In that treatise I entered into no general or theoretic exposition of policy, the idea of which I expressly repudiated. "Perhaps," I said, in my preface, "I may on some future occasion discuss more general questions of predominant interest in regard to the nature and principles of const.i.tutional government, although their solution has nothing to do with existing politics, with the events and actors of the moment. I wish now to speak only of power as it is, and of the best method of governing our great and beautiful country." Entirely a novice and doctrinarian as I then was, I forgot that the same maxims and arts of government must be equally good everywhere, and that all nations and ages are, at the same moment, cast in a similar mould. I confined myself sedulously to my own time and country, endeavouring to show what effective means of government were included in the true principles and regular exercise of the inst.i.tutions which France held from the Charter, and how they might be successfully put in practice for the legitimate advantage and strengthening of power. With respect to the means of opposition, I followed the same line of argument, convinced myself, and anxious to persuade the adversaries of the then dominant policy, that authority might be controlled without destroying it, and that the rights of liberty might be exercised without shaking the foundations of established order. It was my strong desire and prepossession to elevate the political arena above the revolutionary track, and to imbue the heart of the const.i.tutional system with ideas of strong and legal conservatism.
Thirty-six years have since rolled on. During this long interval I partic.i.p.ated, for eighteen of those years, in the efforts of my generation for the establishment of a free government. For some time I sustained the weight of this labour. That government has been overthrown. Thus I have myself experienced the immense difficulty, and endured the painful failure, of this great enterprise. Nevertheless, and I say it without sceptical hesitation or affected modesty, I read over again today what I wrote in 1821, upon the means of government and opposition in the actual state of France, with almost unmingled satisfaction. I required much from power, but nothing, I believe, that was not both capable and necessary of accomplishment. And notwithstanding my young confidence, I remembered, even then, that other conditions were essential to success. "I have no intention," I wrote, "to impute everything to, and demand everything from, power itself. I shall not say to it, as has often been said, "Be just, wise, firm, and fear nothing;" power is not free to exercise this inherent and individual excellence. It does not make society, it finds it; and if society is impotent to second power, if the spirit of anarchy prevails, if the causes of dissolution exist in its own bosom, power will operate in vain; it is not given to human wisdom to rescue a people who refuse to co-operate in their own safety."
When I published these two attacks upon the att.i.tude and tendencies of the Cabinet, conspiracies and political prosecutions burst forth from day to day, and entailed their tragical consequences. I have already said what I thought on the plots of that epoch, and why I considered them as ill based, as badly conducted, without legitimate motives or effectual means. But while I condemned them, I respected the sincere and courageous devotion of so many men, the greater part of whom were very young, and who, though mistaken, lavished the treasures of their minds and lives upon a cause which they believed to be just. Amongst the trials of our time, I scarcely recognize any more painful than that of these conflicting feelings, these perplexities between esteem and censure, condemnation and sympathy, which I have so often been compelled to bestow on the acts of so many of my contemporaries. I love harmony and light in the human soul as well as in human a.s.sociations; and we live in an epoch of confusion and obscurity, moral as well as social.
How many men have I known, who, gifted with n.o.ble qualities, would in other times have led just and simple lives, but who, in our days, confounded in the problems and shadows of their own thoughts, have become ambitious, turbulent, and fanatical, not knowing either how to attain their object or how to continue in repose!
In 1820, although still young myself, I lamented this agitation of minds and destinies, almost as sad to contemplate as fatal to be engaged in; but while deploring it, I was divided between severe judgment and lenient emotion, and, without seeking to disarm power in its legitimate defence, I felt a deep anxiety to inspire it with generous and prudent equity towards such adversaries.
A true sentiment does not readily believe itself impotent. The two works which I published in 1821 and 1822, ent.i.tled, the first, "On Conspiracies and Political Justice," and the second, "On Capital Punishment for Political Offences," were not, on my part, acts of opposition; I endeavoured to divest them of this character. To mark distinctly their meaning and object, it will suffice for me to repeat their respective epigraphs. On the t.i.tle-page of the first I inscribed this pa.s.sage from the prophet Isaiah: "Say ye not, _a confederacy_, to all them to whom this people shall say, _a confederacy_;" and on that of the second, the words of St. Paul: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" What I chiefly desired was to convince power itself that sound policy and true justice called for very rare examples of trial and execution in political cases; and that in exercising against all offenders the utmost severity of the laws, it created more perils than it subdued. Public opinion was in accordance with mine; sensible and independent men, taking no part in the pa.s.sions of the parties engaged in this struggle, found, as I did, that there was excess in the action of the police with reference to these plots, excess in the number and severity of the prosecutions, excess in the application of legal penalties. I carefully endeavoured to restrain these complaints within their just limits, to avoid all injurious comparisons, all attempts at sudden reforms, and to concede to power its necessary weapons. While discussing these questions, which had sprung up in the bosom of the most violent storms, I sought to transfer them to an elevated and temperate region, convinced that by that course alone my ideas and words would acquire any permanent efficacy. They obtained the sanction of a much more potent ally than myself. The Court of Peers, which at that time had a.s.sumed the place a.s.signed to it by the Charter, in judgment on political prosecutions, immediately began to exercise sound policy and true discrimination. It was a rare and imposing sight, to behold a great a.s.sembly, essentially political in origin and composition,--a faithful supporter of authority; and at the same time sedulously watchful, not only to elevate justice above the pa.s.sions of the moment, and to administer it with perfect independence, but also to apply, in the appreciation and punishment of political offences, that intelligent equity which alone could satisfy the reason of the philosopher and the charity of the Christian. A part of the honour due to this grand exhibition belongs to the authorities the time, who not only made no attempt to interfere with the unshackled impartiality of the Court of Peers, but refrained even from objection or complaint.
