
 Univers against the work of the Committee. I 
 certainly did not anticipate that M. Louis Veuillot 
 would become what he afterwards did. We were 
 even on good terms, but I could not mistake the 
 general tendencies of his character and his mind. 
 After much reflection, I preferred to expose him to 
 the temptation of criticising reforms accomplished 
 without him, to arming him with the right of prevent- 
 ing them from being carried out at all. 
 
 It was not without some anxiety that I inaugurated 
 the meetings of such a Committee for such a work, but 
 if I had looked forward to this with some uneasiness, 
 I was speedily reassured by the affectionate cordiality 
 which was at once established between men assembled 
 from such different points, many of whom now saw 
 and spoke to each other for the first time. I soon 
 became sanguine as to the results when I saw those 
 whose hostility, or at least coolness, was to be feared, 
 displaying the warmest zeal, and when, on the other 
 hand, I saw those from whom one might have dreaded
 
 EDUCATIONAL LIBERTY. 355 
 
 some exaggerated zeal or some imprudence giving 
 immediate proof of moderation, both in views and in 
 words. My enforced attendance at the Council of 
 Ministers and at the Assembly preventing me from 
 fulfilling the duties of President with regularity, I 
 invited the Committee to make its own arrangements, 
 and the unity already reigning between the members 
 was manifested by the unanimous election of M. Thiers 
 to preside over the debates whenever I was absent. 
 One of my chief hopes rested upon Abbe Dupanloup, 
 whom I had known for a long time, and who had just 
 brought himself before the public by his fine work, 
 De la Pacification Religeuse, which, by its title alone, 
 comprised our common programme. From this date 
 Abbe Dupanloup had found his vocation, and for 
 thirty years he never departed from it. Moreover, he 
 was naturally formed to treat with men, and to exert 
 influence over them. He had in equal degrees all the 
 vehemency of conviction and all the delicacy of true 
 charity. "When he became roused — I may say, when 
 he became excited — you felt that his heart contained 
 no malice, and that even an opponent always had a 
 place in it. When, on the contrary, he made some 
 advances, and in some degree concessions, you could 
 see perfectly well that he would never yield beyond a 
 certain definite point, and you felt that he would not 
 fail in the cause of truth for lack of discernment any 
 more than for lack of energy. The attraction of M. 
 Thiers for Abbe Dupanloup, and of Abbe Dupanloup 
 for M. Thiers, soon became evident to all eyes. 
 
 a a2
 
 356 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 Our council table was shaped like an elongated 
 horse-shoe. As President, M. Thiers sat at the head ; 
 Abbe* Dupanloup had modestly placed himself at one 
 of the ends of the table. When the Abbe* spoke, M. 
 Thiers was not content to assent by nods and gestures. 
 I remember seeing him leave his place several times, 
 pass along the wall behind his colleagues, enter the 
 middle of the horse-shoe, and stand in front of the 
 Abbe, listening to every word with the air of a man 
 who says, " I have found truth at last." 
 
 I am disinterested in what I now relate, just as I 
 remained disinterested in the discussion, for I had im- 
 posed absolute silence upon myself, and one day, when 
 M. Thiers appealed to me in very affectionate terms, 
 I replied, " The Committee must not think about the 
 Minister seated here ; he is present to listen, and to 
 learn from you ; he cannot take any part in the 
 debate." 
 
 This attitude was rendered easy to me because the 
 members of the Committee came to an immediate 
 agreement upon the two essential points, the exist- 
 ence of social peril and the urgent need of opposing 
 some remedy to it. 
 
 No one surpassed M. Thiers in his ardour to point 
 out the evil, and in his energetic appeal to religious 
 sentiment as alone capable of combating and over- 
 coming the threatened anarchy. 
 
 "We must not sleep under these grave circum- 
 stances," he exclaimed. " Only a Conde could sleep 
 on the eve of Eocroy."
 
 EDUCATIONAL LIBERTY. 357 
 
 Soon afterwards he thus enlarged on the same idea : — 
 
 " Ah, I understand how when the weather is fine, 
 when the air is calm, and the sea tranquil, passengers 
 sleep peacefully, especially if the captain has experi- 
 ence and the vessel is well under command. But 
 woe to those who sleep when the sea is rough and the 
 tempest unchained, for shipwreck is imminent. We 
 have been on this troubled sea for the last thirty years ; 
 in our imprudence we have slept, and now the winds 
 have risen with violence and we have nearly foundered 
 in the storm. Let us therefore get resolutely to work. 
 Away with illusions ; we are face to face with dangers 
 only too real, and already the consequences are very 
 
 terrible Alas, it was only by running aground 
 
 that we escaped complete shipwreck ! " 
 
 M. Cousin, although less convinced than M. Thiers 
 of the extent of the evil, was not less explicit in his 
 appeal to the clergy. 
 
 " I eagerly look back," he said, " to the traditions 
 of 1808, when three bishops and the director of St. 
 Sulpice were included in the council of the University. 
 I am all for religious authority ; far from dreading it, 
 I invoke it with all my heart. If the clergy and the 
 University approach each other with a view to a full 
 reconciliation, the problems of primary education will 
 be easily solved." 
 
 The most Catholic members of the Commission 
 played as it were the part of the moderators. M. de 
 Montalembert demanded free competition more for- 
 cibly than ever. M. de Eiancey added —
 
 358 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 " Protection will never equal liberty ! The Kes- 
 toration sought to create monarchical and religious 
 committees, and they only served to stir up passions 
 against what they called the clerical direction of 
 education." 
 
 M. Laurente said in his turn — 
 
 " It is rather a negative part than an active mission 
 which should be given to the State in educational 
 matters, but above all it is necessary in its own 
 interests that the State should avoid imposing any 
 doctrine. I will not quote any other proof of this 
 than the Government of the Eestoration, which lost 
 so much of its strength in public opinion because it 
 was believed to impose certain doctrines, particularly 
 in education. It was therefore with good reason that 
 an ecclesiastic, who when the Bishop of Hermopolis 
 asked what he could do for an establishment directed 
 by him, replied : ' The greatest favour that I can ask 
 from you is to withdraw your protection from us.'' The 
 Bishop of Hermopolis, who was very clear-sighted, 
 understood the force of this answer. When they 
 began to discuss the question of gratuitous education 
 M. Cousin was inexhaustible in his effusive praises 
 of the liberal endowments of the past." 
 
 M. Cousin — "Jesus Christ said, Paupers evangeli- 
 zantur. This is, in fact, the greatest work that the 
 Church has accomplished." 
 
 M. de Montalembert — "And she has not failed in 
 it, her schools have always been gratuitous. This 
 great Conservative institution, the grandest of all,
 
 EDUCATIONAL LIBERTY. 359 
 
 has never shrunk from the duty of gratuitous in- 
 struction." 
 
 Abbe Dupanloup — "And she will not fail in the 
 future any more than she has in the past." 
 
 M. Cousin — " Yes, and for that reason the Church 
 will always be blessed." 
 
 M. Thiers repeated several times — " But the school- 
 masters must not be anti-priests everywhere." 
 
 All the members of the Commission applauded, too, 
 the noble language of one of their number, M. Michel, 
 which was reproduced in the explanation of the 
 objects of the law. 
 
 " To aspire to train a child to the yoke of dis- 
 cipline and obedience, to create in him a principle of 
 energy which will enable him to resist his passions, 
 accept of his own free will the law of labour and 
 duty and contract habits of order and regularity, is, 
 unless this force is derived from religion, to attempt 
 an impossible task." 
 
 Enforced education was rejected with almost com- 
 plete unanimity, and with regard to gratuitous 
 education, it was agreed that if it were rendered 
 universal, it was not to mean that no one should pay 
 for education, but, on the contrary, that it should be 
 paid for by a tax, that is to say, by everybody. 
 
 At the same time, the Commission perfectly under- 
 stood that it could not shut its eyes to the precarious 
 and often miserable state in which primary instruction 
 now languished in many of the departments, and that 
 a sure means of improving the schools was to improve
 
 360 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 the position of the schoolmaster himself. The pre- 
 amble was also an echo from the report of the Com- 
 mittee when it said : " Indigence and pride cannot 
 be brought into juxtaposition with impunity. A 
 Government has no right to set such a trap for any- 
 one. The individual would fall into it first, and 
 society would perish by it soon afterwards. Let us 
 show ourselves inflexible towards wrong, but not 
 until after we have relieved suffering." , 
 
 The salary of the schoolmasters was increased. 
 
 Before proceeding to draft the bill, the Commis- 
 sion was anxious to obtain some further information 
 by personal inquiries, and summoned Brother Philippe, 
 the superior of the brothers of the ^cole Chretiennes, 
 and Father Etienne, the superior of the Lazarists and 
 Sisters of Charity, as well as MM. Eitt and Eapet, 
 inspectors of the University, to appear before them. 
 
 The question of secondary education was still more 
 rapidly agreed upon. The evil, as every one recog- 
 nised, was less serious, the remedy easier, and every- 
 thing resolved itself, as it were, into the question, 
 whether entire liberty should be granted, or whether, 
 borrowing from the eighteenth century some exam- 
 ples, which were not the most commendable, liberty 
 should be inaugurated by proscribing the religious 
 orders, particularly the Jesuits. M. Thiers was full 
 of doubts on this point, but, while owning his incon- 
 sistency, he had not the courage which he afterwards 
 displayed in the tribune of the Assembly. 
 
 On the day appointed for the solemn discussion of
 
 EDUCATIONAL LIBERTY. 361 
 
 this most important point, there was a full meeting 
 of the Committee ; victory was not secured without a 
 struggle : the triumph was not final until after two 
 moving speeches from the Abbe' Dupanloup. 
 
 " What ! " he said, u you admit, and for my part 
 I certainly admit, all Protestant sects, with their 
 subdivisions, to the benefits of the law; you allow 
 the fullest liberty to Quakers, why then, with regard 
 to the Church, do you offer the grievous insult of 
 refusing these advantages to certain congregations 
 which she approves ? And yet, you say that you 
 wish to be at peace with the Church ; well then, come 
 to an agreement with her ! " 
 
 M. Thiers replied with some spirit, while defend- 
 ing himself from the imputation of sharing vulgar 
 prejudices. 
 
 " Assuredly," he said, "I do not fear Ultramon- 
 tanism as it may have been feared in the past. I 
 am even ready to hold out my hand to it. But still 
 it appears to me a most serious thing to renounce 
 those great maxims, solemnly laid down by the 
 Church of France." 
 
 M. Cousin also raised the question of Gallicanism, 
 but, at the same time, declared with M. Thiers that 
 since the Eevolution Ultramontanism no longer 
 offered any danger. 
 
 M. Dupanloup replied : — 
 
 " M. Cousin tells us in language as kindly as the 
 feeling which inspires it, that he takes the liberty of 
 most respectfully pointing out to the Church that, in
 
 362 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 the interest of her own religious influence, she was 
 perhaps wrong to unite the fate of the Jesuits to her 
 own, through an exaggerated sentiment of self- 
 respect. I reply to M. Cousin — and here, although 
 I hold no brief for the Church, I can nevertheless 
 assert that such is her thought — that the tenacity of 
 the Church in favour of the Jesuits is not a matter 
 of self-respect. The Church may possibly not con- 
 sider the Jesuits perfect in all respects, but she does 
 believe that they are perfectly innocent of the accusa- 
 tions brought against them. This is her profound 
 conviction ; she cannot have any other ; and as the 
 Church is justice itself, she cannot like Pilate con- 
 demn what is just, and consider herself free from 
 responsibility by washing her hands, because she has 
 not committed the deed herself but allowed others to 
 
 do it I find the Institution of the Jesuits 
 
 solemnly sanctioned by the Council of Trent ; again 
 in 1761, in a general assembly of the French clergy, 
 only one bishop out of twenty-one was unfavourable 
 to them ; four others confined themselves to asking 
 for a few modifications in the rules of the Institution, 
 although the King had convened these bishops in 
 order to obtain a verdict against the Jesuits. . . . 
 Their cause is that of justice and virtue." 
 
 At the end of this memorable sitting M. Thiers 
 seized, in the presence of M. de Montalembert and 
 myself, M. Cousin's arm, exclaiming: " Cousin ! 
 Cousin ! do you see what a lesson we have just 
 received ? He is quite right, that Abbe ! Yes, we
 
 EDUCATIONAL LIBERTY. 363 
 
 have been fighting against justice and virtue, and we 
 owe them some compensation." 
 
 A bright light had shone in upon M. Thiers' mind, 
 and a grand reconciliation was about to take place 
 between Truth and Liberty. A fruitful peace would 
 have been secured for the future of France, if France 
 and the future had remained faithful to liberty as well 
 as to truth. 
 
 Since then, in spite of immense services, we have 
 had serious reproaches to make against M. Thiers. He 
 has more than once, since 1871, been untrue to the 
 noblest sentiments and the best actions of his career. 
 We must none the less acknowledge that, if his youth 
 was given up to revolutionary enthusiasm and his old 
 age to ambition disfigured by personalities, in his 
 mature age, that is to say in the full vigour of his 
 intelligence and strength, he openly belonged to the 
 Conservative party. 
 
 It has often been contemptuously said that he was 
 alarmed in 1848. Well, even supposing that were 
 true, does he. not still merit our gratitude ? Fear 
 troubled many others at that date, and fear more often 
 gives bad advice than good. Fear, even more than 
 evil intentions, created the Terror in 1793, and if it 
 did not produce the same crimes in 1848, it powerfully 
 contributed to the follies and dangers of that period. 
 The man whom it brings to avow his faults and whom 
 it stiffens to resistance is at once imbued with some- 
 thing superior to those who go to swell the train of 
 imbecility and tyranny. With such a man, fear ought
 
 364 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 to be called patriotism, clear-sightedness, and in cer- 
 tain cases heroism. Contemporary history has few of 
 these examples. Do not let us fail to recognise them, 
 and if I have to speak severely of M. Thiers hereafter, 
 I will not commence by ingratitude. Let us render 
 justice to his services, that we may have the right to 
 condemn his failings. But, above all, let us hope that 
 the more men forget the good which has been done, 
 the more God will remember it.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE ROMAN EXPEDITION — THE CHOLERA — GENERAL CHAN- 
 GARNIER — END OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. 
 
 1849. 
 
 The strength of the Ministry consisted in its uniform 
 homogeneity, its integrity, and loyalty ; its weakness 
 in the little personal acquaintance that existed between 
 its members and the great diversity of their political 
 antecedents. Prudent from necessity as much as from 
 inclination, it was bound before entering upon busi- 
 ness to study itself, and to thoroughly understand the 
 principal person with whom it would have to arrange 
 its plans. Everything was strange and novel in their 
 position — the powers, the duties, and the men. The 
 Republican party still held the cards, even at a time 
 when France thought they had fallen, and wished them 
 to fall, from its hands. The tremendous check which 
 it sustained in the great popular election seemed to 
 have been simply an accident, and the Republican 
 experiment, which appeared to be upon its last legs, 
 resumed its course unchecked. M. Dufaure, who in 
 1847 had separated himself from the Left Opposition 
 because of the campaign of banquets and the refusal to
 
 366 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 toast the King, had been the last minister of General 
 Cavaignac, andM. Barrot, who had ardently joined all 
 the movements of the Left, became the Prince Presi- 
 dent's Prime Minister. The Prince himself, upon 
 descending from the tribune, after taking the oath to 
 the Eepublic, sought out General Cavaignac on his 
 bench, who received him very ungraciously, but the 
 Prince pressed his hand, as though anxious to show 
 publicly his desire to link the policy he was now in- 
 augurating with that which had just ended. 
 
 The Eepublican party ought to have welcomed our 
 Ministry as an unlooked-for good fortune ; but, on the 
 contrary, it displayed an ill-humour almost amounting 
 to hostility. M. Odilon Barrot, with indefatigable 
 courage, and M. Leon Faucher, with more energy than 
 tact, maintained an incessant opposition. Owing to 
 their many personal friendships they gradually suc- 
 ceeded in rallying the moderate Left, and in separating 
 it from the extreme Left upon cabinet questions J but 
 they never gained more than a doubtful ill-disposed 
 majority, which supported the Ministry for want of a 
 better and for fear of a worse, rendering its existence 
 a very precarious one, and selling it dearly its daily 
 bread. 
 
 The Eoman question was the first and most impor- 
 tant battlefield. General Cavaignac had warmly urged 
 Pius IX. to accept an asylum in France if he found it 
 impossible to remain in Eome, and the President as well 
 as his Ministry loyally supported this proposal. We 
 conveyed our expression of it directly to the Holy
 
 THE ROMAN EXPEDITION. 367 
 
 Father through the man most likely to secure his 
 assent, M. de Corcelle. It will be readily believed 
 that I personally was not backward in this matter, 
 and I sent through our Ambassador a letter which I 
 had the pleasure of finding, some years later, in a col- 
 lection of the letters of homage which had most touched 
 the Sovereign Pontiff during his exile, a collection which 
 he had published under the title of Orbe Cattolico. 
 
 Those who had honoured me by choosing me as their 
 fellow-labourer were not all of the same opinion as 
 myself respecting the Eoman question. 
 
 The President of the Eepublic had been brought up 
 in entire opposition to the temporal power of the Popes. 
 He and his brother had from their youth repaid, by 
 armed aggression, the hospitality that, since 1815, the 
 Imperial family had received from the generosity of the 
 Sovereign Pontiffs. The Prince of Canino, President 
 of the Eoman Assembly, assumed the most aggressive 
 attitude. The President did not go quite so far, but 
 neither did he display any feeling in favour of formal 
 and sincere reparation. 
 
 In the Ministry M. Passy alone nourished and 
 manifested anti-Catholic prejudices. "When he wanted 
 to blame or criticise anything he would borrow his 
 expressions and similes from religious terms. For 
 instance, he said of M. Ledru-Eollin, or of M. Jules 
 Favre, that they retained a monkish aversion for such 
 and such members of the extreme Left. 
 
 M. Barrot, on the contrary, entered frankly into the 
 feeling of admiration for Pius IX., and freely ex-
 
 368 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 pressed his respect for the Catholic creed. But with 
 him it was natural instinct and good will, not religious 
 convictions. M. Drouyn de Lhuys and M. Leon 
 Faucher regarded the Pope as the keystone of the 
 European edifice, and they desired to retain his throne 
 like that of any other sovereign. M. Drouyn de 
 Lhuys often said, " I prefer a good Pope to a bad one, 
 but I prefer a bad Pope to none at all." M. Faucher 
 applauded this sentiment. By a good Pope they 
 meant a sovereign pontiff such as Pius IX. had shown 
 himself from 1846 to 1848. By a bad Pope, they 
 meant the indignant discouraged ruler surrounded by 
 absolutist influences which were endeavouring to gain 
 empire over him. 
 
 M. de Tracy, by the elevation of his character, in- 
 clined towards the cause of Pius IX., but he had 
 belonged to the Left for a very long time, and could 
 not easily separate himself from his old friends. 
 
 M. Lacrosse was anxious to regulate his conduct 
 by the supposed wishes of the President, and his com- 
 pliance already foreshadowed his adhesion to the 
 second Empire should it ever be proclaimed. 
 
 General Eulhieres, M. Buffet, and I generally 
 thought in the same way and acted by mutual agree- 
 ment, but we only formed a minority in the Ministry, 
 and could not become a majority unless we first ob- 
 tained the support of M. Barrot, M. Drouyn de Lhuys, 
 and M. Faucher, without either offending or alarming 
 the President. "We therefore considered that the 
 first resolution passed on the subject of Italy, that of
 
 THE ROMAN EXPEDITION. 369 
 
 not recognising the Roman Republic, gave us a 
 material advantage. The Due d'Harcourt, General 
 Cavaignac's Ambassador at the Court of Pius IX., 
 rejoined the Pope at Gaeta. The Papal Nuncio never 
 for an instant interrupted the discharge of his official 
 duties in Paris. The messengers sent by the Roman 
 Republic were not received by the President nor by 
 any of his Ministers. 
 
 The President, M. Barrot, and M. Passy would have 
 preferred to have gone no further, but events would 
 not allow of this. The President would not at any 
 price risk his popularity, and perhaps his power, in the 
 Pope's service ; but neither would he at any price 
 consent that Austria, already too preponderant in 
 Italy, should invade the remainder of the Peninsula 
 and place it under her exclusive rule. These two 
 conflicting interests were not easily reconciled, and 
 to escape this difficulty, by a device which he re- 
 garded as ingenious, he resolved to make Piedmont the 
 agent of his own policy. He was as determined on 
 his side to make me agree to this scheme as I was to 
 win his approval for different ideas. " The endeavour 
 to conceal France behind Piedmont," I said to him, 
 " is like trying to hide a giant under a blade of 
 grass. Everybody will see us, Austria first of all. 
 Prance by openly declaring herself would stop Austria, 
 but France hiding under cover of Piedmont would be 
 defeated without an opportunity of defending herself, 
 and without obtaining the benefit either of the revo- 
 lutionary propaganda or that of the conservative 
 
 VOL. I. BB
 
 370 MEMOIKS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 action." When I pressed him too warmly on this 
 subject the President fell back upon his usual method, 
 and ended the conversation by a silence which one 
 could interpret as one pleased, but in his heart he 
 adhered to his own scheme. 
 
 He caused Abbe Gioberti to be sent to him from 
 Turin as ambassador, hoping to find in him an eloquent 
 and persistent exponent of their mutual ideas. Gioberti 
 was in great renown all over Italy at that time. He 
 was a learned, sincere man, but his ideas were 
 chimerical and warped. He honoured me with fre- 
 quent visits, and placed himself in communication 
 with many of the members of the Assembly, not less 
 unsuccessfully, it is true, with those of the Left than 
 with the Eight. "With the Left his ecclesiastical 
 position and religious convictions were all against 
 him; no one on the Eight regarded Piedmont as a 
 reliable, disinterested protector of the Pope. Gioberti 
 could answer nothing when he was asked, " How 
 could Piedmont disarm or conquer Austria ? " 
 
 This dialogue, which was very animated on both 
 sides, threatened to last a long time, when King 
 Charles Albert, half ascetic, half carbonaro, moved by 
 the secret ambition of a lifetime, over-excited by con- 
 tinual provocation from the Elysee, suddenly threw 
 down the glove to the Emperor of Austria, his former 
 ally and near relation. A single day saw his illusions 
 and his reign vanish. We heard at almost one and the 
 same time of his defeat and abdication, then his pas- 
 sage incognito through the south of France, his journey
 
 THE ROMAN EXPEDITION. 371 
 
 through Spain, and his final halt, when he seemed as it 
 were at land's end. For some months he lived in a 
 Portuguese monastery. Neither his wife nor any of his 
 relations had obtained permission to follow him, and 
 after a short time of deep depression he died, express- 
 ing sentiments of the most fervent piety. He had 
 risked his crown and, so far as it depended on him- 
 self, his life on the battlefield of Novara. He carried 
 to the tomb the secret of the inconsistencies of a reign 
 which will remain an enigma for posterity. 
 
