CHAPTER VIII.. Address of the Two Hundred and Twenty-One.

ADDRESS OF THE TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE.

1830.

MENACING, AND AT THE SAME TIME INACTIVE ATTITUDE OF THE MINISTRY.--LAWFUL EXCITEMENT THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY.--ASSOCIATION FOR THE ULTIMATE REFUSAL OF THE NON-VOTED TAXES.--CHARACTER AND VIEWS OF M. DE POLIGNAC.--MANIFESTATIONS OF THE MINISTERIAL PARTY.--NEW ASPECT OF THE OPPOSITION.--OPENING OF THE SESSION.--SPEECH OF THE KING.--ADDRESS OF THE CHAMBER OF PEERS.--PREPARATION OF THE ADDRESS OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.--PERPLEXITY OF THE MODERATE PARTY AND OF M. ROYER-COLLARD.--DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS.--THE PART TAKEN IN IT BY M. BERRYER AND MYSELF.--PRESENTATION OF THE ADDRESS TO THE KING.--PROROGATION OF THE SESSION.--RETIREMENT OF MM. DE CHABROL AND COURVOISIER.--DISSOLUTION OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.--MY JOURNEY TO NISMES FOR THE ELECTIONS.--TRUE CHARACTER OF THE ELECTIONS.--INTENTIONS OF CHARLES X.

Whether, attention is arrested by the life of an individual or the history of a nation, there is no spectacle more imposing than that of a great contrast between the surface and the interior, the appearance and the reality of matters. To be excited under the semblance of immobility, to do nothing while we expect much, to look on the calm while we anticipate the tempest,--this, perhaps, of all human situations, is the most oppressive for the mind to endure, and the most difficult to sustain for any length of time.

At the commencement of the year 1830, such was the common position of all,--of the Government and the nation, of the ministers and citizens, of the supporters and opponents of power. No one acted directly, and all prepared themselves for unknown chances. We pursued our ordinary course of life, while we felt ourselves on the brink of a convulsion.

I proceeded quietly with my course at the Sorbonne. There, where M. de Villèle and the Abbé Frayssinous had silenced me, M. de Polignac and M. de Guernon-Ranville permitted me to speak freely. While enjoying this liberty, I scrupulously preserved my habitual caution, keeping every lecture entirely divested of all allusion to incidental questions, and not more solicitous of winning popular favour, than apprehensive of losing ministerial patronage. Until the meeting of the Chamber, my new title of Deputy called for no step or demonstration, and I sought not for any factitious opportunity. In some paragraphs of town and court gossip, several of the papers in the interest of the extreme right asserted that meetings of Deputies had been held at the residence of the late President of the Chamber. M. Royer-Collard, upon this, wrote immediately to the 'Moniteur:'--"It is positively false that any meeting of Deputies has taken place at my residence since the closing of the session of 1829. This is all I have to say; I should feel ashamed of formally denying absurd reports, in which the King is not more respected than the truth." Without feeling myself restricted to the severe abstinence of M. Royer-Collard, I sedulously avoided all demonstrative opposition; my friends and I were mutually intent on furnishing no pretext for the mistakes of power.

But in the midst of this tranquil and reserved life, I was deeply occupied in reflecting on my new position, and on the part I was henceforward to assume in the uncertain fortune of my country. I revolved over in my mind every opposite chance, looking upon all as possible, and wishing to be prepared for all, even for those I was most desirous to avert. Power cannot commit a greater error than that of plunging imaginations into darkness. A great public terror is worse than a great positive evil; above all, when obscure perspectives of the future excite the hopes of enemies and blunderers, as well as the alarms of honest men and friends. I lived in the midst of both classes. Although no longer interested in the electoral object which had occasioned its institution in 1827, the society called, "Help thyself and Heaven will help thee" existed still, and I still continued to be a member. Under the Martignac Ministry I considered it advisable to remain amongst them, that I might endeavour to moderate a little the wants and impatience of the external opposition, which operated so powerfully on the opposition in Parliament. Since the formation of the Polignac Cabinet, from which everything was to be apprehended, I endeavoured to maintain a certain degree of interest in this assembly of all opposing parties, Constitutionalists, Republicans, and Buonapartists, which, in the moment of a crisis, might exercise itself such preponderating influence on the destiny of the country. At the moment, I possessed considerable popularity, especially with the younger men, and the ardent but sincere Liberals. I felt gratified at this, and resolved to turn it to profitable use, let the future produce what it might.

The temper of the public resembled my own, tranquil on the surface but extremely agitated at the heart. There was neither conspiracy, nor rising, nor tumultuous assembly; but all were on the alert, and prepared for anything that might happen. In Brittany, in Normandy, in Burgundy, in Lorraine, and in Paris, associations were publicly formed to resist payment of the taxes, if the Government should attempt to collect them without a legal vote of the legal Chambers. The Government prosecuted the papers which had advertised these meetings; some tribunals acquitted the responsible managers, others, and amongst them the Royal Court of Paris, condemned them, but to a very slight punishment, "for exciting hatred and contempt against the King's government, in having imputed to them the criminal intention either of levying taxes which had not been voted by the two Chambers, or of changing illegally the mode of election, or even of revoking the constitutional Charter which has been granted and confirmed in perpetuity, and which regulates the rights and duties of every public authority." The ministerial journals felt their position, and saw that their patrons were so reached by this sentence, that, in publishing it, they suppressed all observations.

In presence of this opposition, at once so decided and restrained, the Ministry remained timid and inactive. Evidently doubtful of themselves, they feared the opinion in which they were held by others. A year before this time, at the opening of the session of 1829, when the Cabinet of M. de Martignac still held power, and the department of Foreign Affairs had fallen vacant by the retirement of M. de la Ferronnays, M. de Polignac had endeavoured, in the debate on the address in the Chamber of Peers, to dissipate, by a profession of constitutional faith, the prejudices entertained against him. His assurances of attachment to the Charter were not, on his part, a simply ambitious and hypocritical calculation; he really fancied himself a friend to constitutional government, and was not then meditating its overthrow; but in the mediocrity of his mind, and the confusion of his ideas, he neither understood thoroughly the English society he wished to imitate, nor the French system he desired to reform. He believed the Charter to be compatible with the political importance of the old nobility, and with the definitive supremacy of the ancient Royalty; and he flattered himself that he could develop new institutions by making them assist in the preponderance of influences which it was his distinct object to limit or abolish. It is difficult to measure the extent of conscientious illusions in a mind weak but enthusiastic, ordinary, but with some degree of elevation, and mystically vague and subtle. M. de Polignac felt honestly surprised at not being acknowledged as a minister devoted to constitutional rule; but the public, without troubling themselves to inquire into his sincerity, had determined to regard him as the champion of the old system, and the standard-bearer of the counter-revolution. Disturbed by this reputation, and fearing to confirm it by his acts, M. de Polignac did nothing. His Cabinet, sworn to conquer the Revolution and to save the Monarchy, remained motionless and sterile. The Opposition insultingly taxed them with their impotence: they were christened "the Braggadocio Ministry," "the most helpless of Cabinets;" and to all this they gave no answer, except by preparing the expedition to Algiers, and by convoking the assembly of the Chambers, ever protesting their fidelity to the Charter, and promising themselves, as means of escape from their embarrassments, a conquest and a majority.

M. de Polignac was ignorant that a minister does not entirely govern by his own acts, and that he is responsible for others besides himself. While he endeavoured to escape from the character assigned to him, by silence and inaction,--his friends, his functionaries, his writers, his entire party, masters and servants, spoke and moved noisily around him. He expressed his anger when they discussed, as an hypothesis, the collection of taxes not voted by the Chambers; and at that same moment the Attorney-General of the Royal Court at Metz, M. Pinaud, said, in a requisition, "Article 14 of the Charter secures to the King a method of resisting electoral or elective majorities. If then, renewing the days of 1792 and 1793, the majority should refuse the taxes, would the King be called upon to deliver up his crown to the spectre of the Convention? No; but in that case he ought to maintain his right, and save himself from the danger by means respecting which it is proper to keep silence." On the 1st of January, the Royal Court of Paris, who had just given a proof of their firm adherence to the Charter, presented themselves, according to custom, at the Tuileries; the King received and spoke to them with marked dryness; and when arriving in front of the Dauphiness, the first President prepared to address his homage to her, "Pass on, pass on," exclaimed she brusquely; and while complying with her words, M. Seguier said to the Master of the Ceremonies, M. de Rochemore, "My Lord Marquis, do you think that the Court ought to inscribe the answer of the Princess in its records?" A magistrate high in favour with the Minister, M. Cotta, an honest but a light and credulous individual, published a work entitled, 'On the Necessity of a Dictatorship.' A publicist, a fanatical but sincere reasoner, M. Madrolle, dedicated to M. de Polignac a memorial, in which he maintained the necessity of remodelling the law of elections by a royal decree. "What are called coups d'état," said some important journals, and avowed friends of the Cabinet, "are social and regular in their nature when the King acts for the general good of the people, even though in appearance he may contravene the existing laws." In fact France was tranquil, and legal order in full vigour; neither on the part of authority nor on that of the people had any act of violence called for violence in return; and yet the most extreme measures were openly discussed. In all quarters people proclaimed the imminence of revolution, the dictatorship of the King, and the legitimacy of coups d'état.

In a moment of urgent danger, a nation may accept an isolated coup d'état as a necessity; but it cannot, without dishonour and decline, admit the principle of such measures as the permanent basis of its public rights and government. Now this was precisely what M. de Polignac and his friends pretended to impose on France. According to them, the absolute power of the old Royalty remained always at the bottom of the Charter; and to expand and display this absolute power, they selected a moment when no active plot, no visible danger, no great public disturbance, threatened either the Government of the King or the order of the State. The sole question at issue was, whether the Crown could, in the selection and maintenance of its advisers, hold itself entirely independent of the majority in the Chambers, or the country; and whether, in conclusion, after so many constitutional experiments, the sole governing power was to be concentrated in the Royal will. The formation of the Polignac Ministry had been, on the part of the King, Charles X., an obstinate idea even more than a cry of alarm, an aggressive challenge as much as an act of suspicion. Uneasy, not only for the security of his throne, but for what he considered the unalienable rights of his crown, he placed himself, to maintain them, in the most offensive of all possible attitudes towards the nation. He assumed defiance rather than defence. It was no longer a struggle between the different parties and systems of government, but a question of political dogma, and an affair of honour between France and her King.

In presence of a subject under this aspect, passions and intentions hostile to established order could not fail to resume hope and appear once more upon the stage. The sovereignty of the people was always at hand, available to be invoked in opposition to the sovereignty of the Monarch. Popular strokes of policy were to be perceived, ready to reply to the attempts of royal power. The party which had never seriously put faith in or adhered to the Restoration, had now new interpreters, destined speedily to become new leaders, and younger, as well as more rational and skilful than their predecessors. There were no conspiracies, no risings in any quarter; secret machinations and noisy riots were equally abandoned; everywhere a bolder and yet a more moderate line of conduct was adopted, more prudent, and at the same time more efficacious. In public discussion, appeal was made to examples from history and to the probabilities of the future. Without directly attacking the reigning power, lawful freedom in opposition was pushed to its extremest limits, too clearly to be taxed with hypocrisy, and too ingeniously to be arrested in this hostile proceeding. In the more serious and intelligent organs of the party, such as the 'National,' they did not absolutely propound anarchical theories, or revolutionary constitutions; they confined themselves to the Charter from which Royalty seemed on the point of escaping, either by carefully explaining the import, or by peremptorily demanding the complete and sincere execution; by making it clearly foreseen that compromising the national right would also compromise the reigning dynasty. They avowed themselves decided and prepared, not to anticipate, but to accept without hesitation the last trial evidently approaching, and the rapid progress of which they clearly indicated to the public from day to day.