Next to the merit of being themselves, and through their own convictions, just and wise, it is a real act of wisdom on the part of the great ones of the earth, when they adopt without murmur or hesitation the good which has not originated with themselves.
I have lived in an age of political plots and outrages, directed alternately against the authorities to whom I was in opposition and those I supported with ardour. I have seen conspiracies occasionally unpunished, and at other times visited by the utmost rigour of the law.
I feel thoroughly convinced that in the existing state of feelings, minds, and manners, the punishment of death in such cases is an injurious weapon which heavily wounds the power that uses it for safety.
It is not that this penalty is without denunciatory and preventive efficacy; it terrifies and holds back from conspiracies many who would otherwise be tempted to engage in them. But by the side of this salutary consequence, it engenders others which are most injurious. Drawing no line of distinction between the motives and dispositions which have incited men to the acts it punishes, it stifles in the same manner the reprobate and the dreamer, the criminal and the enthusiast, the wildly ambitious and the devotedly fanatical. By this gross indifference, it offends more than it satisfies moral feeling, irritates more than it restrains, moves indifferent spectators to pity, and appears to those who are interested an act of war falsely invested with the forms of a decree of justice. The intimidation which it conveys at first, diminishes from day to day; while the hatred and thirst of vengeance it inspires become hourly more intense and expansive; and at last the time arrives when the power which fancies itself saved is exposed to the attacks of enemies infinitely more numerous and formidable than those who have been previously disposed of.
A day will also come, I confidently feel, when, for offences exclusively political, the penalties of banishment and transportation, carefully graduated and applied, will be subst.i.tuted in justice as well as in fact for the punishment of death. Meanwhile I reckon, amongst the most agreeable reminiscences of my life, the fact of my having strenuously directed true justice and good policy to this subject, at a moment when both were seriously compromised by party pa.s.sions and the dangers to which power was exposed.
These four works, published successively within the s.p.a.ce of two years, attracted a considerable share of public attention. The leading members of Opposition in the two Chambers thanked me as for a service rendered to the cause of France and free inst.i.tutions. "You win battles for us without our help," said General Foy to me. M. Royer-Collard, in pointing out some objections to the first of these Essays ("On the Government of France since the Restoration"), added, "Your book is full of truths; we collect them with a shovel." I repeat without hesitation these testimonies of real approbation. When we seriously undertake to advocate political measures, either in speeches or publications, it becomes most essential to attain our object. Praise is doubly valuable when it conveys the certainty of success. This certainty once established, I care little for mere compliments, from which a certain degree of puerility and ridicule is inseparable; sympathy without affected words has alone a true and desirable charm. I had a right to set some value on that which the Opposition evinced towards me; for I had done nothing to gratify the pa.s.sions or conciliate the prejudices and after-thoughts which fermented in the extreme ranks of the party.
I had as frankly supported royalty, as I had opposed the Cabinet; and it was evident that I had no desire to consign either the House of Bourbon or the Charter to their respective enemies.
Two opportunities soon presented themselves of explaining myself on this point in a more personal and precise manner. In 1821, a short time after the publication of my "Essay on Conspiracies and Political Justice," one of the leaders of the conspiring faction, a man of talent and honour, but deeply implicated in secret societies, that inheritance of tyrannical times which becomes the poison of freedom, came to see me, and expressed with much warmth his grateful acknowledgments. The boldest conspirators feel gratified, when danger threatens, by shielding themselves under the principles of justice and moderation professed by men who take no part in their plots. We conversed freely on all topics.
As he was about to leave me, my visitor, grasping me by the arm, exclaimed, "Become one of ours!"--"Who do you call yours?"--"Enter with us into the _Charbonnerie_; it is the only a.s.sociation capable of overthrowing the Government by which we are humiliated and oppressed."--I replied, "You deceive yourself, as far as I am concerned; I do not feel humiliation or oppression either for myself or my country."--"What can you hope from the people now in power?"--"It is not a question of hope; I wish to preserve what we possess; we have all we require to establish a free government for ourselves. Actual power constantly calls for resistance. In my opinion it does so at this moment, but not to the extent of being subverted. It is very far from having done anything to give us either the right or the means of proceeding to that extremity. We have legal and public arms in abundance to produce reform by opposition. I neither desire your object nor your method of attaining it; you will bring much mischief on all, yourselves included, without success; and if you should succeed, matters would be still worse."
