Sycophancy of the newspapers--M. de Polignac's first colleagues--The
Algerian Expedition--Opening of the Session of 1830--The Address--The
Chamber is dissolved--New Chamber--I leave for Dieppe--The
Ordinances of the 25th of July--I return to Paris--Reflexions on
the journey--Letter to Madame Récamier--The Revolution of July--M.
Baude, M. de Choiseul, M. de Sémonville, M. de Vitrolles, M. Laffitte,
and M. Thiers--I write to the King at Saint-Cloud--His verbal
answer--Aristocratic corps--Pillage of the house of the missionaries
in the Rue d'Enfer--The Chamber of Deputies--M. de Mortemart--A
walk through Paris--General Dubourg--Funeral ceremony--Under the
colonnade of the Louvre--The young men carry me back to the House of
Peers--Meeting of the Peers.
When the swallows near the moment of their departure, there is one
that flies away first to announce the approaching passage of the rest:
mine were the first wings that preceded the last flight of Legitimacy.
Did the praises with which the newspapers loaded me charm me? Not in
the least. Some of my friends tried to console me by assuring me that
I was on the point of becoming Prime Minister; that this party stroke
so frankly played decided my future: they thought they saw in me an
ambition of which I did not possess the very germ. I do not understand
how any man who has lived but eight days with me can fail to have
perceived my total lack of that passion--a very lawful one, for that
matter--which enables one to push through a political career. I was
ever on the watch for the occasion to retire: if I was so devoted to
the Roman Embassy, that was just because it led to nothing and because
it was a retreat in a blind alley.
Lastly, at the bottom of my conscience I had a certain fear of having
already driven opposition too far; I was forcibly about to become its
bond, its centre and its object: I was frightened of it, and this fear
increased my regrets for the tranquil shelter I had lost.
Be this as it may, much incense was burnt before the wooden idol that
had climbed down from its altar. M. de Lamartine, a new and brilliant
light of France, wrote to me on the subject of his candidature for the
Academy[163], and ended his letter thus:
"M. de La Noue, who has just been spending a few minutes with
me, told me that he had left you occupying your noble leisure in
raising a monument to France. Each of your voluntary and courageous
disgraces will thus bring its tribute of esteem to your name and of
glory to your country."
This noble letter from the author of the _Méditations poétiques_ was
followed by one from M. de Lacretelle[164]. He in his turn wrote:
"What a moment they choose to outrage you, you the man of
sacrifices, you the man to whom fine actions come as easily as fine
works! Your resignation and the formation of the new Ministry had
appeared to me, in advance, in the light of two connected events.
You have accustomed us to acts of devotion, as Bonaparte accustomed
us to victory; but he had many companions, whereas you have not
many imitators."
Two very literary men, both writers of great merit, M. Abel
Rémusat[165] and M. Saint-Martin[166], alone at that time had the
weakness to rise up against me: they were attached to M. le Baron de
Damas. I can imagine that people are a little irritated by men who
despise places: that is one of those pieces of insolence that cannot be
endured.
M. Guizot himself deigned to visit me in my abode; he thought he might
overcome the immense distance which Nature had set between us; on
accosting me, he said these words full of all that he owed to himself:
"Monsieur, things are very different to-day!"
[Illustration: Guizot.]
In the year 1829, M. Guizot had need of me for his election; I
wrote to the electors of Lisieux, and they carried him[167]; M. de
Broglie[168] thanked me in the note that follows:
"Permit me to thank you, monsieur, for the letter which you have
been good enough to address to me. I have made the right use of it,
and I am convinced that, in common with all that comes from you, it
will bear fruit and salutary fruit. For my part, I am as grateful
to you as though I myself were concerned, for there is no event
with which I have more closely identified myself nor which arouses
in me a keener interest."
The July days found M. Guizot a deputy, and the result was that I am
partly the cause of his political rise: sometimes Heaven hearkens to
the prayer of the humble.
[Sidenote: M de Polignac's colleagues.]
M. de Polignac's first colleagues were Messieurs de Bourmont[169], de
La Bourdonnaye, de Chabrol, de Courvoisier[170] and de Montbel[171].
On the 17th of June 1815, at Ghent, I had been waiting on the King,
when I met at the foot of the stairs a man in a frock-coat and muddy
boots who was going up to His Majesty. By his lively expression, his
finely-shaped nose, his beautiful, soft, adder-like eyes, I recognised
General Bourmont: he had deserted Bonaparte's army. The Comte de
Bourmont is a meritorious officer, skilful at extricating himself from
difficult situations, but one of those men who, when placed in the
front rank, see obstacles without being able to conquer them. They are
made to be led, not to lead. He is fortunate in his sons, and Algiers
will leave him a name.
The Comte de La Bourdonnaye, formerly my friend, is certainly the most
disagreeable personage that ever lived: he lets fly at you the instant
you approach him; he attacks the speakers in the Chamber, as he does
his neighbours in the country; he cavils over a word, just as he goes
to law about a ditch or a drain. On the very morning of the day on
which I was appointed Foreign Minister, he came to tell me that he was
breaking with me: I was a minister. I laughed and let my male termagant
go about his business: laughing himself, he looked like a thwarted
bat[172].
M. de Montbel, at first Minister of Public Instruction, replaced M.
de La Bourdonnaye at the Interior when the latter resigned, and M. de
Guernon-Ranville[173] followed M. de Montbel at the Ministry of Public
Instruction.
Men were preparing for war on both sides: the Ministerial Party
launched ironical pamphlets against the _Représentatif_; the Opposition
organized itself and spoke of refusing to pay taxes in the event
of a violation of the Charter. A public association, called the
Breton Association, was formed to resist the Administration: my
fellow-countrymen have often taken the lead in our later revolutions;
every Breton head has something in common with the winds that vex the
shores of our peninsula.
A newspaper[174] set up with the avowed object of overthrowing the Old
Dynasty came to excite men's minds. The handsome young bookseller,
Sautelet[175], pursued with suicidal mania, had several times felt the
longing to make his death useful to his party by some bold stroke; he
was charged with the business part of the republican sheet: Messieurs
Thiers[176], Mignet[177] and Carrel[178] were its editors. The patron
of the National, M. le Prince de Talleyrand, did not put a sou into the
cash-box; he was content to defile the paper's spirit by adding to the
common fund his quotum of treason and rottenness. On this occasion I
received the following note from M. Thiers:
[Sidenote: A note from M. Theirs.]
"MONSIEUR,
"Not knowing whether the service of a new paper will be performed
with exactness, I send you the first number of the _National._ All
my collaborators unite with me in begging you to consent to regard
yourself, not as a subscriber, but as a gentle reader. If, in this
first article, the object of great anxiety to me, I have succeeded
in expressing opinions that meet with your approval, I shall feel
reassured and certain of being in the right road.
"Receive, monsieur, my homage.
"A. THIERS."