The conduct to be held by the constitutional Royalists who had laboured in honest sincerity to establish the Restoration with the Charter, although less dangerous, was even more complex and difficult. How could they repulse the blow with which Royalty menaced the existing institutions, without inflicting on Royalty a mortal wound in return? Should they remain on the defensive, wait until the Cabinet committed acts, or introduced measures really hostile to the interests and liberties of France, and reject them when their character and object had been clearly developed in debate? Or should they take a bolder initiative, and check the Cabinet in its first steps, and thus prevent the unknown struggles which at a later period it would be impossible to direct or restrain? This was the great practical question, which, when the Chambers were convened, occupied, above all other considerations, those minds which were strangers to all preconcerted hostility, and to every secret desire of encountering new hazards.

Two figures have remained, since 1830, impressed on my memory; the King, Charles X., at the Louvre on the 2nd of March, opening the session of the Chambers; and the Prince de Polignac at the Palais Bourbon on the 15th and 16th of March, taking part in the discussion on the address of the Two Hundred and Twenty-One Deputies. The demeanour of the King was, as usual, noble and benevolent, but mingled with restrained agitation and embarrassment. He read his speech mildly, although with some precipitation, as if anxious to finish; and when he came to the sentence which, under a modified form, contained a royal menace, he accentuated it with more affectation than energy. As he placed his hand upon the passage, his hat fell; the Duke d'Orléans raised and presented it to him, respectfully bending his knee. Amongst the Deputies, the acclamations of the right-hand party were more loud than joyful, and it was difficult to decide whether the silence of the rest of the Chamber proceeded from sadness or apathy. Fifteen days later, at the Chamber of Deputies, and in the midst of the secret committee in which the address was discussed, in that vast hall, void of spectators, M. de Polignac was on his bench, motionless, and little attended even by his friends, with the air of a stranger surprised and out of place, thrown into a world with which he is scarcely acquainted, where he feels that he is unwelcome, and charged with a difficult mission, the issue of which he awaits with inert and impotent dignity. In the course of the debate, he was reproached with an act of the Ministry in reference to the elections, to which he replied awkwardly by a few short and confused words, as if not thoroughly understanding the objection, and anxious to resume his seat. While I was in the tribune, my eyes encountered his, and I was struck by their expression of astonished curiosity. It was manifest that at the moment when they ventured on an act of voluntary boldness, neither the King nor his minister felt at their ease; in the two individuals, in their respective aspects as in their souls, there was a mixture of resolution and weakness, of confidence and uncertainty, which at the same moment testified blindness of the mind and the presentiment of coming evil.

We waited with impatience the address from the Chamber of Peers. Had it been energetic, it would have added strength to ours. Whatever has been said, their address was neither blind nor servile, but it was far from forcible. It recommended respect for institutions and national liberties, and protested equally against despotism and anarchy. Disquietude and censure were perceptible through the reserve of words; but these impressions were dimly conveyed and stripped of all power. Their unanimity evinced nothing beyond their nullity. M. de Châteaubriand alone, while signifying his approbation, considered them insufficient. The Court declared itself satisfied. The Chamber seemed more desirous of discharging a debt of conscience, and of escaping from all responsibility in the evils which it foresaw, than of making a sound effort to prevent them. "If the Chamber of Peers had spoken out more distinctly," said M. Royer-Collard to me, shortly after the Revolution, "it might have arrested the King on the brink of the abyss, and have prevented the Decrees." But the Chamber of Peers had little confidence in their own power to charm away the danger, and feared to aggravate it by a too open display. The entire weight of the situation fell upon the Chamber of Deputies.

The perplexity was great,--great in the majority of sincere Royalists, in the Committee charged to draw up the Address, and in the mind of M. Royer-Collard who presided, both in the Committee and the Chamber, and exercised on both a preponderating influence. One general sentiment prevailed,--a desire to stay the King in the false path on which he had entered, and a conviction that there was no hope of succeeding in this object, but by placing before him an impediment which it would be impossible for him personally to misunderstand. It was evident, when he dismissed M. de Martignac and appointed M. de Polignac to succeed him, that he was not alone influenced by his fears as a King. In this act Charles X. had, above all considerations, been swayed by his passions of the old system. It became indispensable that the peril of this tendency should be clearly demonstrated to him, and that where prudence had not sufficed, impossibility should make itself felt. By expressing, without delay or circumlocution, its want of confidence in the Cabinet, the Chamber in no way exceeded its privilege; it expressed its own judgment, without denying to the King the free exercise of his, and his right of appealing to the country by a dissolution. The Chamber acted deliberately and honestly; it renounced empty or ambiguous words, to assert the frank and strong measures of the constitutional system. There was no other method of remaining in harmony with the public feeling so strongly excited, and of restraining it by legitimate concessions. There was reason to hope that language at once firm and loyal would prove as efficacious as it was necessary; already, under similar circumstances, the King had not shown himself intractable, for two years before, in January, 1828, he had dismissed M. de Villèle, almost without a struggle, after the elections had produced a majority decidedly opposed to his Cabinet.

During five days, the Committee, in their sittings, and M. Royer-Collard in his private reflections, as well as in his confidential intercourse with his friends, scrupulously weighed all these considerations, as well as all the phrases and words of the Address. M. Royer-Collard was not only a staunch Royalist, but his mind was disposed to doubt and hesitation; he became bewildered in his resolves as he looked on the different aspects of a question, and always shrank from important responsibility. For two years he had observed Charles X. closely, and more than once during the Martignac Administration he had said to some of the more rational oppositionists, "Do not press the King too closely; no one can tell to what follies he might have recourse." But at the point which matters had now reached, called upon as he was to represent the sentiments and maintain the honour of the Chamber, M. Royer-Collard felt that he could not refuse to carry the truth to the foot of the throne; and he flattered himself that on appearing there, with a respectful and affectionate demeanour, he would be in 1830, as in 1828, if not well received, at least listened to without any fatal explosion.

The Address in fact bore this double character: never had language more unpresuming in its boldness, and more conciliating in its freedom, been held to a monarch in the name of his people. When the President read it to the Chamber for the first time, a secret satisfaction faction of dignity mingled in the most moderate hearts with the uneasiness they experienced. The debate was short and extremely reserved, almost even to coldness. On all sides, the members feared to commit themselves by speaking; and there was an evident desire to come to a conclusion. Four of the Ministers, MM. de Montbel, de Guernon-Ranville, de Chantelauze, and d'Haussez took part in the discussion, but almost exclusively on the general question. In the Chamber of Deputies, as in the Chamber of Peers, the leader of the Cabinet remained mute. It is on more lofty conditions that political aristocracies maintain or raise themselves. When they came to the last paragraphs, which contained the decisive phrases, the individual members of the different parties maintained the contest alone. It was then that M. Berryer and I ascended the tribune for the first time, both new to the Chamber, he as a friend and I as an opponent of the Ministry; he to attack and I to defend the Address. It gives me pleasure, I confess, to retrace and repeat today, the ideas and arguments by which I supported it at the time. "Under what auspices," I asked the Chamber, "and in the name of what principles and interests has the present Ministry been formed? In the name of power menaced, of the Royal prerogative compromised, of the interests of the Crown ill understood and sustained by their predecessors. This is the banner under which they have entered the lists, the cause they have promised to make triumphant. We had a right to expect from their entrance on office that authority should be exercised with vigour, the Royal prerogative in active operation, the principles of power not only proclaimed but practised, perhaps at the expense of the public liberty, but at least for the advantage of that power itself. Gentlemen, has this happened? Has power strengthened itself within the last seven months? Has it been exercised with activity, energy, confidence, and efficacy? Either I grossly deceive myself, or during these seven months power has suffered in confidence and energy, to the full extent of what the public have lost in security."

"But power has lost more than this. It is not entirely comprised in the positive acts it commits or the materials it employs; it does not always end in decrees and circulars. The authority over minds, the moral ascendency, that ascendency so suitable to free countries, for it directs without controlling public will,--in this is comprised an important component of power, perhaps the first of all in efficiency. But beyond all question, it is the re-establishment of this moral ascendency which is at this moment the most essential need of our country. We have known power extremely active and strong, capable of great and difficult undertakings; but whether from the inherent vice of its nature, or by the evil of its position, moral ascendency, that easy, regular, and imperceptible empire, has been almost entirely wanting. The King's government, more than any other, is called upon to possess this. It does not extract its right from force. We have not witnessed its birth; we have not contracted towards it those familiar associations, some of which always remain attached to the authorities at the infancy of which those who obey them were present. What has the actual Ministry done with that moral ascendency which belongs naturally, without premeditation or labour, to the King's government? Has it exercised it skilfully, and increased it in the exercise? Has it not, on the contrary, seriously compromised this great element, by placing it at issue with the fears to which it has given rise, and the passions it has excited?...

"Gentlemen, your entire mission is not to control, or at the least to oppose power; you are not here solely to retrieve its errors or injuries and to make them known to the country; you are also sent here to surround the government of the King--to enlighten it while you surround, and to support it while you enlighten.... Well, then, what is at this moment the position in the Chamber of the members who are the most disposed to undertake the character of those who are the greatest strangers to the spirit of faction, and unaccustomed to the habits of opposition? They are compelled to become oppositionists; they are made so in spite of themselves; they desire to remain always united to the King's government, and now they are forced to separate from it; they wish to support, and are driven to attack. They have been propelled from their proper path. The perplexity which disturbs them has been created by the Ministry in office; it will continue and redouble as long as they continue where they are."

I pointed out the analogous perturbation which existed everywhere, in society as in the Chambers; I showed how the public authorities, in common with the good citizens, were thrown out of their natural duties and position; the tribunals, more intent on restraining the Government itself than in repressing disorders and plans directed against it; the papers, exercising with the tolerance, and even with the approbation of the public, an unlimited and disorderly influence. I concluded by saying: "They tell us that France is tranquil, that order is not disturbed. It is true; material order is not disturbed; everything circulates freely and peaceably; no commotion deranges the current of affairs.... The surface of society is calm,--so calm that the Government may well be tempted to believe that the interior is perfectly secure, and to consider itself sheltered from all peril. Our words, gentlemen, the frankness of our words, comprises the sole warning that power can at this moment receive, the only voice that can reach it and dissipate its illusions. Let us take care not to diminish their force or to enervate our expressions; let them be respectful and even gentle, but let them at the same time be neither timid nor ambiguous. Truth already finds it difficult enough to penetrate into the palaces of kings; let us not send her there weak and trembling; let it be as impossible to misunderstand what we say, as to mistake the loyalty of our sentiments."