He went away without anger, for he felt a friendship for me; but I had not in the slightest degree shaken his pa.s.sion for plots and secret societies. It is a fever which admits of no cure, when the soul is once given up to it, and a yoke not to be thrown off when it has been long endured.
A little later, in 1822, when the publications I have spoken of had produced their effect, I received one day a visit from M. Manuel. We had occasionally met at the houses of mutual friends, and lived on terms of good understanding without positive intimacy. He evidently came to propose closer acquaintanceship, with an openness in which perhaps the somewhat restricted character of his mind was as much displayed as the firmness of his temperament; he pa.s.sed at once from compliments to confidence, and, after congratulating me on my opposition, opened to me the full bearing of his own. He neither believed in the Restoration nor the Charter, held the House of Bourbon to be incompatible with the France of the Revolution, and looked upon a change of dynasty as a necessary consequence of the total alteration in the social system. He introduced, in the course of our interview, the recent death of the Emperor Napoleon, the security which thence resulted to the peace of Europe, and the name of Napoleon II. as a possible and perhaps the best solution of the problems involved in our future. All this was expressed in guarded but sufficiently definite terms, equally without pa.s.sion or circ.u.mlocution, and with a marked intention of ascertaining to what extent I should admit or reject the prospects on which he enlarged. I was unprepared, both for the visit and the conversation; but I stood on no reserve, not expecting to convert M. Manuel to my own views, and with no desire to conceal mine from him. "Far from thinking," I said in reply, "that a change of dynasty is necessary for France, I should look upon it as a great misfortune and a formidable peril. I consider the Revolution of 1789 to be satisfied as well as finished. In the Charter it possesses all the guarantees that its interests and legitimate objects require. I have no fear of a counter-revolution. We hold against it the power of right as well as of fact; and if people were ever mad enough to attempt it, we should always find sufficient strength to arrest their progress. What France requires at present is to expel the revolutionary spirit which still torments her, and to exercise the free system of which she is in full possession. The House of Bourbon is extremely well suited to this double exigence of the country. Its government is anti-revolutionary by nature, and liberal through necessity. I should much dread a power which, while maintaining order, would either in fact or appearance be sufficiently revolutionary to dispense with being liberal. I should be apprehensive that the country would too easily lend itself to such a rule. We require to be a little uneasy as regards our interests, that we may learn how to maintain our rights. The Restoration satisfies while it keeps us on our guard. It acts at the same time as a spur and a bridle. Both are good for us. I know not what would happen if we were without either." M. Manuel pressed me no longer; he had too much sense to waste time in useless words. We continued to discourse without further argument, and parted thinking well, I believe, of each other, but both thoroughly satisfied that we should never act in concert.
While engaged in the publication of these different treatises, I was also preparing my course of lectures on Modern History, which I commenced on the 7th of December, 1820. Determined to make use of the two influential organs with which public instruction and the press supplied me, I used them nevertheless in a very different manner. In my lectures, I excluded all reference to the circ.u.mstances, system, or acts of the Government; I checked every inclination to attack or even to criticize, and banished all remembrance of the affairs or contests of the moment. I scrupulously restrained myself within the sphere of general ideas and by-gone facts. Intellectual independence is the natural privilege of science, which would be lost if converted into an instrument of political opposition. For the effective display of different liberties, it is necessary that each should be confined within its own domain; their strength and security depend on this prudent restraint.
While imposing on myself this line of conduct, I did not evade the difficulty. I selected for the subject of my course the history of the old political inst.i.tutions of Christian Europe, and of the origin of representative government, in the different forms in which it had been formerly attempted, with or without success. I touched very closely, in such a subject, on the flagrant embarra.s.sments of that contemporaneous policy to which I was determined to make no allusion. But I also found an obvious opportunity of carrying out, through scientific paths alone, the double object I had in view. I was anxious to combat revolutionary theories, and to attach interest and respect to the past history of France. We had scarcely emerged from the most furious struggle against that old French society, our secular cradle; our hearts, if not still overflowing with anger, were indifferent towards it, and our minds were confusedly imbued with the ideas, true or false, under which it had fallen. The time had come for clearing out that arena covered with ruins, and for subst.i.tuting, in thought as in fact, equity for hostility, and the principles of liberty for the arms of the Revolution.
An edifice is not built with machines of war; neither can a free system be founded on ignorant prejudices and inveterate antipathies. I encountered, at every step throughout my course, the great problems of social organization, under the name of which parties and cla.s.ses exchanged such heavy blows,--the sovereignty of the people and the right divine of kings, monarchy and republicanism, aristocracy and democracy, the unity or division of power, the various systems of election, const.i.tution, and action of the a.s.semblies called to co-operate in government. I entered upon all these questions with a firm determination to sift thoroughly the ideas of our own time, and to separate revolutionary excitement and fantasies from the advances of justice and liberty, reconcilable with the eternal laws of social order.