I shall return to the editors of the _National_; I shall tell how
I have known them; but I must at once place M. Carrel on one side:
superior to both Messieurs Thiers and Mignet, he had the simplicity to
look upon himself, at the time when I became connected with him, as
coming after writers whom he excelled; he upheld with his sword the
opinions which those penmen laid bare.
While these men were making ready for the contest, the preparations
for the Algerian Expedition were being completed. General Bourmont,
the Minister for War, had had himself appointed to the command of that
expedition: was it his intention to escape responsibility for the _coup
d'État_ which he felt coming? That was likely enough, to judge from his
antecedents and his craftiness; but it was a misfortune for Charles
X. Had the general been in Paris at the time of the catastrophe, the
vacant portfolio of the War Office would not have fallen into the hands
of M. de Polignac. Before striking the blow, presuming that he would
have agreed to it, M. de Bourmont would doubtless have assembled the
whole of the Royal Guard in Paris; he would have got ready money and
the necessary provisions, so that the soldier should have wanted for
nothing.
Our navy, brought to life again at the Battle of Navarino, sailed from
the French ports lately so abandoned. The roads were covered with ships
which saluted the land as they moved away. Steamboats, a new discovery
of man's genius, came and went, carrying orders from one division to
the other, like sirens or the aides-de-camp of the admiral. The Dauphin
stood on shore, where all the population of the town and mountains
had gathered. After snatching his kinsman, the King of Spain, from
the hands of the revolution, he beheld the dawn of the day on which
Christianity was to be delivered: could he have believed night to be so
near at hand[179]?
[Sidenote: The Algerian expedition.]
The times were past in which Catherine de Medici begged from the Turk
the investiture of the Principality of Algiers for Henry III., not
yet King of Poland! Algiers was about to become our daughter and our
conquest, without anybody's permission, without England's daring to
prevent us from taking that "Emperor's Fort" which recalled Charles V.
and the change in his fortunes[180].
[Illustration: The Princesse de Lieven.]
It was a great joy and a great happiness to the assembled French
spectators to greet, with Bossuet's greeting, the generous vessels,
ready to break the slave's chain with their prows; a victory increased
by the cry uttered by the Eagle of Meaux when he announced the future
success to the Great King, as though to console him one day in his tomb
for the dispersal of his dynasty:
"Thou shalt yield, or fall under that victor, Algiers, rich in the
spoils of Christianity. Thou saidst in thy heart of greed:
"I hold the sea under my laws and the nations are my prey!'
"The swiftness of thy ships gave thee confidence, but thou shalt
see thyself attacked in thy walls like a ravenous bird which one
hunts amid its rocks and in its nest, where it shares its booty
among its young. Already thou art releasing thy slaves. Louis has
shattered the irons under which thou wert loading his subjects,
who are born to be free under his glorious empire. The astonished
pilots cry beforehand:
"'Who is like unto Tyre? And yet she kept silence in the midst of
the sea[181].'"
O splendid words, could you not retard the crumbling of the Throne?
Nations proceed towards their destinies; like certain of Dante's
shades, they cannot possibly be arrested, even in good fortune.
Those vessels, which carried liberty to the seas of Numidia, were
carrying away the Legitimacy; that fleet under the White Flag was the
Monarchy getting under way, sailing from the ports where St. Louis
embarked when Death called him to Carthage. O slaves delivered from
imprisonment, they who have restored you to your native land have lost
their country; they who have saved you from eternal banishment are
banished. The master of that huge fleet has crossed the sea on a bark
as a fugitive, and France can say to him what Cornelia said to Pompey:
"It is indeed the work of my fortune, not of thine, that I see thee
now reduced to one small ship where thou hadst wished to go before the
breeze with five hundred sail."
Had I not friends among that crowd which, on the beach of Toulon,
followed with its eyes the fleet setting sail for Africa? Did not
M. du Plessix, my brother-in-law's brother, receive on board his
ship a charming woman, Madame Lenormant, who was awaiting the return
of the friend[182] of Champollion[183]? What came of that flight
executed in Africa, executed at a single swoop? Let us listen to M. de
Penhoen[184], my fellow-Breton:
"Not two months had elapsed since we saw that same banner wave in
front of those same shores over five hundred ships. Then, sixty
thousand men were impatient to go to unfurl it on the battle-field
in Africa. To-day, a few sick, a few wounded, painfully dragging
themselves along the deck of our frigate, formed its only
retinue.... At the moment when the guard took up arms, according
to custom, to salute the flag as it was hoisted or lowered, all
conversation ceased on deck. I uncovered with the same respect that
I should have shown to the old King himself. I knelt within my
heart before the majesty of great misfortunes, of which I was sadly
contemplating the symbol[185]."
The session of 1830 opened on the 2nd of March. In the Speech from the
Throne, the King was made to say:
"If culpable manœuvres should raise in the way of my Government
obstacles which I cannot, or, rather, which I will not anticipate,
I shall find the means of overcoming them[186]."
Charles X. uttered these words in the tone of a man who, habitually
timid and gentle, happens to find himself in a passion and excites
himself with the sound of his own voice: the more forcible the words
were, the feebler appeared the resolutions behind it.
[Sidenote: The address of the Chamber.]
The Address in reply was drawn up by Messieurs Étienne[187] and Guizot.
It said:
"Sire, the Charter consecrates, as a right, the intervention
of the country in the discussion of its public interests. This
intervention renders the permanent accord between the political
views of the Government and the wishes of your people the
indispensable condition of the regular march of public affairs.
Sire, our loyalty, our devotion condemn us to tell you that this
accord does not exist."
The Address was voted by a majority of 221 against 181. An amendment
was moved by M. de Lorgeril[188] to do away with the phrase relating to
the refusal of concurrence. This amendment obtained only 28 votes. If
the 221 had been able to foresee the result of their vote, the Address
would have been rejected by a huge majority. Why does Providence not
sometimes raise a corner of the veil that covers the future? It gives,
it is true, a presentiment to certain men; but they do not see clear
enough to make sure of their way, they fear to make a mistake, or, if
they venture upon predictions which are accomplished, no one believes
them. God does not push aside the cloud from the background in which
He acts; when He permits great evils to take place, it is because He
has great plans, plans extending over a general plane, unrolled in a
deep horizon beyond our view and beyond the reach of our short-lived
generations.
The King, in his Reply to the Address, declared that his resolution
was unchangeable, in other words, that he would not dismiss M. de
Polignac. The dissolution of the Chamber was resolved upon: Messieurs
de Peyronnet and de Chantelauze replaced Messieurs de Chabrol
and Courvoisier, who resigned; M. Capelle was appointed Minister
of Commerce. They had a score of men around them capable of being
ministers; they might have sent for M. de Villèle again; they might
have taken M. Casimir Périer and General Sébastiani. I had already
proposed the two latter to the King when, after the fall of M. de
Villèle, the Abbé Frayssinous was told to offer me the Ministry of
Public Instruction. But no; they held capable men in abhorrence. In
their fervour for nullity, they sought, as though to humiliate France,
for the smallest thing she had to put at her head. They had dug up M.