The Address passed as it was drawn up, with uneasy sadness, but with a profound conviction of its necessity. Two days after the vote, on the 18th of March, we repaired to the Tuileries to present it to the King. Twenty-one members alone joined the official deputation of the Chamber. Amongst those who had voted for the Address, some were little anxious of supporting by their presence, under the eyes of the King, such an act of opposition; others, from respect for the Crown, had no wish to give to this presentation additional solemnity and effect. Our entire number amounted only to forty-six. We waited some time in the "Salon de la Paix," until the King returned from Mass. We stood there in silence; opposite to us, in the recesses of the windows, were the King's pages and some members of the royal establishment, inattentive and almost intentionally rude. The Dauphiness crossed the saloon on her way to the chapel, rapidly and without noticing us. She might have been much colder still before I could have felt that I had any right either to be surprised or indignant at her demeanour. There are crimes whose remembrance silences all other thoughts, and misfortunes before which we bow with a respect almost resembling repentance, as if we ourselves had been the author of them.

When we were introduced into the hall of the throne, M. Royer-Collard read the address naturally and suitably, with an emotion which his voice and features betrayed. The King listened to him with becoming dignity and without any air of haughtiness or ill humour; his answer was brief and dry, rather from royal habit than from anger, and, if I am not mistaken, he felt more satisfied with his own firmness than uneasy for the future. Four days before, on the eve of the debate on the address, in his circle at the Tuileries, to which many Deputies were invited, I saw him bestow marked intention on three members of the Commission, MM. Dupin, Étienne, and Gautier. In two such opposite situations, it was the same man and almost the same physiognomy, identical in his manners as in his ideas, careful to please although determined to quarrel, and obstinate from want of foresight and mental routine, rather than from the passion of pride or power.

On the day after the presentation of the address, the 19th of March, the session was prorogued to the 1st of September. Two months later, on the 16th of May, the Chamber of Deputies was dissolved; the two most moderate members of the Cabinet, the Chancellor and the Minister of Finance, M. Courvoisier and M. de Chabrol, left the Council; they had refused their concurrence to the extreme measures already debated there, in case the elections should falsify the expectations of power. The most compromised and audacious member of the Villèle Cabinet, M. de Peyronnet, became Minister of the Interior. By the dissolution, the King appealed to the country, and at the same moment he took fresh steps to separate himself from his people.

Having returned to the private life from which he never again emerged, M. Courvoisier wrote to me on the 29th of September 1831, from his retirement at Baume-les-Dames: "Before resigning the Seals, I happened to be in conversation with M. Pozzo di Borgo on the state of the country, and the perils with which the throne had surrounded itself. What means, said he to me, are there of opening the King's eyes, and of drawing him from a system which may once again overturn Europe and France?--I see but one, replied I, and that is a letter from the hand of the Emperor of Russia.--He shall write it, said he; he shall write it from Warsaw, whither he is about to repair.--We then conversed together on the substance of the letter. M. Pozzo di Borgo often said to me that the Emperor Nicholas saw no security for the Bourbons, but in the fulfilment of the Charter."

I much doubt whether the Emperor Nicholas ever wrote himself to the King, Charles X.; but what his ambassador at Paris had said to the Chancellor of France, he himself repeated to the Duke de Mortemart, the King's ambassador at St. Petersburg:--"If they deviate from the Charter, they will lead direct to a catastrophe; if the King attempts a coup-d'état, the responsibility will fall on himself alone." The councils of monarchs were not more wanting to Charles X., than the addresses of nations, to detach him from his fatal design.

As soon as the electoral glove was thrown down, my friends wrote to me from Nismes that my presence was necessary to unite them all, and to hold out in the College of the department any prospect of success. It was also desired that I should go, of my own accord, to Lisieux; but they added that if I was required elsewhere, they thought, even in my absence, they could guarantee my election. I trusted to this assurance, and set out for Nismes on the 15th June, anxious to sound myself, and on the spot, the real dispositions of the country; which we so soon forget when confined to Paris.

I have no desire to substitute for my impressions of that epoch my ideas of the present day, or to attribute to my own political conduct and to that of my friends an interpretation which neither could assume. I republish, without alteration, what I find in the confidential letters I wrote or received during my journey. These supply the most unobjectionable evidences of what we thought and wished at the time.

On the 26th of June, some days after my arrival at Nismes, I wrote as follows:--

"The contest is very sharp, more so than you can understand at a distance. The two parties are seriously engaged, and hourly oppose each other with increasing animosity. An absolute fever of egotism and stupidity possesses and instigates the administration. The opposition struggles, with passionate ardour, against the embarrassments and annoyances of a situation, both in a legal and moral sense, of extreme difficulty. It finds in the laws means of action and defence, which impart the courage necessary to sustain the combat, but without inspiring the confidence of success; for almost everywhere, the last guarantee is wanting, and after having fought long and bravely, we always run the risk of finding ourselves suddenly disarmed, and helpless. A similar anxiety applies to the moral position: the opposition despises the ministry, and at the same time looks upon it as its superior; the functionaries are in disrepute, but still they take precedence; a remembrance of imperial greatness and power yet furnishes them with a pedestal; they are looked on disdainfully, with a mingled sensation of fear and anger. In this state of affairs there are many elements of agitation, and even of a crisis. Nevertheless, no sooner does an explosion appear imminent, or even possible, than every one shrinks from it in apprehension. In conclusion, all parties at present look for their security in order and peace. There is no confidence except in legitimate measures."

On the 9th of July, I received the following from Paris:--

"The elections of the great colleges have commenced. If we gain any advantage there, it will be excellent; above all, for the effect it may produce on the King's mind, who can expect nothing more favourable to him than the great colleges. At present, there are no indications of a coup d'état. The 'Quotidienne' announces this morning that it looks upon the session as opened, admitting at the same time that the Ministry will not have a majority. It appears delighted at there being no prospect of an address exactly similar to that of the Two Hundred and Twenty-one."

And again, on the 12th of July:--

"Today the 'Universel' exclaims against the report of a coup d'état, and seems to guarantee the regular opening of the session by a speech from the King. This speech, which will annoy you, will have the advantage of opening the session on a better understanding. But the great point is to have a session; violent extremes become much more improbable when we are constitutionally employed. But you will find it very difficult to draw up a new address; whatever it may be, the right and the extreme left will look upon it in the light of a retractation,--the right as a boast, the left as a complaint. You will have to defend yourselves against those who wish purely and simply a repetition of the former address, and who hold to it as the last words of the country. Having acquired a victory at the elections, and the alternative of dissolution being no longer available to the King, we shall have evidently a new line of conduct to adopt. Besides, what interest have we in compelling the King to make a stand? France has every thing to gain by years of regular government; let us be careful not to precipitate events."

I replied on the 16th of July:--"I scarcely know how we are to extricate ourselves from the new address. It will be an extremely difficult matter, but in any case we are bound to meet this difficulty, for evidently we must have a session. We should be looked upon as children and madmen if we were merely to recommence what we have taken in hand for four months. The new Chamber ought not to retreat; but it should adopt a new course. Let us have no coup d'état, and let constitutional order be regularly preserved. Whatever may be the ministerial combinations, real and ultimate success will be with us."

"Amongst the electors by whom I am surrounded here, I have met with nothing but moderate, patient, and loyal dispositions. M. de Daunant has just been elected, on the 13th of July instant, by the Divisional College of Nismes; he had 296 votes against 241 given in favour of M. Daniel Murjas, president of the college. When the result was announced, the official secretary proposed to the assembly to pass a vote of thanks to the president, who, notwithstanding his own candidateship, had presided with most complete impartiality and loyalty. The vote was carried on the instant, in the midst of loud cries of "Long live the King!" and the electors, as they retired, found in all quarters the same tranquillity and gravity which they had themselves preserved in the discharge of their own duties."

On the 12th of July, when news of the capture of Algiers arrived, I wrote thus:--"And so the African campaign is over, and well over; ours, which must commence in about two months, will be rather more difficult; but no matter; I hope this success will not stimulate power to the last madness, and I prefer our national honour to all parliamentary considerations."

I do not pretend to assert that the foregoing sentiments were those of all who, whether in the Chambers or in the country, had approved the Address of the Two Hundred and Twenty-one, and who, at the elections, voted for its support. The Restoration had not achieved such complete conquests in France. Inactive, but not resigned, the secret societies were ever in existence; ready, when opportunity occurred, to resume their work of conspiracy and destruction. Other adversaries, more legitimate but not less formidable, narrowly watched every mistake of the King and his Government, and sedulously brought them under public comment, expecting and prognosticating still more serious errors, which would lead to extreme consequences. Amongst the popular masses, a deeply rooted instinct of suspicion and hatred to all that recalled the old system and the invasion of the foreigners, continued to supply arms and inexhaustible hopes to the enemies of the Restoration. The people resemble the ocean, motionless and almost immutable at the bottom, however violent may be the storms which agitate the surface. Nevertheless, the spirit of legality and sound political reason had made remarkable progress; even during the ferment of the elections, public feeling loudly repudiated all idea of a new revolution. Never was the situation of those who sincerely wished to support the King and the Charter more favourable or powerful; they had given evidences of persevering firmness by legitimate opposition, they had lately maintained with reputation the principles of representative government, they enjoyed the esteem and even the favour of the public; the more violent party, through necessity, and the country, with some hesitation, mingled with honest hope, followed in their rear. If at this critical moment they could have succeeded with the King as with the Chambers and the country,--if Charles X., after having by the dissolution pushed his royal prerogative to the extreme verge, had listened to the strongly manifested wishes of France, and selected his advisers from amongst those of the constitutional Royalists who stood the highest in public consideration, I say, with a feeling of conviction which may appear foolhardy, but which I maintain to this hour, that there was every reasonable hope of surmounting the last decisive trial; and that the country taking confidence at once in the King and in the Charter, the Restoration and constitutional government would have been established together.

But the precise quality in which Charles X. was deficient, was that expansive freedom of mind which conveys to a monarch a perfect intelligence of the age in which he lives, and endows him with a sound appreciation of its resources and necessities. "There are only M. de La Fayette and I who have not changed since 1789," said he, one day; and he spoke truly. Through all the vicissitudes of his life he ever remained what his youthful training had made him at the Court of Versailles and in the aristocratic society of the eighteenth century--sincere and light, confident in himself and in his own immediate circle, unobservant and irreflective, although of an active spirit, attached to his ideas and his friends of the old system as to his faith and his standard. Under the reign of his brother Louis XVIII., and during the scission of the monarchical party, he became the patron and hope of that Royalist opposition which boldly availed itself of constitutional liberties, and presented in his own person a singular mixture of persevering intimacy with his old companions, and of a taste for the new popularity of a Liberal. When he found himself on the throne, he made more than one coquettish advance to this popular disposition, and sincerely flattered himself that he governed according to the Charter, with his old friends and his ideas of earlier times. M. de Villèle and M. de Martignac lent themselves to his views in this difficult work; and after their fall, which he scarcely opposed, Charles X. found himself left to his natural tendencies, in the midst of advisers little disposed to contradict, and without the power of restraining him. Two fatal mistakes then established themselves in his mind; he fancied that he was menaced by the Revolution, much more than was really the fact; and he ceased to believe in the possibility of defending himself, and of governing by the legal course of the constitutional system. France had no desire for a new revolution. The Charter contained, for a prudent and patient monarch, certain means of exercising the royal authority and of securing the Crown. But Charles X. had lost confidence in France and in the Charter. When the Address of the Two Hundred and Twenty-one Deputies came triumphant through the elections, he believed that he was driven to his last entrenchment, and reduced to save himself without the Charter, or to perish by a revolution.