 This event came like a thunderstroke to the Presi- 
 dent of the Eepublic as well as to the House of Savoy. 
 The Italian question was cleared from its deceptive 
 preliminaries, and Prance found herself face to face 
 with formidable realities. I allowed the first disagree- 
 able impression to pass over at the Elysee, and then I 
 went and asked the President if we were to allow 
 Austria, who was already preparing for her march 
 forward, to absorb the Papal states and render 
 Pius IX. unpopular by placing him under the pro- 
 tection of a Power so repugnant to Italy. " To-day 
 you are right," he answered ; " France can no 
 longer remain a passive spectator, and in face of the 
 triumphant Austrian flag, ours will be hailed in Italy 
 with unanimous acclamations ! " 
 
 From this time the President wished for and 
 hastened on the departure of our troops, already 
 concentrated on the coast of France by General 
 Cavaignac. At the same time, and through the same 
 motives as the President, the whole Ministry agreed 
 
 b b 2
 
 372 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 to the project of promptly despatching an expedition. 
 Catholic convictions were not the only decisive con- 
 siderations, the Catholic interests and French interests 
 were indissolubly linked ; one may even say that 
 the personal interest of the Eevolutionists was not 
 indifferent to the expedition. Intervention for inter- 
 vention, that of France would certainly be more 
 merciful and, in the best acceptance of the term, more 
 liberal than that of Austria. Without owning this 
 fact, the Left was fully aware of it. Provided that it 
 was allowed to assume an indignant attitude for its 
 electorate, it readily resigned itself to our actions, and 
 with but few exceptions expressed its good wishes 
 for the success of our enterprise. Without this last 
 remark one could easily account for what now took 
 place in the Assembly. 
 
 M. Bixio, who had recently occupied the diplomatic 
 post at Turin, and who left the Ministry with M. de 
 Malleville, belonged to the Eepublican party, and 
 now took the initiative in a motion the terms of which 
 had been arranged with the Government. It was 
 thus worded — 
 
 "The National Assembly, anxious to secure the 
 preservation of the two great interests confided to it, 
 the dignity of France and the maintenance of peace 
 founded upon respect for nationalities : 
 
 "Concurring in the views expressed by the Presi- 
 dent of the Council at the meeting of the 28th inst. : 
 
 " Confiding in the Government of the President of 
 the Eepublic :
 
 THE ROMAN EXPEDITION. 373 
 
 " Declares, that if, for the better guarantee of the 
 integrity of Piedmontese territory and to better up- 
 hold the interests and honour of France, the Executive 
 power believes it calculated to give force to its nego- 
 tiations by a partial and temporary occupation of 
 Italy, it will receive from the National Assembly the 
 most cordial and full support."* 
 
 This motion, the wording of which was intentionally 
 vague, led to a long and confused debate. MM. Barrot 
 and Drouyn de Lhuys spoke for the Government, 
 MM. Mold and Thiers upon behalf of the Eight ; MM. 
 Eillault and Jules Favre, in the name of the Opposi- 
 tion, asked for more clearness in the language of the 
 Government than they ever introduced into their own 
 language. What was meant by the partial occupation 
 of any portion of Italy ? Was it intervention in the 
 Eoman States ? Was this intervention in favour of 
 the Italian Eepublic or a support to the sovereignty 
 of the Holy See ? The respect for nationalities in- 
 voked in the first phrase, was it applied to the 
 ephemeral and bloody Eepublic of the Eoman trium- 
 virs, all three strangers to Eome, or was it used to 
 designate the eight centuries' old Government of the 
 Sovereign Pontiffs ? The extreme Left, then called the 
 Mountain, alone spoke out openly. It did not believe, 
 no one could believe,' in any serious resistance from 
 Italy, but it thought this a favourable opportunity for 
 re-awakening the passions of Paris, and that was the 
 real object of its violence. I cannot reproduce here 
 * Moniteur, 31st March, 1849.
 
 374 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 the style of language it used in this discussion and in 
 all the debates that followed on the subject of the 
 Eoman expedition. "When M. Thiers pronounced the 
 words " Italy is in the hands of ridiculous disturbers," 
 applause broke out on the Eight and clamour on the 
 Left. 
 
 At last, after indescribable tumult, M. Bixio's mo- 
 tion, amended by M. Payer, was carried in the sitting 
 of Saturday, 31st, by 444 voices against 320,* and 
 the French expedition promptly set sail. 
 
 On the 28th April, 1849, the Government received 
 the following despatch from General Oudinot : — 
 
 " Civita Vecchia, the 26th, 11 a.m. 
 
 "We are masters of Civita Vecchia without striking a blow. 
 The authorities offered no resistance. The inhabitants and the 
 National Guard received us with acclamations." 
 
 "No one then doubted but that forty-eight hours 
 later a similar despatch would reach Paris dated from 
 Eome, but we Were to be bitterly disappointed. After 
 as before the event it was proved that no resistance 
 would have been offered but for the too generous confi- 
 dence of the commander-in-chief. On landing at Civita 
 Yecchia he found there six hundred volunteers of all 
 nations, well armed and accustomed to street fighting, 
 who promised that, if granted their liberty, they 
 would not use their arms against us. General Oudinot 
 was so imprudent as to accept this promise, and to 
 open the gates of the city to them. They left it at 
 once, hastened to Eome, and summoned Garibaldi, 
 * Mbniteur, 1st April, 1849.
 
 THE ROMAN EXPEDITION. 375 
 
 who hurried from the Neapolitan frontiers and speedily 
 rejoined his friends at the head of twelve or fifteen 
 hundred men. These troops were sufficient, helped 
 by the terror which they created, to impose upon the 
 Eoman population a resolve which was contrary both 
 to its habits and wishes, viz. to oppose our entry ; so 
 that when our regiments presented themselves, with- 
 out a single battery of artillery, they found the gates 
 closed. Our peaceful words were answered by the 
 mouth of the cannon. The military check was easily 
 repaired, but morally the repulse involved and was 
 followed by serious consequences. 
 
 The Ministry met every morning at the Elysee, and 
 disagreeable despatches from General Oudinot arrived 
 there a few minutes before the time of one of our 
 meetings. When I entered the room where our sit- 
 tings were usually held, the President came forward, 
 and with no little kindliness said to me, " You will be 
 very grieved, and so am I, but I think that M. Barrot 
 takes the misfortune too much to heart." At the 
 same time he took me up to the President of the 
 Council, who was nearly fainting in an arm-chair. 
 The President's reception showed me that he quite 
 understood the situation, and that I could rely upon 
 him to impress it upon M. Barrot. I therefore did 
 my best to arouse him from this stupor. M. Drouyn 
 de Lhuys soon came round to my view. M. Buffet 
 was less inclined than any of us to draw back, and 
 we gradually induced M. Barrot to realise that, 
 instead of wasting our strength in useless lamenta-
 
 376 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 tions we must all prepare to wear a calm countenance 
 and adopt a firm tone to the Assembly. Was it not 
 evident, in fact, that Austria would, after our check, 
 be still more threatening than before, and that any 
 humiliation of our army not immediately repaired 
 would be a double blow to French influence and to 
 the liberal spirit in Itaty ? This furnished a subject 
 for a speech such as M. Barrot excelled in. He was 
 not always very quick or very far-sighted, but he 
 listened in good faith to opinions that differed from 
 his own, and when he had adopted them, above all 
 when he had once advocated them in the tribune, he 
 assimilated them so completely that he believed them 
 to be his own. His Memoires give us more than one 
 proof of this lucky and pleasant gift. Many a states- 
 man may have possessed more penetration than he 
 did, but no one, his resolutions once being made, 
 spontaneous or not, could have championed them with 
 more courage or more loyalty. 
 
 As to the President, he had during our delibera- 
 tions paid great attention, and shown himself very 
 much alive to all that concerned our military 
 honour. The army preoccupied him as regarded 
 the present, and probably still more as regarded 
 the future, so this side of the question was of more 
 importance in his eyes than any other point. So much 
 was this the case that, without asking the consent of 
 the Council, he wrote direct to General Oudinot a 
 letter which raised the most violent clamour in the 
 Assembly, which most of the Ministers would cer-
 
 THE ROMAN EXPEDITION. 377 
 
 tainly have refused to sign, but which they dared not 
 disown, even M. Barrot defending it warmly. 
 
 This letter, although published by the Patrie, was 
 not inserted in the Moniteur ; but nevertheless it pro- 
 voked an interpellation from M. Grevy, violently 
 commented upon by M. Ledru-Eollin. The former 
 accused the Government of placing itself in complete 
 antagonism to the policy traced out by the Assembly. 
 M. Barrot replied that no policy could compel us to be 
 so inconsistent as to enter Eoman territory, and, after 
 taking possession of it, allow the very event to take 
 place which we had gone there expressly to prevent, 
 viz. the triumph of cosmopolitan demagogues. The 
 inconsistency pointed out by the President of the 
 Council would have been so shameful for France, so 
 perilous for Italy, that the Left could find no means of 
 proposing or of carrying any policy in opposition to 
 that of the Government. 
 
 M. Barrot, however, anxious to afford some scrap 
 of comfort to the Opposition, agreed to the despatch of 
 an envoy extraordinary to attempt once more to find 
 some pacific solution. This delicate mission was con- 
 fided to M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, who afterwards 
 justly acquired so much renown. Eecently French 
 consul at Barcelona, M. de Lesseps had there given 
 proofs of great energy. "We therefore thought that 
 we should find in him a man having both experience 
 in revolutions and a perfect knowledge of the character 
 of the southern populations. 
 
 He took with him definite instructions, and, after
 
 378 MEMOIRS or A royalist. 
 
 conferring in the French camp with General Oudinot, 
 went into Eome with the consent of the three 
 triumvirs. 
 
 But to our great surprise our envoy allowed himself 
 to be either intimidated by the rhodomontades of 
 Garibaldi or seduced by the skill of Mazzini, and he 
 ended by concluding an unacceptable convention with 
 the Eoman Eepublic. It was rejected by the French 
 General and referred by us to the Council of State, 
 which censured M. de Lesseps : 1st, for having adopted 
 an attitude exactly opposite to the instructions he had 
 received ; 2nd, for having agreed to stipulations 
 prejudicial to the interests of France and to her dignity. 
 On returning to Paris M. de Lesseps felt himself in 
 such an inexplicable situation that he showed visible 
 signs of a kind of mental derangement. His language 
 became incoherent, and thirty years later M. Odilon 
 Barrot in his Memoires* asks himself whether the 
 strange conduct of our representative might not be 
 explained by his connection with the chiefs of the 
 extreme Left, and by the confidence which they 
 expressed to him of an approaching revolutionary 
 explosion in France as well as in Italy. 
 
 However that may be, I resume my narrative 
 where I broke it off. M. Barrot's speech in Paris and 
 M. de Lesseps' s departure for Eome had restored some 
 latitude to us. Our freedom of action remained intact. 
 The President's letter to General Oudinot was acted 
 upon, and the siege of Eome conducted according to 
 * Odilon Barrot, Memoires, vol. iii., pp. 218, 288, 369.
 
 THE CHOLERA. 379 
 
 rule amid clamours from the Left, which was not in 
 reality sorry that it was unable to alter our policy. 
 During these fruitless agitations, which attracted more 
 attention in the press and the tribune than in the 
 country itself, the President was busy fostering his 
 popularity. He received some significant proofs of 
 it, to one of which I was myself a witness. 
 
 In the spring of 1849 cholera again invaded Paris, 
 and appeared to threaten several of the schools. I was 
 anxious to make sure that every precaution had been 
 taken, but I found this had been done, so all that 
 remained for me was to calm the minds of the people. 
 I related to them the Eastern fable of the plague 
 telling its story to an inhabitant of Smyrna, and 
 saying, " I have killed barely one-tenth of the victims, 
 fear has killed the rest." This slight incident did not 
 appear to me worth laying before the Council of 
 Ministers, but the President had been informed of it, 
 and on the morrow he said to me, " If you had advised 
 me I should like to have visited the schools with you. 
 However, I will not follow your bad example. I 
 propose going through the hospitals, and if you like I 
 will take you with me." I accepted, and on the 
 following day we commenced with the Salpetriere. 
 This establishment gives shelter to a great number of 
 people, and among the inmates were a number of former 
 canteen women and soldiers' widows, remains of the 
 Empire. The President had scarcely entered the first 
 court when a troop of these old women rushed towards 
 him, struggling and vying with each other to seize his
 
 380 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 hand or his coat. Those who could not owing to the 
 crush approach him passionately kissed both hands to 
 him, crying at the top of their voices, " Vive mon petit 
 Napoleon ! " "Vive mon amour de Napoleon ! " " Vive 
 le Prince Eugene ! " " Vive le roi Joseph ! " We had 
 all the trouble in the world to pass through this 
 positively distracted crowd. I had not expected such 
 a demonstration, and I was still more struck to find 
 upon leaving the Salpetri&re that a large crowd had 
 assembled round the entrance, and the same ovation 
 and the same cries greeted us and escorted the Presi- 
 dent's carriage as long as it was in sight. 
 
 I must add that when visiting the sick the President 
 always appeared very simply and sincerely compas- 
 sionate. He devoted more than two hours to them, 
 exhausted all the money he had brought, and bor- 
 rowed some hundreds of francs from me, and added to 
 his liberal gifts kindly words which really came from 
 the heart. During his reign he showed more than 
 one trace of hardness, but I believe that it was excep- 
 tional with him. His first impulse was naturally 
 benevolent and gentle. I shall mention as I proceed 
 several instances of this, in which policy and the 
 surrounding circumstances could not have influenced 
 him. 
 
 M. Trelat was doctor at the Salpetriere ; I had not 
 seen him since our heated discussions on the subject of 
 the national workshops ; I thought that cholera was 
 a calamity which ought to place all angry feelings on 
 one side, and I asked the doctors who accompanied us
 
 GENERAL CHANGARNIER. 381 
 
 where I should find M. Trelat, for I wished to shake 
 hands with him. 
 
 "He is very ill in bed," replied one of them. 
 
 " I am very sorry," I answered, without giving 
 myself time to think. " Kindly take me to him for 
 an instant." The words were scarcely out of my 
 mouth when I realised their foolishness, well confirmed 
 by the embarrassment of my informant. I smiled and 
 said no more. When we had returned to the carriage 
 the President said to me — 
 
 " Did you notice M. Trelat' s absence ? " 
 
 " They told me that he was ill." 
 
 " They told me the same thing, but I did not believe 
 it. I know that he is very charitable, and I intended 
 asking you to propose to the Council to-morrow that 
 he should receive the cross of the Legion of Honour." 
 
 " If I thought that he would accept it his absence 
 to-day does not appear to me any reason for not carry- 
 ing out your wish, M. the President." 
 
 " You are right. We'll make some inquiries." 
 
 I did inquire, and learnt that M. Trelat, disinte- 
 rested as he was, was also full of the keenest political 
 resentment. 
 
 The Constituent Assembly had another battlefield 
 as well as the Roman question. This was the Chan- 
 gamier question, and it is difficult to separate one from 
 the other. Those who were bent upon taking revenge 
 for the days of June knew that they had no more 
 formidable adversary than the general commanding the 
 army of Paris. The ascendency of his name over the
 
 382 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 troops equalled the skill of his tactics, and in this 
 respect the Mountain did not deceive itself. A strik- 
 ing instance of this had recently occurred. After the 
 election of the 10th of December the moment seemed 
 favourable for regulating the status of the Garde 
 Mobile, which had been provisional until then. It 
 became necessary, while not overlooking the services 
 rendered by this heroic army of the children of Paris, 
 to make their corps subject to the same regulations as 
 the whole army. It may even be asserted that the 
 men who now fomented the discontent of the young 
 mobiles and urged them to insubordination, would not 
 have espoused their cause so warmly on the day after 
 the defeat of the insurrection. But against the Presi- 
 dent and his Ministry everything served as a means or 
 a pretext, and a corps of eighteen thousand young men, 
 perfectly equipped, quartered in the heart of Paris 
 itself, would have been an invaluable weapon in the 
 hands of those animated by hostile sentiments. The 
 outrages that had been showered on their prowess 
 against the rebels now ceased. On the contrary, every 
 encouragement was given to the discontent natural in 
 any circumstances among men who believe themselves 
 injured as soon as it is proposed to them to convert 
 their condition from one of privilege to that common 
 to other people. Suspicious conferences took place, 
 and the chiefs of the clubs said openly, by way of 
 mutual encouragement, that if the Government had 
 its general the Democracy had its army. 
 
 General Changarnier was well aware of the plot,
 
 GENERAL CHANGARNIER. 383 
 
 and lie suddenly, one fine morning, summoned all the 
 superior officers of the Garde Mobile before him. In 
 a few striking words he pointed out the result of 
 their unreflecting impulse, proved that he knew all 
 about their secret plots, and declared that four of the 
 commanders of regiments then present should at once 
 repair to the Abbaye. One of them, M. Aladenise, 
 got into a violent rage, not only against his general 
 but against the Prince, whom he had accompanied in 
 the freak at Boulogne. The General had M. Ala- 
 denise arrested on the spot, saying to his comrades, 
 " Eemember, gentlemen, the advice which I have 
 given you, and rest assured that henceforth those 
 who tear up the pavements of the capital will never 
 put them back." General Changarnier had sum- 
 moned the men whom he believed to be the most 
 refractory. They retired with mutinous gestures and 
 tones. The same evening, several battalions returned 
 to their barracks, crying, " Vive la Republique demo- 
 cratique et sociale ! " (Long live the democratic and 
 socialist Eepublic !) 
 
 However, the General's brief address had circulated 
 from rank to rank. Similar measures were taken and 
 energetically carried out. The secret societies held 
 permanent sittings. The Ministry thought this a 
 favourable opportunity for drawing the attention of 
 the Assembly towards the clubs, and M. Leon 
 Faucher urged the immediate necessity for a law 
 which would arm the Government with the right to 
 close them. Upon the report of M. Senard this
 
 384 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 necessity was negatived by 418 votes against 342. 
 Thus a check in the Assembly, and a disturbance, 
 perhaps an insurrection, among the garrison of Paris, 
 such was the aspect of affairs from the 25th to the 
 28th January. Natural susceptibilities urged the 
 Ministry to resign. The possibility of danger com- 
 manded it to remain at its post. In this alternative 
 the Ministers unreservedly laid the position before the 
 President, leaving the decision in his hands. By his 
 order the following note appeared in the Moniteur — 
 
 "Paris, 28th January. 
 
 " The Council of Ministers met to-day at the National Elysee. 
 From the account which Ministers have laid before him of the 
 incidents of yesterday's sittiDg, the President of the Republic 
 declares that he sees no reason for modifying his policy and that 
 the Cabinet may rely upon his firm and constant support." * 
 
 The public defence being still confided to us, 
 General Eulhieres and General Changarnier took, by 
 mutual agreement, the most rapid measures for 
 baffling the plans of the insurgents, which consisted 
 in simultaneously invading the Champs Elysees, the 
 President's house, and the seat of the Assembly. The 
 troops were moved on the night of the 28th to the 
 29th. At daybreak a proclamation was placarded 
 upon every wall calling upon the National Guard to 
 aid the army for the public safety. Numerous mobs, 
 sinister faces, precursors of the riots, the arrest of a 
 colonel of the National Guard, M. Porestier, all this 
 announced a formidable collision. But the completion 
 * Moniteur, 29th January, 1849.
 
 END OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. 385 
 
 of the military demonstrations and the attitude of 
 the population soon discouraged the most enthusiastic 
 ringleaders. At two o'clock in the afternoon the 
 President, followed only by some officers of his staff 
 and a few dragoons, rode down the front of the troops 
 and of the National Guard ; he was received all along 
 the line with the heartiest acclamations. The peril 
 had been averted in the street but not yet in the 
 Assembly. 
 
 From this day General Changarnier had the honour 
 of becoming with the Pope the target for interpel- 
 lations of every kind. If he wrote an order of the 
 day, read and placarded in the barracks of the army 
 of Paris, he was violating the Constitution. If he 
 took measures for the safety of the Assembly he was 
 threatening its independence. 
 
 In this tumult of blind passions we must, however, 
 note one remarkable exception. . One man belonging 
 to the Left acted as an impartial, clear-sighted presi- 
 dent : this was Armand Marrast. He steadily refused 
 to join in the plots concocted in the lobbies, and fre- 
 quently baffled them by his skill in conducting and 
 closing the debates. 
 
 One of the highest tributes which can be paid him 
 is to say that he died in poverty and obscurity. After 
 having sought notoriety and refinement he succeeded 
 in making his retreat and oblivion his best title to 
 honour. Public morality has often to complain now- 
 a-days of too indulgent rehabilitations ; honourable 
 conduct is not sufficiently honoured, doubtful conduct 
 
 vol. i. c c
 
 386 MEMOIES OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 is too easily glorified. M. Marrast had made culpable 
 use of his pen; he had embarked upon a course of 
 systematic disparagement, and never ceased ridiculing 
 others until after he had been gibbeted himself. How- 
 ever, it is only fair to state that, from the commence- 
 ment of the Provisional Government, he saw, under- 
 stood, and resisted. Perhaps he was not influenced by 
 the most serious aspects of the situation, but propriety 
 of feeling, when once conscience is awakened and 
 courage provoked, is at least a quality which merits 
 recognition. 
 
 The more the Assembly thus struggled in order to 
 prolong its existence the more it lost the support of 
 public opinion, and the country presented petitions, 
 daily increasing in number, demanding its dissolution. 
 M. Bateau, in the first place, and soon afterwards M. 
 Lanjuinais, who was called a moderate Eateau, put 
 these petitions into the form of a bill. The Assembly 
 was thus forced to deliberate upon the question of its 
 own existence. Though realising the uselessness or 
 the peril of a too obstinate resistance, it nevertheless 
 indulged in it, and like a wild boar at bay it still 
 dealt formidable blows.
 
 CHAPTEK XIII. 
 
 THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY MINISTERIAL CRISIS THE 
 
 INTRANSIGEANT CATHOLICS KING JEROME — PRINCE 
 
 NAPOLEON — EPISCOPAL APPOINTMENTS — A TOUR IN 
 THE WEST. 
 
 1849. 
 
 The resignation of M. Faucher was not the sole cause 
 of the ministerial crisis. A new spirit, in a new 
 majority, also manifested new requirements which had 
 to be satisfactorily represented in the Government. 
 We were therefore agreed as to the necessity of re- 
 assuring the President in this respect, and of restoring 
 to him the fullest liberty in his action with the new 
 Assembly. 
 
 M. Barrot had, for his own part, another motive, 
 which he thus expresses in his Memoir es : "I also 
 yielded to a consideration which, although personal to 
 myself, was not without some importance. The efforts 
 which I had been forced to make during the five 
 months of determined struggle through which we had 
 just passed had quite exhausted me. I felt the need 
 of being more efficiently seconded in the tribune than 
 I had been up to that time." * 
 
 • Odilon Barrot, Mlmoires, vol. iii. p. 276. 
 CC2
 
 388 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 These complaints and this desire were natural 
 enough. M. Barrot had, in fact, been untiring of 
 his exertions, and his exhaustion was increased from 
 having frequently, through unforeseen incidents, exhi- 
 bited when speaking more courage than real inspira- 
 tion from his subject. But it was exclusively from his 
 old friends that he wished to derive help, and he pre- 
 sented three names : M. de Tocqueville to replace M. 
 Drouyn de Lhuys, to whom the embassy of London 
 was offered ; M. Dufaure, to replace M. Faucher ; M. 
 Lanjuinais to replace M. Buffet. 
 