By the side of this philosophic undertaking, I pursued another, exclusively historical; I endeavoured to demonstrate the intermitting but always recurring efforts of French society to emerge from the violent chaos in which it had been originally formed, sometimes produced by the conflict, and at others by the accordance of its different elements--royalty, n.o.bility, clergy, citizens, and people,--throughout the different phases of that harsh destiny, and the glorious although incomplete development of French civilization, such as the Revolution had compiled it after so many combats and vicissitudes. I particularly wished to a.s.sociate old France with the remembrance and intelligence of new generations; for there was as little sense as justice in decrying or despising our fathers, at the very moment when, equally misled in our time, we were taking an immense step in the same path which they had followed for so many ages.
I expounded these ideas before an audience little disposed to adopt or even to take any interest in them. The public who at that time attended my lectures were much less numerous and varied than they became some years later. They consisted chiefly of young men, pupils of the different scientific schools, and of a few curious amateurs of great historical disquisitions. The one cla.s.s were not prepared for the questions I proposed, and wanted the preparatory knowledge which would have rendered them acceptable. With many of the rest, preconceived ideas of the eighteenth century and the Revolution, in matters of historical and political philosophy, had already acquired that strength, derived from inveterate habit, which rejects discussion, and listens coldly and distrustfully to all that differs from their own opinions. Others again, and amongst these were the most active and accessible dispositions, were more or less engaged in the secret societies, hostile intrigues and plots. With these, my opposition was considered extremely supine. I had thus many obstacles to surmount, and many conversions to effect, before I could bring over to my own views the small circle that listened to my arguments.
But there is always, in a French audience, whatever may be their prejudices, an intellectual elasticity, a relish for efforts of the mind and new ideas boldly set forward, and a certain liberal equity, which disposes them to sympathize, even though they may hesitate to admit conviction. I was at the same time liberal and anti-revolutionary, devoted to the fundamental principles of the new French social system, and animated by an affectionate respect for our ancient reminiscences. I was opposed to the ideas which const.i.tuted the political faith of the greater portion of my auditors. I propounded others which appeared suspicious to them, even while they seemed just; they considered me as made up of obscurities, contradictions, and prospective views, which astonished and made them hesitate to follow me. At the same time they felt that I was serious and sincere; they became gradually convinced that my historic impartiality was not indifference, nor my political creed a leaning towards the old system, nor my opposition to every kind of subversive plot a truckling complaisance for power. I gained ground in the estimation of my listeners: some amongst the most distinguished came decidedly over to my views; others began to entertain doubts on the soundness of their theories and the utility of their conspiring practices; nearly all agreed with my just appreciation of the past, and my recommendation of patient and legal opposition to the mistakes of the present. The revolutionary spirit in this young and ardent section of the public was visibly on the decline, not from scepticism and apathy, but because other ideas and sentiments occupied its place in their hearts, and drove it out to make room for their own admission.
The Cabinet of 1822 thought differently. It looked upon my lectures as dangerous; and on the 12th of October in that year, the Abbe Frayssinous, who a few months before had been appointed by M. de Villele Head Master of the University, commanded me to suspend them. I made no complaint at the time, and I am not now astonished at the measure. My opposition to the Ministry was unconcealed, and although not in the slightest degree mixed up with my course of public instruction, many persons were unable to separate as distinctly as I did, in their impressions, my lectures on the history of past ages from my writings against the policy of the day. I am equally convinced that the Government, by sanctioning this proceeding, deceived itself to its own detriment. In the struggle which it maintained with the spirit of revolution, the ideas I propagated in my teaching were more salutary than the opposition I carried on through the press was injurious; they added more strength to the monarchy, than my criticisms on incidental questions and situations could abstract from the Cabinet. But my free language disturbed the blind partisans of absolute power in the Church and State, and the Abbe Frayssinous, short-witted and weak though honest, obeyed with inquietude rather than reluctance the influences whose extreme violence he dreaded without condemning their exercise.
In the division of the monarchical parties, that which I had opposed plunged more and more into exclusive and extreme measures. My lectures being interdicted, all immediate political influence became impossible to me. To struggle, beyond the circle of the Chambers, against the existing system, it was necessary either to conspire, or to descend to a blind, perverse, and futile opposition. Neither of these courses were agreeable; I therefore completely renounced all party contentions, even philosophical and abstracted, to seek elsewhere the means of still mentally serving my cause with reference to the future.
There is nothing more difficult and at the same time more important in public life, than to know how at certain moments to resign ourselves to inaction without renouncing final success, and to wait patiently without yielding to despair.