A few days before the Decrees of July, the Russian ambassador, Count Pozzo di Borgo, had an audience of the King. He found him seated before his desk, with his eyes fixed on the Charter, opened at Article 14. Charles X. read and re-read that article, seeking with honest inquietude the interpretation he wanted to find there. In such cases, we always discover what we are in search of; and the King's conversation, although indirect and uncertain, left little doubt on the Ambassador's mind as to the measures in preparation.

FOOTNOTES:

"Assembled at your command from all points of the kingdom, we bring to you, Sire, from every quarter, the homage of a faithful people, still further inspired by having found you the most beneficent of all, in the midst of universal beneficence, and which reveres in your person the accomplished model of the most exemplary virtues. Sire, this people cherishes and respects your authority; fifteen years of peace and liberty which it owes to your august brother and to yourself, have deeply rooted in its heart the gratitude due to your august family: its reason, matured by experience and freedom of discussion, tells it that in questions of authority, above all others, antiquity of possession is the holiest of titles, and that it is as much for the happiness of France as for your personal glory, that ages have placed your throne in a region inaccessible to storms. The conviction of the nation accords then with its duty in representing to it the sacred privileges of your crown as the surest guarantee of its own liberties, and the integrity of your prerogatives as necessary to the preservation of public rights."

"Nevertheless, Sire, in the midst of these unanimous sentiments of respect and affection with which your people surround you, there has become manifest in the general mind a feeling of inquietude which disturbs the security France had begun to enjoy, affects the sources of her prosperity, and might, if prolonged, become fatal to her repose. Our conscience, our honour, the fidelity we have pledged and which we shall ever maintain, impose on us the duty of unveiling to you the cause."

"Sire, the Charter which we owe to the wisdom of your august predecessor, and the benefits of which your Majesty has declared a firm determination to consolidate, consecrate as a right the intervention of the country in the deliberation of public interests. This intervention ought to be, and is in fact, indirect, wisely regulated, circumscribed within limits minutely defined, and which, we shall never suffer any one to exceed; but it is also positive in its result; for it establishes a permanent concurrence between the political views of your government, and the wishes of your people, as an indispensable condition of the regular progress of public affairs. Sire, our loyalty and devotion compel us to declare that this concurrence does not exist."

"An unjust suspicion of the sentiments and ideas of France forms the fundamental conviction of the present Ministry; your people look on this with sorrow, as injurious to the Government itself, and with uneasiness, as it appears to menace public liberty."

"This suspicion could find no entrance in your own noble heart. No, Sire, France is not more desirous of anarchy than you are of despotism. She is worthy of your having faith in her loyalty, as she relies implicitly on your promises."

"Between those who misrepresent a nation so calm and loyal, and we, who with a deep conviction deposit in your bosom the complaints of an entire people, jealous of the esteem and confidence of their King, let the exalted wisdom of your Majesty decide! Your royal prerogatives have placed in your hands the means of establishing between the authorities of the State, that constitutional harmony, the first and most essential condition for the security of the Throne and the greatness of the country."]

HISTORIC DOCUMENTS.

HISTORIC DOCUMENTS.

No. I.

THE VISCOUNT DE CHÂTEAUBRIAND TO M. GUIZOT.

Val-de-Loup, May 12th, 1809.

Sir,

I return you a thousand thanks. I have read your articles with extreme pleasure. You praise me with so much grace, and bestow on me so many commendations, that you may easily afford to diminish the latter. Enough will always remain to satisfy my vanity as an author, and assuredly more than I deserve.

I find your criticisms extremely just; one in particular has struck me by its refined taste. You say that the Catholics cannot, like the Protestants, admit a Christian mythology, because we have not been trained and accustomed to it by great poets. This is most ingenious; and if my work should be considered good enough to induce people to say that I am the first to commence this mythology, it might be replied that I come too late, that our taste is formed upon other models, etc. etc. etc.... Nevertheless there will always be Tasso, and all the Latin Catholic poems of the Middle Ages. This appears to me the only solid objection that can be raised against your remark.

In truth, and I speak with perfect sincerity, the criticisms which, before yours, have appeared on my work, make me feel to a certain extent ashamed of the French. Have you observed that no one seems to have comprehended its design? That the rules of epic composition are so generally forgotten, that a work of thought and immense labour is judged as if it were the production of a day, or a mere romance? And all this outcry is against the marvellous! Would it not imply that I am the inventor of this style? that it has been hitherto unheard of, and is singular and new? And yet we have Tasso, Milton, Klopstock, Gessner, and even Voltaire! And if we are not to employ the marvellous in a Christian subject, there can no longer be an epic in modern poetry, for the marvellous is essential to that style of composition, and I believe no one would be inclined to introduce Jupiter in a subject taken from our own history. All this, like every thing else in France, is insincere. The question to be decided was, whether my work was good or bad as an epic poem; all was comprised in this point, without attempting to ascertain whether it was or was not contrary to religion; and a thousand other arguments of the same kind.

I cannot deliver an opinion on my own work; I can only convey to you that of others. M. Fontanes is entirely in favour of 'The Martyrs.' He finds this production much superior to what I have written before, in plan, style, and characters.

What appears singular to me is, that the third Book, which you condemn, seems to him one of the best of the whole! With regard to style, he thinks that I have never before reached so high a point as in the description of the happiness of the just, in that of the light of Heaven, and in the passage on the Virgin. He tolerates the length of the two dialogues between the Father and Son, on the necessity of establishing the epic machinery. Without these dialogues there could be no more narrative or action; the narrative and action are accounted for by the conversation of the uncreated beings.

I mention this, Sir, not to convince, but to show you how sound judgments can see the same object under different aspects. With you I dislike the description of torture, but I consider it absolutely necessary in a work upon Martyrs. It has been consecrated by all history and every art. Christian painting and sculpture have selected these subjects; herein lies the real controversy of the question. You, Sir, who are well acquainted with the details, know to what extent I have softened the picture, and how much I have suppressed of the Acta Martyrum, particularly in holding back physical agony, and in opposing agreeable images to harrowing torments. You are too just not to distinguish between the objections of the subject and the errors of the poet.

For the rest, you, Sir, well know the tempest raised against my work, and the source from whence they proceed. There is another sore not openly displayed, and which lies at the root of all this anger. It is that Hierocles massacres the Christians in the name of philosophy and liberty. Time will do me justice if my book deserves it, and you will greatly accelerate this judgment by publishing your articles, if you could be induced to modify them to a certain extent. Show me my faults and I will correct them. I only despise those writers, who are as contemptible in their language as in the secret reasons which prompt them to speak. I can neither find reason nor honour in the mouths of those literary mountebanks in the hire of the Police, who dance in the kennels for the amusement of lacqueys.

I am in my cottage, where I shall be delighted to hear from you. It would give me the greatest pleasure to receive you here, if you would be so kind as to visit me. Accept the assurance of my profound esteem and high consideration.

DE CHÂTEAUBRIAND.

THE VISCOUNT DE CHÂTEAUBRIAND TO M. GUIZOT.

Val-de-Loup, May 30th, 1809.

Sir,

Far from troubling me, you have given me the greatest pleasure in doing me the favour to communicate your ideas. This time I shall condemn the introduction of the marvellous in a Christian subject, and am willing to believe with you, that it will never be adopted in France. But I cannot admit that 'The Martyrs' are founded on a heresy. The question is not of a redemption, which would be absurd, but of an expiation, which is entirely consistent with faith. In all ages, the Church has held that the blood of a martyr could efface the sins of the people, and deliver them from their penalties. Undoubtedly you know, better than I do, that formerly, in times of war and calamity, a monk was confined in a tower or a cell, where he fasted and prayed for the salvation of all. I have not left my intention in doubt, for in the third Book I have caused it to be positively declared to the Eternal that Eudore will draw the blessings of Heaven upon the Christians through the merits of the blood of the Saviour. This, as you see, is precisely the orthodox phrase, and the exact lesson of the catechism. The doctrine of expiation, so consolatory in other respects, and consecrated by antiquity, has been acknowledged in our religion: its mission from Christ has not destroyed it. And I may observe, incidentally, that I hope the sacrifice of some innocent victim, condemned in the Revolution, will obtain from Heaven the pardon of our guilty country. Those whom we have slaughtered are, perhaps, praying for us at this very moment. Surely you cannot wish to renounce this sublime hope, which springs from the tears and blood of Christians.

In conclusion, the frankness and sincerity of your conduct make me forget for a moment the baseness of the present age. What can we think of a time when an honest man is told, "You will pronounce on such a work, such an opinion; you will praise or blame it, not according to your conscience, but according to the spirit of the journal in which you write"! We are too happy to find critics like you, who stand up against such conventional baseness, and preserve the tradition of honour for human nature. As a conclusive estimate, if you carefully examine 'The Martyrs,' undoubtedly you will find much to reprehend; but taking all points into consideration, you will see that in plan, characters, and style, it is the best and least defective of my feeble writings.

I have a nephew in Russia, named Moreau, the grandson of a sister of my mother; I am scarcely acquainted with him, but I believe him to be an honourable man. His father, who was also in Russia, returned to France about a year ago. I have been delighted with the opportunity which has procured for me the honour of becoming acquainted with Mademoiselle de Meulan; she has appeared to me, as in all that she writes, full of mind, good taste, and sense. I much fear that I inconvenienced her by the length of my visit; I have the fault of remaining wherever I find amiable acquaintances, and especially when I meet exalted characters and noble sentiments.

I repeat most sincerely the assurance of my high esteem, gratitude, and devotion. I look forward with impatience to the moment when I can either receive you in my hermitage, or visit you in your solitude.

Accept, I pray you, my sincerest compliments. DE CHÂTEAUBRIAND.

THE VISCOUNT DE CHÂTEAUBRIAND TO M. GUIZOT.

Val-de-Loup, June 12th, 1809.

Sir,

I happened to be absent from my valley for several days, which has prevented me from replying sooner to your letters. Behold me thoroughly convinced of heresy. I admit that the word redeemed escaped me inadvertently, and in truth contrary to my intention. But there it is, and I shall efface it from the next edition.

I have read your first two articles, and repeat my thanks for them. They are excellent, and you praise me far beyond what I deserve. What has been said with respect to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is quite correct. The description could only have been given by one who knows the localities. But the Holy Sepulchre itself might easily have escaped the fire without a special miracle. It forms, in the middle of the circular nave of the church, a kind of catafalque of white marble: the cupola of cedar, in falling, might have crushed it, but could not have set it on fire. It is nevertheless a very extraordinary circumstance, and one worthy of much longer details than can be confined within the limits of a letter.

I wish much that I could relate these particulars to you, personally, in your retirement. Unfortunately, Madame de Châteaubriand is ill, and I cannot leave her. But I do not give up the idea of paying you a visit, nor of receiving you here in my hermitage. Honourable men ought, particularly at present, to unite for mutual consolation. Generous ideas and exalted sentiments become every day so rare that we ought to be too happy when we encounter them. I should be delighted if my society could prove agreeable to you, as also to M. Stapfer, to whom I beg you will convey my warmest thanks.

Accept once more, I pray you, the assurance of my high consideration and sincere devotion, and if you will permit me to add, of a friendship which is commenced under the auspices of frankness and honour.

DE CHÂTEAUBRIAND.