 M. Barrot foresaw one objection which suggested 
 itself, viz. the unfavourable moment. It was, in fact, 
 singular to select, for an advance towards the Left, the 
 very day when the Assembly was morally and nume- 
 rically reinforcing itself on the Eight. He therefore 
 wished to put this proposal in writing, and he pre- 
 sented it, with a long explanatory letter, to the Presi- 
 dent for consideration. This note was very badly 
 received at the Elysee, and a very abrupt answer was 
 vouchsafed to it. "You must," said the President, 
 " choose men devoted to my person, from the prefects 
 to the commissioners of police. You must watch the 
 actions of each of them, in order to prevent them from 
 being a source of danger in case of insurrection. You 
 must dismiss the majority of the agents nominated by 
 M. Dufaure. We must everywhere re-organise the 
 National Guard on a military footing. In short, we 
 must revive, not the recollections of the Empire, but 
 of the Emperor, for that is the only sentiment which
 
 THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY. 389 
 
 can aid us in contending against subversive ideas. 
 With this aim in view, I scarcely think that M. Dufaure 
 is an appropriate man for the situation." 
 
 M. Barrot held his ground. The President con- 
 sented to allow the former minister of General Cavai- 
 gnac, who had so hotly opposed his candidature, to 
 enter the Cabinet, but he only accepted him on condi- 
 tion that the portfolio of the Interior should not be 
 accorded to him. M. Barrot and M. Dufaure both 
 refused this arrangement. The President thereupon, 
 with every appearance of sincere regret, declared that 
 he preferred parting with M. Barrot. 
 
 I became at once the recipient of his confidence; 
 he displayed it in almost affectionate terms towards 
 me, pressed me to accept the Ministry of Foreign 
 Affairs, and left the choice of forming a new Cabinet 
 to me and to Marshal Bugeaud, who was to have the 
 Ministry of War and the Presidency of the Council. I 
 refused to leave the Ministry of Public Instruction for 
 any combination whatever, but I had no reason for 
 refusing to confer with the Marshal. The President 
 wished to place in the Ministry of the Interior Count 
 Mathieu de la Kedorte, son-in-law to the Marechale 
 d'Albufera, and Marshal Bugeaud was anxious to 
 secure M. Piscatory, whom he intended to make the 
 Minister of Marine. The distribution of the other 
 portfolios brought up the names of many different per- 
 sons, but they all were strong adherents of the party 
 then called Eeactionary. When I saw this I begged 
 the President to weigh the following objections :
 
 390 MEMOIES OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 General Changarnier's energy and the prompt arrest 
 of some of the ringleaders have averted the plot of the 
 29th January; but its elements still exist, and revenge 
 for the days of June, by a desperate assault against 
 the whole of society, still remains the constant dream 
 of various socialistic groups. They tried to make the 
 appeal to arms coincide with the last convulsions of 
 the Constituent Assembly, they would now take for 
 their watchword the monarchical composition of the 
 Legislative Assembly. If the entrance of M. Dufaure 
 and his friends into the Ministry had the drawback of 
 making the scale weigh far too heavily towards the 
 Left, we were also running a very different but very 
 dangerous risk by giving everything to the Eight 
 without any compensation to the Left." These con- 
 siderations were drawn from facts of unquestionable 
 truth. They sufficed to justify my counsels of prudence 
 in my interviews with the President, but in my own 
 mind I still felt much anxiety of another kind. 
 
 Always reasoning on the hypothesis of an approach- 
 ing insurrection, an hypothesis so well founded that it 
 was realised a fortnight later, the 13th June, I put 
 before myself this dilemma : — either there would be a 
 split in the army, a possibility that even Marshal 
 Eugeaud admitted, because of the Eepublican tenden- 
 cies of the artillery, or the ascendency of Marshal 
 Bugeaud and of General Changarnier would preserve 
 the military spirit and discipline. Then doubtless the 
 insurrection would be easily suppressed. On the con- 
 trary, in the event of a partial mutiny of the garrisons
 
 THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY. 391 
 
 of Paris, we should not only suffer from the revenge 
 of the men defeated on the Parisian barricades, but 
 we should see a terrible cataclysm unchained over the 
 whole of France. The new Ministry would become 
 responsible for this terrible defeat of the Conservative 
 party, and would not escape the reproach of unpardon- 
 able provocation, even on the part of those who had 
 driven us to it. 
 
 On the other hand, in the more probable event, as I 
 admit, of a new check to the attempts at a revolution, 
 where would the victory end ? The Royal House was 
 divided, the monarchy was not ready, either in the 
 public mind or in the circumstances of the time. 
 Would Marshal Bugeaud and General Changarnier, 
 formerly brothers in arms of the Orleans Princes, 
 refuse them a share in the battle, above all on the 
 day after the battle? Did the President on his side, 
 who did not seem in the least afraid of a conflict in 
 the street, candidly proclaim all his thoughts ? Would 
 he not revert to Persigny, now outwardly forsaken, 
 and was he not, in his impenetrable discretion, taking 
 all his measures for whatever might happen ? 
 
 I was full of perplexity and I opened my heart to 
 M. Berryer. His patriotism and his friendship for me 
 were fully displayed in this private consultation. We 
 considered together all the aspects of the situation, at 
 once so serious and complicated, and we agreed that, 
 as Bossuet, one of his favourite authors, says, we 
 must leave nothing to chance which we could avert by 
 thought or foresight. We therefore arranged that I
 
 392 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 should make a double effort, and try to dissuade Mar- 
 shal Bugeaud from such a tremendous enterprise, and 
 induce M. Barrot to resume the Presidency of the old 
 Ministry, moderately reinforced according to his 
 personal views. 
 
 I succeeded more readily than I had anticipated 
 with Marshal Bugeaud, who succumbed a few days 
 later to an attack of cholera, and who was already 
 very weak. His will was wavering, his mind had no 
 longer its lucidity, and he lost himself in interminable 
 digressions, in which agricultural topics and the intro- 
 duction of potatoes into Algeria occupiedthe chief place. 
 
 Moreover, he did not agree well with General Chan- 
 garnier, not through petty jealousies as has since been 
 wrongly asserted, but through military exigencies 
 the extent of which it was impossible to ignore. 
 With General Eulhieres at the Ministry of War, 
 that is to say with a man most sincerely modest 
 and very sincerely deferential towards General 
 Changarnier, the commander of the army of Paris, 
 could not possibly give rise to any conflict. With 
 Marshal Bugeaud the relations would be very 
 different. Equal in renown, they were not so in rank, 
 and both believed in and clung to their own ideas. 
 At the critical moment, and in the heat of the contest, 
 what would become of the unity of command ? From 
 whom would the real word of authority issue : from 
 the Eue St. Dominique, the seat of the Ministry of 
 War, or from the Pavilion of the Tuileries, which was 
 then the usual quarters of the commander of the army
 
 THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY. 393 
 
 of Paris ? I was the mute, attentive witness of the 
 debate in which the two valiant captains discussed this 
 delicate question. Equally competent and equally 
 patriotic, they continued to discuss it with the utmost 
 frankness and the most perfect cordiality ; but at the 
 same time, the question remained an obstacle to the 
 creation of a new Cabinet. 
 
 But was there also another obstacle, never put into 
 words? I cannot assert anything positive on this 
 point, but I believe that in reality another difference 
 existed between the two soldiers. Marshal Bugeaud 
 was among those who, on the day after the Kevolu- 
 tion of February, voted for the return of the Legiti- 
 mate Monarchy, and he at once entered into com- 
 munication with the Comte de Chambord. General 
 Changarnier's convictions were less prompt and his 
 conduct more circumspect. A former officer of the 
 Eoyal Guard, his entire sympathies were for the recon- 
 ciliation of the two branches of the House of Bourbon, 
 but he had not been able to overcome the resistance 
 of the Duchesse d' Orleans, and this resistance had 
 checked his efforts. But still he would not have 
 consented to engage in any struggle against the 
 Orleans Princes, for whom, like all the army, he 
 professed the most cordial esteem. But inasmuch as, 
 whatever may have been the secret motives of their 
 hesitation, Marshal Bugeaud and General Changarnier 
 could not agree on military questions, it became super- 
 fluous to endeavour to bring them into harmony on 
 political topics, a ground, moreover, upon which no 
 
 S
 
 394 MEMOIES OF A EOTALIST. 
 
 one would ever have been able to reconcile M. Dufaure 
 and Marshal Bugeaud. 
 
 Without any ill-will towards me, M. Barrot had 
 taken umbrage either at my too monarchical or at my 
 too religious sentiments. He would not have made 
 any serious effort to retain me in the new Cabinet. He 
 allowed me to see that he intended my portfolio for 
 M. de Tocqueville, well knowing that I would not 
 accept any other. For my own part I rendered full 
 justice to M. Barrot' s good qualities. I thought, 
 moreover, that his presence in the Ministry was as 
 acceptable to the Legislative Assembly as it had been 
 to the Constituent Assembly, but I deemed him too 
 parsimonious towards my friends and too generous 
 towards his own. 
 
 For some years I had seen a good deal of M. 
 Dufaure, and the deficiencies or the weak points in 
 this fine intellect had struck me too much for me not 
 to wish to preserve the new Cabinet and myself from 
 too tight a yoke. I therefore responded to the Presi- 
 dent's advances, not through any wish for a superior 
 post — the interests of religion being my sole reason for 
 accepting power — but in order to secure new col- 
 leagues who would not be either too exclusive or too 
 adventurous. Probably M. Barrot never knew, and 
 in any case he never knew from me, how much the 
 President inclined towards combinations from which 
 the veteran orator of the Left was omitted. Thus 
 when he learnt from me that the Left Centre 
 combination was in the ascendency he placed himself
 
 A MINISTERIAL CRISIS. 395 
 
 entirely under M. Dufaure's direction, and M. Dufaure 
 became more and more imperious. 
 
 When once Marshal Bugeaud was removed it was 
 with M. Dufaure more than any one else that we had 
 to come to an arrangement. The latter did not 
 equivocate in any way, but declared from the first 
 that he would not enter the Ministry without some 
 support, without the assistance of his two personal 
 friends, MM. de Tocqueville and Lanjuinais. 
 
 I had for M. de Tocqueville an old and deep 
 sympathy ; I only dreaded his American views on the 
 subject of the Eoman question. I asked him for a 
 frank explanation, and it completely reassured me. 
 
 "If I had formed part of the Cabinet since the 
 commencement of the expedition," he said, "I should 
 have opposed the departure of the troops until the 
 Koman people had pronounced their opinion upon the 
 temporal power. But engaged as we now are, and 
 the French army being able of itself to prevent the 
 entry of the Neapolitan, Spanish, and Austrian troops 
 into Eome by occupying the city themselves, you 
 may rely upon my support." With M. de Tocqueville 
 these words sufficed, and his presence brought addi- 
 tional force and great credit to the Cabinet. One of 
 the first difficulties was therefore removed, but others 
 arose. 
 
 The President had ended by accepting with cor- 
 diality M. Dufaure as Minister of Justice in place of 
 M. Barrot, who remained President of the Council, 
 but without a portfolio. This combination was frus-
 
 396 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 trated by the obstinate refusal of M. Barrot and 
 M. Dufaure. The former considered himself too 
 much effaced by the simple Presidency of the Council. 
 He caressed the idea of great judicial reforms, and was 
 not sure that some of the services and a little of the 
 renown of Chancellor d'Aguesseau were not reserved 
 for him. M. Dufaure was acquainted with the terms 
 of the President's private memorandum and was 
 deeply affected by the words : " We must revive on 
 all sides, not the souvenir of the Empire, but of 
 the Emperor." He saw in this the undisguised 
 avowal of projects which only a Minister of the 
 Interior could effectually thwart. It was therefore 
 this Ministry that he was anxious to occupy and no 
 other, and on this point I did not consider either his 
 anxiety or his precautions exaggerated. But he did 
 not stop there, and M. Lanjuinais was, in his eyes, no 
 less necessary than M. de Tocqueville. Feeling sure 
 that M. Barrot did not attach the same importance to 
 M. Lanjuinais' s entrance, I resolved in my turn to 
 interview M. Dufaure. I called upon him in his 
 small apartment near the Opera, a curious quarter for 
 a man sincerely devoted to the most serious studies. I 
 rang the bell, but no one opened the door. I rang 
 again, and at last M. Dufaure appeared in slippers and 
 night-shirt, with a coloured handkerchief tied in a 
 great bow above his head. The whole effect was so 
 comical that the recollection of it has never been 
 effaced from my memory. I apologised for a visit 
 which I had not supposed could be so inconvenient at
 
 A MINISTERIAL CRISIS. 397 
 
 that hour (half-past nine in the evening) to M. Du- 
 faure, but without any further explanation he led me 
 into his room and went back to bed to discuss the 
 matter. 
 
 " You place me," I said, " in such a false position 
 towards my political friends, that it is impossible for 
 me to accept it. Not only do you refuse them, in the 
 Ministry, the share which fairly belongs to them, but 
 you wish to remove M. Buffet solely in order to intro- 
 duce M. Lanjuinais, whom we all appreciate as much 
 as you do, but who is not in any way indicated by the 
 present situation. Be careful what you do, for this 
 appointment would be a cause of great weakness for 
 the whole Ministry." 
 
 "You cannot ignore," replied M. Dufaure, "the 
 President's prejudice against me, and the difficulties 
 he will infallibly create for me. I cannot therefore 
 fight single-handed and without feeling myself strongly 
 supported by tried friends." 
 
 " Your language authorises me to observe to you 
 that I also feel the need of some strong support in the 
 Cabinet in order to carry through the measure upon 
 education, as well as to bring the Eoman difficulties 
 to a satisfactory end. Allow me to add that my 
 friends can be relied upon as thoroughly as your 
 own to contend against these exactions of the Presi- 
 dent to which you allude. "We have been able 
 to thwart them hitherto, we should be still better 
 able to fulfil this task reinforced by you and M. de 
 Tocqueville."
 
 398 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 " My mind is made up, and I cannot possibly make 
 any concession." 
 
 " Then you must take my place, for I cannot yield 
 either." 
 
 " No, I will certainly not do that ; the Ministry is 
 already too weak on the Eight, as you were just now 
 arguing. How much worse it would be, therefore, to 
 exclude you." 
 
 "There are plenty of men my equivalent on the 
 Eight." 
 
 " No, there is not one. You have full knowledge of 
 the state of affairs, and possess the entire confidence of 
 the chiefs of the majority. My position would be unten- 
 able without you, and I will not expose myself to it." 
 
 " Yery well, that is your ultimatum ? You will not 
 allow me either to leave the Ministry, or to remain, 
 under the conditions which I have, however, endea- 
 voured to render very modest, since I confine myself to 
 asking for the retentic^i of M. Buffet, against whom 
 you do not raise and cannot raise any complaint." 
 
 " It is not I who exact this ; it is the force of cir- 
 cumstances." 
 
 I still persisted, but in vain. I can only compare 
 M. Dufaure, under such circumstances as these, to a 
 hedgehog, hiding his head and feet and only showing 
 a ball bristling with sharp intangible spikes. We 
 accordingly parted utterly at variance, he declaring 
 that he would not enter the Ministry without me, 
 whilst I was equally resolute not to form part of it with 
 him under such conditions.
 
 A MINISTERIAL CRISIS. 399 
 
 On the following day, at an early hour, I returned 
 to M. Berryer, and gave him an account of how I had 
 passed my evening. He was silent for some minutes, 
 and then said very gravely : 
 
 "My friend, you were wrong. The President 
 probably counted upon this, and you have played his 
 game. You are now personally and honourably set 
 free. But what will be the end of all this ? The 
 President, left to his own devices, will expose himself 
 and us with him to every danger. What have we to 
 oppose him with ? A royal house divided against 
 itself, a wavering army, and leaders also divided 
 against themselves. France has pronounced twice, in 
 less than a year, against the Eepublic, first by the elec- 
 tion of December 10 th, and then by the election of the 
 Legislative Assembly; but she will blindly accept 
 whatever is offered to her under the disguise of order 
 and repose. When you took office to keep Jules Favre 
 out, you did a good and self-denying act. You will do a 
 still more useful action if you baffle an enterprise 
 which will be the inevitable result of a riot that every 
 one anticipates and that a few look forward to. No, 
 stay where you are, and help to prolong this Provisional 
 Government, which maintains internal and external 
 security, until something more and something better 
 become possible." 
 
 M. Berryer expatiated a long time on this theme, 
 with that accent of emotion and that incomparable 
 eloquence which escaped in floods from his lips when- 
 ever he spoke of France. As if by magic he made
 
 400 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 men forget all that was personal ; he effaced what I 
 believed to be my objections, and which, perhaps, were 
 but my susceptibilities. I left him vanquished and 
 calmed, saying to him and saying to myself, for my 
 consolation and sustenance, that when once the educa- 
 tional law had passed, and the Sovereign Pontiff had 
 re-entered Eome, I should recover my liberty of action. 
 This was not the whole of my dream. I said to my- 
 self that when again free to work out the ideas of my 
 whole life, I would unceasingly devote myself to the 
 reconciliation of the two monarchical parties, the sole 
 means of reconciling the two branches of the Eoyal 
 House, so that when the destined hour arrived, the 
 country might see a true and strong national monarchy 
 in place of the treacherous and dangerous monarchy 
 of the Napoleons. 
 
 In the meantime I must return to realities. I 
 wrote to M. Odilon Barrot to say that, in spite of the 
 objections that I had urged for the last time, he could 
 inform M. Dufaure of my submission to the terms 
 which I had repudiated the previous evening. I 
 afterwards saw M. Dufaure, who did not attach more 
 importance to courtesy from others than in himself, and 
 I said to him, without holding out my hand, "I am 
 not your colleague, but your prisoner." On the fol- 
 lowing day, the 3rd June, the list of the Ministry 
 appeared in the Moniteur. M. Drouyn de Lhuys 
 left soon afterwards for the embassy of London, 
 and M. Buffet retired without any other reward 
 than that so worthy of him : the profound regret
 
 A MINISTERIAL CRISIS. 401 
 
 of his friends and the satisfaction of a disinterested 
 conscience. 
 
 Since that time our country has been the prey of 
 the most melancholy and the most contradictory 
 events. Who, therefore, can be certain of having 
 at this crisis rendered her good or evil service ? For 
 myself, I cannot look back without renewed apprehen- 
 sions to my anguish at this epoch and to my respon- 
 sibility of a day. All I can say, after a lapse of 
 thirty years, in favour of myself is that I endeavoured 
 to do my duty and believe that I succeeded. Even after 
 what has occurred since, I cannot say whether it would 
 have been better to let the President take his course 
 and exhaust his destiny at once. I do not know 
 what would have happened if the Government had 
 been placed in more docile hands, whether a Napo- 
 leonic attempt, an Orleanist attempt, or a demagogic 
 effort would have got the upper hand. But I am 
 quite sure of one thing, that by contributing in a 
 decisive way to prolong a prudent honest policy, by 
 depriving force and audacity of their best chances, by 
 giving sincere and serious men of all parties the time 
 to collect themselves, to draw together and to prepare 
 deliberately and skilfully a loyal and solid Govern- 
 ment, I believed that I was securing for my country 
 the best conditions of safety, and that I was doing my 
 best to ensure a national and durable future. As to 
 the imminence of disturbance, I was certainly not 
 mistaken. It broke out on the 13th June, ten days 
 after the modification of the Ministry, upon an appeal 
 
 VOL. I. D D
 
 402 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 to arms which M. Ledru-Bollin only made from the 
 tribune of the Assembly hesitatingly and with visible 
 repugnance. Thanks to General Changarnier's skilful 
 energy, M. Ledru-Eollin's defeat was so complete 
 that it rendered him ridiculous, and, in Paris at least, 
 it did not cost one drop of blood. The Assembly, 
 scarcely installed, was little moved by it, and leant 
 more towards indulgence than severity. The very 
 questionable disavowals of the principal members of 
 the Mountain easily disarmed it, and it put an end as 
 -quickly as possible to all irritating measures and dis- 
 cussions, to enter upon its legislative career with calm 
 dignity. 
 
 During the five months which had elapsed since the 
 formation of the Ministry no time had been lost either 
 by the Commission charged with the preparation of 
 the educational law nor by myself, and I introduced 
 the measure at the sitting of the 18th June. It was 
 very well received by the majority of the Assembly, 
 but it encountered an unexpected opposition from the 
 Univers. It was at this date that M. Louis Yeuillot's 
 Separatist action commenced amongst the Catholics. 
 He opened it by polemics which foreshadowed the ex- 
 cesses of conduct and language to which he afterwards 
 abandoned himself. I can but too easily justify, when 
 the time comes, the judgment which began from that 
 time to form itself in my mind and of which I now 
 note the first impressions. M. Yeuillot's impreca- 
 tions at first had little success with the episcopacy. 
 Soon, however, by dint of perseverance, the Univers
 
 THE LNTRANSIGEANT CATHOLICS. 403 
 
 became more dangerous, and its protests, brilliantly- 
 worded and incessantly renewed, alarmed some con- 
 scientious persons. 
 
 I could not, as Minister, enter into direct contro- 
 versy with a newspaper. But I could, in my own 
 name, appeal to the good sense and confidence of my 
 friends. I set myself to find an opportunity for this. 
 M. de Vatimesnil was president of a Catholic club 
 founded for the young men of the schools by persons 
 of position and influence. M. de Vatimesnil called a 
 general meeting of the members of this club, of its 
 adherents, patrons, &c, and I was officially invited. 
 The vast hall was nearly filled by men who, from far 
 or near, from Paris or the departments, had devoted 
 themselves to the controversies of religion. 
 
 Led astray by his constant kindness for me, M. de 
 Yatimesnil conceived the unfortunate idea of deputing 
 to me, in spite of myself, the presidency of this meeting, 
 and of addressing a personal compliment to me, instead 
 of preparing some ground upon which I could offer an 
 explanation of the educational bill. I thanked him 
 aloud, and upbraided him sotto voce. He admitted 
 thinking " that I had brought a set speech with me, 
 and was anxious to let me deliver it as it seemed best 
 to me." I replied such a course would bear too much 
 resemblance to an official act, which would not meet the 
 approval of my colleagues in the Ministry ; and making 
 the best of this unfortunate circumstance, I requested 
 the author of some written treatise which I cannot 
 now remember to read it. I was going to close the 
 
 dd2
 
 404 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 meeting after this address. But in all meetings which 
 include persons of extreme opinions there are always 
 some men who have the knack of doing the wrong 
 thing, and who have a peculiar genius for com- 
 promising the cause they wish to serve. The man 
 who rose to request permission to speak was one of 
 this kidney. This was the Marquis de Eegnon, a 
 small fiery man, eminently worthy of respect, an 
 obstinate Breton, with a naturally paradoxical mind, 
 who ruined his numerous family by printing pam- 
 phlets and books which nobody would buy. "Now 
 we are well out of the mess ! " I said under my breath 
 to M. de Yatimesnil, and I gave M. de Eegnon 
 permission to speak with a satisfaction of which he 
 was far from suspecting the real reason. Never was 
 expectation better realised than mine. Not an argu- 
 ment of the Univers was omitted, everything was 
 exaggerated and presented under the most favourable 
 form for refutation. This made my situation inex- 
 pugnable, for no one could complain if I parried blows 
 dealt at close quarters, and I gave myself full scope. 
 