It was at this epoch that I applied myself seriously to the study of England, her inst.i.tutions, and the long contests on which they were founded. Enthusiastically devoted to the political future of my own country, I wished to learn accurately through what realities and mistakes, by what persevering efforts and prudent acts, a great nation had succeeded in establishing and preserving a free government. When we compare attentively the history and social development of France and England, we find it difficult to decide by which we ought to be most impressed,--the differences or the resemblances. Never have two countries, with origin and position so totally distinct, been more deeply a.s.sociated in their respective destinies, or exercised upon each other, by the alternate relations of peace and war, such continued influence. A province of France conquered England; England for a long time held possession of several provinces of France; and on the conclusion of this national strife, already the inst.i.tutions and political wisdom of the English were, with the most political spirits of the French, with Louis XI. and Philip de Comines, for example, subjects of admiration. In the bosom of Christianity the two nations have served under different religious standards; but this very distinction has become between them a new cause of contact and intermixture. In England the French Protestants, and in France the persecuted English Catholics, have sought and found an asylum. And when kings have been proscribed in their turn, in France the monarch of England, and in England the sovereign of France, was received and protected. From these respective havens of safety, Charles II., in the seventeenth century, and Louis XVIII. in the nineteenth, departed to resume their dominions. The two nations, or, to speak more correctly, the high cla.s.ses of the two nations, have mutually adopted ideas, manners, and fashions from each other. In the seventeenth century, the court of Louis XIV. gave the tone to the English aristocracy. In the eighteenth, Paris went to London in search of models. And when we ascend above these historical incidents to consider the great phases of civilization in the two countries, we find that, after considerable intervals in the course of ages, they have followed nearly the same career; and that similar attempts and alternations of order and revolution, of absolute power and liberty, have occurred in both, with singular coincidences and equally remarkable distinctions.
It is, therefore, on a very superficial and erroneous survey that some persons look upon French and English society as so essentially different, that the one could not draw political examples from the other except by fact.i.tious and barren imitations. Nothing is more completely falsified by true history, and more opposed to the natural bias of the two countries. Their very rivalries have never broken the ties, apparent or concealed, that exist between them; and, whether they know or are ignorant of it, whether they acknowledge or deny the fact, they cannot avoid being powerfully acted upon, by each other; their ideas, their manners, and their inst.i.tutions intermingle and modify mutually, as if by an amicable necessity.
Let me at the same time admit, without hesitation, that we have sometimes borrowed from England too completely and precipitately. We have not sufficiently calculated the true character and social condition of French society. France has increased and prospered under the influence of royalty seconding the ascending movement of the middle cla.s.ses; England, by the action of the landed aristocracy, taking under its charge the liberties of the people. These distinctions are too marked to disappear, even under the controlling uniformity of modern civilization. We have too thoroughly forgotten them. It is the rock and impediment in the way of innovations accomplished under the name of general ideas and great examples, that they do not a.s.sume their legitimate part in real and national facts. But how could we have escaped this rock? In the course of her long existence, ancient France has made, at several regular intervals, great efforts to obtain free government. The most powerful influences have either resisted, or failed in the attempt; her best inst.i.tutions have not co-operated with the necessary changes, or have remained politically ineffective; nevertheless, by a just sentiment of her honour as of her interest, France has never ceased to aspire to a true and permanent system of political guarantees and liberties. She demanded and desired this system in 1789. Through what channels was it sought? From what inst.i.tution was it expected? So often deceived in her hopes and attempts within, she looked beyond home for lessons and models,--a great additional obstacle to a work already so difficult, but an inevitable one imposed by necessity.
In 1823, I was far from estimating the obstacles which beset us in our labour of const.i.tutional organization as correctly as I do now. I was impressed with the idea that our predecessors of 1789 had held old France, her social traditions and her habits, in too much contempt; and that to bring back harmony with liberty into our country, we ought to lay more stress on our glorious past. At the same moment, therefore, when I placed before the eyes of the French public the history and original monuments of the inst.i.tutions and revolutions of England, I entered with ardour into the study and exposition of the early state of French society, its origin, laws, and different gradations of development. I was equally desirous to give to my readers information on a great foreign history, and to revive amongst them a taste and inclination for the study of our own.
My labours were certainly in accord with the instincts and requirements of the time; for they were received and seconded by the general movement which then manifested itself in the public mind, and with reference to the Government so much a subject of dispute. It is the happy tendency of the French temperament to change the direction of its course without slackening speed. It is singularly flexible, elastic, and prolific. An obstacle impedes it, it opens another path; if burdened by fetters, it still walks on while bearing them; if restrained on a given point, it leaves it, and rebounds elsewhere. The Government of the right-hand party restrained political life and action within a narrow circle, and rendered them more difficult; the generation which was then beginning to stir in the world, sought, not entirely independent of, but side by side with politics, the employment of its strength and the gratification of its desires: literature, philosophy, history, policy, and criticism a.s.sumed a new and powerful flight. While a natural and unfortunate reaction brought back into the field of combat the eighteenth century with its old weapons, the nineteenth displayed itself with its original ideas, tendencies, and features.
I do not quote particular names; those which deserve to be remembered require no repet.i.tion; it is the general character of the intellectual movement of the period that I wish to bring into light. This movement was neither exclusively nor directly applied to politics, yet it was from politics that it emanated; it was both literary and philosophic: the human mind, disengaging itself from the interests and disputes of the day, pressed forward through every path that presented itself, in the search and enjoyment of the true and beautiful; but the first impulse came from political liberty, and the hope of contributing to the establishment of a free system was plainly perceptible in the most abstract labours as in the most poetic flights. My friends and I, while originating in 1827 one of the leading periodicals of the age, the "Revue Francaise," selected for its motto this verse of Ovid,--
"Et quod nunc ratio est, impetus ante fuit:"--
"What is now reason, was at first an impulse of pa.s.sion."