Guernon de Ranville, who, however, was the bravest of the unknown band,
and the Dauphin had besought M. de Chantelauze to save the Monarchy.
The decrees dissolving the Chamber summoned the district electoral
colleges for the 23rd of June 1830 and the departmental colleges for
the 3rd of July[189], only twenty-seven days before the death of the
Elder Branch.
The parties, all exceedingly excited, drove everything to extremes:
the Ultra-Royalists spoke of giving the Crown the dictatorship; the
Republicans dreamt of a republic under a directorate or convention. The
Tribune[190], the organ of the latter party, appeared, and went beyond
the National. The great majority of the country was still in favour of
the Legitimate Monarchy, but with concessions and enfranchisement from
Court influences; every ambition was aroused, every one hoped to become
a minister: storms hatch insects.
Those who wished to force Charles X. to become a constitutional
monarch thought they were right. They believed the Legitimacy to be
deep-rooted: they had forgotten the weakness of the man; the Royalty
might be driven, the King could not: it was the individual that ruined
us, not the institution.
The deputies of the new Chamber arrived in Paris: of the 221, 202 had
been re-elected; the Opposition numbered 270 votes: the Ministry 145;
the Crown Party was therefore lost. The natural result would have been
the resignation of the Ministry: Charles X. was stubbornly determined
to defy everything, and the _coup d'État_ was resolved upon.
[Sidenote: Dieppe and back to Paris.]
I left for Dieppe at four o'clock in the morning on the 26th of July,
the very day on which the Ordinances appeared. I was in fairly good
spirits, delighted that I was going to see the sea again, and I was
followed, at some distance, by a terrible storm. I supped and slept
at Rouen without learning anything, regretting that I was not able
to visit Saint-Ouen and kneel before the beautiful Virgin in the
Museum, in memory of Raphael and Rome. I arrived at Dieppe the next
day, the 27th, at mid-day. I went to the hotel where M. le Comte de
Boissy[191], my former secretary of legation, had engaged rooms for
me. I dressed and went to call on Madame Récamier. She occupied an
apartment whose windows looked out on the sands. I spent a few hours
in talking and watching the waves. Suddenly Hyacinthe appeared; he
brought me a letter which M. de Boissy had received, telling with
great praises of the issue of the Ordinances. A moment later, my old
friend Ballanche entered; he had come straight from the diligence and
held the newspapers in his hand. I opened the _Moniteur_ and read the
official documents, without believing my eyes. One more government
which deliberately flung itself from the towers of Notre-Dame! I told
Hyacinthe to ask for horses, in order to set out for Paris again. I
climbed back into my carriage, at seven o'clock, leaving my friends in
anxiety. It is true that, for a month past, people had been murmuring
something about a _coup d'État_, but no one had taken any notice of the
rumour, which seemed absurd. Charles X. had lived on the illusions of
the Throne: a kind of mirage is formed around princes, and it imposes
upon them by displacing the object and making them see chimerical
landscapes in the sky.
I took away the _Moniteur_ with me. So soon as it was light, on the
28th, I read, re-read and commented on the Ordinances[192]. The
Report to the King which served as a preamble struck me in two ways:
the observations on the drawbacks of the press were just; but, at the
same time, the author of those observations[193] displayed a complete
ignorance of the actual state of society. No doubt ministers, to
whatever shade of opinion they have belonged, have, since 1814, been
harassed by the newspapers; no doubt the press tends to subdue the
Sovereignty, to force the Royalty and the Chambers to obey it; no
doubt, during the last days of the Restoration, the press, listening
only to the dictates of its own passion, disregarding the interests
and the honour of France, attacked the Algerian Expedition, enlarged
on the causes, the means, the preparations, the chances of failure; it
divulged the secrets of our armament, instructed the enemy of the state
of our forces, enumerated our troops and vessels, and even indicated
the point selected for the disembarkation. Would the Cardinal de
Richelieu and Bonaparte have brought Europe to the feet of France, if
the mystery of their negociations had been thus revealed in advance, or
the halting-places of their armies set forth?
All this is both true and hateful; but the remedy? The press is
an element till lately unknown, a force formerly unheard of, now
introduced into the world; it is speech in the shape of a thunder-bolt;
it is the electricity of society. How can you prevent its existence?
The more you aim at compressing it, the more violent the explosion.
You must therefore bring yourself to live with it, as you live with
the steam-engine. You must learn to use it while making it safe,
either by gradually weakening it by common and domestic usage, or by
gradually assimilating your manners and laws to the principles which
will henceforth govern humanity. One proof of the powerlessness of the
press in certain cases is derived from the very reproach which you
made against it in regard to the Algerian Expedition: you have taken
Algiers, in spite of the liberty of the press, in the same way as I had
caused the war with Spain to be waged, in 1823, under the hottest fire
of that liberty.
But what is not to be endured in the Report of the ministers is that
shameless pretension, namely, that "the King has a power pre-existent
to the laws." What, then, is the meaning of constitutions? Why deceive
the nations with sham guarantees, if the monarch is able at will to
alter the order of established government? And yet the signatories of
the Report are so firmly persuaded of what they say that they hardly
quote Article XIV.[194] to which I had long been prophesying that "they
would confiscate the Charter;" they recall it, but only for memory, and
as a superfluity of right of which they had no need.
[Sidenote: The Ordinances of July.]
The first Ordinance established the suppression of the liberty of the
press in all its parts; this is the quintessence of all that had been
elaborated during the last fifteen years in the dark closet of the
police.
The second Ordinance reforms the law of election. Thus the two first
liberties, the liberty of the press and electoral liberty, were torn
up by the roots: and that, not by an iniquitous and yet legal act,
emanating from a corrupt legislative power, but by "ordinances," as in
the days of the King's will and pleasure. And five men, not lacking
common-sense, were, with unexampled levity, precipitating themselves,
their master, the Monarchy, France and Europe into a whirlpool. I did
not know what was happening in Paris. I was hoping that a resistance,
without overturning the throne, would have obliged the Crown to dismiss
the ministers and recall the Ordinances. In the event of the triumph
of the latter, I had resolved not to submit to them, but to write and
speak against those unconstitutional measures.
If the members of the Diplomatic Body exercised no direct influence
upon the Ordinances, they favoured them with their wishes; absolute
Europe abhorred our Charter. When the news of the Ordinances reached
Berlin and Vienna, where, for twenty-four hours, men believed in
their success, M. Ancillon exclaimed that Europe was saved, and M.
de Metternich displayed unspeakable delight. Soon, having learnt the
truth, the latter was as much dismayed as he had been overjoyed: he
declared that he had been mistaken, that public opinion was decidedly
liberal, and he was already accustoming himself to the idea of an
Austrian Constitution.