 One of the most disputed innovations of the measure 
 was that of raising the number of rectors to eighty-six. 
 The bill created a council of instruction for each de- 
 partment, introducing into this council the bishop, 
 magistrates, and fathers of families. The University, 
 therefore, should in its turn also have been represented 
 on these councils, and it appeared to us that only a 
 rector could combine a sufficient amount of compe- 
 tence and authority.
 
 THE INTftANSIGEANT CATHOLICS. 405 
 
 " What a windfall for the members of the Universi- 
 ties ! " exclaimed the Univers every day. " What a 
 delinquency on the part of the Catholics ! " cried M. 
 de Eegnon. 
 
 In answering him on this point I said, "M. de 
 Eegnon is entirely mistaken about the institution of 
 new rectors. It is not, as he pretends, the University 
 multiplied by 86 : it is — a very different operation — 
 the University divided by 86." This definition was 
 warmly applauded. 
 
 I must here note a characteristic feature in such 
 men as the Marquis de Eegnon. They are not only 
 responsible for their own faults; they have also to 
 answer for the errors which they force others to commit. 
 My opponent obliged me to use a weapon against him 
 which more serious adversaries might seize, and which 
 they did not neglect to use before the Chamber, 
 fortunately with great want of success. 
 
 M. de Eegnon had found great fault with the pro- 
 visions of the bill respecting qualifications, and de- 
 clared that free institutions would not find professors 
 under such stringent conditions. I replied, " You do 
 not know the clergy ; you do not know the educational 
 brotherhoods. In any case, I do not deny that the 
 Catholics have some progress to make. But this pro- 
 gress I ardently wish for, and I shall be happy to 
 stimulate it." 
 
 Then, striving to avoid speaking in too ministerial 
 a tone, I had recourse to a fable. 
 
 "In my youth," I continued, "I visited, near
 
 406 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 Potsdam, the He des Chinois, and I asked from whence 
 it obtained this name. They told me that in the last 
 century two young Chinese had been landed from a 
 vessel stranded in the Baltic. They were at once 
 rescued and conducted to the Prussian Court. Being 
 questioned as to their origin, they stated that they 
 were the two sons of a mandarin, and Frederick the 
 Great arranged that they should be treated according 
 to their birth, and be taught all the European sciences. 
 At the end of a few months the two little shipwrecked 
 strangers solicited an audience, and then, on their 
 knees, they implored the King's pardon for a fraud of 
 which they had not calculated the extent. Their 
 father, they asserted, was not a mandarin but a simple 
 gardener. They could not accustom themselves to the 
 studies imposed upon them, and they implored as a 
 favour that they might return to the labours befitting 
 their station. The King consented. The lads were 
 made to leave their dictionaries and grammars, and 
 were given the pickaxe and spade. But at the end of 
 a few weeks there was another request for an audi- 
 ence. ' Sire,' said they, 'we are overwhelmed with 
 work beyond our strength. In our country a gardener 
 means one that walks in the gardens.' This time the 
 King of Prussia, renouncing all interest in his two 
 new subjects, gave himself no more trouble with 
 them, leaving them the enjoyment of the island that 
 still bears their name. 
 
 " Well ! the Catholics do not desire to be and 
 should not be Chinese gardeners. They have not
 
 THE INTRANSIGEANT CATHOLICS. 407 
 
 conquered, at the price of such long struggles, the 
 field of liberty in order to promenade there in idle- 
 ness, with a parasol over their heads. They have 
 conquered it in order to clear it by the sweat of their 
 brow, to dig and fertilise it." 
 
 Lastly, M. de Be'gnon had stigmatised in very hard 
 terms the idea of any reconciliation with the Univer- 
 sity, which ought, according to him, to be simply 
 abolished. "Take care," I said, "more than one 
 battle has been lost because the victory has been 
 pushed too far. You and I are both from the west ; 
 do not therefore be surprised if I answer you with an 
 anecdote of the Vende*an war. 
 
 " Charette was besieging Nantes. He had already 
 forced the first lines of the defence, when the Prince 
 de Talmont, quite out of breath, galloped up, exclaim- 
 ing, ' General, the gate of Yannes had been left open. 
 The whole Eepublican army precipitated themselves 
 through it in great disorder. I have taken it upon 
 myself to place batteries of artillery upon the road ; in 
 a few hours the terrified enemy will have ceased to 
 exist.' ' Alas ! ' cried Charette, striking his forehead, 
 1 We are lost ! ' " 
 
 " And, as a matter of fact, the Eepublican army, 
 finding itself driven back upon this road, which 
 the general had prudently left open, re-entered the 
 city, made a last despairing effort, regained the 
 abandoned positions, and Nantes, the key of Yende'e, 
 was lost to the Yenddans for ever. Allow me then, 
 Marquis, to tell you, in the name of Charette, that
 
 408 MEMOIES OF A EOTALIST. 
 
 you must never thoughtlessly close the gate of 
 Yannes." 
 
 I must acknowledge that I enjoy recalling the 
 events of that evening, not because it is pleasant to 
 me but because I believe it is still useful. For a long 
 time perhaps, and probably for too long a time, it is 
 desirable that man should be taught to repeat, " Non 
 recuso laborem." Not less suitable would it be that 
 the victorious should be made to say, "Do not push 
 your victory too far if you wish to make it secure and 
 durable." 
 
 As to my personal relations with the President, 
 they had gradually become as affectionate as they well 
 could be with the reserve which we each imposed 
 upon ourselves. He never alluded before me to any 
 Napoleonic ambition or hope. He even one day said 
 to me, " Show me the House of Bourbon reunited, and 
 you will then find me quite ready to take up my hat 
 and stick." I did not allow this remark to slip, and 
 hastened to repeat it to those who were, as I knew, in 
 communication with the Princes, adding, " The accent 
 appeared sincere, but even if the utterer is less so, it 
 would be equally important to take him at his word 
 and pin him to what he said." 
 
 In the meantime I never lost an opportunity of 
 speaking frankly to him. " We are on the road to 
 the Monarchy," I said to him, " and on the way you 
 will find me a faithful resolute Conservative. Once 
 our aim is attained, I shall no less resolutely separate 
 myself from whatever is not the Monarchy." Under
 
 KING JEROME. 409 
 
 these circumstances we mutually felt at our ease, and 
 I believe that his sympathy was unfeigned, for I found 
 him the same at the Tuileries many years afterwards, 
 when I had to go there in the name of the French 
 Academy. 
 
 Some of my colleagues in the Ministry were very 
 assiduous in their attentions to the members of the 
 Bonaparte family ; I dispensed with all this, and the 
 President never showed me any ill-will on this account. 
 It is told that King Jerome said one day to his nephew, 
 after a storm of reproaches— 
 
 " You have nothing of the Emperor about you ! " 
 and that the President answered bitterly, " You are 
 mistaken, my dear uncle, I have his family ! " 
 
 I cannot assert that these words were ever spoken, 
 but I can assert that they were thought. During the 
 first few days after the 10th of December, the Presi- 
 dent mentioned his uncle to me with visible embar- 
 rassment : " He is needy," he said to us, " and I have 
 no means of relieving his painful position except by 
 conferring some lucrative post upon him. But I own 
 that this will not be easy." M. Lacrosse, the most 
 zealous among us in such matters, proposed the 
 government of the Invalides. The Emperor's tomb 
 guarded by the last of his surviving brothers inflamed 
 M. Odilon Barrot's imagination, and the President 
 displayed real gratitude like a man relieved from great 
 importunity. 
 
 When he honoured me by dining at the Ministry of 
 Public Instruction I did not consider myself obliged
 
 410 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 to invite either Xing Jerome or Prince Napoleon, who 
 sat in the Assembly on benches far distant from my 
 own. On the contrary, I surrounded my guest with 
 several members of the Right, at the same time as 
 with the most notable Legitimists of the Faubourg St. 
 Germain, such as the Due de Rohan, who left the 
 following day to pay a visit to the Comte de Chambord, 
 the Prince de Chalais, and the Due de Maille. The 
 President appeared to enjoy himself in this society. 
 He prolonged the evening, and when retiring said to 
 my wife, " I thank you, madame, and I particularly 
 thank your husband for the guests you have invited 
 me to meet." 
 
 Prince Napoleon, on his side, was determined that I 
 should not be ignorant of his displeasure. The fol- 
 lowing week I dined with him at the house of the 
 President of the Assembly, M. Dupin, who, through an 
 oversight, or through the mischievous humour of which 
 he was so prodigal, placed me by the side of Prince 
 Napoleon. " You see," said the latter, as we seated 
 ourselves at table, " there are some people who think 
 they can ask me to dinner." This did not prevent me 
 from seconding his wish for the Spanish embassy, 
 which he desired, no one knew why ; for he was 
 scarcely installed at Madrid before he placed himself 
 in opposition to Queen Isabella and the whole Spanish 
 Government. The Queen promptly addressed a com- 
 plaint to M. Drouyn de Lhuys, and demanded the 
 recall of our ambassador. A refusal was impossible 
 towards Spain, yet it was a delicate matter to arrange
 
 PRINCE NAPOLEON. 411 
 
 with the President. M. Drouyn de Lhuys communi- 
 cated his difficulty to us, and we all promised him our 
 support. At the following council M. Drouyn de 
 Lhuys entered with much periphrase upon the series 
 of accusations. The President soon interrupted him 
 with his usual coolness and deliberation : "I see 
 your conclusion, M. Drouyn de Lhuys. You may 
 believe that I am well acquainted with my cousin. 
 My cousin is a monster ! " These last words, articu- 
 lated without violence, without even a change of tone, 
 with an accent of profound conviction, rescued M. 
 Drouyn de Lhuys from his perplexity, and he went on 
 to relate how Prince Napoleon on his way to Bordeaux 
 had visited the prisons in order to shake hands with 
 several political prisoners, to whom he gave an assur- 
 ance of speedy liberation, at the same time indulging 
 in diatribes of every kind against his cousin. He 
 added that, once in Spain, the ambassador immediately 
 placed himself in communication with the enemies of 
 the Government to which he was accredited, loudly 
 asserting that the house of Bourbon ought to be ex- 
 pelled, with their consent or by force, from those 
 countries where they still reigned. M. Barrot, who 
 never lost sight of the public tribune, and rightly 
 so, because it was his field of battle, did not dispute 
 the necessity of recalling our ambassador, but insisted 
 upon other difficulties that his return would produce 
 in the Assembly. "You are right," said the Presi- 
 dent, "we must guard against that." And, in fact, 
 he personally undertook to send an aide-de-camp to
 
 412 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 Tours to forbid the Prince from going any further, 
 and to arrange for his departure from the country. 
 This forced exile was accepted, and, so far as I re- 
 member, the Prince left for England without pass- 
 ing through Paris. 
 
 Several railways were inaugurated during the Bar- 
 rot Ministry, among others the Chartres railway. I 
 did not join the Ministers, who travelled in the carriage 
 reserved for the President and his friends, because I 
 carefully confined myself to my own functions, partly 
 through want of leisure, partly through my distaste 
 for state ceremonials. I was informed that the Pre- 
 sident would be addressed in the name of the clergy, 
 and I took care to assure myself that his reply would 
 be satisfactory. The speech was made by a vicar- 
 general, as substitute for the bishop, M. Clausel de 
 Montals, who was eighty-five or eighty- six years old. 
 The President responded in terms that were then 
 highly applauded by all the Catholics. On our return 
 he said to me, " I made a point of calling upon the 
 old Bishop of Chartres, of whom you spoke as of an 
 apostle. Nothing more venerable can be imagined. 
 The grand vicar whom you induced me to nominate 
 as bishop is far from pleasing to me. He speaks too 
 much, and without tact. I think that we have been 
 deceived with regard to him. If we had known Abbe 
 Pie before his nomination he would never have been 
 Bishop of Poitiers ! " 
 
 Abbe Pie occupied the see of Poitiers for thirty 
 years with great distinction. He had displayed, ac-
 
 EPISCOPAL APPOINTMENTS. 413 
 
 cording to those who were able to judge, great theo- 
 logical powers, but he retained in questions where 
 personal judgment has more liberty that lack of balance 
 and moderation which was noticeable in his conver- 
 sation. 
 
 A short time afterwards I had to propose a new 
 candidate for the President's signature, and I pre- 
 sented the name of Abbe Dupanloup. Both spent 
 the same number of years, the one at Poitiers, the 
 other at Orleans. I need not here define the differ- 
 ence between their two careers. This difference has 
 not escaped their contemporaries, and will not escape 
 the notice of posterity. A third bishop, who in some 
 ways resembled them both, the Bishop of Orleans in 
 eloquence and the Bishop of Poitiers in certain ten- 
 dencies, M. Mermillod, the proscribed Bishop of 
 Geneva, has well expressed this difference, saying 
 that " Mgr. Pie occupied himself chiefly with ideas, 
 Mgr. Dupanloup chiefly with souls." I will confine 
 myself to retracing under what circumstances the 
 promotion of the Bishop of Orleans took place and 
 was forced upon him. 
 
 Abbe Dupanloup had made an ineffaceable impression 
 upon the mind, I may even say upon the heart, of all 
 those who during four months had studied the various 
 social evils with him, and had worked at their cure 
 with the same patriotic devotion. Several among them, 
 particularly M. Thiers and M. Cousin, frequently re- 
 peated to me, " This man must be a bishop." I was 
 far from contradicting them. But still it was necessary
 
 414 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 that a see should be vacant, and that this see should 
 not take him too far from the political and intellectual 
 centre of our country. An unforeseen death decided 
 the matter. M. Fayet, the Bishop of Orleans, and a 
 member of the Assembly, where he was much beloved, 
 was suddenly taken from us, after a few hours' illness, 
 by cholera. His successor, evidently, was Abbe 
 Dupanloup ; but I had reckoned without Abbe Dupan- 
 loup himself. He repulsed my first overtures with 
 an accent which showed me that I should not easily 
 overcome his resistance. 
 
 I at once summoned Pere de Eavignan to my 
 assistance, as he was both the most intimate and the 
 most influential friend of Abbe Dupanloup. Pere de 
 Eavignan cordially endorsed my wishes, but, to my great 
 surprise, he was not more successful than I had been. 
 
 At the same time, other friends interposed in a con- 
 trary direction. M. Mole especially declared that 
 the idea of sending Abbe Dupanloup away from 
 Paris was absolutely fatal, that no one could replace 
 him there, either for the guidance of young men nor 
 for the direction of souls of every class and condition. 
 I did not yield to these ardent protests, but pointed 
 out that there were also young men and souls in the 
 provinces ; that the episcopal position gave authority 
 to every quality of a man from a social point of view, 
 while from a religious point of view it enhanced a 
 virtue that nothing could supplement. I insisted upon 
 the proximity of Orleans to Paris. I even went so far 
 as to drag into my argument the railway and all the
 
 EPISCOPAL APPOINTMENTS. 415 
 
 new facilities which, it offered to devotion. I added 
 with perfect sincerity that the new bishop would not 
 be rigorously bound to residence ; that assuredly, as 
 a general rule, a bishop should be nominated, first of 
 all, for his diocese, but that some bishops should also 
 be nominated for the whole episcopacy, and that if 
 this were an exception, it would under the circum- 
 stances be fully justified. These arguments triumphed 
 over most of our friends, but they could not vanquish 
 Abbe Dupanloup, and Pere de Eavignan came and told 
 me with sorrow that we must definitely renounce our 
 plan. I gave it up. Some days later I received Car- 
 dinal Girard, Archbishop of Cambrai, on his way back 
 from Gaeta, where he had undertaken an official 
 mission to Pius IX., to which, for my part, I attached 
 great importance. After talking to the Cardinal 
 for a long time about his mission and its results, I 
 mentioned the bishopric of Orleans, and I asked him 
 whom he would choose. " There is but one," said he, 
 " Abbe Dupanloup." 
 
 " He has refused me point blank." 
 " You must send Pere de Eavignan to him." 
 " I have done so, but Pere de Eavignan has failed 
 like myself." 
 
 The gentle and venerable Cardinal Girard then as- 
 sumed a very severe expression as he said — 
 
 " I have just examined closely the misfortunes of 
 the Church: will you authorise me to describe the 
 picture to Abbe Dupanloup, and make him blush for 
 a refusal that cannot be persevered in ? "
 
 416 MEMOIRS OF A EOYALIST. 
 
 "Not only do I authorise you, Monsignor, but I 
 entreat you to do so." 
 
 And I added, "Do not content yourself with a few 
 respectfully evasive words, which would leave us in 
 the same difficulty. Exact a written promise, and 
 kindly place it in my hands before your departure." 
 
 It will be seen how greatly I feared the Abbe's 
 resolution, and I was not far wrong. The Cardinal 
 did not reappear for forty-eight hours. After several 
 interviews, in which he was forced to invoke all that 
 could touch and conquer a priest's heart, he at last 
 brought me the following letter : — 
 
 "Easter Friday. 
 
 "MONSIETTB LE MlNISTKE, 
 
 . " The saying that decided you has decided me. Satius 
 est Dei causa servitutem subire, qudm cruris fug d perfrui libertate. 
 
 " It is then ended ; I give you my sorrowful but sure promise. 
 Yes. 
 
 ' ' In spite of the painful influence -which you will have had 
 over the close of my life, you are not the less dear to my heart, 
 and you know how much God has filled it with tenderness and 
 respect for you. 
 
 " F. Dupanloup." 
 
 This is how the man who will be known in history 
 as the Bishop of Orleans entered the episcopate. 
 
 Soon afterwards the railway to Angers had to be 
 inaugurated. I could not refuse the honour of accom- 
 panying the President to the department that I repre- 
 sented, but I ventured to make one condition. I 
 demanded that all the Eoyalists still confined in the 
 Mont-Saint-Michel and in the other prisons for their 
 participation in the rising of 1832 should be made the
 
 A TOUR IN THE WEST. 417 
 
 object of a special amnesty. I applied for a complete 
 list of these prisoners to the Duchesse de Narbonne, 
 the Yicomtesse de Saint-Priest, and the Comtesse de 
 Botderu, who for seventeen years had unceasingly 
 occupied themselves about them and their families, 
 and I sent this note to M. Barrot, trusting that, in his 
 position as President of the Council of State, he would 
 hasten the completion of the necessary forms. After 
 a long delay, whether intentional or not, M. Barrot 
 brought the bundle of papers to the Council of Minis- 
 ters on the eve of the day appointed for our departure. 
 To my great surprise, the Council of State gave an 
 unfavourable opinion, and although this was not neces- 
 sary, first M. Barrot and then M. Dufaure insisted that 
 the President should not depart from it. They pro- 
 tested that the Left, to whom they refused an amnesty, 
 would be astonished and indignant at our indulgence 
 towards another party. I answered my colleagues by 
 saying that there was no possible comparison to be 
 made between an insurrection which had caused so 
 much bloodshed in Paris and a disturbance which had 
 vanished as quickly as it had arisen ; that there was 
 no point of resemblance between the two events, and 
 still less between the two punishments, for while 
 scarcely a year had elapsed since the crime of June, 
 seventeen years of captivity had already weighed hea- 
 vily upon the heads of the insurgents of the West. 
 M. de Tocqueville warmly and nobly supported me. 
 The President remained mute, and the majority of the 
 Council, taking his silence for the condemnation of my 
 
 VOL. I. E E
 
 418 MEMOIRS OF A KOYALIST. 
 
 address, ratified the decision of the Council of State. 
 The sitting was closed. I allowed my colleagues to 
 leave, and remained alone with the President. I then 
 declared that I would not follow him to Angers even 
 if I were forced to resign in consequence. He inter- 
 rupted me before I had got further and said — 
 
 "You know that I dislike useless discussions. I 
 would not therefore join in this one. But my resolu- 
 tion is not shaken by it. Your susceptibility, is per- 
 fectly right. I am myself ashamed of this incident, 
 for if I had known sooner of the existence of these 
 prisoners they would have been at liberty already." 
 
 Then, taking the bundle of papers that had been 
 left for him to sign from the table, " Take them home 
 with you," he added, " and write over each name the 
 commutation of sentence that you consider suitable." 
 
 This was done very simply and said very naturally, 
 and I effusively thanked the President. 
 
 I did not repeat my thanks on the Ministerial bench, 
 where I promptly rejoined MM. Barrot and Dufaure, 
 in order to write under their eyes at the bottom of 
 each paper, " Free Pardon." They displayed some 
 annoyance, but M. de Tocqueville undertook to console 
 them, and I only occupied myself with the formalities 
 for the despatch of the pardons. 
 
 The President invested his journey to the West with 
 much solemnity, and showed himself particularly pro- 
 digal of kind intentions towards the Legitimists. 
 
 After stopping at Etampes, in order to review the 
 National Guard, after kneeling in the cathedral of
 
 A TOUR IN THE WEST. 419 
 
 Orleans, which was filled with an immense crowd, he 
 dined and slept at Saumur. He wished to enter the 
 city on horseback, in order to find himself in contact 
 with the population assembled from all parts, and to 
 receive their petitions more directly. His expectations 
 were not disappointed, for neither petitions nor accla- 
 mations were lacking. On the following morning he 
 attended a brilliant tournament at the Cavalry School, 
 and left for Angers. The venerable bishop, M. Ange- 
 bault, was waiting for him at the station. He addressed 
 some suitable respectful words to him, and then the 
 bishop commenced the touching ceremony of blessing 
 the railway locomotives. 
 
 This descent of the Loire was full of stirring inci- 
 dents. At Saint Florent the population was gathered 
 in a crowd on the shores, which re-echoed with the 
 heartiest shouts of welcome. Our boat stopped, and 
 the President bowed several times. I stood silently 
 behind him, watching this fine spectacle, but also 
 looking further forward. Beyond Saint Florent I saw 
 the whole of La Yendee. At Saint Florent itself I per- 
 ceived the monument to Bonchamps, and I saw, as it 
 were, the spectre of that terrible crossing of the Loire, 
 the supreme blow which ruined the struggles and 
 hopes of La Yendee. My eyes filled with tears. M. 
 de Heeckeren saw it, and coming up to me clasped 
 my hand. Neither of us spoke, we did not need words 
 to understand each other. 
 
 At Nantes the official reception was very different 
 from that of Angers. A magnificent tent had been 
 
 e e 2
 
 420 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 erected on the Place Graslin. A splendid banquet 
 was provided, followed by a beautiful ball in the 
 theatre, magnificently illuminated inside and out. 
 
 On the following day we posted back to the railway 
 station of Angers. The Prince took M. Dupin and 
 me with him in his carriage. The President of the 
 Eepublic had no love for the President of the 
 Assembly, who returned the compliment up to the 
 10th of December. The conversation was therefore 
 chiefly addressed to me. 
 
 " I was much amused last evening to see you 
 dancing opposite to me," said the President. " You 
 did not dance like a Minister. You looked as though 
 you were dancing on your own account." 
 
 Conversation between three persons shut up to- 
 gether for six hours in a carriage is not inexhaustible. 
 It was, however, necessary to maintain it, so long at 
 least as the President, who never added much to its 
 animation, appeared to desire it. I therefore sympa- 
 thised with his kindly feeling towards the authorities 
 of the Loire-Inferieure, and then I added that charity 
 frequently assumed strange disguises, even that of 
 avarice, and I related an anecdote that I had heard 
 from the Comtesse de Eesseguier, a dame de charite 
 at Saint Eoch. Eeceiving a liberal donation from a 
 man whose clothes and dwelling led her to imagine 
 him very poor, she returned and knocked at his door 
 as soon as she saw what the sum was. '' You have 
 made a mistake, perhaps," she said to the supposed 
 poor man ; but looking round at his modest furniture
 
 A TOUR IN THE WEST. 421 
 
 he replied, "Madame, it is only by living as I live 
 that I can afford the pleasure of being charitable." 
 