We thus truly conveyed the prevailing spirit around us, and our own personal conviction. The "Revue Francaise" was devoted to philosophy, history, literary criticism, and moral and scientific lucubrations; at the same time it was impregnated with the grand political inspirations which for forty years had agitated France. We declared ourselves distinct from our precursors of 1789, strangers to their pa.s.sions, and not enslaved to their ideas, but inheritors and continuators of their work. We undertook to bring back the new French society to purer principles, to more elevated and equitable sentiments, and to firmer foundations; to that great subject of interest, to the accomplishment of its legitimate hopes and the a.s.surance of its liberties, our efforts and desires were incessantly directed.
Another miscellany, commenced in 1824, and more popular than the "Revue"--the "Globe"--bore the same features in a polemic of greater animation and variety. Some young doctrinarians, a.s.sociated with other writers of the same cla.s.s, and animated by the same spirit, although with primary ideas and ultimate tendencies of a very different character, were the ordinary editors. Their distinguishing symbols were, in philosophy, spiritualism; in history, intelligent inquiry, impartial and even sympathetic as regarded ancient times and the progressive conditions of human society; in literature, a taste for novelty, variety, liberty, and truth, even under the strangest forms and the most incongruous a.s.sociations. They defended, or rather advanced their banner with the ardour and pride of youth; enjoying, in their attempts at philosophical, historical, poetical, and critical reform, the satisfaction, at once personal and disinterested, which forms the sweetest reward of intellectual activity; and promising themselves, as always happens, a too extensive and too easy success. Two faults were mingled with these generous aspirations: the ideas developed in the "Globe" were deficient in a fixed basis and a defined limit; their form was more decided than their foundation; they exhibited minds animated by a n.o.ble impulse, but not directed to any single or certain end; and open to an easy, unrestricted course, which excited apprehension that they might themselves drift towards the rocks they cautioned others to avoid.
At the same time the spirit of partisanship, inclining men to be wrapped up and isolated in the narrow circle of their immediate a.s.sociates, without remembering the general public for whom they labour and to whom they speak, exercised too much influence in the pages of the "Globe."
Turgot intended to write several articles for the "Encyclopaedia."
D"Alembert came one day to ask him for them. Turgot declined: "You incessantly say _we_," he replied; "the public will soon say _you_; I do not wish to be so enrolled and cla.s.sed." But these faults of the "Globe," apparent today, were concealed, thirty years ago, by the merit of its opposition; for political opposition was at the bottom of this miscellany, and obtained favour for it with many in the party opposed to the Restoration, to whom its philosophical and literary opinions were far from acceptable. In February, 1830, under the ministry of M. de Polignac, the "Globe," yielding to its inclination, became decidedly a great political journal; and from his retirement at Carquerannes, near Hyeres, where he had gone to reconcile his labour with his health, M. Augustine Thierry wrote to me as follows:--"What think you of the "Globe" since it has changed its character? I know not why I am vexed to find in it all those trifling points of news and daily discussion. Formerly we concentrated our thoughts to read it, but now that is no longer possible; the attention is distracted and divided.
There are still the same spirit and the same articles, but it is disagreeable to encounter by their side these commonplace and every-day matters." M. Augustine Thierry was right. The "Globe" sank materially by becoming a political journal, like so many others; but it had not been the less essentially political from its commencement, in tendency and inspiration. Such was the general spirit of the time; and, far from avoiding this, the "Globe" was deeply impregnated with it.
Even under the controlling influence of the right-hand party, the Restoration made no attempt to stifle this actual but indirect opposition, which they felt to be troublesome though not openly hostile: justice requires that we should remember this to the credit of that epoch. In the midst of the constant alarms excited by political liberty and the efforts of power to restrain it, intellectual freedom maintained itself and commanded respect. This freedom does not supply all the rest; but it prepares them, and, while their accomplishment is suspended, preserves the honour of nations who have not yet learned to conquer or preserve their rights.