The best description of Jerusalem is that of Danville; but his little treatise is very scarce. In general, all travellers are very exact as to Palestine; there is a letter in the 'Lettres Édifiantes' ('Missions to the Levant'), which leaves nothing to be desired. With regard to M. de Volney, he is valuable on the government of the Turks, but it is evident that he has not been at Jerusalem. It is probable that he never went beyond Ramleh or Rama, the ancient Arimathea. You may also consult the 'Theatrum Terræ Sanctæ' of Adrichomius.

No. II.

COUNT DE LALLY-TOLENDAL TO M. GUIZOT.

Brussels, April 27th, 1811.

Sir,

You will be unable to account for my silence, as I found it difficult to understand the tardy arrival of the prospectuses you had promised me in your letter of the fourth of this month. I must explain to you that the porter here had confounded that packet with the files of unimportant printed papers addressed to a Prefecture, and if the want of a book had not induced me to visit the private study of the Prefect, I should perhaps have not yet discovered the mistake. I thank you for the confidence with which you have treated me on this occasion. You are aware that no one renders you more than I do, the full justice to which you are entitled, and you also know that I accord it equally from inclination and conviction. My generation has passed away, yours is in full action, and a third is on the point of rising. I see you placed between two, to console the first, to do honour to the second, and to form the third. Endeavour to make the last like yourself; by which I do not mean that I wish all the little boys to know as much as you do, or all the little girls to resemble in everything, your more than amiable partner. We must not desire what we cannot obtain, and I should too much regret my own decline if such an attractive age were about to commence. But restrain my idea within its due limits, and dictate like Solon the best laws which the infancy of the nineteenth century can bear or receive; this will abundantly suffice. Today the mox progeniem daturos vitiosiorem would make one's hair stand on end.

Madame de la Tour du Pin, a Baroness of the Empire for two years, a Prefectess of the Dyle for three, and a religious mother for twenty, will recommend your journal with all the influence of her two first titles, and subscribes to it with all the interest that the last can inspire. I, who have no other pretension, and desire no other, than that of a father and a friend, request your permission to subscribe for my daughter, who, commencing the double education of a little Arnaud and a little Léontine, will be delighted to profit by your double instruction. I believe also that the grandfather himself will often obtain knowledge, and always pleasure, from the same source. It seems to me that no association could be more propitious to the union of the utile dulci. If I were to allow free scope to my pen, I feel assured that I should write thus like a madman to one of the two authors: "Not being able to make myself once more young, to adore your merits, I become an old infant, to receive your lessons. I kiss from a distance the hand of my youthful nurse, with the most profound respect, but not sufficiently abstracted from some of those emotions which have followed my first childhood, and which my second education ought to correct. Is it possible to submit to your rod with more ingenuousness? At least I confess my faults. As I am bound to speak the truth, I dare not yet add, this can never happen to me again. But the strong resolution will come with weak age; and the more I can transform myself, the nearer I shall approach perfection."

Will you be so kind as to present my respects to Madame and Mademoiselle de Meulan. Have you not a very excellent and amiable young man (another of the few who are consoled by elevation and purity of mind), the nephew of M. Hocher, residing under the same roof with yourself? If so, I beg you to recall me to his remembrance, and through him to that of his uncle, from whom I expect, with much anxiety, an answer upon a matter of the greatest interest to the uncle of my son-in-law, in the installation of the Imperial Courts. But nothing has arrived by the post.

I shall say nothing to you of our good and estimable friends of the Place Louis Quinze, for I am going to write to them directly.

But it has just occurred to me to entreat a favour of you before I close my letter. When, in your precepts to youth, you arrive at the chapter and age which treats of the choice of a profession, I implore you to insert something to this effect: "If your vocation leads you to be a publisher or editor of any work, moral, political, or historical, it matters not which, do not consider yourself at liberty to mutilate an author without his previous knowledge, and above all, one who is tenacious of the inviolability of his text more from conscience than self-love. If you mutilate him on your own responsibility, which is tolerably bold, do not believe that you are permitted to substitute a fictitious member of your own construction for the living one you have lopped off; and be cautious lest, without being aware of it, you replace an arm of flesh by a wooden leg. But break up all your presses rather than make him say, under the seal of his own signature, the contrary of what he has written, thought, or felt. To do this is an offence almost amounting to a moral crime." I write more at length on this topic to my friends of the Place Louis Quinze, and I beg you to speak to none but them of my enigma, which assuredly you have already solved; I hope that what has now offended and vexed me will not happen again. In saying what was necessary, I used very guarded expressions. I do not wish a rupture, the vengeance of which might fall on cherished memories or living friends. My letter has taken a very serious turn; I little thought, when I began, that it would lead me to this conclusion. I feel that I am in conversation with you, and carried away by full confidence. It is most gratifying to me to have added an involuntary proof of this sentiment to the spontaneous expression of all those with which you have so deeply inspired me, and the assurance of which I have the honour to repeat, accompanied by my sincere salutations.

LALLY-TOLENDAL.

P.S. Allow me to enclose the addresses for the two subscriptions.

No. III.

Discourse delivered by M. GUIZOT, on the opening of his first Course of Lectures on Modern History. December 11th, 1812.

A statesman equally celebrated for his character and misfortunes, Sir Walter Raleigh, had published the first part of a 'History of the World;' while confined in the Tower, he employed himself in finishing the second. A quarrel arose in one of the courts of the prison; he looked on attentively at the contest, which became sanguinary, and left the window with his imagination strongly impressed by the scene that had passed under his eyes. On the morrow a friend came to visit him, and related what had occurred. But great was his surprise when this friend, who had been present at and even engaged in the occurrence of the preceding day, proved to him that this event, in its result as well as in its particulars, was precisely the contrary of what he had believed he saw. Raleigh, when left alone, took up his manuscript and threw it in the fire; convinced that, as he had been so completely deceived with respect to the details of an incident he had actually witnessed, he could know nothing whatever of those he had just described with his pen.

Are we better informed or more fortunate than Sir Walter Raleigh? The most confident historian would hesitate to answer this question directly in the affirmative. History relates a long series of events, and depicts a vast number of characters; and let us recollect, gentlemen, the difficulty of thoroughly understanding a single character or a solitary event. Montaigne, after having passed his life in self-study, was continually making new discoveries on his own nature; he has filled a long work with them, and ends by saying, "Man is a subject so diversified, so uncertain and vain, that it is difficult to pronounce any fixed and uniform opinion on him." He is, in fact, an obscure compound of an infinity of ideas and sentiments, which change and modify themselves reciprocally, and of which it is as difficult to disentangle the sources as to foresee the results. An uncertain produce of a multiplicity of circumstances, sometimes impenetrable, always complicated, often unknown to the person influenced by them, and not even suspected by those who surround him, man scarcely learns how to know himself, and is never more than guessed at by others. The simplest mind, if it attempted to examine and describe itself, would impart to us a thousand secrets, of which we have not the most remote suspicion. And how many different men are comprised in an event! how many whose characters have influenced that event, and have modified its nature, progress, and effects! Bring together circumstances in perfect accordance; suppose situations exactly similar: let a single actor change, and all is changed. He is urged by fresh motives, and desires new objects. Take the same actors, and alter but one of those circumstances independent of human will, which are called chance or destiny; and all is changed again. It is from this infinity of details, where everything is obscure, and nothing isolated, that history is composed; and man, proud of what he knows, because he forgets to think of how much he is ignorant, believes that he has acquired a full knowledge of history when he has read what some few have told him, who had no better means of understanding the times in which they lived, than we possess of justly estimating our own.

What then are we to seek and find in the darkness of the past, which thickens as it recedes from us? If Cæsar, Sallust, or Tacitus have only been able to transmit doubtful and imperfect notions, can we rely on what they relate? And if we are not to trust them, how are we to supply ourselves with information? Shall we be capable of disembarrassing our minds of those ideas and manners, and of that new existence, which a new order of things has produced, to adopt momentarily in our thoughts other manners and ideas, and a different character of being? Must we learn to become Greeks, Romans, or Barbarians, in order to understand these Romans, Barbarians, or Greeks, before we venture to judge them? And even if we could attain this difficult abnegation of an actual and imperious reality, should we become then as well acquainted with the history of the times of which they tell us, as were Cæsar, Sallust, or Tacitus? After being thus transported to the midst of the world they describe, we should find gaps in their delineations, of which we have at present no conception, and of which they were not always sensible themselves. That multiplicity of facts which, grouped together and viewed from a distance, appear to fill time and space, would present to us, if we found ourselves placed on the ground they occupy, as voids which we should find it impossible to fill up, and which the historians leave there designedly, because he who relates or describes what he sees, to others who see equally with himself, never feels called upon to recapitulate all that he knows.

Let us therefore refrain from supposing that history can present to us, in reality, an exact picture of the past; the world is too extensive, the night of time too obscure, and man too weak for such a portrait to be ever a complete reflection.

But can it be true that such important knowledge is entirely interdicted to us?--that in what we can acquire, all is a subject of doubt and error? Does the mind only enlighten itself to increase its wavering? Does it develope all its strength, merely to end in a confession of ignorance?--a painful and disheartening idea, which many men of superior intellect have encountered in their course, but by which they ought never to have been impeded!

Man seldom asks himself what he really requires to know, in his ardent pursuit of knowledge; he need only cast a glance upon his studies, to discover two divisions, the difference between which is striking, although we may be unable to assign the boundaries that separate them. Everywhere we perceive a certain innocent but futile labour, which attaches itself to questions and inquiries equally inaccessible and without results--which has no other object than to satisfy the restless curiosity of minds, the first want of which is occupation; and everywhere, also, we observe useful, productive, and interesting inquiry, not only advantageous to those who indulge in it, but beneficial to human nature at large. What time and talent have men wasted in metaphysical lucubrations! They have sought to penetrate the internal nature of things, of the mind, and of matter; they have taken purely vague combinations of words for substantial realities; but these very researches, or others which have arisen out of them, have enlightened us upon the order of our faculties, the laws by which they are governed, and the progress of their development; we have acquired from thence a history, a statistic of the human mind; and if no one has been able to tell us what it is, we have at least learned how it acts, and how we ought to act to strengthen its justice and extend its range.

Was not the study of astronomy for a long time directed to the dreams of astrology? Gassendi himself began to investigate it with that view; and when science cured him of the prejudices of superstition, he repented that he so openly declared his conversion, because, he said, many persons formerly studied astronomy to become astrologers, and he now perceived that they ceased to learn astronomy, since he had condemned astrology. Who then can prove to us that, without the restlessness of anticipation which had led men to seek the future in the stars, the science, by which today our ships are directed, would ever have reached its present perfection?

It is thus that we shall ever find, in the labours of man, one half fruitless, by the side of another moiety profitable; we shall then no longer condemn the curiosity which leads to knowledge; we shall acknowledge that, if the human mind often wanders in its path, if it has not always selected the most direct road, it has finally arrived, by the necessity of its nature, at the discovery of important truths; but, with progressive enlightenment, we shall endeavour not to lose time, to go straight to the end by concentrating our strength on fruitful inquiries and profitable results; and we shall soon convince ourselves that what man cannot do is valueless, and that he can achieve all that is necessary.