 " You are quite right," replied the President in his 
 turn. "No one knows what charity is capable of 
 doing ! Will you believe that I who am now talking 
 to you have stolen to give ? " 
 
 "I will believe it, sir, when you have kindly told 
 us by what means you reconciled your benevolence 
 with your honesty." 
 
 " I was in Switzerland with my mother, and I had 
 a great liking for a young neighbour who was de- 
 stined to enter the army. He had not a penny where- 
 with to purchase the case of mathematical instruments 
 which were necessary for his studies. My purse was 
 no fuller than his own. I ran upstairs, entered 
 Dr. Conneau's room, took a beautiful box of com- 
 passes which he never used, and gave it to my young 
 friend, concealing from him the origin of the gift. 
 This was wonderfully successful for some months, but 
 one morning M. Conneau came and complained to my 
 mother that he had been robbed, declaring that only 
 one servant entered his room and that this man must 
 have been the culprit. In face of such a direct ac- 
 cusation I was forced to denounce myself. My mother 
 gracefully compensated Dr. Conneau, who promised to 
 keep my secret from my young neighbour, and was 
 true to his word." * 
 
 * One of my friends assures me that my memory is at fault, 
 and that this incident took place at Ham, between the Prince, 
 then a prisoner, and an officer of the garrison in the fortress. I
 
 422 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 Thus, what with chatting and dozing, we reached 
 the chateau of Serrant, a magnificent residence near 
 Angers, which Napoleon I, called the finest castle in 
 France. The owner, Count Alfred "Walsh, who had 
 formerly relations of his name in the service of the 
 Imperial Family, had prepared a splendid reception 
 for the Emperor's nephew. The President was treated 
 as a sovereign according to all the rules of the old 
 etiquette. The master of the house yielded his place 
 at table to him, and only claimed his right to toast 
 the President, standing, in the excellent wine of the 
 coulee de Serrant. The august guest responded in 
 very aristocratic terms, and we then passed through 
 Angers, where we rejoined the railway. At Tours 
 there was another review, which I did not consider it 
 necessary to attend, and another banquet. I lodged 
 at the Archbishop's palace, M. Morlot, since Arch- 
 bishop of Paris and Cardinal, having himself come to 
 the Ministry to honour me with an invitation. It was 
 to this circumstance that I owed my ignorance of the 
 presence of a very undesirable foreigner in the Presi- 
 dent's suite, who had very mysteriously accompanied 
 him during the whole journey, and whom he now 
 lodged in the apartment of the Eeceiver- General, then 
 absent. 
 
 have vainly endeavoured to obtain an explanation of it from 
 Dr. Conneau. I do not, however, think that I am mistaken. 
 But in any case the story was related to me by the President 
 himself, and the place where the incident occurred is of little 
 consequence.
 
 A TOUR IN THE WEST. 423 
 
 M. Barrot in his Memoires* relates that he indirectly 
 made on this subject some rather strong representa- 
 tions to the Elysee, and moreover that they were 
 badly received. It was not until then that I was in- 
 formed of this incident, and I was once more asto- 
 nished at the curious contrasts of the human heart. 
 No one was more master of himself than the Presi- 
 dent, no one was more preoccupied with his own 
 ambition; his whole journey in the West was de- 
 voted to endeavouring to win over the religious and 
 Legitimist parties, and yet he was unable to impose 
 upon himself four days of respect for others and for 
 himself. 
 
 * Odilon Barrot, Memoires, vol. iii. p. 361.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY — PUBLIC RELIEF — THE 
 
 ROHAN QUESTION LETTER TO COLONEL EDGAR 
 
 NEY — MOTU PROPRIO — ILLNESS — RESIGNATION. 
 
 1849. 
 
 During this time the Roman question had entered 
 upon a fresh phase, and the Mountain was bent upon 
 making it a firebrand of discord. To substitute the 
 members of the clubs for the soldiers, and, if they 
 could have done it, the tribunal for the captain, became 
 the error, the illusion, the infatuation of nearly the 
 whole of the Opposition. 
 
 It is grievous to find, at nearly every revolutionary 
 crisis, that the men who affect the most exaltation as 
 patriots lose the very sentiment of patriotism as soon 
 as it interferes with the current of their dominant pas- 
 sions. " Patriots," said M. Thiers in his Histoire du 
 Consulate " no longer wish for the public to be vic- 
 torious, because their victories are advantageous to the 
 Directoire." This painful spectacle recurred in our 
 days. The whole time that our expedition lasted the 
 Mountain loudly expressed its wishes for the failure of 
 the French army. .
 
 THE ROMAN QUESTION. 425 
 
 The siege of Rome was prolonged by the orders 
 given to the artillery to spare the principal monuments 
 of the Eternal City, and one of our soldiers, wounded 
 by the explosion of a shell, gaily exclaimed, "But I, 
 too, am a monument." Officers and soldiers were 
 animated by the same respect for the Christian capital 
 and its masterpieces, while the Mazzinians of Eome 
 and Paris treated these precautions as a new pretext 
 for disparaging our army and sneering at its impotence. 
 The inhabitants of the Roman country and the Romans 
 themselves solicited the Pope's return. They were met 
 with false accounts of the state of France, and were 
 promised the accession of a French Republic, sister to 
 the Roman Republic, while resistance was imposed 
 upon them by sheer terror. However, when manifest 
 symptoms of weariness broke out and almost became a 
 revolt, Mazzini endeavoured to secure his personal 
 safety by a tardy resignation. The municipality, fol- 
 lowed by the foreign consuls, went to General Oudinot 
 to implore an armistice. A cessation of hostilities was 
 accorded in courteous terms, but without conditions. 
 On the following day, the third of July, the French 
 general entered Rome at the head of a brilliant cor- 
 tege. Cries of M Vive la France ! Vivent nos liberateurs ! 
 Vive Pie IX. /" accompanied our troops through all the 
 populous quarters of the city. All along the Corso, 
 the Cafe des Beaux Arts, which was the usual meeting 
 place of the central club, was the only point at which 
 a few antagonistic demonstrations were attempted. 
 They were immediately repressed, and a flag sur-
 
 426 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 mounted by a red cap, the last symbol of the expiring 
 Eepublic, was lowered without difficulty ; while the 
 foreign bands of soldiers that had not retired with 
 Mazzini and Garibaldi were dispersed. The corps of 
 Carabinieri, that is to say the Eoman police, eagerly 
 placed themselves under the orders of the French 
 staff officer, and General Oudinot, by confiding to them 
 the guard of the Colonna Palace, the residence of the 
 French Embassy, where he was then living himself, 
 gave the Eomans a pledge of well-merited confidence. 
 In fact, the real people of Eome, left to themselves, 
 showed more zeal in destroying the barricades than 
 they had displayed in raising them. 
 
 At the same time, Colonel Niel, the head of the 
 engineers' staff, left for Gaeta, in order to restore to 
 the Pope the keys of his pacified capital. Pius IX. 
 received the valiant soldier with emotion, as he spoke 
 in the name of France, and answered — 
 
 u She never promised me anything, yet it was upon 
 her that I relied. I felt that, at a fitting moment, 
 France would shed her blood for the Church, and, 
 what is perhaps more difficult for her valorous children, 
 would show a restrained courage, a persevering 
 patience, to which I owe the preservation of my city 
 of Eome, the treasure of the world, the beloved city, 
 towards which, during my exile, my heart and my 
 eyes, full of anguish, are ever turned!"* 
 
 This was truly the language and inspiration of a 
 Pope, but it was not the sentiment of the retrogade 
 * Expedition de Rome, by M. Leopold de Graillard.
 
 THE ROMAN QUESTION. 427 
 
 party in Eome, nor the tendency of the foreign am- 
 bassadors. At this epoch, Eussia and Prussia were 
 closely allied to mutually raise and defend the tradi- 
 tions of their past ; Austria, who had only ceded the 
 first place to us with regret, fully intended to claim it 
 in all the rest of Italy, and the King Of Naples was 
 well aware that every concession made in the Eoman 
 States would inevitably be enforced in the Neapolitan 
 States. Thus a concert of recriminations against 
 French influence was sounded in the ears of the Holy 
 Father. Every one had some auxiliary amongst the 
 Pope's intimate friends. The young Cardinal Anton elli, 
 who filled provisionally the functions of Secretary of 
 State, affected an extreme modesty and appeared to 
 aspire to disinterested service of the Church only. 
 However, he allowed clear-sighted eyes to pierce 
 through his apparent zeal and read the passion for 
 dominion and lucre with which his long ministry will 
 remain sullied. Cardinal Antonelli was in many respects 
 the antipodes of Pius IX. He was as cold in his 
 calculations as the Sovereign Pontiff was spontaneous 
 in his impulses. His haughty immobility allowed the 
 smiling amiability of Pius IX. to give itself free 
 scope, and waited to exercise its influence until the 
 Pope was in a difficulty. It was by yielding in details 
 that he ruled in great matters, and history will never 
 fully reveal what injury he wrought to a reign 
 begun under other auspices and aiming at the highest 
 results. 
 
 Pius IX. was a Louis XVI., whose journey to
 
 428 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 Varennes had succeeded. Unassailable and unas- 
 sailed in his spiritual sovereignty, he had promised 
 much, and had much to perform before any durable 
 restoration of his temporal power could take place. 
 No one knew this better than he did, nor at times 
 gave wittier expression to it. Cardinal Antonelli 
 with much adroitness repeated to him that by throw- 
 ing himself into these reforms he had only gained 
 and would only gain ingratitude. Did he forget that 
 ingratitude is the merit and glory of those who would 
 do good ? If the ungrateful were able to make justice 
 recede and goodness repent, to do good would no 
 longer be a virtue but a traffic, and one of the purest 
 elements of human greatness, one of the characteristic 
 traits of the genius of princes and of the skill of 
 statesmen, would disappear. The first impulse of 
 Pius IX. was to repulse these suggestions and these 
 selfish councils, but his prudence ultimately took 
 alarm. It was represented to him under every form 
 that duties changed with circumstances. In this way 
 an endeavour was made to delay his return among his 
 people whom he was eager to bless. No one can now 
 say what acclamations would have greeted him from 
 the whole of Italy had Pius IX. obeyed his first 
 impulse and left Gaeta for Eome on the day after the 
 reappearance of the Papal flag on the Capitol and the 
 Castle of Saint Angelo. The promoters of discord 
 and unhappiness would not allow him to do so, and 
 the greatest difficulties arose in consequence. 
 
 In Paris, the Left regained courage from all that
 
 THE ROMAN QUESTION. 429 
 
 was passing at Gaeta. Agitation recommenced on the 
 Eoman question, and at the Palais Bourbon a sincere 
 but inconsistent Catholic, M. Arnaud de FAriege, 
 undertook to open the breach.* His speech called up 
 M. de Tocqueville to the tribune. 
 
 "Whatever we may dream," he said courageously, 
 "the religion which comes from on high is made 
 to live among us here in the midst of the con- 
 flict of our interests and passions. Although its 
 kingdom is not of this world, according to the oft- 
 quoted words of its divine Founder, it does not exert 
 a less constant and immediate influence over the 
 events of this world. It is, then, of the utmost 
 importance that the Head of religion should not have 
 to submit to the preponderance of any Power. The 
 liberties of our souls and the tranquillity of States are 
 at stake. Now, up to the present time, no one ever 
 thought of any other means of retaining the indepen- 
 dence of the Pope except that of leaving him a tem- 
 poral sovereignty. " 
 
 M. de Tocqueville was sincere when making this 
 profession of faith from the tribune, but he would 
 have stifled his thoughts in the depths of his heart if 
 he had not been able at the same time to add the 
 following words : — 
 
 "I am convinced — and I am not afraid of making 
 
 this prediction from the tribune — I am convinced that 
 
 if the Holy See does not introduce considerable 
 
 reforms into the laws and the judicial and adminis- 
 
 * Sittings of the 6th and 7th of August, 1849.
 
 430 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 trative customs of the States under its rule; if to 
 these it does not add liberal institutions, compatible 
 with the actual condition of the people ; I am con- 
 vinced, I repeat, that however great may be the force 
 attaching itself to this old institution of the temporal 
 power of the Popes, however powerful the hands may 
 be that will be stretched out to support it from one 
 end of Europe to the other, this power will soon be 
 in great peril. For my own part, I am profoundly 
 convinced of this fact I have the deepest ad- 
 miration, greater than I can describe to you, for this 
 admirable moral power, the greatest that has ever 
 been seen, which is called the Catholic Church. 
 (Murmurs from the Left.) I ardently hope that she 
 may preserve her power of government and of expan- 
 sion in the world. (Murmurs on the Left.) But I 
 am convinced that there is only one way of her 
 doing so, and that is for the Church not to unneces- 
 sarily sever herself from the spirit of the age, but 
 wherever the age presents moderate ideas possible of 
 application, facts that can be justified, thoughts which 
 can be admitted, wherever such things are met with, 
 for her to approach rather than eschew them." 
 
 While listening to this speech, irrefutable if read 
 calmly and in good faith, I had a presentiment that it 
 would be misinterpreted at Gaeta and used against us. 
 When I saw M. Jules Favre ascend the tribune to 
 reply to M. de Tocqueville, I also felt the conviction 
 that it would be easy to answer the orator of the Left, 
 and that without retracting anything of what M. de 
 Tocqueville had said, I could with advantage supple-
 
 THE ROMAN QUESTION. 431 
 
 ment it. I had often found it hard to be silent in the 
 Constituent Assembly, but silence had often been im- 
 posed upon me, for of all the members of the Cabinet 
 I gave it the most umbrage. I had not the same 
 motives for reserve before the Legislative Assembly. 
 I did not conceal anything of my double impression 
 from my colleague of Foreign Affairs, who, with the 
 most cordial good-will, consented to retouch a few 
 lines of his speech, giving me all the documents 
 which could be necessary for the morrow's conflict. 
 These documents were accompanied by the following 
 note, in which M. de Tocqueville's perfect simplicity 
 and perfect loyalty will be recognised : — 
 
 " My deab Colleague, 
 
 "Forgive me for not having sooner replied to you. I 
 have spent my morning in attentively reading over all the letters 
 from Corcelle ; I have not found anything in them that refers to 
 what you said, nor anything that would be useful to your pro- 
 ject; but, on the other hand, there are many facts, opinions or 
 affirmations, relative to the absolute necessity of the Pope and 
 the Church making sincere reforms, and to the universal hatred 
 felt by the Roman populations for the abuses of the Pontifical 
 Government. 
 
 "I send you the despatches for which you asked. "We will 
 discuss in Council the use you are to make of them. I do not see 
 any disadvantage in your availing yourself of them, particularly 
 if you end by reading the passage in which the Pope binds him- 
 self towards us, and authorises us to say so. I wish this last 
 passage to be read if anything is read at all, in order to prove 
 that I did not go too far yesterday, and that I do not withdraw 
 to-day, through you, anything of what I said. 
 
 ' ' I beg you will read the last part of my speech in the Moniteur, 
 in order that you may be able to tell me if I have really grasped 
 your idea in the modifications you wished for. 
 
 "Yours sincerely, 
 
 "Tuesday, 9, 1/4." "A. de Tocqtjeville.
 
 432 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 M. Jules Favre quite fulfilled my expectations ; lie 
 was so prolific in violent recriminations that he was 
 unable to finish his speech in the same sitting, and 
 only completed it on the following day. He was 
 visibly preoccupied with the attempt to insidiously 
 win by flattery the private sympathy of the President, 
 of which he never absolutely despaired. He demanded 
 what secret will, what mysterious and persevering 
 influence, had inspired, supported, and directed the 
 President of the Eepublic in this strange policy. 
 "The Popes and the Bonapartes," he exclaimed, "are 
 not destined to live amicably together. In 1809 the 
 Emperor Napoleon decreed that the Pontifical Govern- 
 ment was incompatible with a healthy administration. 
 In 1831 two of Napoleon's nephews, one of whom was 
 destined to die for Italian liberty, wrote a joint letter 
 to Gregory XVI., entreating him to lay down his 
 tiara before his rebellious subjects. Follow these 
 examples given by your own family," added the 
 orator; "remember the Emperor Napoleon, whose 
 lessons you often quote, and they are, in fact, well 
 worth quoting when they are glorious and national." 
 
 Then, passing from personal flattery to the favour- 
 ite theories of all Eepublicans, he challenged France 
 to consult the Eoman populations as to which govern- 
 ment they preferred. The length of M. Jules Favre's 
 speech having given me the time to arrange with 
 M. de Tocqueville and to arm myself with despatches 
 from our ambassador, I was able to reply, proof in 
 hand, that it was not the Eomans who had resisted,
 
 THE ROMAN QUESTION. 433 
 
 but adventurers from all parts, assembled at the voice 
 of two leaders, Mazzini and Garibaldi, neither of whom 
 was a Eoman. I made the Left a present of the 
 avowal that we had spoken too timidly before the 
 Constituent Assembly, but I made the Left itself 
 responsible for this through its passion and excite- 
 ment. In my turn I invoked Napoleon, the restorer 
 of Catholic worship in France, and in the best days of 
 his glory, in the happiest inspirations of his reign, the 
 respectful protector of the Popes. The hearty support 
 of the majority compensated me for the violent impre- 
 cations of the Mountain, and the discussion was closed 
 without any attempt from M. Jules Favre to continue 
 the debate. 428 votes against 176 sanctioned the 
 results of our expedition and the re-establishment of 
 the temporal power. 
 
 The Pope, more aud more divided between influences 
 either favourable or hostile to Prance, full of affection- 
 ate confidence towards our two representatives, MM. 
 de Corcelle and de Eayneval, but more implicated 
 than he imagined in the policy of Cardinal Antonelli, 
 which, though outwardly undecided was absolutely 
 retrograde in substance, took a middle course. He 
 announced his return to Rome, but upon the condition 
 of being previously represented there by three car- 
 dinals, who in his name would take the most urgent 
 reparatory measures. These were Cardinal Delia 
 Genga Sermatei, Cardinal Vannicelli Casoni, and 
 Cardinal Altieri. They reached Rome on the 31st of 
 July, 1849, at ten o'clock at. night. 
 
 VOL. I. F F
 
 434 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 Cardinal Delia Genga, nephew of Leo XII., Pius 
 IX.'s last predecessor but one, was by his position 
 and character the preponderant member of this 
 provisional government. He was believed, with or 
 without reason, to belong entirely to the Austrian 
 party. It was said that the proof of this was found in 
 the first proclamation of the cardinals, who bestowed 
 lavish praise upon "the invincible and glorious arms 
 of the Catholic armies which had wrested all the 
 Pontifical States from anarchy." But the French 
 army was not alluded to in any other way and 
 received no special mark of gratitude. " This, like 
 all injustice, was a mistake," truly said M. Leopold 
 de Gaillard, the conscientious, well-informed historian 
 of the events of this epoch. 
 
 General Oudinot, personally hurt, but too faithful 
 to the Sovereign Pontiff to give way to any feeling of 
 annoyance, resolved to present himself at Gaeta. He 
 entrusted his powers to General Eostolan, and coura- 
 geously went to represent to Pius IX. with all the 
 authority given by his unexceptionable devotion the 
 disappointment of the Eomans and the astonishment 
 of France at seeing systematic obstacles being raised 
 one after the other to delay the return of the Sovereign 
 Pontiff to the midst of his subjects. The General 
 added that the enemies of Pius IX., that is to say the 
 Absolutists and the Eevolutionists, would be the only 
 persons who could profit by this delay ; the Absolu- 
 tists would justify their opposition to his first reforms 
 by the secret repentance with which they credited
 
 THE ROMAN QUESTION. 435 
 
 him, the Eevolutionists by deriding our victory and 
 predicting that we should speedily deplore it. To 
 complete the difficulties of the situation, M. de 
 Corcelle fell seriously ill at Gaeta, and M. de 
 Eayneval in his despatches did not conceal his de- 
 spondency. M. de Tocqueville, not less discouraged, 
 at length put on one side all diplomatic reserve, 
 writing to General Oudinot, on the 4th August, 
 " You have certainly no orders to give to the Papal 
 authorities, but when the moral interests of your 
 army or care for the honour of your Government 
 appear to you compromised by the results of any 
 measure you are justified in offering advice, and you 
 must offer it in such a way that it will command 
 reflection before any action is taken. We are coun- 
 sellors with a sword at our side, and this must not be 
 forgotten." M. Barrot and M. de Tocqueville did not 
 omit to communicate their grievances to me, even re- 
 proaching me with too much timidity in using the 
 credit which my efforts and my constant solicitude 
 had secured for me at Gaeta. To which I answered 
 " that it was not my timidity but their impatience 
 which had served the retrograde party," and they 
 ended by agreeing with me. But fresh despatches 
 brought new complaints and threw the Council into a 
 state of inexpressible uneasiness. The President, 
 always reserved in his attitude, always cautious in 
 his language, particularly towards me, whom he 
 wished to convince that his sympathy for Pius IX. 
 still continued, now showed some depression. It was 
 
 F F 2
 
 436 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 easy to realise that an ardent struggle was going on 
 in his heart between the earliest sentiments of his 
 youth and the opposite engagements that his accession 
 to the head of a Catholic nation imposed upon him. 
 "Ah! Monsieur Mole, dans quelle galere m'avez-vous 
 mis Ik ! " (Ah ! Monsieur Mole, what a mess you have 
 landed me in) he said one day, and M. Mole" repeated 
 the remark to me. 
 
 I was gratified that the President never allowed 
 any of these exclamations to escape him before me ; 
 but I could not conceal from myself that reproaches 
 would burst forth sooner or later, and that the explo- 
 sion would be all the more violent from having been 
 so long compressed. The Holy See was represented 
 in Paris by an intelligent loyal Nuncio, Monsignor 
 Fornari. I frequently saw him at the Nunciature, and 
 I never ceased repeating to him : " Take care, Mon- 
 signor, do not allow the least illusion to be entertained 
 at Gaeta. They rely upon my presence in the Ministry 
 to avert all danger, and I really think I deserve the 
 honour, but remember that should any crisis occur I 
 have no other weapon than my resignation, and that 
 my resignation would probably be the signal for a 
 change of system, upon which you would have little 
 reason to congratulate yourselves. I know quite well 
 that you must negotiate with five or six great Powers, 
 who all hold very different views, but there is one Power 
 that you neglect too much — public opinion. In order 
 to govern the world you must first convert it; to 
 diminish the number and obstinacy of claimants, it is
 
 THE ROMAN QUESTION. 437 
 
 necessary to send some at least away satisfied. For 
 three centuries or more ancient Europe has witnessed 
 monotonous and sad spectacles in matters of reform ; 
 everything is taken, and, alas ! nothing is given. 
 How well it would become the Church, and how 
 worthy of her it would be, to inaugurate another 
 method ! " 
 
 Thus my situation became more delicate from day 
 to day, and my responsibility increased, placed as I 
 was between men, all equally conscientious and all 
 equally imperious, some thinking that I did too much, 
 others that I did too little. Under this cross fire, in 
 this incessant perplexity, my health became affected, 
 and I was seized by a commencement of nervous fever. 
 Dr. Eecamier, an ardent Catholic, prescribed for me a 
 rest of some weeks at the baths of Neris in the interests 
 even of the mission, which he so greatly wished to 
 see me pursue to the end. I requested leave of 
 absence from the President and my colleagues in the 
 Ministry. The leave was readily accorded, and on the 
 day of my departure I attended the Council once more. 
 The President was seated with the President of the 
 Council on his right, and on his left the Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs, near whom I usually sat. On that 
 day, M. Passy placed himself between M. de Tocque- 
 ville and me. He read a voluminous report upon the 
 finances, to which we all listened with a slightly dis- 
 tracted air, for no one pretended to equal M. Passy 's 
 knowledge of the subject. I then saw, without either 
 astonishment or anxiety, the President lean towards
 
 438 MEMOIES or A eoyalist. 
 
 M. Tocqueville, say a few words in his ear, and give 
 him a paper. M. de Tocqueville read the paper very 
 attentively, and passed it to me, behind M. Passy, 
 without adding one word. In my turn I read as 
 follows : — 
 
 "My dear Edgar, 
 
 ' ' The French Republic has not sent an army to Rome in 
 order to stifle Italian liberty there, but, on the contrary, to 
 regulate it by guarding it against its own excesses, and to give it 
 a solid basis by replacing on the throne the Prince who first of all 
 boldly put himself at the head of every useful reform. 
 