While this movement of the mind developed itself and gained strength from day to day, the Government of M. de Villele pursued its course, more and more perplexed by the pretensions and quarrels of the party which its leader vainly endeavoured to restrain. One of my friends, endowed with penetrating and impartial judgment, thus wrote to me in December, 1826, from the interior of his department:--"Men who are at the head of a faction are really destined to tremble before their own shadow. I cannot recollect any time when this nullity of the ruling party was more complete. They do not propound a single doctrine or conviction, or a hope for the future. Even declamation itself seems to be exhausted and futile. Surely M. de Villele must be allowed the merit of being well acquainted with their helplessness; his success springs from that cause; but this I look upon as an instinctive knowledge: he represents without correctly estimating these people. Otherwise he would discover that he might refuse them everything except places and appointments; provided also that he lends himself to no connection with opposite opinions." When the party, proceeding from exigence to exigence, and the Cabinet from weakness to weakness, found themselves unable to act longer together,--when M. de Villele, in November 1827, appealed to an election for defence against his rivals in the Chamber and at Court,--we resolutely encountered our share in the contest. Every opposition combined. Under the motto, _Aide-toi, le Ciel t"aidera_, "Help thyself, and Heaven will help thee," a public a.s.sociation was formed, in which was comprised men of very different general ideas and definitive intentions, who acted in concert with the sole design of bringing about, by legal measures, a change of the majority in the Chamber of Deputies, and the fall of the Cabinet. I as readily joined them, with my friends, as in 1815 I had repaired alone to Ghent to convey to the King, Louis XVIII., the wishes of the const.i.tutional Royalists. Long revolutions engender two opposite vices, rashness and pusillanimity; men learn from them either to plunge blindly into mad enterprises, or to abstain timidly from the most legitimate and necessary actions. We had openly opposed the policy of the Cabinet; it now challenged us to the electoral field to decide the quarrel: we entered it with the same frankness, resolved to look for nothing beyond fair elections, and to accept the difficulties and chances, at first of the combat, and afterwards of the success, if success should attend our efforts.
In the "Biography" which Beranger has written of himself, I find this paragraph:--"At all times I have relied too much on the people, to approve of secret a.s.sociations, in reality permanent conspiracies, which uselessly compromise many persons, create a host of inferior rival ambitions, and render questions of principle subordinate to private pa.s.sions. They rapidly produce suspicion, an infallible cause of defection and even of treachery, and end, when the labouring cla.s.ses are called in to co-operate, by corrupting instead of enlightening them....
The society, _Aide-toi, le Ciel t"aidera_, which acted openly, has alone rendered true service to our cause." The cause of M. Beranger and ours were totally distinct. Which of the two would profit most by the electoral services derived from the society of _Aide-toi, le Ciel t"aidera_? The question was to be speedily solved by the King, Charles X.
The results of the election of 1827 were enormous; they greatly exceeded the fears of the Cabinet and the hopes of the Opposition. I was still in the country when these events became known. One of my friends wrote to me from Paris, "The consternation of the Ministers, the nervous attack of M. de Villele, who sent for his physician at three o"clock in the morning, the agony of M. de Corbieres,[18] the retreat of M. de Polignac to the country, from whence he has no intention to return, although he may be vehemently requested to do so, the terror at the palace, the ever brilliant shooting-parties of the King, the elections so completely unexpected, surprising, and astounding,--here are more than subjects enough to call for prophecies, and to give rise to false predictions on every consequence that may be antic.i.p.ated." The Duke de Broglie, absent, like myself, from Paris, looked towards the future with more confident moderation. "It will be difficult," he wrote to me, "for the general sound sense which has presided at these elections not to react, to a certain extent, on the parties elected. The Ministry which will be formed during the first conflict, will be poor enough; but we must support it, and endeavour to suppress all alarm. It has already reached me here, that the elections have produced great apprehensions; if I am not deceived, this terror is nothing more than a danger of the moment.
If, after the fall of the present Ministry, we are able to get through the year quietly, we shall have won the victory."
When the Ministry of M. de Villele fell, and the Cabinet of M. de Martignac was installed, a new attempt at a Government of the Centre commenced, but with much less force, and inferior chances of success, than that which in 1816 and 1821, under the combined and separate directions of the Duke de Richelieu and M. Decazes, had defended France and the crown against the supremacy of the right and left-hand parties. The party of the centre, formed at that time under a pressing danger of the country, had drawn much strength from that very circ.u.mstance, and either from the right or the left had encountered nothing but animated opposition, but still raw and badly organized, and such as in public estimation was incapable of government. In 1828, on the contrary, the right hand-party, only just ejected from power, after having held it for six years, believed that they were as near recovering as they were capable of exercising office, and attacked with exuberant hope the suddenly created successors who had stepped into their places.
In other quarters, the left and the left centre, brought into contact and almost confounded by six years of common opposition, reciprocated mutual understanding in their relations with a Cabinet which they were called on to support, although not emanating from their ranks. As it happens in similar cases, the violent and extravagant members of the party, paralyzed or committed the more moderate and rational to a much greater extent than the latter were able to restrain and guide their troublesome a.s.sociates. Thus a.s.sailed in the Chambers by ambitious and influential rivals, the rising power found there only lukewarm or restrained allies. While from 1816 to 1821 the King, Louis XVIII., gave his sincere and active co-operation to the Government of the Centre, in 1828 the King, Charles X., looked upon the Cabinet which replaced immediately round him the leaders of the right-hand party as an unpleasant trial he was doomed to undergo; but to which he submitted with uneasy reluctance, not believing in its success, and fully determined to endure it no longer than strict necessity compelled.
In this weak position, two individuals, M. de Martignac, as actual head of the Cabinet, without being president, and M. Royer-Collard, as president of the Chamber of Deputies, alone contributed a small degree of strength and reputation to the new Ministry; but they were far from being equal to its difficulties or dangers.