The application of this idea to history will soon remove the difficulty which its uncertainty raised at the outset. For example, it is of little consequence to us to know the exact personal appearance or the precise day of the birth of Constantine; to ascertain what particular motives or individual feelings may have influenced his determination or conduct on any given occasion; to be acquainted with all the details of his wars and victories in the struggles with Maxentius or Licinius: these minor points concern the monarch alone; and the monarch exists no longer. The anxiety some scholars display in hunting them out is merely a consequence of the interest which attaches to great names and important reminiscences. But the results of the conversion of Constantine, his administrative system, the political and religious principles which he established in his empire,--these are the matters which it imports the present generation to investigate; for they do not expire with a particular age, they form the destiny and glory of nations, they confer or take away the use of the most noble faculties of man; they either plunge them silently into a state of misery alternately submissive and rebellious, or establish for them the foundation of a lasting happiness.

It may be said, to a certain extent, that there are two pasts, the one entirely extinct and without real interest, because its influence has not extended beyond its actual duration; the other enduring for ever by the empire it has exercised over succeeding ages, and by that alone preserved to our knowledge, since what remains of it is there to enlighten us upon what has perished. History presents us, at every epoch, with some predominant ideas, some great events which have decided the fortune and character of a long series of generations. These ideas and events have left monuments which still remain, or which long remained, on the face of the world; an extended trace, in perpetuating the memory and effect of their existence, has multiplied the materials suitable for our guidance in the researches of which they are the object; reason itself can here supply us with its positive data to conduct us through the uncertain labyrinth of facts. In a past event there may have been some particular circumstance at present unknown, which would completely alter the idea we have formed of it. Thus, we shall never discover the reason which delayed Hannibal at Capua, and saved Rome; but in an effect which has endured for a long time, we easily ascertain the nature of its cause. The despotic authority which the Roman Senate exercised for ages over the people, explains to us the ideas of liberty within which the Senators restricted themselves when they expelled their kings. Let us then follow the path in which we can have reason for our guide; let us apply the principles, with which she furnishes us, to the examples borrowed from history. Man, in the ignorance and weakness to which the narrow limits of his life and faculties condemn him, has received reason to supply knowledge, as industry is given to him in place of strength.

Such, gentlemen, is the point of view under which we shall endeavour to contemplate history. We shall seek, in the annals of nations, a knowledge of the human race; we shall try to discover what, in every age and state of civilization, have been the prevailing ideas and principles in general adoption, which have produced the happiness or misery of the generations subjected to their power, and have influenced the destiny of those which succeeded them. The subject is one of the most abundant in considerations of this nature. History presents to us periods of development, during which man, emerging from a state of barbarism and ignorance, arrives gradually at a condition of science and advancement, which may decline, but can never perish, for knowledge is an inheritance that always finds heirs. The civilization of the Egyptians and Phoenicians prepared that of the Greeks; while that of the Romans was not lost to the barbarians who established themselves upon the ruins of the Empire. No preceding age has ever enjoyed the advantage we possess, of studying this slow but real progression: while looking back on the past, we can recognize the route which the human race has followed in Europe for more than two thousand years. Modern history alone, from its vast scope, from the variety and extent of its duration, offers us the grandest and most complete picture which we could possibly possess of the civilization of a certain portion of the globe. A rapid glance will suffice to indicate the character and interest of the subject.

Rome had conquered what her pride delighted to call the world. Western Asia, from the frontiers of Persia, the North of Africa, Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, all the countries situated on the right bank of the Danube, from its source to its mouth, Italy, Gaul, Great Britain, and Spain, acknowledged her authority. That authority extended over more than a thousand leagues in breadth, from the Wall of Antoninus and the southern boundaries of Dacia, to Mount Atlas;--and beyond fifteen hundred leagues in length, from the Euphrates to the Western Ocean. But if the immense extent of these conquests at first surprises the imagination, the astonishment diminishes when we consider how easy they were of accomplishment, and how uncertain of duration. In Asia, Rome had only to contend with effeminate races; in Europe, with ignorant savages, whose governments, without union, regularity, or vigour, were unable to contend with the strong constitution of the Roman aristocracy. Let us pause a moment to reflect on this. Rome found it more difficult to defend herself against Hannibal than to subjugate the world; and as soon as the world was subdued, Rome began to lose, by degrees, all that she had won by conquest. How could she maintain her power? The comparative state of civilization between the victors and the vanquished had prevented union or consolidation into one substantial and homogeneous whole; there was no extended and regular administration, no general and safe communication; the provinces were only connected with Rome by the tribute they paid; Rome was unknown in the provinces, except by the tribute she exacted. Everywhere, in Asia Minor, in Africa, in Spain, in Britain, in the North of Gallia, small colonies defended and maintained their independence; all the power of the Emperors was inadequate to compel the submission of the Isaurians. The whole formed a chaos of nations half vanquished and semi-barbarous, without interest or existence in the State of which they were considered a portion, and which Rome denominated the Empire.

No sooner was this Empire conquered, than it began to dissolve, and that haughty city which looked upon every region as subdued where she could, by maintaining an army, appoint a proconsul, and levy imposts, soon saw herself compelled to abandon, almost voluntarily, the possessions she was unable to retain. In the year of Christ 270, Aurelian retired from Dacia, and tacitly abandoned that territory to the Goths; in 412, Honorius recognized the independence of Great Britain and Armorica; in 428, he wished the inhabitants of Gallia Narbonensis to govern themselves. On all sides we see the Romans abandoning, without being driven out, countries whose obedience, according to the expression of Montesquieu, weighed upon them, and which, never having been incorporated with the Empire, were sure to separate from it on the first shock.

The shock came from a quarter which the Romans, notwithstanding their pride, had never considered one of their provinces. Even more barbarous than the Gauls, the Britons, and the Spaniards, the Germans had never been conquered, because their innumerable tribes, without fixed residences or country, ever ready to advance or retreat, sometimes threw themselves, with their wives and flocks, upon the possessions of Rome, and at others retired before her armies, leaving nothing for conquest but a country without inhabitants, which they re-occupied as soon as the weakness or distance of the conquerors afforded them the opportunity. It is to this wandering life of a hunting nation, to this facility of flight and return, rather than to superior bravery, that the Germans were indebted for the preservation of their independence. The Gauls and Spaniards had also defended themselves courageously; but the one, surrounded by the ocean, knew not where to fly from enemies they could not expel; and the other, in a state of more advanced civilization, attacked by the Romans, to whom the Narbonnese province afforded, in the very heart of Gaul itself, an impregnable base, and repulsed by the Germans from the land into which they might have escaped, were also compelled to submit. Drusus and Germanicus had long before penetrated into Germany; they withdrew, because the Germans always retreating before them, they would, by remaining, have only occupied territory without subjects.

When, from causes not connected with the Roman Empire, the Tartar tribes who wandered through the deserts of Sarmatia and Scythia, from the northern frontiers of China, marched upon Germany, the Germans, pressed by these new invaders, threw themselves upon the Roman provinces, to conquer possessions where they might establish themselves in perpetuity. Rome then fought in defence; the struggle was protracted; the skill and courage of some of the Emperors for a long time opposed a powerful barrier; but the Barbarians were the ultimate conquerors, because it was imperative on them to win the victory, and their swarms of warriors were inexhaustible. The Visigoths, the Alani, and the Suevi established themselves in the South, of Gaul and Spain; the Vandals passed over into Africa; the Huns occupied the banks of the Danube; the Ostrogoths founded their kingdom in Italy; the Franks in the North of Gaul; Rome ceased to call herself the mistress of Europe; Constantinople does not apply to our present subject.

Those nations of the East and the North who transported themselves in a mass into the countries where they were destined to found States, the more durable because they conquered not to extend but to establish themselves, were barbarians, such as the Romans themselves had long remained. Force was their law, savage independence their delight; they were free because none of them had ever thought or believed that men as strong as themselves would submit to their domination; they were brave because courage with them was a necessity; they loved war because war brings occupation without labour; they desired lands because these new possessions supplied them with a thousand novel sources of enjoyment, which they could indulge in while giving themselves up to idleness. They had chiefs because men leagued together always have leaders, and because the bravest, ever held in high consideration, soon become the most powerful, and bequeath to their descendants a portion of their own personal influence. These chiefs became kings; the old subjects of Rome, who at first had only been called upon to receive, to lodge, and feed their new masters, were soon compelled to surrender to them a portion of their estates; and as the labourer, as well as the plant, attaches himself to the soil that nourishes him, the lands and the labourers became the property of these turbulent and lazy owners. Thus feudalism was established,--not suddenly, not by an express convention between the chief and his followers, not by an immediate and regular division of the conquered country amongst the conquerors, but by degrees, after long years of uncertainty, by the simple force of circumstances, as must always happen when conquest is followed by transplantation and continued possession.

We should be wrong in supposing that the barbarians were destitute of all moral convictions. Man, in that early epoch of civilization, does not reflect upon what we call duties; but he knows and respects, amongst his fellow-beings, certain rights, some traces of which are discoverable even under the empire of the most absolute force. A simple code of justice, often violated, and cruelly avenged, regulates the simple intercourse of associated savages. The Germans, unacquainted with any other laws or ties, found themselves suddenly transported into the midst of an order of things founded on different ideas, and demanding different restrictions. This gave them no trouble; their passage was too rapid to enable them to ascertain and supply what was deficient in their legislature and policy. Bestowing little thought on their new subjects, they continued to follow the same principles and customs which recently, in the forests of Germany, had regulated their conduct and decided their quarrels. Thus the conquered people were, at first, more forgotten than vanquished, more despised than oppressed; they constituted the mass of the nation, and this mass found itself controlled without being reduced to servitude, because they were not thought of, and because the conquerors never suspected that they could possess rights which they feared to defend. From thence sprang, in the sequel, that long disorder at the commencement of the Middle Ages, during which everything was isolated, fortuitous, and partial; hence also proceeded the absolute separation between the nobles and the people, and those abuses of the feudal system which only became portions of a system when long possession had caused to be looked upon as a right, what at first was only the produce of conquest and chance.

The clergy alone, to whom the conversion of the victors afforded the means of acquiring a power so much the greater that its force and extent could only be judged by the opinion it directed, maintained their privileges, and secured their independence. The religion which the Germans embraced became the only channel through which they derived new ideas, the sole point of contact between them and the inhabitants of their adopted country. The clergy, at first, thought only of their own interest; in this mode of communication, all the immediate advantages of the invasion of the barbarians were reaped by them for themselves. The liberal and beneficent influences of Christianity expanded slowly; that of religious animosity and theological dispute was the first to make itself felt. It was only in the class occupied by those dissensions, and excited by those rancorous feelings, that energetic men were yet to be found in the Roman Empire; religious sentiments and duties had revived, in hearts penetrated with their importance, a degree of zeal long extinguished. St. Athanasius and St. Ambrose had alone resisted Constantine and Theodosius; their successors were the sole opponents who withstood the barbarians. This gave rise to the long empire of spiritual power, sustained with devotion and perseverance, and so weakly or fruitlessly assailed. We may say now, without fear, that the noblest characters, the men most distinguished by their ability or courage, throughout this period of misfortune and calamity, belonged to the ecclesiastical order; and no other epoch of history supplies, in such a remarkable manner, the confirmation of this truth, so honourable to human nature, and perhaps the most instructive of all others,--that the most exalted virtues still spring up and develope themselves in the bosom of the most pernicious errors.