The nominations of councillors of State following upon the Ordinances
of July throw some light upon the persons who, in the ante-chambers,
gave their assistance to the Ordinances either with their advice or
their composition. You there see the names of the men most opposed
to the representative system. Was it in the King's own closet, under
the Monarch's eyes, that those fatal documents were drawn up? Was it
in M. de Polignac's closet? Was it in a meeting of ministers alone,
or assisted by a few anti-constitutional pudding-heads? Was it "under
seal," in some secret sitting of the "Ten," that those decrees were
minuted by virtue of which the Legitimate Monarchy was condemned to
be strangled on the "Bridge of Sighs?" Was the idea M. de Polignac's
alone? Perhaps history will never tell us.
On arriving at Gisors, I learnt that Paris had risen, and heard
alarming things said, which proved how seriously the Charter was
taken by people throughout France. At Pontoise, they had still more
recent, but confused and contradictory news. At Herblay, there were
no horses at the post-office. I waited nearly an hour. They advised
me to avoid Saint-Denis, because I should find barricades there. At
Courbevoie, the postillion had already left off his jacket with the
fleurs-de-lys on the buttons. They had fired that morning at a calash
which he was driving in Paris through the Avenue des Champs-Élysées.
In consequence, he told me that he would not take me by that avenue,
but that he would make for the Barrière du Trocadéro, to the right of
the Barrière de l'Étoile. This barrier gives a view over Paris. I saw
the tricolour flag waving; I judged that it was a case not of a riot,
but of a revolution. I had a presentiment that my role was about to
change: that, having hurried back to defend the public liberties, I
should be obliged to defend the Royalty. Here and there, clouds of
white smoke rose among blocks of houses. I heard some cannon-shots and
musketry-fire mixed with the droning of the tocsin. It seemed to me
that I saw the fall of the old Louvre from the top of the waste upland
destined by Napoleon for the site of the palace of the King of Rome.
The spot of observation offered one of those philosophical consolations
which one ruin carries to another.
My carriage went down the hill. I crossed the Pont d'Iéna and drove up
the paved avenue skirting the Champ de Mars. All was solitary. I found
a picket of cavalry posted before the railings of the Military School;
the men looked sad and as though forgotten there. We took the Boulevard
des Invalides and the Boulevard du Mont-Parnasse. I met a few people
on foot who looked surprised to see a carriage driven post as at an
ordinary time. The Boulevard d'Enfer was obstructed by felled elm-trees.
In my street[195], my neighbours were glad to see me arrive: I seemed
to them a protection for the quarter. Madame de Chateaubriand was both
pleased and alarmed at my return.
[Sidenote: The revolution of July.]
On Thursday morning, the 29th of July, I wrote Madame Récamier, at
Dieppe, a letter prolonged by postscripts:
"_Thursday morning_, 29 _July_ 1830.
"I write to you without knowing whether my letter will reach you,
for the post no longer goes out.
"I entered Paris amid the booming of guns, the rattle of musketry,
the clanging of the tocsin. This morning the tocsin is still
sounding, but I no longer hear any firing; it seems that they are
organizing themselves, and that resistance will continue until
the Ordinances are repealed. There you see the immediate result
(without speaking of the definite result) of the act of perjury the
blame for which, at least in appearance, the ministers have allowed
to fall upon the Crown!
"The National Guard, the Polytechnic School, all have taken part
in the business. I have seen no one yet. You can imagine in what a
state I found Madame de Chateaubriand. People who, like her, have
seen the 10th of August and the 2nd of September have remained
under the impression of terror. One regiment, the 5th of the Line,
has already gone over to the Charter. M. de Polignac is certainly
most guilty; his want of capacity is a poor excuse; ambition for
which one has not the talent is a crime. They say that the Court is
at Saint-Cloud and ready to leave.
"I do not speak to you of myself; my position is painful, but
clear. I shall betray neither the King nor the Charter, neither
the Legitimate Power nor liberty. I have therefore nothing to say
or do, but to wait and weep for my country. God knows now what is
going to happen in the provinces: already they are talking of an
insurrection at Rouen. On the other side, the Congregation will arm
the Chouans and the Vendée. On what small things do empires depend!
An Ordinance and half-a-dozen stupid or unscrupulous ministers are
enough to turn the most peaceful and flourishing country into the
most disturbed and unhappy country."
"The firing is recommencing. It appears they are attacking the
Louvre, where the King's troops have entrenched themselves. The
suburb in which I live is beginning to rise in insurrection. They
speak of a provisional government with General Gérard[196], the Duc
de Choiseul[197] and M. de La Fayette at its head.
"This letter will probably not leave, Paris having been declared in
a state of siege. Marshal Marmont is commanding in the King's name.
He is said to be killed, but I do not believe it. Try not to alarm
yourself unduly. May God protect you! We shall meet again!
"_Friday._
"This letter was written yesterday; it could not be sent. All is
over: the popular victory is complete; the King yields on all
points, but I fear they will not go far beyond the concessions made
by the Crown. I wrote to His Majesty this morning. For the rest, I
have a complete plan of sacrifices for the future which pleases me.
We will talk of it when you are here.
"I am going to post this letter myself and to stroll through Paris."
The Ordinances, dated 25 July, were published in the _Moniteur_ of
the 26th. Their secret had been so profoundly kept that neither the
Maréchal Duc de Raguse, who was major-general of the Guard on duty, nor
M. Mangin[198], the Prefect of Police, had been taken into confidence.
The Prefect of the Seine[199] heard of the Ordinances only through the
_Moniteur_: the same was the case with the Under-secretary of State
for War[200]; and this in spite of the fact that it was those several
officials who disposed of the different forces of the army. The Prince
de Polignac, who held M. de Bourmont's portfolio ad interim, concerned
himself so little with this trifling matter of the Ordinances that he
spent the day, on the 26th, presiding over an adjudication at the War
Office.
The King left on a hunting-party on the 26th, before the _Moniteur_ had
reached Saint-Cloud, and did not return from Rambouillet till midnight.
At last the Duc de Raguse received this note from M. de Polignac:
"Your Excellency is aware of the extraordinary measures which the
King, in his wisdom and in his love for his people, has thought it
necessary to take for the maintenance of the rights of his crown
and of public order. In these important circumstances, His Majesty
relies on your zeal to ensure order and tranquillity throughout the
extent of your command."
[Sidenote: Action of the press.]
This audacity displayed by the weakest men that ever lived against
the force that was about to pulverize an empire can be explained only
as being a sort of hallucination resulting from the counsels of a
wretched set which was no longer to be found at the hour of danger. The
newspaper-editors, after consulting Messieurs Dupin, Odilon Barrot,
Barthe[201] and Mérilhou[202], resolved to bring out their impressions
without authorization, in order to compel their seizure and to plead
the illegality of the Ordinances. They met at the office of the
_National_: M. Thiers drew up a protest which was signed by forty-four
editors[203] and which appeared, on the morning of the 27th, in the
_National_ and the _Temps._
In the evening, a few deputies met at M. de Laborde's[204]. They agreed
to meet again the next day at M. Casimir Périer's. There appeared, for
the first time, one of the three powers that were to occupy the scene:
the Monarchy was in the Chamber of Deputies, the Usurpation at the
Palais-Royal, the Republic at the Hôtel de Ville. Crowds gathered at
the Palais-Royal in the evening; stones were thrown at M. de Polignac's
carriage. The Duc de Raguse having seen the King at Saint-Cloud, on his
return from Rambouillet, the King asked him the news from Paris:
"The stocks have fallen."