 " I hear with regret that the benevolent intentions of the 
 Holy Father, like our own action, remain fruitless through 
 hostile influences and passions. It is sought to base the Pope's 
 return upon proscription and tyranny. Say to General Bostolan 
 from me, that he ought not to allow any act to be committed 
 under the shadow of the tricolour which could alter the character 
 of our intervention. 
 
 '* I thus sum up the re-establishment of the temporal power of 
 the Pope : a general amnesty, the secularisation of the govern- 
 ment, the Code Napoleon, and a Liberal Government. 
 
 "I have been personally grieved on reading the proclamation 
 of the three cardinals to see that there is no allusion to the name 
 of France nor to the sufferings of our soldiers. 
 
 ' ' Any insult offered to our flag or to our uniform cuts me to 
 the heart, and I must beg that you will let it be known that 
 if Prance does not sell her services, she at least exacts that her 
 sacrifices should be acknowledged. 
 
 " When our armies made the tour of Europe, they left every- 
 where in their rear, as the trace of their passage, the destruction 
 of feudal abuses and the germs of liberty. It must not be said 
 that in 1849 a French army could act in a contrary way and be 
 followed by other results. 
 
 " Tell the General to thank the army, in my name, for its noble 
 conduct. I have learnt with sorrow that, even physically, it has 
 not been treated as it ought to have been. Nothing should be 
 neglected for the suitable accommodation of our troops. 
 
 " Believe me, my dear Edgar, to remain your sincere friend, 
 
 "Louis Napoleon Bonaparte."
 
 LETTER TO COLONEL NET. 439 
 
 When I had read this through I made no attempt 
 to conceal my first impulse. I rose, passed behind M. 
 Passy, who continued his explanation, behind M. de 
 Tocqueville, who watched me with an anxious air, 
 and I said quickly, though in an undertone, to the 
 President — 
 
 u Monsieur the President, what is this ? " 
 
 " A confidential letter, that Edgar Key will com- 
 municate to General Bostolan." 
 
 " Has this letter gone ? " 
 
 " Yes, last evening." 
 
 " Then, Monsieur the President, you promise that 
 it shall never be published." 
 
 " Oh ! no ! never." 
 
 With that I returned to my place, without inter- 
 rupting M. Passy, which gave me about twenty 
 minutes in which to reflect, and this time was quite 
 sufficient for me to resolve not to enter any protest 
 against this letter. I had no useful advice to offer 
 since it had left on the preceding evening, and since 
 its strictly confidential character had been guaranteed 
 to me. My confidence in this promise was perhaps 
 less naive than would appear after the close of the 
 incident. u My dear Edgar" instead of " My dear 
 Ney" as it afterwards read in the Moniteur, and 
 other equally familiar expressions or details, which 
 also disappeared, at first added to my illusion. How- 
 ever, I was also influenced by other motives, of which 
 I make open confession here. 
 The letter, with or without the transformations
 
 440 MEMOIKS 0? A ROYALIST. 
 
 which it underwent for publication, was the justifi- 
 cation of my perpetual warning at the Nunciature : 
 "Take care! you are playing with fire." From the 
 moment that the letter had been communicated to 
 General Eostolan I did not doubt that it would pass, 
 sooner or later, under the eyes of the three cardinals, 
 and I considered that in more than one respect, for 
 their own interests, it was rather desirable than the 
 reverse. "They will judge now," I said to myself, 
 " whether I have exaggerated the President's irrita- 
 tion, and whether I have warned them of imaginary 
 dangers. It is a private experiment which may, 
 perhaps, spare them one more disastrous and more 
 irremediable." 
 
 I must add, in justice to the President himself, that 
 the mention of the Code Napoleon was less unreason- 
 able in a confidential message than it afterwards 
 appeared in a public document. In a confidential 
 message the allusion was neither astonishing nor 
 offensive, for it was the echo of Pius IX. 's own words. 
 In an interview with M. de Eayneval, an interview 
 which the ambassador had transmitted with much 
 satisfaction to his Government on the 31st of July, 
 the Pope had said, " You Frenchmen are always in a 
 hurry ; you go too fast. We Eomans prefer to take 
 our time. I admit that occasionally we take a long 
 time, but that must not shock you. Have patience, 
 and I will in the meantime give you some good news. 
 I wished to do something pleasant to France. "We 
 have lately been working at a code. Well, I said
 
 LETTER TO COLONEL NET. 441 
 
 yesterday that we must simply take the best of codes, 
 the Code Napoleon, for our model. We must make a 
 few changes in it, but after all it is easy to correct 
 details in great and good things." 
 
 The Holy Father then pointed out that the Code 
 Napoleon, with a few corrections, was applied in the 
 Neapolitan States and produced excellent results. I 
 used the twenty or thirty minutes which the reading 
 of M. Passy's report allowed me in asking myself to 
 what extent M. Barrot and M. Dufaure had really 
 ignored or inspired this letter. I was quite sure that 
 they had not drawn it up. It bore too faithfully the 
 touch of the man who, speaking rarely, needs to 
 relieve his mind when he does speak. But, except in 
 form, it contained the exact thoughts of the two prin- 
 cipal members of the Cabinet, and they would have 
 stubbornly defended it to the last point had I attacked 
 it outright. I therefore thought it infinitely prefer- 
 able not to offend them, on the condition that they 
 joined in the promise of secrecy. And, in fact, when 
 the financial question was ended, the President read 
 his letter, repeating aloud what he had just said to 
 me privately. I, in my turn, having already got up 
 to go to the railway, expressed my regret that the 
 Council had not been previously consulted, and I left, 
 if not satisfied, at all events reassured by the unani- 
 mous engagement, very clearly expressed by the Pre- 
 sident and my colleagues, that they would keep the 
 matter secret. My sojourn at Ndris was not conse- 
 crated to such complete repose as I could have wished,
 
 442 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 for I was commissioned by my uncle, Comte Henry de 
 Bombelles, to announce to Madame Swetchine the 
 death of the Comtesse de Nesselrode. I went to 
 Yichy to fulfil my melancholy task, and to convey 
 the expression of my sympathy to an inconsolable 
 grief. My colleagues wrote little to me, and I felt 
 grateful to them for it. I considered their silence 
 and my own the best proof of the political statu quo 
 arranged between us. However, at the end of three 
 weeks, M. Lacrosse, the colleague who usually kept 
 me best informed of what was going on, made use of 
 words that alarmed me. His letter was rather em- 
 barrassed, and could be summed up in these words : 
 " The Italian complications are increasing, and you 
 would do well not to prolong your absence." My 
 departure was at once arranged for the following day. 
 I lunched at the Chateau de Meillant, near St. Amand, 
 of which the Due de Mortemart has made a magnifi- 
 cent residence, and which I visited with the Abbe* de 
 Girardin, my travelling companion. They talked a 
 great deal of the invasion of cholera in Berry, and 
 gave me a heartrending picture of the ravages of this 
 scourge in the little town of NeVondes. The mayor, 
 it was said, abandoned the commune, and the terrified 
 population fled from the inhabited houses, believing 
 themselves safer in the midst of the fields. Abbd de 
 Girardin and I thought that we might recall the 
 mayor to a sense of his duty by fulfilling our own. 
 Ndrondes was almost on our road, so we went there, 
 sought out the mayor, and obtained, not without some
 
 LETTER TO COLONEL NEY. 443 
 
 trouble, the application of the most urgent measures 
 for the suppression of the scourge. Then we pursued 
 our journey towards Bourges, where we rejoined the 
 railway. 
 
 On entering the station I bought the newspapers. 
 My surprise and indignation may be imagined when 
 I found in them the President's letter to Colonel 
 Edgar Ney. On reaching the Eue de Grenelle, I 
 learnt from the head of my office, M. Charles Jour- 
 dain, since member of the Institute, that public feeling 
 was very strong, and that the President was absent 
 from Paris inaugurating a railway at Sens. I can 
 now allow a witness of my first impressions to speak, 
 who was certainly impartial, M. Merruau, then secre- 
 tary-general at the prefecture of the Seine. 
 
 11 M. de Falloux," he said,* "was absent on the day when the 
 letter appeared in the newspapers. He returned in haste, and 
 just as he re-entered the office of the Ministry of Public Instruc- 
 tion I happened to arrive there, wishing to call upon him and 
 consult him upon some municipal business. He could think of 
 one thing only, and that was to send in his resignation. He 
 begged me to be, as it were, his second, and I did not leave him 
 that evening. I at first endeavoured to persuade him to abandon 
 his intention, representing to him that he would by so doing 
 create a violent separation between the Catholics and the Prince, 
 who had rendered great service to the cause of the Holy Father, 
 and who was the principal hope of order and religion. M. de 
 Palloux's retirement being a party act, would it not be impolitic, 
 dangerous for the country, and marked by some ingratitude ? I 
 could not induce him to even consult some of his political friends. 
 When he left the table he hastened to place the resignation in 
 the President's hands, but the latter refused to accept it in the 
 
 * Merruau, Souvenirs de VHdtel de Ville de Paris, page 392.
 
 444 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 most affectionate terms, and gave M. Falloux every satisfaction 
 that he could reasonably ask for. I received at the Elysee itself 
 a conciliatory note, which I hastened to publish in the Constitu- 
 tionnel, where I still exercised some influence." 
 
 This was the external picture; now here is the 
 other side. They told me at the Elysee that the Prince 
 had not yet returned, but they expected him to dinner. 
 " I will wait for him too," I replied. He only returned 
 towards nine or ten o'clock in the evening and he 
 immediately entered his study, although he had 
 several guests who were impatient to commence dinner. 
 "Monsieur le President," I said at once, " you have 
 just given me my dismissal, and I must add that I 
 should thank you for it if I did not leave you full of 
 anxiety for very serious interests." 
 
 " Leave me," he said, with an air of great astonish- 
 ment. "Why?" 
 
 " You have published what ought to have been kept 
 secret." 
 
 "Do you think that the publication of my letter will 
 entail a change of policy ? I do not look upon it in 
 that way. It is only a legitimate retaliation upon Car- 
 dinal Delia Genga and his two colleagues. But that 
 does not affect the Pope, and cannot in any way change 
 the policy which I have been pleased to follow with 
 you for the last year." 
 
 " Such may be your intention, Monsieur le President, 
 since you do me the honour of telling me so, but it is 
 no longer in your power to arrest the fatal impulse you 
 have raised in France and Italy."
 
 f LETTER TO COLONEL NET. 445 
 
 "I will tell you the strict truth, Monsieur de 
 Falloux, and you will see that you exaggerate the 
 importance of the incident. I wished to keep my 
 promise to you and let my letter do its work in silence, 
 when an English despatch, intercepted by the police, 
 was placed before me by the police. This despatch 
 represented me to the English Cabinet as the play- 
 thing of the Austrians, and it overwhelmed me with 
 stinging sarcasms, causing me an irritation to which I 
 yielded without reflection. I sent orders to General 
 Eostolan to make known the contents of my letter to 
 the French army and to Eome. The General refused 
 to obey this order, objecting that the letter was not 
 countersigned by a Minister, and that it would produce 
 a dangerous ebullition in Italy. The Ministry still 
 hesitated to support me against General Eostolan, 
 when my letter appeared almost integrally in the 
 Moniteur Toscan. Your colleagues then no longer saw 
 any objection to its insertion in the Moniteur, and it 
 appeared there. It was a thoroughly personal satisfac- 
 tion to myself, the effect of which I had scarcely 
 calculated ; and I own this to you in all sincerity, it 
 ought not to have and it will not have, you may be 
 sure, any external influence over the whole tenour of 
 our political conduct." 
 
 11 This confidence certainly modifies my private 
 opinion of the fact in itself, but the public cannot be 
 expected to know this, and I cannot remain the re- 
 ponsible editor of a document of which my colleagues 
 have accepted the responsibility without me."
 
 446 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 " You are mistaken, Monsieur de Falloux, the public 
 must know the truth, I do not wish to conceal it in any 
 way." 
 
 He at once seated himself at his writing table, wrote 
 a few lines rapidly, and held the paper to me, saying, 
 "Here, Monsieur de Falloux, will that satisfy you?" 
 It was a disavowal of the letter in the most categorical 
 terms. I saw in my turn the exact reproduction of 
 what had passed nine months previously with M. 
 Barrot with regard to M. de Malleville. But this case 
 was still more serious. It was necessary to consider at 
 the same time the dignity of the President in the eyes 
 of the country and the attitude of the Ministry before 
 the Chamber. I regret not having kept this impor- 
 tant memorandum, which the Prince did not ask me to 
 return. I naively gave it back to him, saying, " It is 
 too much, Monsieur le President, it is too much for 
 MM. Barrot, Dufaure, and Tocqueville, who author- 
 ised its publication. Since you assert that nothing is 
 changed in our common policy we must not give it so 
 violent a shock. The Patrie has published a note 
 which, as I have just been informed by M. Merruau, 
 comes from M. Dufaure himself. Allow me to take 
 this opportunity of retaliation, and above all of 
 peremptory explanation." The note in the Patrie 
 was thus worded : — 
 
 " Several newspapers have asserted that the Minister of Public 
 Instruction and Worship had left Paris in consequence of a 
 serious disagreement that had arisen between him and the other 
 members of the Cabinet, on the subject of the letter addressed
 
 LETTER TO COLONEL NET. 447 
 
 by the President of the Eepublic to Colonel Ney. These news- 
 papers are misinformed. Before his departure, M. de Falloux 
 was present at a Council of Ministers, to which the President 
 communicated his letter ; M. de Falloux gave the letter his full 
 approbation. ( Official communication.)" 
 
 I seated myself at the writing table in my turn and 
 wrote : — 
 
 "Reproduce in the Mbniteur the note from the Patrie, and 
 insert the following lines after it : ' The Minister of Public 
 Worship has sent us this rectification: "The note published 
 in the Patrie was not communicated to M. de Falloux ; he was 
 therefore unable to authorise its terms. The communication of 
 the President's letter was purely official, and excluded all idea 
 of publication." ' " 
 
 " If the Moniteur publishes that to-morrow morn- 
 ing," I said to the Prince, handing him the paper, " I 
 cannot ask anything more." 
 
 " You may feel easy about it, I will see to it," he 
 replied, affectionately clasping both my hands ; he 
 then remembered his dinner and graciously invited 
 me to join him. I refused and went home to bed. 
 On the following morning my letter appeared word 
 for word in the Moniteur. 
 
 Pere Lacordaire has said in one of his conferences 
 at Toulouse, " Contempt for death is the principle of 
 moral strength. So long as the conviction of justice 
 does not reach this height there is nothing to expect 
 from man on great occasions." In applying this fine 
 axiom and language to a lower order of ideas I would 
 say, " Contempt for portfolios is the principle of po- 
 litical strength." On that day I made a successful
 
 448 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 trial of this axiom, and I recommend it to all those 
 coming after me who may fall into a snare and 
 have to free themselves from great embarrassments. 
 M. Barrot, M. Dufaure, and M. de Tocqueville were 
 my elders, and consequently my superiors. They had 
 shaken off their engagement too easily, but when 
 closely pressed they felt that they had gone too far. 
 They drew back in good faith, acknowledged that I 
 had used the right of legitimate self-defence, and we 
 resumed our mutual work without any recriminations. 
 I should have liked to remove some of its bitterness 
 from the cup, but the press would not allow of it. 
 
 After reproducing the story as told in the various 
 papers, the Univers added — 
 
 "This story is creditable to M. de Falloux. He very 
 honourably wished to retire from the Cabinet, he remains there 
 with equal honour. His last speech will be quoted as the expo- 
 sition of French policy in the Roman question, and the too 
 famous letter of the 1 8th of August is frankly and simply with- 
 drawn."* 
 
 At the opposite extreme, the National wrote — 
 
 "If the President of the Republic can adapt himself to this 
 more than peremptory language, if he accepts this lesson, these 
 public rebukes, these raps on the knuckles, given him by a hand- 
 ful of beadles, he is better tempered than most men 
 
 Master of the field, M. de Falloux will not long put up with 
 troublesome colleagues, whom he has shown what a firm will 
 can do, and who have not been able to understand how much a 
 statesman gains by showing resolution."! 
 
 * Uhivers, 13th September, 1849. 
 f National, 13th September, 1849.
 
 THE ROMAN QUESTION. 449 
 
 Lastly, the caricaturists also took the matter up, 
 and represented the President seated in the dock 
 between two gendarmes. I was presiding at a tri- 
 bunal, composed of M. de Montalembert and of 
 M. Faucher, and I was reading out the following 
 reprimand : — 
 
 "A paternal warning from the Reverend Father Falloux. 
 What will be left of all this ? Nothing, we hope, except a severe 
 warning for M. the President of the Republic. He must not 
 expose himself a second time to seeing one of his Ministers 
 insert notes in the Moniteur similar to that which appeared in it 
 this morning. And above all he must be aware lest, by rashness 
 and levity of this description, he awakens against himself recol- 
 lections of a past which a continuance of good behaviour only 
 can cause us to forget." * 
 
 This incident once over, I asked myself, I ask my- 
 self still, which of the President's two assurances had 
 been the true one. If, while promising me that he 
 would keep the letter secret, he had already resolved 
 to publish it, what advantage could he expect to gain 
 from a duplicity of forty-eight hours, and how could 
 he spontaneously prepare for himself the situation in 
 which my inevitable return from Ne'ris would cer- 
 tainly place him ? Assuredly, if this was the case, he 
 was not, for the nonce, to be credited with premedita- 
 tion or foresight. If, on the other hand, he had only 
 yielded, in publishing his letter, to a passing feeling 
 of ill-temper, how would this letter affect the pro- 
 gramme of his personal policy? In this hypothesis 
 it would have to be admitted that duplicity cost him 
 
 * The Journal pour rire, 29th September, 1849. 
 VOL. I. G G
 
 450 MEMOIRS Or A ROYALIST. 
 
 very little, and that he had not that strong repug- 
 nance towards it which honest men feel for this moral 
 dishonesty. To deceive when giving a promise is 
 equivalent to cheating at cards ; it is dishonourable, 
 and does not even secure renown for great skill. Men 
 who do not abstain from it themselves out of con- 
 scientiousness should at least avoid it out of self-res- 
 pect. I simply put a question which the historians of 
 Napoleon III. must answer. For my own part I felt 
 none of the aggressive sentiments which were attri- 
 buted to me by the serious papers and the Journal 
 pour rire. I deplored the incident, but I did not 
 triumph through it, trying, on the contrary, to efface 
 the traces of it as much as I possibly could. I must 
 do my colleagues the justice to say that for their part 
 they all showed the same disposition as myself. 
 
 At Gaeta the emotion produced was great and the 
 effect disastrous. Instead of going to Castel-Gandolfo, 
 near Borne, as we had reason to hope that he would, 
 Pius IX. was anxious to place a still greater distance 
 between himself and the French army. The King of 
 Naples offered the Palace of Portici. Cardinal Anto- 
 nelli, a few prelates of the pontifical house, and some 
 members of the diplomatic corps vied with each other 
 in repeating that the Pope would take refuge in 
 America, where former memories attracted him, sooner 
 than allow there to be any doubt as to his indepen- 
 dence. Nevertheless, the persistency of our ambassa- 
 dors, the certainty that the Assembly now in vacation 
 would display unalterable fidelity to its former policy,
 
 MOTU PROPRIO. 451 
 
 touched the heart of Pius IX., and imposed silence 
 upon the irritation, whether sincere or calculated, of 
 the malcontents. 
 
 The Motu proprio signed by the Pope on the 12th 
 of September, brought to Eome on the 19th by M. de 
 Corcelle, and published on the 20th, was modelled in 
 a great measure upon the Memorandum presented to 
 Gregory XYI. in 1831 in the name of the five great 
 Powers. The municipal arrangements were reorga- 
 nised in the Eoman States on a wider basis than those 
 of the French municipalities. Civil and judicial 
 reforms were promised ; the Consultum of 1847, 
 instituted by Pius IX. himself for the settlement of 
 the taxes, was maintained ; the amnesty was not a 
 complete one, but the exceptions were to be specified 
 formally. This was not all that the French Govern- 
 ment had demanded, but it was enough to satisfy a 
 large number of the Eomans, and from this starting- 
 point they could gradually and peacefully rise to more 
 important ameliorations. 
 
 M. Thiers, who was the reporter upon a vote 
 of credit for the expeditionary corps, and who was 
 impatient to speak in the name of the majority, 
 seized this opportunity to make, in spite of the in- 
 vectives of the Left, a solemn declaration. M Your Com- 
 mission," he said, " has leisurely examined the Motu 
 proprio of Pius IX., not that it believes that France 
 has the right to decide upon the merits of the insti- 
 tutions of a foreign people (noisy interruption from the 
 extreme Left), but the Commission has examined it to 
 
 gg2
 
 452 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 ascertain if the advice it was justified in giving had 
 borne sufficient fruit to prevent France from regretting 
 her intervention in Roman affairs. Well ! a very 
 large majority of your Commission declares that it per- 
 ceives in the Motu proprio a first really beneficial 
 advance, the value of which only the most unjust pre- 
 judice can fail to acknowledge ! "* 
 
 The discussion upon this report and upon the 
 financial vote commenced on the 18th of October. 
 The Left was not blind to the fact that it had to face a 
 firmer and more compact majority than in the days of 
 the Constituent Assembly, but, flattering itself that it 
 would reconquer the President, it never ceased to 
 alternately irritate and caress his susceptibilities, 
 affecting to adopt the letter to Colonel Edgar Ney as 
 his programme. M. Thiers in his report had never 
 spoken of this letter. M. Matthieu (of the Drome) 
 sought to interpret this mission as sign of disdainful 
 hostility. " Can the President," exclaimed the orator, 
 " as the executive power, make himself the agent and 
 the instrument in Eome of a policy which he himself 
 denounced in his letter of the 18th of August? . . . . 
 In order that he may do this, he must first be for- 
 bidden to call himself Napoleon." t 
 
 M. de Tocqueville, whilst dwelling upon M. Thiers's 
 report, endeavoured to console the President, who 
 deeply felt M. Thiers's omission. He compared the 
 ministerial despatches with the letter in question. " It 
 
 * Moniteur, 14th October, 1849. 
 f Moniteur, 19th October, 1849.
 
 motu PRoritio. 453 
 
 may be considered," he said, "as a concise summary, 
 rapid, familiar in style, if it is true, but a faithful 
 recapitulation of our policy, interpreted in a proud, 
 generous spirit. We have never disowned it, nor do 
 we ever intend to do so." 
 