To these general features, intended to depict the ideas, manners, and conditions of men during the Middle Ages, it would be easy to add others, not less characteristic, and infinitely more minute. We should find poetry and literature, those beautiful and delightful emanations of the mind, the seeds of which have never been choked by all the follies and miseries of humanity, take birth in the very heart of barbarism, and charm the barbarians themselves by a new species of enjoyment. We should find the source and true character of that poetical, warlike, and religious enthusiasm which created chivalry and the crusades. We should probably discover, in the wandering lives of the knights and crusaders, the reflected influence of the roving habits of the German hunters, of that propensity to remove, and that superabundance of population, which ever exist where social order is not sufficiently well regulated for man to feel satisfied with his condition and locality; and before laborious industry has taught him to compel the earth to supply him with certain and abundant subsistence. Perhaps, also, that principle of honour which inviolably attached the German barbarians to a leader of their own choice, that individual liberty of which it was the fruit, and which gives man such an elevated idea of his own individual importance; that empire of the imagination which obtains such control over all young nations, and induces them to attempt the first steps beyond physical wants and purely material incitements, might furnish us with the causes of the elevation, enthusiasm, and devotion which, sometimes detaching the nobles of the Middle Ages from their habitual rudeness, inspired them with the noble sentiments and virtues that even in the present day command our admiration. We should then feel little surprised at seeing barbarity and heroism united, so much energy combined with so much weakness, and the natural coarseness of man in a savage state blended with the most sublime aspirations of moral refinement.

It was reserved for the latter half of the fifteenth century to witness the birth of events destined to introduce new manners and a fresh order of politics into Europe, and to lead the world towards the direction it follows at present. Italy, we may say, discovered the civilization of the Greeks; the letters, arts, and ideas of that brilliant antiquity inspired universal enthusiasm. The long quarrels of the Italian Republics, after having forced men to display their utmost energy, made them also feel the necessity of a period of repose ennobled and charmed by the occupations of the mind. The study of classic literature supplied the means; they were seized with ardour. Popes, cardinals, princes, nobles, and men of genius gave themselves up to learned researches; they wrote to each other, they travelled to communicate their mutual labours, to discover, to read, and to copy ancient manuscripts. The discovery of printing came to render these communications easy and prompt; to make this commerce of the mind extended and prolific. No other event has so powerfully influenced human civilization. Books became a tribune from which the world was addressed. That world was soon doubled. The compass opened safe roads across the monotonous immensity of the seas. America was discovered; and the sight of new manners, the agitation of new interests which were no longer the trifling concerns of one town or castle with another, but the great transactions of mighty powers, changed entirely the ideas of individuals and the political intercourse of States.

The invention of gunpowder had already altered their military relations; the issue of battles no longer depended on the isolated bravery of warriors, but on the power and skill of leaders. It has not yet been sufficiently investigated to what extent this discovery has secured monarchical authority, and given rise to the balance of power.

Finally, the Reformation struck a deadly blow against spiritual supremacy, the consequences of which are attributable to the bold examination of the theological questions and political shocks which led to the separation of religious sects, rather than to the new dogmas adopted by the Reformers as the foundation of their belief.

Figure to yourselves, gentlemen, the effect which these united causes were calculated to produce in the midst of the fermentation by which the human species was at that time excited, in the progress of the superabundant energy and activity which characterized the Middle Ages. From that time, this activity, so long unregulated, began to organize itself and advance towards a defined object; this energy submitted to laws; isolation disappeared; the human race formed itself into one great body; public opinion assumed influence; and if an age of civil wars, of religious dissensions, presents the lengthened echo of that powerful shock which towards the end of the fifteenth century staggered Europe, under so many different forms, it is not the less to the ideas and discoveries which produced that blow that we are indebted for the two centuries of splendour, order, and peace during which civilization has reached the point where we find it in the present day.

This is not the place to follow the march of human nature during these two centuries. That history is so extensive, and composed of so many relations, alternately vast and minute, but always important; of so many events closely connected, brought about by causes so mixed together, and causes in their turn productive of such numerous effects, of so many different labours, that it is impossible to recapitulate them within a limited compass. Never have so many powerful and neighbouring States exercised upon each other such constant and complicated influence; never has their interior structure presented so many ramifications to study; never has the human mind advanced at once upon so many different roads; never have so many events, actors, and ideas been engaged in such an extended space, or produced such interesting and instructive results. Perhaps on some future occasion we may enter into this maze, and look for the clew to guide us through it. Called upon, at present, to study the first ages of modern history, we shall seek for their cradle in the forests of Germany, the country of our ancestors; after having drawn a picture of their manners, as complete as the number of facts which have reached our knowledge, the actual state of our information, and my efforts to reach that level will permit, we shall then cast a glance upon the condition of the Roman Empire at the moment when the barbarians invaded it to attempt establishment; after that we shall investigate the long struggles which ensued between them and Rome, from their irruption into the West and South of Europe, down to the foundation of the principal modern monarchies. This foundation will thus become for us a resting-point, from whence we shall depart again to follow the course of the history of Europe, which is in fact our own; for if unity, the fruit of the Roman dominion, disappeared with it, there are always, nevertheless, between the different nations which rose upon its ruins, relations so multiplied, so continued, and so important, that from them, in the whole of modern history taken together, an actual unity results which we shall be compelled to acknowledge. This task is enormous; and when we contemplate its full extent, it is impossible not to recoil before the difficulty. Judge then, gentlemen, whether I ought not to tremble at such an undertaking; but your indulgence and zeal will make up for the weakness of my resources: I shall be more than repaid if I am able to assist you in advancing even a few steps on the road which leads to truth!

No. IV.

THE ABBÉ DE MONTESQUIOU TO M. GUIZOT.

March 31st, 1815.

I am not, my dear Sir, so lost to my friends that I have forgotten their friendship: yours has had many charms for me. I do not reproach myself with the poor trick I have played you. Your age does not run a long lease with mine. We can only show the public the objects worthy of their confidence; and I congratulate myself with having left them an impression of you which will not readily be effaced. I have been less fortunate on my own account, and can only deplore that fatality which has triumphed over my convictions, my repugnances, and the immeasurable consolations which friendship has bestowed on me. Let my example be profitable to you on some future occasion. Give to public affairs the period of your strength, but not that which requires repose alone; the interval will be long enough, at your time of life, to enable you to arrive at much distinction. I shall enjoy it with the interest which you know I feel, and with all the warm feelings with which your attachment has inspired me. Present my respects to Madame Guizot; it is to her I offer my apologies for having disturbed her tranquillity. But I hope her infant will profit by the strong food we have already administered to it. Allow me to request some token of remembrance from her as well as from yourself, for all the sentiments of respect and friendship I have vowed to you for life.

THE ABBÉ DE MONTESQUIOU TO M. GUIZOT.

Plaisance, June 8th, 1816.

I was expecting to hear from you, my dear friend, with much impatience, and I now thank you sincerely for having written to me. It was not that I doubted your philosophy; you know that those who precede their age learn too soon the uncertainty of all human affairs; but I feared lest your taste for your early avocations might induce you to abandon public affairs, for which you have evinced such ready ability; and we are not rich enough to make sacrifices. I feel very happy at being satisfied on this point, and leave the rest to the caprices of that destiny which can scarcely be harsh towards you. You will be distinguished at the Council, as you have been in all other situations; and it must naturally follow, that the better you are known, your career will become the more brilliant and secure. Youth, which feels its power, ought always to say, with the Cardinal de Bernis, "My Lord, I shall wait." The more I see of France, the more I am impressed with the truth, that those who believe they have secured the State by compromising the royal authority in these distant departments, have committed a mistake. All that are honest and rational are royalists; but, thanks to our own dissensions, they no longer know how to show themselves such. They thought until then, that to serve the King was to do what he required through the voice of his ministers, and they have been lately told that this was an error, but they have been left in ignorance as to who are his Majesty's real organs. The enemies to our repose profit by this. The most absurd stories are propagated amongst the people, and all are the people at so great a distance. I can imagine that the character of these disturbers varies in our different provinces. In this, where we have no large towns, and no aristocracy, we lie at the mercy of all who pretend to know more than ourselves. Great credit thus attaches to the Half-pays, who, belonging more to the people than to any other class, and not being able to digest their last disappointment, trade upon it in every possible manner, and are always believed because they are the richest in their immediate locality. The gentlemen Deputies come next upon the list, estimating themselves as little proconsuls, disposing of all places, and setting aside prefects. Thus you see how little authority remains with the King, whose agents are masters and do nothing in his name. As to the administration of justice, you may readily suppose that no one thinks of it. The people are in want of bread; their harvest rots under continual rains; the roads are horrible, the hospitals in the greatest misery; nothing remains but dismissals, accusations, and deputations. If you could change them for a little royal authority, we might still see the end of our sufferings; but make haste, for when the month of October has arrived it will be too late.

Adieu, my dear friend, present my respects to Madame Guizot, and receive the fullest assurance of my good wishes.

No. V.

Fragments selected from a Pamphlet by M. GUIZOT, entitled 'Thoughts upon the Liberty of the Press,' 1814.

Many of the calamities of France, calamities which might be indefinitely prolonged if they were not attacked at their source, arise, as I have just said, from the ignorance to which the French people have been condemned as to the affairs and position of the State, to the system of falsehood adopted by a Government which required everything to be concealed, and to the indifference and suspicion with which this habitual deceit and falsehood had inspired the citizens. It is truth, therefore, which ought to appear in broad daylight; it is obscurity which ought to be dissipated, if we wish to re-establish confidence and revive zeal. It will not suffice that the intentions of Government should be good, or its words sincere; it is requisite that the people should be convinced of this, and should be supplied with the means of satisfying themselves. When we have been for a long time tricked by an impostor, we become doubtful even of an honest man; and all our proverbs on the melancholy suspicion of old age are founded on this truth ...

The nation, so long deceived, expects the truth from every quarter; at present, it has a hope of accomplishing this object. It demands it with anxiety from its representatives, its administrators, and from all who are believed capable of imparting it. The more it has been withheld up to this period, the more precious it will be considered. There will be this advantage, that it will be hailed with transport by the people as soon as they satisfy themselves that it may be trusted; and there will be a corresponding evil,--they will listen to it without fear, when they discover that they are left in freedom to deliver their opinions, and to labour openly in its support. No one questions the embarrassments which truth will dissipate, or the references it will supply. A nation from whom it has been sedulously withheld, soon believes that something hostile is in agitation, and recoils back into mistrust. But when the truth is openly manifested, when a Government displays a noble confidence in its own sentiments and in the good feeling of its subjects, this confidence excites theirs in return, and calls up all their zeal.... The French, certain to understand, and quick to utter truth, will soon abandon that injurious tendency to suspicion which leads them from all esteem for their head, and all devotion to the State. The most indifferent spirits will resume an interest in public affairs, when they discover that they can take a part in them; the most apprehensive will cease their fears when they cease to live in clouds; they will no longer be continually occupied in calculating how much they should reject out of the speeches that are addressed to them, the recitals delivered and the portions presented for investigation; or how much artifice, dangerous intention, or afterthought remains hidden in all that proceeds from the throne.... An extended liberty of the press can alone, while restoring confidence, give back that energy to the King and the people which neither can dispense with: it is the life of the soul that requires to be revived in the nation in which it has been extinguished by despotism; that life lies in the free action of the press, and thought can only expand and develope itself in full publicity. No one in France can longer dread the oppression under which we have lived for ten years; but if the want of action which weakness engenders were to succeed that which tyranny imposes;--if the weight of a terrible and mute agitation should be replaced only by the languor of repose, we should never witness a renewal in France of that national activity, that brave and generous disposition which makes many sacrifices to duty;--finally, of that confidence in the sovereign, the necessity of which will be more acknowledged every day. We should merely obtain from the nation a barren tranquillity, the insufficiency of which would compel recourse to measures evil in themselves, and very far removed from the paternal intentions of the King.