"How much?" asked the Dauphin
"Three francs," answered the marshal.
"They will go up again," replied the Dauphin, and every one went away.
The day of the 27th began badly. The King invested the Duc de Raguse
with the command of Paris. This was relying on bad fortune. The marshal
came to instal himself at the Staff-office of the Guard on the Place du
Carrousel, at one o'clock. M. Mangin sent to seize the printing-presses
of the _National_; M. Carrel resisted; Messieurs Mignet and Thiers,
thinking the game lost, disappeared for two days: M. Thiers went to
hide in the Montmorency Valley with a Madame de Courchamp[205], a
relation of the two Messieurs Becquet[206], of whom one had worked on
the _National_, the other on the _Journal des Débats._
At the _Temps_, the matter assumed a more serious complexion: the real
hero of the journalists is incontestably M. Coste[207].
In 1823, M. Coste was managing the _Tablettes historiques_[208]: one
of his collaborators accusing him of having sold that paper, he fought
a duel and received a sword-thrust M. Coste was presented to me at the
Foreign Office; discussing the liberty of the press with him, I said:
"Monsieur, you know how I love and respect that liberty; but how would
you have me defend it to Louis XVIII., when every day you attack
royalty and religion? I beg you, in your own interest and so as to
leave me full strength, to desist from undermining ramparts which are
already three-parts demolished, and which really a man of courage ought
to blush to attack. Let us make a bargain: do you cease falling foul
of a few feeble old men whom the Throne and the sanctuary are hardly
able to protect; in exchange I give you my own person. Attack me day
and night; say anything about me that you please: I shall never make a
complaint; I shall appreciate your legitimate and constitutional attack
on the minister, so long as you leave the King out of it."
M. Coste has retained a grateful memory of his interview with me.
[Sidenote: Parade of constitutionalism.]
A parade of constitutionalism took place at the office of the _Temps_
between M. Baude[209] and a commissary of police[210].
The Attorney-General[211] issued forty-four warrants against the
signatories to the protest of the journalists.
At two o'clock, the monarchical faction of the revolution met at M.
Périer's[212], as had been agreed upon the day before: they came to no
conclusion. The deputies adjourned to the morrow, the 28th, at M. Audry
de Puyravault's[213]. M. Casimir Périer, a man of order and wealth, did
not wish to fall into the hands of the people; he continued still to
cherish the hope of an arrangement with the Legitimate Royalty; he said
sharply to M. de Schonen[214]:
"You ruin us by departing from lawfulness; you make us give up a superb
position."
This spirit of lawfulness prevailed everywhere: it showed itself at
two opposite meetings, one at M. Cadet-Gassicourt's[215] the other
at General Gourgaud's. M. Périer belonged to that middle class which
had constituted itself the heir of the people and the soldier. He
had courage, stability of ideas: he flung himself bravely across the
revolutionary torrent to dam it; but his life was too much taken up
with his health and he was too careful of his fortune:
"What can you do with a man," said M. Decazes to me, "who is always
examining his tongue in a looking-glass?"
The mob increased in size and began to appear under arms. The officer
of the Gendarmerie came to inform the Maréchal de Raguse that he had
not enough men and that he feared lest he should be driven back: then
the marshal made his military dispositions.
It was half-past four in the evening of the 27th before orders reached
the barracks to take up arms. The Paris Gendarmerie, supported by a
few detachments of the Guard, tried to restore the traffic in the Rues
Richelieu and Saint-Honoré. One of these detachments was assailed, in
the Rue du Duc de Bordeaux[216], by a shower of stones. The leader
of the detachment refrained from firing, when a shot from the Hôtel
Royal, in the Rue des Pyramides, decided the question: it appeared that
a certain Mr. Folks, who lived at this hotel, had taken up his gun
and fired at the Guards from his window. The soldiers replied with a
volley at the house, and Mr. Folks fell dead with his two servants.
This is the way in which those English, who live safe and sheltered in
their island, go to carry revolutions to other nations; you find them
in the four corners of the world mixed up in quarrels with which they
have no concern: so long as they can sell a piece of calico, what care
they about plunging a nation into every kind of calamity? What right
had this Mr. Folks to shoot at French soldiers? Was it the British
Constitution that Charles X. had violated? If anything could stigmatize
the July fighting, it would be that it was begun by a bullet fired by
an Englishman[217].
[Sidenote: The first shot fired.]
The first fighting, which began the day's work of the 27th a little
before five o'clock in the evening, ceased at nightfall. The gunsmiths
and sword-cutlers gave up their arms to the mob; the street-lamps were
broken or remained unlighted; the tricolour flag was hoisted in the
darkness on the towers of Notre-Dame: the seizure of the guard-houses,
the capture of the arsenal and the powder-magazines, the disarming of
the fixed posts, all this was effected without opposition at daybreak
on the 28th, and all was finished at eight o'clock.
The democratic or proletarian party of the revolution, in blouses
or half-naked, was under arms: it was not sparing of its misery or
its rags. The mob, represented by electors whom it chose out of
different bands, had succeeded in having a meeting called at M.
Cadet-Gassicourt's.
The party of the Usurpation did not yet show itself: its head, hiding
outside Paris, did not know whether he should go to Saint-Cloud or to
the Palais-Royal. The middle-class or monarchical party, the deputies
deliberated and were unwilling to be drawn into the movement.
M. de Polignac went to Saint-Cloud and, at five o'clock in the morning,
on the 28th, made the King sign the Ordinance placing Paris in a stage
of siege.
On the 28th, the groups formed again in greater numbers; already the
cry of "Liberty for ever! Down with the Bourbons!" was mingled with
the cry of "The Charter for ever!" which was heard on every side. They
also shouted, "Long live the Emperor! Long live the Black Prince!" the
mysterious Prince of Darkness who appears to the popular imagination
in all revolutions. Memories and passions had come down upon the
crowd; they pulled down and burned the French arms; they hung them
to the ropes of the shattered street-lanterns; they tore the badges
with the _fleurs-de-lys_ from the guards of the diligences and the
postmen; the notaries removed their scutcheons, the bailiffs their
badges, the carriers their stamps, the Court purveyors their coats of
arms. Those who but lately had covered the Napoleonic eagles, painted
in oil-colours, with the _fleurs-de-lys_ of the Bourbons in distemper
needed only a sponge to wipe away their loyalty: nowadays one effaces
gratitude and empires with a few drops of water.