M. de Martignac has left on the minds of all who were acquainted with him, either in public or private life, whether friends or adversaries, a strong impression of esteem and goodwill. His disposition was easy, amiable, and generous; his mind just, quick, and refined, at once calm and liberal; he was endowed with natural, persuasive, clear, and graceful eloquence; he pleased even those from whom he differed. I have heard M. Dupont de l"Eure whisper gently from his place, while listening to him, "Be silent, Siren!" In ordinary times, and under a well-settled const.i.tutional system, he would have been an effective and popular minister; but either in word or act he had more seduction than authority, more charm than power. Faithful to his cause and his friends, he was unable to carry either into government or political debate that simple, fervent, and persevering energy, that insatiable desire and determination to succeed, which rises before obstacles and under defeats, and often controls wills without absolutely converting opinions. On his own account, more honest and epicurean than ambitious, he held more to duty and pleasure than to power. Thus, although well received by the King and the Chambers, he neither exercised at the Tuileries nor at the Palais Bourbon the authority, nor even the influence, which his sound mind and extraordinary talent ought to have given to him.
M. Royer-Collard, on the contrary, had reached and occupied the chair of the Chamber of Deputies through the importance derived from twelve years of parliamentary contest, recently confirmed by seven simultaneous elections, and by the distinguished mark of esteem which the Chamber and the King had conferred on him. But this importance, real in moral consideration, was politically of little weight. Since the failure of the system of government he had supported, and his own dismissal from the State Council by M. de Serre in 1820, M. Royer-Collard had, I will not say fallen, but entered into a state of profound despondency. Some sentences in letters written to me from his estate at Chateau-vieux, where he had pa.s.sed the summer, will more readily explain the condition of his mind at that time. I select the shortest:--
"_Aug. 1, 1823._--There is no trace of man here, and I am ignorant of what can be found in the papers; but I do not believe there is anything more to hear. At all events, I am careless on the subject. I have no longer any curiosity, and I well know the reason. I have lost my cause, and I much fear you will lose yours also; for you a.s.suredly will as soon as it becomes a bad one. In these sad reflections the heart closes itself up, but without resignation."
"_Aug. 27, 1826._--There cannot be a more perfect or innocent solitude than that in which I have lived until this last week, which has brought M. de Talleyrand to Valencay. It is only through your letter and his conversation, that I am again connected with the world. I have never before so thoroughly enjoyed this kind of life,--some hours devoted to study, the meditations they occasion, a family walk, and the care of a small, domestic administration. Nevertheless, in the midst of this profound tranquillity, on observing what pa.s.ses, and what we have to expect, the fatigue of a long life entirely wasted in wishes unaccomplished and hopes deceived, makes itself sensibly felt. I hope I shall not give way under it; in the place of illusions, there are still duties which a.s.sert their claims."
"_Oct. 22, 1826._--After having thoroughly enjoyed this year of the country and of solitude, I shall return with pleasure to the society of living minds. At this moment that society is extremely calm; but without firing cannon, it gains ground, and insensibly establishes its power. I have formed no idea of the coming session. I believe it to be merely through habit and remembrance, that any attention is yet paid to the Chamber of Deputies. It belongs to another world; our time is still distant, fortune has thrown you into the only course of life which has now either dignity or utility. It has done well for you and for us."
M. Royer-Collard was too ambitious and too speedily cast down. Human affairs do not permit so many expectations, and supply greater resources. We should expect less, and not so soon give way to despair.
The elections of 1827, the advent of the Martignac Ministry, and his own situation in the chair of the Chamber of Deputies, drew M. Royer-Collard a little from his despondency, but without much restoring his confidence. Satisfied with his personal position, he supported and seconded the Cabinet in the Chamber, but without warmly adopting its policy; preserving carefully the att.i.tude of a gracious ally who wishes to avoid responsibility. In his intercourse with the King he held the same reserve, speaking the truth, and offering sage advice, but without in the slightest degree conveying the idea that he was ready to put in practice the energetic and consistent policy he recommended. Charles X. listened to him with courtesy and surprise, confiding in his loyalty, but scarcely understanding his words, and regarding him as an honest man tainted with inapplicable or even dangerous ideas. Sincerely devoted to the King, and friendly to the Cabinet, M. Royer-Collard served them advantageously in their daily affairs and perils, but held himself always apart from their destiny as from their acts, and without bringing to them, through his co-operation, the strength which ought to have attached to the superiority of his mind and the influence of his name.
I did not at that time return to public office. The Cabinet made no such proposition to me, and I refrained from suggesting it; on either side we were right. M. de Martignac came from the ranks of M. de Villele"s party, and was obliged to keep measures with them; it would not have been consistent in him to hold intimate relations with their adversaries. For my own part, even though I should consider it necessary, I am badly adapted to serve a floating system of policy, which resorts to uncertain measures and expedients instead of acting on fixed and declared ideas. At a distance, I was both able and willing to support the new Ministry. In a close position I should have compromised them. I had, however, my share in the triumph. Without calling me back to exercise the functions of State-Councillor, the t.i.tle was restored to me; and the Minister of Public Instruction, M. de Vatimesnil, authorized the reopening of my course.