Let us, on the contrary, adopt a system of liberty and frankness; let truth circulate freely from the throne to the people, and from the people to the throne; let the paths be opened to those who ought to speak freely, and to others who desire to learn; we shall then see apathy dissipate, suspicion vanish, and loyalty become general and spontaneous, from the certainty of its necessity and usefulness.

Unfortunately, during the twenty-five years which have recently elapsed, we have so deplorably abused many advantages, that, at present, to name them suffices to excite the most deplorable apprehensions. We are not inclined to take into consideration the difference of the times, of situation, of the march of opinion, or of the temperament of men's minds: we look upon as always dangerous what has once proved fatal; we think and act as mothers might do, who, because they saw the infant fall, would prevent the youth from walking.... This inclination is general; we retrace it under every form; and those who have closely observed it will have little trouble in satisfying themselves that perfect liberty of the press, at least with regard to political questions, would, in the present day, be almost without danger. Those who fear it fancy themselves still at the beginning of the Revolution--at that epoch when all passions sought only to display themselves, when violence was the popular characteristic, and reason obtained only a contemptuous smile. Nothing can be more dissimilar than that time and the present; and, from the very cause that unlicensed freedom then gave rise to the most disastrous evils, we may infer, unless I deceive myself, that very few would now spring from the same source.

Nevertheless, as many people appear to dread such a result; as I am unwilling to affirm that the experiment might not be followed by certain inconveniences, more mischievous from the fear they would inspire than from the actual consequences they might introduce;--as in the state in which we find ourselves, without a guide in the experience of the past, or certain data for the future, it is natural that we should advance cautiously; and as the spirit of the nation seems to indicate that in every respect circumspection is necessary, the opinions of those who think that some restrictions should be imposed, ought, perhaps, to prevail. For twenty-five years the nation has been so utterly a stranger to habits of true liberty, it has passed through so many different forms of despotism, and the last was felt to be so oppressive, that, in restoring freedom, we may dread inexperience more than impetuosity; it would not dream of attack, but it might prove unequal to defence; in the midst of the necessity for order and peace which is universally felt, in the midst of a collision of opposing interests which must be carefully dealt with, Government may wish, and with reason, to avoid the appearance of clashing and disturbance, which might probably be without importance, but the danger of which would be exaggerated by imagination.

The question then reduces itself to this:--What are, under existing circumstances, the causes which call for a certain restraint in the liberty of the press? and by what restrictions, conformable to the nature of these causes, can we modify without destroying its freedom? and how shall we gradually remove these qualifications, for the present considered necessary?

All liberty is placed between oppression and license: the liberty of man in the social state is necessarily restrained by certain laws, the abuse or oblivion of which are equally dangerous; but the circumstances which expose society to either of these perils are different. In a well-established government, solidly constituted, the danger against which the friends of liberty have to contend is oppression: all is there combined for the maintenance of law; all tends to support vigorous discipline, against which every individual labours to retain the share of freedom which is his due; the function of government is to support order; that of the governed to watch over liberty.

The state of things is entirely different in a government only commencing. If it follows a period of misfortune and disturbance, during which morality and reason have been equally perverted,--when passions have been indulged without curb, when private interests have been paraded without shame,--then oppression falls within the number of dangers which are only to be anticipated, while license is that which must be directly opposed. Our Government has not yet attained its full strength; it is not yet possessed of all the means which are to be placed at its disposal to maintain order and rule: before acquiring all, it will be careful not to abuse any; and the governed, who are still without some of the advantages of order, wish to possess all those of confusion. They are not yet sufficiently sure of their own tranquillity, to abstain from attacking that of others. Every one is ready to inflict the blow he is exposed to receive; we offend with impunity the laws which have not yet foreseen all the methods that may be adopted to elude them; we brave without danger the authorities which cannot yet appeal, in their own support, to the experience of the happiness enjoyed under their auspices. It is, then, against particular attempts that constant watch should be kept; thus it becomes necessary to protect liberty from the outrages of license, and sometimes to prevent a strong government from being reduced to defence when uncertain of commanding obedience.

Thus, unrestricted liberty of the press, without detrimental consequences in a state of government free, happy, and strongly constituted, might prove injurious under a system only commencing, and in which the citizens have still to acquire liberty and prosperity. In the first case there is no danger in allowing freedom of thought and utterance to all, because, if the order of things is good, the great majority of the members of society will be disposed to support it, and also because the nation, enlightened by its actual happiness, will not be easily drawn to the pursuit of something always represented as better, but ever uncertain of acquirement. In the second case, on the contrary, the passions and interests of many individuals, differing in themselves, and all, more or less, abstracted from any feeling for the public good, are neither instructed by prosperity nor enlightened by experience; there exist therefore in the nation very few barriers against the plotters of evil, while in the government there are many gaps through which disorder may introduce itself: every species of ambition revives, and none can tell on what point to settle; all seek their place, without being sure of finding it; common sense, which invents nothing, but knows how to select, has no fixed rule upon which to act; the bewildered multitude, who are directed by nothing and have not yet learned to direct themselves, know not what guide to follow; and in the midst of so many contradictory ideas, and incapable of separating truth from falsehood, the least evil that can happen is, that they may determine to remain in their ignorance and stupidity. While information is still so sparingly disseminated, the license of the press becomes an important obstacle to its progress; men, little accustomed to reason upon certain matters, and poor in positive knowledge, adopt too readily the errors which are propagated from every quarter, and find it difficult to distinguish readily the truth when presented to them; thence originate a host of false and crude notions, a multiplicity of judgments adopted without examination, and a pretended acquirement, the more mischievous as, occupying the place which reason alone should hold, it for a long time interdicts her approach.

The Revolution has proved to us the danger arising from knowledge so erroneously obtained. From this danger we are now called on to protect ourselves. It is better to confess the fact: we have learned wisdom from misfortune; but the despotism of the last ten years has extinguished, for the greater part of the French people, the light we might thence have derived. Some individuals, undoubtedly, have continued to reflect, to observe, and to study--they have been instructed by the very despotism which oppressed them; but the nation in general, crushed and unfortunate, has found itself arrested in the development of its intellectual faculties. When we look closely into the fact, we feel surprised and almost ashamed of our national thoughtlessness and ignorance; we feel the necessity of emerging from it. The most oppressive yoke alone was able to reduce, and could again reduce it for a certain time to silence and inaction; but it requires to be propped and guided, and, after so much experimental imprudence, for the interest even of reason and knowledge, the liberty of the press, which we have never yet enjoyed, ought to be attempted with caution.

Regarded in this point of view, the restrictions which may be applied will less startle the friends of truth and justice; they will see in them nothing more than a concession to existing circumstances, dictated solely by the interest of the nation; and if care is taken to limit this concession so that it may never become dangerous; if, in establishing a barrier against license, a door is always left open for liberty; if the object of these restrictions is evidently to prepare the French people to dispense with them, and to arrive hereafter at perfect freedom; if they are so combined and modified that the liberty may go on increasing until the nation becomes more capable of enjoying it profitably;--finally, if, instead of impeding the progress of the human mind, they are only calculated to assure it, and to direct the course of the most enlightened spirits;--so far from considering them as an attack upon the principles of justice, we shall see in them a measure of prudence, a guarantee for public order, and a new motive for hoping that the overthrow of that order will never again occur to disturb or retard the French nation in the career of truth and reason.

No. VI.

Report to the King, and Royal Decree for the Reform of Public Instruction, February 17th, 1815.

Louis, by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre, to all who may receive these presents, they come greeting.

Having had an account delivered to us, of the state of public instruction in our kingdom, we have observed that it rested upon institutions destined to advance the political views of the Government which had formed them, rather than to extend to our subjects the advantages of moral education, conformable with the necessities of the age. We have rendered justice to the wisdom and zeal of all who were appointed to watch over and direct instruction. We have seen with satisfaction that they have never ceased to struggle against the obstacles which the times opposed to them, and also to the institutions which they were called to put in force. But we have felt the necessity of reforming these institutions, and of bringing back national education to its true object; which is, to disseminate sound doctrines, to maintain good manners, and to train men who, by their knowledge and virtue, may communicate to society the profitable lessons and wise examples they have received from their masters.

We have maturely considered these institutions, which we now propose to reform; and it appears to us that a system of single and absolute authority is incompatible with our paternal intentions and with the liberal spirit of our government;

That this authority, essentially occupied in the direction of the whole, was to a certain extent condemned to be in ignorance or neglectful of those details of daily examination, which can only be intrusted to local supervisors better informed as to the necessities, and more directly interested in the prosperity of the establishments committed to their charge;

That the right of nomination to all these situations, concentrated in the hands of a single person, left too much opening for error, and too much influence to favour, weakening the impulse of emulation, and reducing the teachers to a state of dependence ill suited to the honourable post they occupied, and to the importance of their functions;

That this dependence and the too frequent removals which are the inevitable result, rendered the position of the teachers uncertain and precarious; was injurious to the consideration they ought to enjoy to induce them to work zealously in their laborious vocations; and prevented, between them and the relations of their pupils, that confidence which results from long service and old habits; and thus deprived them of the most gratifying reward they could attain--the respect and affection of the countries to which they have dedicated their talents and their lives;

Finally, that the tax of one-twentieth of the costs of instruction, levied upon all the pupils of the lyceums, colleges, and schools, and applied to expenses from which those who pay it derive no immediate advantage, and which charges may be considerably reduced, are in opposition to our desire of favouring good and profitable studies, and of extending the benefits of education to all classes of our subjects.

Wishing to enable ourselves, as soon as possible, to lay before the two Chambers the bills which are intended to establish the system of public instruction throughout France, and to provide for the necessary expenses, we have resolved to establish provisionally the reforms best adapted to supply the experience and information which we still require, to accomplish this object; and in place of the tax of one-twentieth on the costs of instruction, the abolition of which we are not inclined to defer, it has pleased us to appropriate, from our Civil List, the sum of one million, which will be employed during the present year, 1815, for the use of public instruction in this our kingdom.

For these reasons, and on the report of our Minister the Secretary of State for the Department of the Interior, and by and with the advice of our Council of State, we have decreed, and do decree, as follows:--

TITLE I.

General Arrangements.

Article 1. The divisions arranged under the name of Academies by the decree of the 17th of May, 1808, are reduced to seventeen, conformably to the table at present annexed. They will assume the title of Universities.

The Universities will be named after the Head Town assigned to each.

The Lyceums at present established will be called Royal Colleges.

2. Each University will be composed, first, of a council, presided over by a rector; secondly, of faculties; thirdly, of colleges; fourthly, of district colleges.

3. The mode of teaching and discipline in all the Universities will be regulated and superintended by a Royal Council of Public Instruction.

4. The Normal School of Paris will be common to all the Universities; it will provide, at the expense of the State, the number of professors and masters which may be required to give instruction in science and literature.

TITLE II.

Respecting the Universities.