The Maréchal de Raguse wrote to the King that it was urgent that
methods of pacification should be taken and that the next day, the
29th, would be too late. A messenger had come from the Prefect of
Police to ask the marshal if it was true that Paris had been declared
in a state of siege: the marshal, who knew nothing about it, was
astonished; he hurried to the President of the Council; there[218]
he found the ministers assembled, and M. de Polignac handed him the
Ordinance. Because the man who had trodden the world under foot had
laid towns and provinces under martial law, Charles X. thought that he
could imitate him. The ministers told the marshal that they were coming
to establish themselves at the Head-quarters of the Guard.
No orders having arrived from Saint-Cloud, at nine o'clock in the
morning, on the 28th, when it was no longer time to hold everything,
but to recapture everything, the marshal ordered the troops, which
had already shown themselves in part on the preceding day, to leave
barracks. No precautions had been taken to send provisions to the
Carrousel, the head-quarters. The bakehouse, which they had forgotten
to have sufficiently guarded, was carried by the mob. M. le Duc de
Raguse, a man of intelligence and merit, a brave soldier, a clever but
unlucky general, proved for the thousandth time that military genius is
not enough to overcome civil troubles: the first-come police-officer
would have known better what was to be done than the marshal. Perhaps
also his intellect was paralyzed by his memories; he remained as though
stifled under the weight of the fatality of his name.
[Sidenote: The guards attacked.]
Under the command of the Comte de Saint-Chamans[219], the first column
of the Guard set out from the Madeleine to proceed along the boulevards
to the Bastille. No sooner had they started, than the platoon commanded
by M. Sala[220] was attacked; the royalist officer briskly repulsed
the assault. As they advanced, the posts of communication left behind
on the road, too weak and too far removed one from the other, were
cut by the people and separated by felled trees and barricades. An
affray took place, attended with bloodshed, at the Portes Saint-Denis
and Saint-Martin. Passing by the scene of the future exploits of
Fieschi[221], M. de Saint-Chamans encountered numerous groups of women
and men on the Place de la Bastille. He called upon them to disperse,
distributing some money among them; but the people persisted in firing
from the surrounding houses. He was obliged to renounce his intention
of reaching the Hôtel de Ville by the Rue Saint-Antoine and, after
crossing the Pont d'Austerlitz, returned to the Carrousel along the
south boulevards. Turenne, acting on behalf of the mother of the infant
Louis XIV., had been more fortunate before the Bastille, then not yet
demolished.
The column sent to occupy the Hôtel de Ville[222] followed the Quais
des Tuileries, du Louvre and de l'École, crossed the first half of
the Pont-Neuf, took the Quai de l'Horloge and the Marché-aux-Fleurs,
and reached the Place de Grève by the Pont Notre-Dame. Two platoons
of Guards effected a diversion by filing towards the new suspension
bridge. A battalion of the 15th Light Infantry supported the Guards,
and was to leave two platoons on the Marché-aux-Fleurs.
There was some fighting as they crossed the Seine on the Pont
Notre-Dame. The mob, headed by a drum, bravely faced the Guards. The
officer in command of the Royal Artillery explained to the mass of
people that they were exposing themselves uselessly and that, as they
had no guns, they would be shot down without the smallest chance of
succeeding. The rabble persisted; the guns were fired. The soldiers
streamed on to the quays and the Place de Grève, where two other
platoons of Guards arrived by the Pont d'Arcole. They had been obliged
to force their way through crowds of students from the Faubourg
Saint-Jacques. The Hôtel de Ville was occupied.
A barricade rose at the entrance to the Rue du Monton: a brigade of
Swiss carried the barricade; the rabble, rushing up from the adjacent
streets, recaptured its entrenchment with loud shouts. The barricade
remained finally in the hands of the Guards.
In all those poor and popular quarters, they fought spontaneously,
without after-thought: mocking, heedless, intrepid, French giddiness
had mounted to all heads; glory, to our nation, has the lightness of
champagne. The women at the windows encouraged the men in the streets;
notes were written promising the marshal's baton to the first colonel
who should go over to the people; clusters of men marched to the
sound of a violin. It was a medley of tragic and clownish scenes, of
mountebank and triumphant spectacles: one heard shouts of laughter and
oaths in the midst of musket-shots and the dull roar of the crowd,
across masses of smoke. With foraging-cap on head, bare-footed,
improvised carmen, supplied with permits from unknown leaders, drove
convoys of wounded through the combatants, who separated to let them
pass.
In the wealthy quarters reigned a different spirit. The National Guards
had resumed the uniforms of which they had been stripped, and assembled
in large numbers at the Mayor's Office of the 1st Ward to preserve
order. In these engagements, the Guards suffered more than the people,
because they were exposed to the fire of invisible enemies in the
houses. Others shall give the names of the drawing-room heroes who,
safely ambushed behind a shutter or chimney-pot, amused themselves
by shooting down the officers of the Guards whom they recognised. In
the streets, the animosity of the labourer and the soldier did not
go beyond striking the blow: once wounded, they mutually aided one
another. The mob saved several victims. Two officers, M. de Goyon and
M. Rivaux, after an heroic defense, owed their lives to the generosity
of the victors. Captain Kaumann of the Guards received a blow on the
head from an iron bar: dazed and with his eyes filled with blood, he
struck up with his sword the bayonets of his soldiers who were taking
aim at the workman.
[Sidenote: Chivalry on both sides.]
The Guard was full of Bonaparte's grenadiers. Several officers lost
their lives, among others Lieutenant Noirot, a man of extraordinary
valour, who in 1813 had received the cross of the Legion of Honour
from Prince Eugene for a feat of arms accomplished in one of the
redoubts at Caldiera. Colonel de Pleineselve, mortally wounded at the
Porte Saint-Martin, had been in the wars of the Empire in Holland, in
Spain, with the Grand Army and in the Imperial Guard. At the Battle
of Leipzig, he took the Austrian General Merfeld prisoner. Carried by
his soldiers to the Hôpital du Gros-Caillou, he refused to have his
wounds dressed until all the other wounded of July had been treated.
Dr. Larrey[223], whom he had met on other battle-fields, amputated
his leg at the thigh; it was too late to save him. Happy those noble
adversaries, who had seen so many cannon-balls pass over their heads,
if they did not fall before the bullet of one of those liberated
convicts whom justice has found again, since the day of victory, in
the ranks of the victors! Those galley-slaves were unable to pollute
the national republican triumph; they prejudiced only the royalty of
Louis-Philippe. Thus perished obscurely, in the streets of Paris, the
survivors of those famous soldiers who had escaped from the cannon of
the Moskowa, of Lutzen and Leipzig: we massacred under Charles X. those
heroes whom we had so greatly admired under Napoleon. They wanted but
one man: that man had disappeared at St. Helena.