 M. Victor Hugo then gave his solemn assent to the 
 language of the Opposition. This desertion in the 
 presence of the enemy called M. de Montalembert to 
 the tribune. " The speech which you have just 
 heard," he said, " has already received the chastise- 
 ment that it merited in the applause that it evoked." 
 The Left, rising in a mass, complained of being 
 insulted. M. de Montalembert calmly resumed his 
 speech: "Since the word chastisement wounds you, 
 gentlemen, I withdraw it, and I substitute the word 
 recompense." In the same speech he pronounced these 
 words, which have remained and will remain in men's 
 memories as one of the finest expressions of convinc- 
 ing eloquence. " Eeglise, c'est Men plus qdunefemme, 
 c'est une mere ! " (The Churchis far more than a woman, 
 she is a mother). Inexpressible emotion was felt in 
 the public galleries as well as in the Assembly, and the 
 vote, that is to say the acceptance of the Motu proprio 
 and of the report of M. Thiers, was passed on the 20th 
 of October by 469 voices against 180. 
 
 I had not the consolation of mingling my applause 
 with that which for some minutes drowned the voice 
 of M. de Montalembert. No one could encourage, 
 congratulate, or strengthen his friends so well as he 
 could himself. He had clasped me in his arms when,
 
 454 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 a few months before, I descended from the tribune 
 after rendering my tribute of homage to the Papacy. 
 How delightful it would have been to me to return 
 with the same effusion the expression of the same 
 sentiments ! But illness disposed things otherwise. 
 
 My strength, very insufficiently re-established during 
 my too short visit to Neris, was no longer equal to the 
 struggle against the painful trials which had imme- 
 diately followed my return to Paris. I do not mean 
 by this either the attacks of the clubs, as blind as they 
 are unmerciful — for I had honestly chosen my party, 
 and I was convinced that they had a great chance of 
 being right, from the moment that they were not of 
 the same opinion as the intransigeants — nor my differ- 
 ences with the President or my colleagues in the 
 Cabinet. These conflicts were certainly of frequent 
 occurrence, but they were softened by the always 
 courteous, often affectionate manner shown towards 
 me. My most painful and most fatiguing struggle 
 was that which I carried on in my own heart. Alone 
 in my views in the Cabinet since M. Buffet's with- 
 drawal, with whom could I take counsel? Where 
 seek for inspiration? Where seek for a look or a 
 sign, when I had to come to a sudden decision upon 
 the most delicate questions. 
 
 It was exactly the same situation as that of M. de 
 Corcelle at Naples. Neither of us, therefore, was 
 surprised when we succumbed nearly at the same 
 time. We enjoyed, he in Italy and I in France, the 
 same honour and the same rewards. If we had not
 
 ILLNESS AND RESIGNATION. 455 
 
 been able to sacrifice our life to our cause, we had, 
 at least, both devoted ourselves entirely to it, and 
 exhausted ourselves in its service. Dr. Eecamier had 
 recourse to very severe remedies to arrest or calm 
 the fever which had seized me since the middle of 
 September. In the early days of October he had 
 sent me away to the Chateau de Stors, near the Isle- 
 Adam, the Due de Valmy's house, under the care of 
 a young doctor named Masse, who, by his orders, 
 watched over my convalescence, which was still very 
 doubtful. I required equal repose of mind and body, 
 but the proximity of Paris rendered this calm impos- 
 sible; friends and business were too near. I an- 
 nounced my resignation, and was firmly resolved 
 upon it, but some sought to dissuade me from it 
 through sincere sympathy, others foresaw that my 
 resignation would involve a ministerial crisis, which 
 they dreaded. The latter wanted me to continue to 
 fill my place ad interim, while the former endea- 
 voured to convince me that I could, after passing a few 
 weeks in the south, return once more to the burden 
 of political life. M. de Tocqueville in particular made 
 the kindest efforts to make me think this. He wrote 
 to my wife — 
 
 "Madame, — 
 
 "I have waited until now to answer the letter you were 
 kind enough to write to me yesterday in order to be able to con- 
 vey to M. de Falloux the news that I expected from Rome to- 
 day. The post has not brought anything. Pray repeat to him 
 that he may reassure himself on this question, that he will be 
 kept posted in everything that takes place from day to day, and
 
 456 MEMOIKS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 that no important resolution will be taken without his being pre- 
 viously informed. 
 
 ' ' I wish I could tell him that the business relative to General 
 Oudinot* is settled, or nearly settled, but I am not yet in a posi- 
 tion to do so. The President appears to me rather undecided, 
 and I must say more inclined to abstain than to act. I will men- 
 tion it to him again to-morrow. 
 
 " A. DE TOCQUEVILLE. 
 
 " Paris, 19th October,- 1849." 
 
 On Sunday the 21st M. Mole wrote to me — 
 
 "I shall leave for Stors unless unsurmountable obstacles pre- 
 vent me from doing so. M. Thiers asked me yesterday to write 
 to you and beg you to defer sending in your resignation as long 
 as possible in order to delay the discussions upon your educa- 
 tional bill. I think it would be better to adjourn this discussion 
 until the month of January if we can. We must allow the emo- 
 tions produced by the debate which we have just ended to 
 calm down and the Roman affairs to become more settled before 
 we open the great question of public instruction. But the mo- 
 ment for severing your connection with the Cabinet must and 
 should only be chosen by yourself. For my own part, what I 
 most wish is, that since as we are told the south is necessary for 
 you, you should go there at once while retaining the title of 
 Minister, or reserving your resignation until you can no longer 
 withhold it. If I were quite sure that it would not injure you, 
 I would try to see you and tell you all that I cannot say here. 
 But I think that we do you harm - by so often going and disturb- 
 ing your rest. What are your plans ? Shall you come to Paris 
 before going further away ? 
 
 " Montalembert has surpassed himself. He never rose so 
 high before, and I never before saw human words act so forcibly 
 upon an Assembly. Pest assured that we may consider ourselves 
 satisfied with the denouement ; but many are still anxious. Men 
 feel themselves drifting to a future which is as obscure as it is 
 formidable. If God does not interfere I do not know where we 
 shall be. Do not fatigue yourself by answering this, only let me 
 
 * Elevation to the dignity of Marshal of France.
 
 ILLNESS AND RESIGNATION. 457 
 
 know your plans. For your own sake, as well as for mine, I am 
 anxious to know them. 
 
 ' ' Receive, my dear Minister, the expression of sentiments 
 which are well known to you, and which will only end with 
 my life. 
 
 "MOLfe." 
 
 I think I may conscientiously say that I founded 
 my determination neither on the wishes of my friends 
 nor on the isolated conveniences of the party. I had 
 entered the Ministry for two great interests — educa- 
 tional freedom in France and the restoration of the 
 Sovereign Pontiff to Eome; and if I now believed 
 myself free to reckon with my own strength it was 
 because I believed those two interests were secure. 
 
 The bill on education was being examined by a 
 Committee which gave me every desirable guarantee. 
 It was composed of MM. Thiers, de Montalembert, 
 Fresneau, Armand de Melun, Janvier, the Bishop of 
 Langres, Abbe* de l'Espinay, Baze, Beugnot, Sauvaire- 
 Barthelemy, du Fougeray, Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, 
 Salmon, Coquerel, and Kouher. The adoption of the 
 bill by such a Committee entailed the certainty of 
 its acceptance by the Assembly, for every fraction of 
 the majority was represented in it by eminent mem- 
 bers. The Catholics, who, in the Chamber of Peers, 
 had acquired the most experience and displayed the 
 most enlightenment, MM. de Montalembert, Beugnot, 
 and Sauvaire-Barthelemy, were there to exchange 
 with their new colleagues the fruit of so long a 
 struggle. M. Coquerel, a Protestant minister, 
 worked harmoniously with the Bishop of Langres,
 
 458 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 and M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, who had never 
 ceased to oppose me, found himself face to face with 
 his friend M. Thiers, towards whom he always as- 
 sumed a deferential attitude. Every resolution, 
 except a few questions of detail, was passed almost 
 unanimously. M. Thiers was, so to speak, the Pre- 
 sident of the Eight, and, what was still more signi- 
 ficant, M. Beugnot was elected Eeporter. 
 
 On the Eoman question, the Assembly authorised 
 the same hopes and gave the same guarantees. At 
 Eome the three cardinals, whose provincial adminis- 
 tration had not been very satisfactory, were about to 
 disappear. The Pope was on the point of re-entering 
 the Eternal City, and the manifesto which preceded 
 his return was accepted in France without enthusiasm, 
 but also without any disquieting reserve. It must 
 have required more presumption and more ambition 
 than I possessed to imagine my presence necessary, 
 or to dream of further successes. On the contrary, I 
 considered myself very fortunate and well rewarded 
 by the results obtained. I had, for their completion, 
 perfect confidence in my friends, and I was sure that 
 nothing left in their hands would be in danger so 
 long as the Assembly remained sitting. I felt, more- 
 over, that my only partially cured and probably in- 
 curable malady had sounded the hour of my Nunc 
 dimittis. I therefore took the irrevocable step of 
 retiring without further delay. I had informed M. 
 de Persigny of it at Stors, where he visited me as a 
 friend, without, however, concealing from him that I
 
 ILLNESS AND RESIGNATION. 459 
 
 should wait for the Assembly's vote on the Motu 
 proprio before considering the most arduous difficul- 
 ties of the Eoman question solved. This vote passed, 
 I sent in my resignation to the President, sincerely 
 thanking him for the continual kindness he had shown 
 me, and I had no sooner sent off my letter than 
 I hastened to Paris to prepare for my journey to 
 Nice.
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 THE CHANGE OF MINISTRY THE LAW OF EDUCATION 
 
 VISIT TO NICE — JOURNEY TO TURIN — EPISCOPAL 
 NOMINATIONS — MONARCHICAL QUESTIONS. 
 
 1849—1850. 
 
 While I was closely following my letter of resigna- 
 tion to Paris I received an anticipatory answer from 
 the President, which crossed my own message and 
 was sent after me. It was in the following words : — 
 
 "Elysee National, 24th October, 1849." 
 
 "My dear Monsieur de Falloux, 
 
 ' ' I have heard with real regret that your health is still so 
 weak that absolute repose of body and mind is necessary before 
 you can be completely restored. 
 
 " Persigny has, in fact, given me details of your condition and 
 of your wishes which induce me to advise you to put all business 
 on one side for a short time. On the other hand the interim at 
 the Ministry of Public Instruction cannot be further prolonged, 
 so that it becomes necessary that you should make up your mind. 
 You will understand how much it costs me to separate from one 
 who has given so many proofs of his devotion to the country, 
 and I hope that outside the Ministry you will still retain the 
 same attachment for me. 
 
 "Receive, dear Monsieur de Falloux, the assurance of my 
 high esteem. 
 
 "Louis Napoleon B."
 
 THE CHANGE OF MINISTRY. 461 
 
 The President, who was never in a hurry, and who 
 could not have any doubt of my resignation, even 
 before it reached him in writing, would not have 
 shown so much eagerness that the interim of M. Lan- 
 juinais should cease had there not been some as yet 
 unacknowledged motive, which, however, did not 
 appear to me very difficult to guess. I had not left 
 M. de Tocqueville in ignorance of my rapid passage 
 through Paris, and, with his usual kindness, he came 
 at once to see me. I thought that he was going to 
 announce to me the new ministerial combination, but 
 he at first seemed to have no such idea in his mind, 
 having simply come to ask me, in the name of my 
 former colleagues, what successor to the Ministry of 
 Public Instruction I thought of proposing to the 
 President. We discussed a few suitable names, and 
 I particularly recommended M. de Yatimesnil, adding, 
 " But are M. Barrot and M. Dufaure quite sure of the 
 President with regard to themselves ? " 
 
 "What do you mean?" asked M. de Tocqueville, 
 with an air of great astonishment. 
 
 " But, my dear friend, let me remind you of what 
 we have discussed together a hundred times, viz. that 
 the President looks upon M. Barrot as simply a par- 
 liamentary metaphysician, without any broad or prac- 
 tical views, and that he can scarcely keep civil to M. 
 Dufaure, who, without intending it, never loses an 
 opportunity of being disagreeable to him. I have 
 never received any confidences on this point, you may 
 be sure, and I only speak from personal observation,
 
 462 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 but I shall be not less surprised than pleased if the 
 ministerial changes end with me." 
 
 M. de Tocqueville, when once his attention was 
 awakened, at once shared my anxiety, without believ- 
 ing, however, that the situation was desperate. I 
 added, " I have not taken leave of the President yet, 
 and am going to do so presently. Questioning him 
 is never the best way of discovering his thoughts, but 
 I promise you that if I discover anything I will let 
 you know immediately." 
 
 I then went to the Elysee at once. The President 
 was going out to ride, so he received me standing, and 
 excused himself by saying — 
 
 " I should like to thank you in your own house and 
 to see Madame de Falloux. I will call upon you both 
 on my return from my ride. I want to talk over the 
 situation with you." 
 
 I returned to the Ministry to wait for him, and 
 announced his visit to my wife. We waited for him 
 until the end of the day, but he did not come. I had 
 not asked for the promised visit or conversation, so I 
 did not return to the Elysee, having done all that 
 etiquette required, and on the following day I left 
 Paris for the south, rejoicing in my liberty like a 
 schoolboy in his holidays. 
 
 After thirty years I can recall with delight my 
 journey from Marseilles. I had got on to the box of 
 my carriage, in order to better enjoy the landscape 
 and to breathe the air from the sea under the rays of 
 the Provengal sun. Whenever my thoughts revert
 
 THE CHANGE OF MINISTRY. 463 
 
 towards this period I can always see with an enchant- 
 ment that never fades the great pines which surround 
 Frejus, the descent of the Esterels, where I met Lord 
 Brougham riding, the environs of Cannes, and lastly, 
 near Nice, the oranges and aloes growing in the open 
 ground, which so remind one of Italy. 
 
 While I was revelling in the first enjoyment of 
 freedom, political affairs entered unfortunately upon 
 that stormy state which never ceased until the Coup 
 d'Etat of the 2nd of December. 
 
 Not having learnt anything at the Elysee or at 
 home, I had not been able to transmit any information 
 to M. de Tocqueville, and the abrupt dismissal of the 
 Ministry found him quite unprepared. M. Barrot 
 was too optimist to foresee any backstair actions, but 
 he was too honest and, in the noblest sense of the 
 word, too disinterested to be much irritated or annoyed 
 by them. M. Dufaure, with his eyes almost con- 
 stantly and almost exclusively fixed upon himself, did 
 not take into account the affront he had offered to the 
 President and to the Assembly, by invading with his 
 friends, however distinguished they may have been, a 
 Cabinet to which they were not according to parlia- 
 mentary rules called. M. de Tocqueville and M. 
 Lanjuinais were enabled, through the instincts of 
 natural courtesy, to extend the circle of their loyal 
 connection day by day. M. Dufaure never felt the 
 necessity of doing so, and would not give himself the 
 trouble ; his lofty and upright intentions sufficed to 
 him. He was a Leon Faucher, infinitely more elo-
 
 464 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 quent, but perhaps even less gracious. I cannot 
 recall without laughter how he nominated a sub- 
 prefect at Segre (my own division), and did not think 
 it even necessary to inform me of the fact before pub- 
 lishing it in the Moniteur. I might have believed that 
 he had never forgiven our nocturnal interview before 
 the formation of the Ministry if I had not received 
 from him the following note, which gave me the pro- 
 spective pleasure of having obtained the restoration so 
 greatly desired by the Angevins of the historical 
 statues of which Anjou had nearly been deprived. 
 
 "Paris, the 14th of July, 1849. 
 " My dear Colleague, 
 
 " I have to inform you that, in conformity with the orders 
 which I have given, with the approbation of the Council, your 
 four venerable Plantagenets have just left Paris by the Orleans 
 railway, and will probably reach Fontevrault to-morrow.* 
 "With every assurance of my esteem, 
 
 "J. Dutaure." 
 
 The presentiment which the President's letter had 
 awakened, his silence at the Elysee, his promised visit, 
 which was only an expedient to elude conversation, 
 was very soon realised. After hesitating, not as to his 
 intentions, but as to the choice of the time, the Presi- 
 dent resolved not to separate from M. Barrot without 
 giving him a visible proof of the gratitude which he 
 owed him. M. Barrot, who had passed his life in Op- 
 position, was not even chevalier of the Legion of 
 
 * This referred to the statues from the abbey of Pontevrault, 
 which the Museum at Versailles wanted to take, but which were 
 restored to Anjou.
 
 VISIT TO NICE. 465 
 
 Honour. A decree nominated him successively cheva- 
 lier, officer, commander, grand officer, and grand cross 
 of that order. 
 
 M. Barrot, who could not account for his dismissal, 
 refused to sanction this himself, and nobly refused the 
 exceptional promotion. As to M. Dufaure and the 
 other members of the Cabinet they only received a 
 cold expression of thanks. 
 
 The formation of the new Ministry, in which men 
 like MM. Achille Fould and Eouher, who were after- 
 wards to occupy such high functions under the Empire, 
 was followed by the passing of the Education Bill for 
 which I was responsible, and which, after a debate in 
 which it was warmly supported by M. Thiers, was 
 adopted by a majority of 399 to 237. 
 
 The climate of Nice and complete rest completed 
 my recovery from the fever, but did not restore the 
 strength which no climate and no rule of life could 
 ever give back to me. I soon became resigned to this 
 state of health, and the presentiment which I had from 
 the first was not mistaken. I said to my friends, " I 
 have a malady which does not kill, but which prevents 
 one from living." This is the peculiarity of all ner- 
 vous complaints, and now I have only to accustom 
 myself to it. Unable to bear the least noise, not even 
 of a double conversation carried on in the room at the 
 same time, not even of music, one of my greatest 
 pleasures, unable to bear the brilliancy of the sun, or 
 even of a lamp or candle without a shade, sleepless the 
 greater part of each night, getting up more fatigued 
 
 VOL. I. H H
 
 466 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 than I had gone to bed, was not this condition appa- 
 rently created expressly to interdict all public life? 
 This was the malady to which I was subject without 
 interruption from my thirty -eighth year. I hope that 
 I never complained bitterly to any one, and I did not 
 complain in my own heart. I can scarcely say that I 
 have said more about my health than I have thought 
 about it, because I was often obliged to invoke it as an 
 excuse for duties incompletely discharged or omitted 
 altogether. I had never reckoned greatly on my own 
 strength, and I was not surprised at seeing it prema- 
 turely break down. When at work, I realised how 
 much earnestness of purpose had been lacking from 
 my youth and studies. I might have had the com- 
 placency to believe that I was called to do something 
 great until I was able to compare myself with others. 
 When I saw greater and more deserving men than 
 myself, I felt that success had overburdened me, and 
 I considered it a very undeserved favour that I should 
 have occupied for some time, and not too unbecomingly, 
 a position too high for me. 
 
 My sojourn at Nice was troubled by a bitter sorrow. 
 I could not be present during the last moments of my 
 father, who had been a martyr to gout for a long time, 
 a severe attack suddenly proving fatal. This was an 
 additional reason for holding aloof from all social 
 life, and I only saw a few very intimate friends. These 
 were M. Sauget, the former President of the Chamber 
 of Deputies, who displayed in the simplest conversa- 
 tions much elevation of heart and eloquence of
 
 J0UENEY TO TUEIN. 467 
 
 language ; Paul Delaroche, who had just lost his wife 
 — Horace Yernet's daughter — and who was seeking 
 consolation for his grief in the religious inspiration of 
 his last picture and the Christian education of his two 
 young sons ; the Marquis de Chateauneuf, President of 
 the Conference of St. Vincent de Paul, great-grand- 
 nephew of Madame de Sevigne, and his wife, who 
 were surrounded by a numerous family, the members 
 of which outdid each other in amiable qualities and 
 virtues. 
 
 "When I had nearly regained the modest equilibrium 
 of life that now remained to me, my friends complained 
 of the prolongation of my absence and urged me to 
 return to the Assembly. 
 
 For some time I resisted the most affectionate 
 appeals, but when they coincided with the coming of 
 spring I yielded. Nevertheless, I returned by a round- 
 about route, which enabled me to see an old friend, and 
 to re-enter the parliamentary whirlpool rather later. 
 
 My daughter's health also required the climate of 
 Nice. I left her with her mother and with M. and 
 Madame de Caradeuc, and I went alone to Turin, by 
 the steep route of the Col de Tende. 
 
 The friend whom I was going to see, and whom I 
 met again with real pleasure, was the Austrian Minis- 
 ter to King Victor Emanuel, Comte Apponyi. He had 
 married, at St. Petersburg, the good and beautiful 
 Annette Benkerdorf, and they both had found at the 
 Piedmontese Court, as they afterwards did in London 
 and Paris, an exceptionally congenial position. Pied- 
 
 h h2
 
 468 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 mont was then commencing the evolution which it has 
 since carried so far, but it had not as yet broken with 
 any of its old traditions, and the representative of 
 Austria enjoyed a marked preponderance in its capital. 
 
 Eudolph Apponyi well knew that my visit was not 
 to the diplomatist, but to the friend of my youth, with 
 whom I was anxious to pass a few days in the full en- 
 joyment of his pleasant family life. "We had both 
 reckoned without the Minister of France, M. de Eeiset. 
 It was known that I had voluntarily left the Ministry, 
 and was on good terms personally with the President. 
 Since my departure I had not given any signs of 
 political life ; therefore the people who did not know 
 me might have inquired whether, on my return to the 
 Assembly, I should take my seat behind M. Berryer 
 or nearer to the ministerial bench. M. de Eeiset, per- 
 haps, leant towards the second hypothesis. He pressed 
 me to be present at a brilliant dinner to meet the 
 principal members of the Piedmontese Cabinet, and 
 moreover informed me that Victor Emanuel, hearing 
 from him how brief my visit to Turin would be } 
 expected me at a private audience at noon on the 
 following day. I could not disguise my surprise, 
 bordering on displeasure, but it was impossible to 
 refuse the unexpected honour that had been prepared 
 for me. 
 
 The struggle already commenced with Eome was 
 obstinately supported by a then celebrated legist, 
 Signor Siccardi. 
 
 Out of the old Austrian Josephism and our old
 
 JOURNEY TO TURIN. 469 
 
 French Gallicanism the keeper of the Piedmontese 
 seals had compiled a certain legislative work which was 
 called the Siccardi laws. Messrs. d'Azeglio, Cavour, 
 and Balbo were the principal political personages at 
 that moment, but Count de Balbo was much the 
 most moderate of the three. He was exposed at 
 once, like all men of his character, to attacks from the 
 Eight, directed by Count Delia Margarita, Charles 
 Albert's former minister in his Austrian phase, who 
 accused him of leaning to the Left, and to attacks 
 from the Left, which considered him still too faithful 
 to the Eight. In this contest the young King, Victor 
 Emanuel, appeared equally desirous not to separate 
 from France and to avoid open war with Eome. This 
 was the position which he at first assumed at the open- 
 ing of our interview. However, I did not want the 
 unforeseen honour which was accorded me to be quite 
 unfruitful, and I ventured to say to the King, " Your 
 Majesty sometimes scandalises the French Eepublic." 
 