At fall of night, a non-commissioned officer in disguise came to
bring orders to the troops at the Hôtel de Ville to fall back upon
the Tuileries. The retreat was made hazardous because of the wounded,
whom they did not wish to abandon, and of the artillery, which it was
difficult to convey across the barricades. Nevertheless it was effected
without accident. When the troops returned from the different quarters
of Paris, they thought that the King and Dauphin had come back also:
looking in vain for the White Flag on the Pavillon de l'Horloge, they
uttered the energetic language of the camps.
It is not true, as I have shown, that the Hôtel de Ville was captured
by the Guards from the people and recaptured from the Guards by the
people. When the Guards entered, they encountered no resistance, for
there was no one there: the Prefect himself had gone. This boasting
weakens and casts a doubt upon the real dangers. The Guards were
badly engaged in tortuous streets; the Line, at first by its show
of neutrality, and later by its defection, completed the harm which
plans fine in theory, but unfeasible in practice, had begun. The 50th
Regiment of the Line had arrived at the Hôtel de Ville during the
fighting; ready to drop with fatigue, they hastened to retire to the
inside of the Hôtel, and lent their exhausted comrades their unused and
useless cartridges.
The Swiss battalion which had been left on the Marché des Innocents was
released by another Swiss battalion: together they came out at the Quai
de l'École and stood in the Louvre.
For the rest, barricades are entrenchments in keeping with the Parisian
character; they are found in all our troubles, from Charles IX. to our
own times:
"The people," says L'Éstoile, "seeing those forces disposed over
the streets, began to be agitated and made barricades in the manner
that all know: many Swiss were slain, who were buried in a ditch
dug in the enclosure of Notre-Dame; the Duke of Guyse passing
through the streets, all vied in crying loudly, 'Long live Guyse!'
and quoth he, doffing his large hat:
"'My friends, it is enough; gentlemen, it is too much; shout, "Long
live the King!"'"
Why do our barricades, which led to such mighty results, gain so
little in the telling, while the barricades of 1588, which produced
nothing, are so interesting to read of? This is due to the difference
in centuries and persons: the sixteenth century carried all before it;
the nineteenth century has left all behind it: M. de Puyravault is not
quite the Balafré.
While this fighting was continuing, the civil and political revolution
followed the military revolution on parallel lines. The soldiers locked
up in the Abbaye were set at liberty; the debtors at Sainte-Pélagie
escaped and the political prisoners were released: a revolution is a
jubilee; it absolves from every crime, permitting greater crimes.
The Ministers sat in council at the Staff Office: they resolved to
arrest Messieurs Laffitte[224], La Fayette, Gérard, Marchais[225],
Salverte[226] and Audry de Puyravault as leaders of the movement;
the marshal gave the order for their arrest; but, when, later, they
appeared before him as delegates, he did not think it consistent with
his honour to put his order into execution.
[Sidenote: Meetings of peers and deputies.]
A gathering of the Monarchical Party, consisting of peers and deputies,
met at M. Guizot's: the Duc de Broglie was there, as were Messieurs
Thiers and Mignet, who had made their reappearance, and M. Carrel,
although he held different ideas. It was there that the name of the Duc
d'Orléans was first pronounced by the Usurpation Party. M. Thiers and
M. Mignet went to General Sébastiani to talk to him of the Prince. The
general replied in an evasive manner; the Duc d'Orléans, he asserted,
had never entertained such designs and had not authorized him to do
anything.
About mid-day, on the same day, the 28th, the general meeting of the
deputies took place at M. Audry de Puyravault's[227]. M. de La Fayette,
the leader of the Republican Party, had reached Paris on the 27th; M.
Laffitte, the leader of the Orleanist Party, had arrived on the 27th,
at night; he went to the Palais-Royal, where he found no one; he sent
to Neuilly: the King in embryo was not there.
At M. de Puyravault's, they discussed the proposal of a protest against
the Ordinances. This protest, which was of a more than moderate
character, left the great questions untouched.
M. Casimir Périer was in favour of hastening to the Duc de Raguse;
while the five deputies selected were preparing to leave, M. Arago[228]
was with the marshal: he had decided, on receipt of a note from Madame
de Boigne, to be before-hand with the delegates. He represented to
the marshal the necessity for putting an end to the troubles of the
Capital. M. de Raguse went to obtain intelligence at M. de Polignac's;
the latter, hearing of the hesitation among the troops, declared that,
if they went over to the people, they were to be fired on like the
insurgents. General de Tromelin[229] was present at the conversation
and flew into a passion with General d'Ambrugeac[230]. Then came the
deputation. M. Laffitte spoke:
"We come," he said, "to ask you to stop bloodshed. If the fighting
continues, it will carry with it not only the most frightful
calamities, but a real revolution."
The marshal confined himself to a question of military honour,
maintaining that it was the duty of the people first to cease fighting;
nevertheless he added this postscript to a letter which he was writing
to the King:
"I think it is urgent that Your Majesty should avail yourself
without delay of the overtures that have been made."
Colonel Komierowski, aide-de-camp to the Duc de Raguse, was shown into
the King's closet at Saint-Cloud, and handed him the letter; the King
said to him:
"I will read this letter."
The colonel withdrew and waited orders; seeing that they were not
forthcoming, he begged M. le Duc de Duras to go to the King to ask for
them. The duke replied that etiquette made it impossible for him to
enter the closet. At last M. Komierowski was sent for by the King and
told to enjoin the marshal "to hold out."
General Vincent on his side hurried down to Saint-Cloud; he forced the
door which was denied him, and told the King that all was lost:
"My dear fellow," replied Charles X., "you are a good general, but
these are things that you know nothing about."
The 29th saw new combatants enter the field: the pupils of the
Polytechnic School, who were in correspondence with one of their old
schoolfellows, M. Charras[231], broke bounds and sent four of their
number, Messieurs Lothon, Perthelin, Pinsonnière and Tourneaux to offer
their services to Messieurs Laffitte, Périer and La Fayette. These
young men, distinguished by their studies, had already made themselves
known to the Allies, when the latter appeared before Paris in 1814;
during the Three Days, they became the leaders of the people, who, with
perfect simplicity, placed them at their head. Some repaired to the
Place de l'Odéon, others to the Palais-Royal and the Tuileries.
[Sidenote: The King's obstinacy.]
The Order of the Day published on the morning of the 29th offended the
Guards: it announced that the King, wishing to give a proof of his
satisfaction to his brave servants, awarded them six weeks' pay; an
impropriety which the French soldier resented: it was placing him on a
level with the English, who refuse to march or who mutiny, if their pay
is in arrears.
During the night of the 28th, the people took up the street-pavement,
at each twenty yards' distance, and, at day-break the next morning,
there were four thousand barricades standing in Paris.
The Palais-Bourbon was guarded by the Line, the Louvre by two Swiss
battalions, the Rue de la Paix, the Place Vendôme and the Rue
Castiglione by the 5th and 53rd Regiments of the Line. About twelve
hundred infantrymen had arrived from Saint-Denis, Versailles and Rueil.