 " Eeassure yourself, reassure yourself, Monsieur de 
 Falloux," he replied in a tone of conviction, " all re- 
 volutionists are rabble. I know them well and I will 
 never go hand in hand with them." 
 
 Later on the revolutionists disguised themselves as 
 Italian patriots. The King accepted them under this 
 name, and everyone knows what was the road they fol- 
 lowed together. Moreover, Victor Emanuel was already 
 leading a private life little in harmony with his educa- 
 tion or with the examples always before his eyes. An 
 intrepid soldier on the battlefield of Novara, he never
 
 470 MEMOIES OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 for a single day wore mourning either for his 
 father or his defeat, but returned immediately to Turin 
 to abandon himself to consolations which were suited 
 neither to the King, to the son, nor even to an Italian 
 deeply moved by the sorrows of Italy. His features 
 and gestures were vulgar, although the pose of his 
 head and the accent of his voice retained something of 
 the pride of his race. His brilliant eyes were shrewder 
 than his language, and without foreseeing at that time 
 the events that were to mark his reign, it was easy to 
 guess that this Prince, although deprived of the genius 
 that creates circumstances, would not at all events 
 lack the instinct that knows how to use them to 
 advantage. He speedily tired of Signor Siccardi's 
 procedures, and preferred Cavour's infinitely bolder 
 and more ambitious course. 
 
 Several official dinners with the Ministers of France 
 and Austria, and all my conversations with the in- 
 fluential men whom I had opportunities of meeting, 
 confirmed the impression that the King had given me, 
 viz. that the fate of Italy was far from being settled. 
 From Turin itself I wrote to my brother, who was then 
 at Eome, "It is not for me to say whether you at 
 Eome can make any arrangement with this country or 
 not ; but if you can, make haste, and do not deceive 
 yourselves as to the efficacy of dilatory measures." 
 
 Would my advice be followed ? I only know that 
 it was not to Cardinal Antonelli's taste. The Cardinal 
 thought it clever to meet strategy with strategy, to pro- 
 long the discussion instead of closing it, to envenom
 
 MONARCHICAL QUESTIONS. 471 
 
 instead of softening the dispute, to afford pretexts to 
 those who did not ask for anything better, and to defy 
 the memories of the past instead of casting a foreseeing 
 glance over the menaces of the future. I left Turin, 
 not assuredly with the alarm of a prophet, but with 
 the anxiety of a man who had recently had experience 
 of the chimeras that were being cherished around the 
 Sovereign Pontiff and of the projects that were being 
 hugged everywhere else. 
 
 During my six months' absence I had time to reflect 
 upon the situation of our unhappy country, and the 
 result of these reflections was to me abundantly clear. 
 France, which had never been naturally republican, 
 was disgusted with the trial to which she had momen- 
 tarily consented, and the Republicans alone were 
 responsible for this state of the public mind. The 
 Monarchical party had loyally aided in the trial of the 
 Republic, first because immediately after February 24th 
 nothing else was possible, and afterwards because if the 
 supporters of the Monarchy had behaved differently 
 they would of themselves have diminished the value of 
 the experiment. They would have been reproached with 
 all the troubles and ruin that followed, while by leav- 
 ing the field free to the Republic, and even by giving 
 them sincere assistance, they reaped the inevitable 
 benefit of the following alternative. Either the Re- 
 publicans would give security and prosperity to the 
 country, in which case so much the better for the coun- 
 try and for themselves, or else the Republicans would 
 fail through the innate defectiveness of the Republic,
 
 472 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 through the violence and blindness of its leaders, in 
 which case we should be clear of all reproach and be 
 able to say to all parties, " What more do you want ? 
 "Why are you still waiting instead of resuming the 
 natural course of our national inclination and the 
 destiny of France ? " 
 
 Such was really our situation in 1850, such was the 
 language we had a right to hold. The Eepublicans 
 alone had attacked the Eepublic and had rendered it 
 odious ; we alone had defended it and made it live in 
 spite of them. But could we deceive ourselves on this 
 account, could we ascribe to the country feelings that 
 it did not possess ? The country had answered this 
 itself. On the 10th of December, 1848, France had 
 given an immense majority to the most anti-Eepub- 
 lican candidate which she then had at her disposal, 
 Prince Louis Bonaparte. In the month of May, 1849, 
 she had elected Monarchical partisans of every shade of 
 opinion, and placed the Eepublicans in so marked a 
 minority that the latter, with their usual inconsistency 
 and impetuosity, had appealed from universal suffrage 
 to the affray of the 13th of June. Finally, in 1850, 
 Prince Louis Bonaparte appeared weary of the part of 
 President of the Eepublic, and easily allowed other 
 designs to be suspected. From this time the question 
 was no longer between the Eepublic and the Mo- 
 narchy, it was inevitably between the true and the false 
 Monarchies. 
 
 Under these circumstances my choice could not be 
 doubtful, and my patriotism was solely devoted to
 
 MONARCHICAL QUESTIONS. 473 
 
 restoring the future of the Monarchy by a reconcilia- 
 tion of the House of Bourbon. I considered that the 
 supreme peril was no longer from the Eepublic, 
 morally discredited and numerically vanquished, but 
 from Csesarism, in the hands of a prince who was all 
 the more dangerous because he saw no danger in any- 
 thing, and because he retained while in power the 
 unconscious audacity of an incurably adventurous 
 spirit. 
 
 Unwilling to leave any one the shadow of a doubt 
 as to the political course that I intended to take, I 
 entered my name, on the day after my arrival in 
 Paris, at the club in the Eue de Bivoli, where the 
 Legitimist Members of the Eight assembled, and in 
 the Assembly I resumed my place not far from 
 M. Berryer by the side of M. de Eesseguier. More- 
 over, I abstained from presenting myself at the 
 Elysee. This done, I prepared to continue my 
 journey to Anjou, where my father's death and my 
 brother's absence — for he was now definitely settled 
 in Eome and had abandoned to me the administration 
 of our joint heritage — made it urgent for me to go. 
 I also went there to see my mother, who was already 
 suffering from the cruel malady that carried her off a 
 few months later. 
 
 It was not while in Anjou that I was likely to lose 
 my interest in the monarchical question, but the pro- 
 blems which had to be solved before it could be settled 
 were very complicated. 
 
 Immediately after the February revolution the party
 
 474 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 which had been vanquished divided into two very dis- 
 tinct fractions, like the House of Orleans itself. King 
 Louis Philippe, whose possession of unquestionable 
 although somewhat limited political genius no one can 
 deny, lived at Claremont, near London, under the name 
 of Comte de RTeuilly, surrounded by his family, visited 
 by a few friends, speaking to all calmly and without 
 reluctance of the events which had led to his deposi- 
 tion. He never hesitated about repeating how much 
 it had cost him to allow the crown to be placed upon 
 his head, that he would never have consented except 
 that a regency, always difficult in France, appeared 
 impossible to him at that moment, and because the 
 sovereignty was presented to him as the only means 
 of preserving the monarchical government. While 
 thus defining the nature of his acts in 1830, King Louis 
 Philippe was wont to conclude by saying that hence- 
 forth nothing of the kind existed, that the crown of 
 Prance had never ceased to belong to the head of the 
 House of Bourbon by right ; that in fact the Count de 
 Chambord was the only one now in a situation to 
 claim and wear it ; that the interests of the country 
 and right seemed to him to be as closely connected 
 since the 24th of February, 1848, as they had 
 appeared to him divorced on the 7th of August, 
 1830. 
 
 The Duchesse d' Orleans thought otherwise. She 
 attributed her father-in-law's opinions to age and 
 above all to his personal disappointments. Por her 
 part, she considered that her position as mother and
 
 MONARCHICAL QUESTIONS. 475 
 
 Regent imposed other duties upon her, and she could 
 not dispose of her children's future before they were 
 old enough to decide for themselves as to the sacrifice 
 demanded of them. One day in London M. de 
 Montalembert said to her — 
 
 " What right can the Comte de Paris have to the 
 throne in the eyes of your Eoyal Highness beyond 
 the traditional conditions of the hereditary principle ? 
 Why in that case should not every other prince of the 
 House of Orleans, old enough and clever enough to 
 seize the direction of his party, at once have the same 
 right ? " 
 
 The princess replied with much vivacity, " My son 
 has no rights, but he has claims, and that is enough." 
 
 Queen Marie Amelie, the Due de Nemours, and 
 Princess Clementine, it was said, openly shared the 
 King's opinions. The Prince de Joinville and the 
 Due d'Aumale appeared more inclined to sympathise 
 with the ideas of their sister-in-law, and above all set 
 themselves to avoid doing anything that could 
 jeopardise their nephew's future ; a personal dis- 
 interestedness which carried its own justification with 
 it. The same differences were noticeable among the 
 leading men of the previous reign. M. Mole, 
 M. Guizot, and all the members of his last Ministry 
 placed themselves behind the old King; M. Thiers 
 and his friends, Generals Changarnier, de la Mori- 
 ciere, and Bedeau, companions in arms of the Prince 
 de Joinville and of the Due d'Aumale in Africa, 
 readily ranged themselves on their side. M. Thiers
 
 476 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 was inexhaustible in epigrams against M. Guizot and 
 the Princess de Lieven, whom he called the Father 
 and Mother of the fusion. This was easily explained 
 in M. Guizot' s case by the recollection of Ghent, and 
 in M. Thiers by that of Blaye. However, M. Thiers 
 showed some anxiety not to break up the Conserva- 
 tive union, and when warmly urged on this subject 
 he at once answered, " It is not my business to make 
 the fusion. It would not suit either my antecedents 
 or my taste, but when it is made you may believe 
 that it will not find an opponent in me. On that day 
 I shall say, ' Long live the King, in spite of all ! ' 
 For the Eepublic is impossible in France, and neither 
 personal dislikes nor personal satisfactions will ever 
 make me either a Eepublican or a Bonapartist." 
 
 Around the various leaders were grouped subordi- 
 nate ideas and plans. All cried, "There must be a 
 strong power ! France cannot dispense with a 
 power ! " And upon this they heaped chimera after 
 chimera. Some affirmed that the Eepublic would 
 change its nature if the presidency were confided to 
 a prince of the royal blood; others considered the 
 reversal of the existing rule too dangerous, and flat- 
 tered themselves that they would elude the Empire 
 by prolonging the President's power for a few years. 
 
 The leisure of country life enabled me to review 
 and weigh these various theories, and from day to 
 day I felt more convinced of their inconsistency and 
 danger. I unceasingly repeated it to my friends on 
 the Eight, but a sustained correspondence wearied
 
 MONARCHICAL QUESTIONS. 477 
 
 me, and I was anxious to economise my strength, so 
 I wrote once for all my ideas upon this subject, 
 sending this short article to the Union de I'Ouest, 
 which I then had under my control. A great many 
 monarchical papers afterwards copied it, and I yield 
 to the temptation of quoting some passages here — 
 
 '* A young man once went to a celebrated painter, and said to 
 him -with, some embarrassment, ' Sir, I have come to ask you to 
 take my portrait. I intend it for a person whom I love. Will 
 you kindly make it as little like me as possible, in order not to 
 compromise her ? ' 
 
 "This naive request is recalled to mind whenever we hear 
 political men, high in position and still too numerous, repeating 
 in every key, ' We must restore a strong power ; we must bring 
 France back to the idea of power and reconcile her with 
 power ! ' Then, when asked to define this power itself, they 
 stop short, hesitate, and then endeavour to trace a picture 
 bearing as little resemblance to the original as possible, in 
 order not to compromise those to whom they are applying or 
 themselves ! 
 
 "Power, according to their definition, is power, and that is 
 all. Beyond this brief definition, above or below it, nothing ! 
 and whoever asks for a little more is a man impassioned by 
 party spirit. 
 
 " Well, we who are essentially men of power, friends of 
 authority, we must nevertheless protest against these theories 
 of the most dangerous and unreflecting materialism. For us, 
 power lies not only in the fact of command, it also lies chiefly in 
 the right to obedience. Ah ! you think that one must be prejudiced 
 or a philosopher to ask power for an account of its origin, of its 
 conditions, of its future. Alas ! alas ! look around you, interro- 
 gate the most common symptoms as well as the most elevated 
 theories. You will get the one answer, 'Like power, like 
 people ; as is the power so will be external greatness, internal 
 prosperity ; a solid power, a durable people ; a power in distress, 
 a people in decadence.' 
 
 " Interrogate history, you disdainful ^sceptics, and say once 
 more, ' What do the conditions of power matter to us ? ' No,
 
 478 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 the first power that comes will not give the external develop- 
 ment or the internal security required by a great nation. Every 
 power that is not a real institution is for us the first haphazard 
 power that comes ; it has all the same vices, all the same 
 impotence, all the same dangers. 
 
 "And where, in fact, do the minds that we have called 
 materialist and unreflecting stop? What combination finds 
 favour among the peremptory and arbitrary friends of power, 
 but of power without an origin, or without a seriously con- 
 sidered future? The presidency transformed haphazard ac- 
 cording to the wish of the moment to ten years, to fifteen years, 
 for life, is an auction, but of little value for these profound 
 politicians. Years are added to it, as they add centimes at a 
 village auction for a few feet of wall or an acre of land. 
 
 "In that respect at least we shall be as sceptical as our 
 adversaries. Yes, a decennial presidency, or a life presidency, 
 are of little consequence to us ; and why ? Because, in reality, 
 they amount to the same thing. You cannot be sure that the 
 life presidency will last ten years ; you do not know that the ten 
 years' presidency may not last a lifetime. You throw your- 
 selves, like blind men, into the arms of circumstances. Circum- 
 stances will lead you as they lead themselves, how they can and 
 where they can ; neither one nor the other of these combinations 
 can save the country, and in the meantime cannot even have the 
 merit of blinding or deceiving it. 
 
 "Let us imagine a decree of the Moniteur ratified by an 
 unanimous Assembly, and informing France, perfectly accus- 
 tomed to such adventures, that henceforth she will be governed 
 by a president for life. "We say for life at once : since we are 
 only dealing with suppositions we may as well chime in with our 
 adversaries' views, and carry from that basis the opposite demon- 
 stration as far as it will take us. We will suppose, then, the 
 decree to appear in the Moniteur to-morrow, Tuesday. From that 
 day you posses* every guarantee of solidity and duration that you 
 require from power. But if, on Wednesday, the President rides 
 a stumbling horse, like Sir Robert Peel's, or if he drives in a 
 carriage and the horses run away, as they did with the un- 
 fortunate Due d' Orleans, if he is stricken in the flower of his 
 age by a sudden malady, like the Count de Chambord's brother- 
 in-law, who recently died at Prague, without even having time 
 to receive the embraces of his family, how long will your power,
 
 MONARCHICAL QUESTIONS. 479 
 
 your security, have lasted, or that of commerce or of diplomacy ? 
 You have decreed the power for thirty years, God has broken it 
 at the end of thirty days. What resource has your knowledge 
 or your pride discovered against God? Who has authorised 
 you to believe, to promise, that the accidents which strike sud- 
 denly and on all sides the most eminent political men, royal 
 heads upon which rest the utmost ambition or love, that these 
 mysterious and terrible laws, which have alarmed, instructed, 
 and governed the world since its creation will respectfully, 
 infallibly spare your work ? 
 
 " And you believe that our merchants, who risk their vessels 
 and their fortunes at the two extremities of the ocean, will be so 
 short-sighted because it pleases you to affect short-sightedness ? 
 And you believe that a neighbouring people will suspend their 
 international transactions or subject them to your convenience, 
 because you have neither the courage nor the logic of real patriot- 
 ism ? Ah ! undeceive yourselves, if any there be amongst you 
 who have succeeded in deceiving yourselves, as to such 
 ephemeral illusions, so little worthy of a great nation or of real 
 statesmen 
 
 " Yes, the Eepublic or the Monarchy, each of these two forms 
 of society being responsible for its own work and judged by its 
 own fruit ; yes, the Republic, if you have not courage for the, 
 Monarchy ; yes, the Monarchy, if you have not courage for the 
 Eepublic ; but for love of our country and for love of ourselves 
 make no spurious attempts, no shameful miscarriage. Interro- 
 gate your hearts, probe your consciences with resolution ; if a 
 nation bike France can live under a RepubHc, let us be good 
 and sincere Republicans. If the Repubhc is a deathlike state 
 for such a nation as France, put all palliatives on one side, and 
 act for your country as you would act for your mother or for your 
 friend in danger. Do not endeavour to create an intermediate 
 state between illness and health. Do not mix poisonous with 
 healing plants in the cup from whence you pretend to extract a 
 remedy, or else endure in anticipation the maledictions of the 
 invalid and the frenzy of the malady. Your punishment will 
 never equal your guilt."* 
 
 When returning to Paris under the empire of these 
 
 ideas, I sought for some conversation with M. 
 
 * Union de T Quest, 15th July, 1850.
 
 480 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 Thiers, who, throughout all this, affected a kind of 
 neutrality. 
 
 " Do not natter yourself," I said to him, "that we 
 will accept your passive part ; and do not even 
 natter yourself that you can make us believe in it. 
 The Duchesse d' Orleans is too distinguished a woman 
 not to realise the value of your counsels and not to 
 call for them. You are too good a patriot yourself 
 to refuse them, or to stand apart folding your arms 
 when our unhappy country is in distress." 
 
 "It is easy to see that you do not know the 
 Duchesse d'Orleans," replied M. Thiers in the most 
 decided tone. " This princess is so resolute and so 
 invincible in her maternal ambition that she only 
 consults those whom she knows beforehand will 
 agree with her opinion. She listens very little to 
 me because on certain points I venture to contradict 
 her. At this moment," he added, with an imper- 
 ceptible movement of the shoulders, " she only listens 
 to Lasteyrie and Mornay, because they never contra- 
 dict her. If you succeeded in converting those two 
 and me also she would sooner call up her hall porter 
 and ask him for his opinion than listen to any of us." 
 
 " If this is true," I replied, " you are freer than I 
 imagined to study the interests of France with all 
 the independence natural to you. Make up your 
 mind, therefore, I pray you, and without further 
 delay. Have you any personal prejudice against the 
 Count de Chambord ? That would be unworthy of 
 your sagacity, and the future cannot be a subject of
 
 MONARCHICAL QUESTIONS. 481 
 
 the least doubt to you. If the Comte de Paris 
 returns alone, all the kind attentions will be for me, 
 if it is the Count de Chambord, they will all be 
 for you." 
 
 " Ah, my friend ! " cried M. Thiers, with an accent 
 of emotion that he rarely showed, but which was all 
 the more touching in consequence, " reassure your- 
 self, I have no anxiety on my own account. I know 
 too well that in France the further power is shifted to 
 the right, the more must institutions be moved to the 
 left. If you do not believe me talk to Changarnier ; 
 you will see whether he will speak of my feelings and 
 my influence in different terms from my own." 
 
 General Changarnier, as commander of the army 
 in Paris, inhabited the wing of the palace of the 
 Tuileries which overlooks the Eue de Eivoli. He 
 did not hesitate, I even think that in his position he 
 did not restrain himself enough in speaking very 
 cavalierly about everything, particularly about what 
 passed at the Elysee. He liked to tell everybody 
 that he had only to concern himself with what 
 affected his military duty and his honour. That was 
 true in many respects, but in any case he held his 
 command from the President, and the President 
 could deprive him of it by a stroke of his pen. I 
 was therefore as much surprised as alarmed when, 
 lunching at the Tuileries soon after my interview 
 with M. Thiers, to hear General Changarnier, who 
 had a numerous staff at table with him, and who 
 was waited upon by servants attached to the palace 
 
 VOL. I. II
 
 482 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 and not to his person, express himself with as much 
 warmth of language, as if he were in the most con- 
 fidential tete-k-tete. He was full of energy, and 
 scarcely put a button upon the point of his foil. 
 The President, his gallantries and his debts, fur- 
 nished him with an inexhaustible theme of conver- 
 sation. 
 
 After luncheon I waited until the guests had left, 
 and then commenced the conversation with the 
 General that I had been longing for. The prelimi- 
 naries were short on both sides, and we quickly 
 reached the important point of the question. 
 
 "The present situation cannot last long," I said, 
 " the Assembly will soon be threatened. You will 
 be dismissed, and we shall then be launched into 
 adventures which will find us utterly powerless unless 
 we can first show the country that the Monarchy is 
 prepared and is ready to save it." 
 
 " I think just as you do, my dear friend," replied 
 the General, "except on one point. France requires 
 a transition, which can only be undertaken by a mili- 
 tary government. Our unhappy country requires 
 three months of dictatorship, which, however mode- 
 rate it may be, will have to brave unpopularity which 
 ought not to be entailed by a return of the Monarchy. 
 This temporary omnipotence is, believe me, the out- 
 come of my devotion rather than of my ambition. I 
 give you my word that I only wish for the Monarchy. 
 I only wish for the legitimate and real Monarchy. 
 The Duchesse d' Orleans knows this well. In fact, go
 
 MONARCHICAL QUESTIONS. 483 
 
 to London, and there tell them what you have just 
 told me ; repeat, too, all that I have said to you, and 
 add, ' Your Eoyal Highness is a woman, you can do 
 nothing with the army without Changarnier ; you will 
 not have either Changarnier or the army for any pur- 
 pose except that of an open restoration of the Mo- 
 narchy. You will not even have a majority in the 
 Assembly.' Speak with your tone of conviction. Her 
 brothers-in-law will second you better than you sup- 
 pose, and you will see whether, when putting his hand 
 in yours, as he does at this moment, Changarnier has 
 been sincere." 
 
 On the following day, during the sitting of the 
 Assembly, he took M. Berryer on one side and said 
 to him, "Believe me; make Falloux go to London." 
 
 I did not for an instant dream of following this 
 advice. To do so would have required an infatuation 
 which, thank God, I did not possess ; but I believed 
 then, and I still believe now, that this counsel was 
 sincere in the mouth of the giver. General Changar- 
 nier did not ruin himself, and did not ruin us, through 
 intentional duplicity unworthy of his great heart. He 
 was supremely loyal, but he was supremely presump- 
 tuous, and through this weakness, which was accom- 
 panied by the highest qualities, he ruined his own 
 fortune and that of France. He had the soundest ideas 
 on the Monarchy ; he would not place the crown on 
 any but the head that ought to wear it, but he wished 
 to place it there himself ; he wished for France to see 
 and the Prince to know that he did it. He was
 
 484 MEMOIRS OF A ROYALIST. 
 
 anxious that one single page, but that a page of the 
 history of France, should bear his name. This was 
 not, perhaps, too ambitious, but it entailed too much 
 delay in a situation so critical as that in which 
 we were placed. His fault was an excess of confi- 
 dence in himself — a fault which he long and truly 
 expiated. His fault was an error, and never a 
 treason. 
 
 However that may be, the hour of great events had 
 not yet sounded, and one of my recollections of Nice 
 comes sadly back to my memory. A foreign mer- 
 chant wishing, before the season, to buy the coming 
 harvest of olives from a peasant in the neighbourhood, 
 " Patience," replied the peasant, " the oil is not yet 
 in the olive, it is only in the olive-tree." It was the 
 same in France during the autumn of 1850 with all 
 the political harvests, and I am not even quite sure 
 that the oil was in the olive-tree ! 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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