The military position was better: the troops were more concentrated,
and big empty spaces had to be crossed to reach them. General
Exelmans[232], who thought well of the dispositions, came at eleven
o'clock to place his courage and experience at the disposal of the
Maréchal de Raguse, while on his side General Pajol[233] presented
himself before the deputies to take command of the National Guard.
The ministers had the idea of summoning the King's Court to the
Tuileries, so completely out of touch were they with the movement
surrounding them! The marshal pressed the President of the Council
to withdraw the Ordinances. During the interview, M. de Polignac was
asked for; he went out, and returned with M. Bertier[234], son of the
first victim sacrificed in 1789. M. Bertier had been through Paris,
and declared that all was going well for the royal cause: what a fatal
thing are those families which have a right to vengeance, cast into the
tomb, as they were, in our early troubles and conjured up by our later
misfortunes! Those misfortunes were novelties no longer; since 1793,
Paris was accustomed to witness the passing of events and kings.
While all was going so well according to the Royalists, the defection
was announced of the 5th and 53rd of the Line, who were fraternizing
with the people.
[Sidenote: Butchery at the Louvre.]
The Duc de Raguse proposed a suspension of hostilities: it took
place at some points and was not carried out at others. The marshal
had sent for one of the two Swiss battalions posted at the Louvres.
They dispatched to him the battalion which lined the colonnade. The
Parisians, seeing the colonnade deserted, came up to the walls and
entered by the masked doors which lead from the Jardin de l'Infante
to the interior; they made for the windows and opened fire on the
battalion standing in the court-yard. Under the terror of the memory
of the 10th of August, the Swiss rushed from the Palace and hurled
themselves into their battalion, which was posted opposite the Parisian
outposts; here, however, the suspension of hostilities was being
observed. The mob, which from the Louvre had reached the gallery of
the Museum, began to fire from the midst of the master-pieces on the
Lancers drawn up in the Carrousel. The Parisian posts, carried away by
this example, broke off the suspension of hostilities. Flung headlong
under the Arc de Triomphe, the Swiss drove the Lancers to the porch of
the Pavillon de l'Horloge and debouched in confusion into the garden of
the Tuileries. Young Farcy[235] met his death in this scuffle: his name
is written up at the corner of the café where he fell; a beet-factory
stands at Thermopylae to-day. The Swiss had three or four men killed or
wounded: this small loss was changed into a frightful butchery.
The mob entered the Tuileries, with Messieurs Thomas[236], Bastide[237]
and Guinard[238], by the Pont-Royal gate. A tricolour flag was planted
on the Pavillon de l'Horloge, as in the time of Bonaparte, apparently
in remembrance of liberty. Furniture was broken up, pictures slashed
with sword-cuts; in a cupboard they found the King's hunting journal,
with particulars of his fine exploits against the partridges: an old
custom of the gamekeepers of the Monarchy. They put a corpse on the
empty throne, in the Throne Room: that would be a formidable thing, if
the French of to-day were not always playing at drama. The artillery
museum, at Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, was pillaged, and the centuries passed
down the river, under the helmet of Godfrey of Bouillon and with the
lance of Francis I.
Then the Duc de Raguse left the Staff Office, leaving 120,000 francs
in bags behind him. He went through the Rue de Rivoli and entered the
Tuileries Gardens. He gave the order for the troops to retire, first to
the Champs Élysées, and next to the Étoile. It was believed that peace
was made, that the Dauphin was coming; some carriages from the Royal
Mews and a baggage-wagon were seen to cross the Place Louis XV.: it was
the ministers going after their works.
On arriving at the Étoile, Marmont received a letter: it informed him
that the King had given M. le Dauphin the command-in-chief of the
troops, and that he, the marshal, would serve under his orders.
A company of the 3rd Guards had been forgotten in the house of a hatter
in the Rue de Rohan; after a long resistance the house was carried.
Captain Meunier, wounded in three places, jumped from a third-floor
window, fell on a roof below, and was taken to the Hôpital du
Grand-Caillou: he has survived. The Caserne Babylone, attacked between
twelve and one in the day by three pupils of the Polytechnic School,
Vaneau, Lacroix and Ouvrier, was guarded only by a depot of Swiss
recruits numbering about a hundred men; Major Dufay, an officer of
French descent, was in command: he had served with us for thirty years;
he had been an actor in the great exploits of the Republic and the
Empire. He was called upon to surrender, refused all conditions, and
locked himself up in his barrack. Young Vaneau was killed. Some firemen
set fire to the barrack-door, which fell in pieces; at once Major Dufay
issued through this mouth of flame, followed by his highlanders, with
fixed bayonets. He fell, struck by the musket-shot of a neighbouring
publican: his death saved his Swiss recruits; they joined the different
corps to which they belonged.
M. le Duc de Mortemart[239] arrived at Saint-Cloud on Wednesday the
28th, at ten o'clock in the evening, to take up his service as Captain
of the Hundred Swiss: he was not able to speak to the King till the
next day. At eleven o'clock, on the 29th, he made a few efforts to
induce Charles X. to recall the Ordinances; the King said to him:
"I do not want to climb into the cart, like my brother; I will not go
back by a foot."
A few minutes later, he was to go back by a kingdom!
[Sidenote: Charles X. and his ministers.]
The ministers had arrived: Messieurs de Sémonville, d'Argout[240],
Vitrolles were there. M. de Sémonville related that he had had a long
conversation with the King; that he had not succeeded in shaking his
resolution until he made an appeal to his heart by speaking to him of
the dangers to which Madame la Dauphine was exposed. He said to him:
"To-morrow, at noon, there will be no King, no Dauphin, no Duc de
Bordeaux."
And the King replied:
"You will surely give me till one o'clock."
I do not believe a word of all this. Bragging is our national fault;
question a Frenchman and trust to his story: he will always have done
everything.
The ministers went in to the King after M. de Sémonville; the
Ordinances were revoked, the Ministry dissolved, M. de Mortemart
appointed President of the new Council.
In the Capital, the Republican Party had at last run some one to
earth. M. Baude, the man of the parade at the office of the _Temps_,
going through the streets, had found the Hôtel de Ville occupied by
only two men, M. Dubourg and M. Zimmer. He at once proclaimed himself
the emissary of a "Provisional Government" which was coming to instal
itself. He sent for the clerks of the Prefecture and ordered them
to set to work as though M. de Chabrol were present. In governments
which have become machines the weights are soon wound up again; every
one hastens to take possession of the deserted places: this one made
himself secretary-general, that other head of a division, a third took
the accounts, a fourth appointed himself to the staff and distributed
the places on the staff among his friends; there were some who went
so far as to send for their beds, so as not to leave the spot and to
be in a position to jump upon the first place that became vacant.
M. Dubourg, nicknamed "General" Dubourg, and M. Zimmer were styled
the heads of the "military" side of the "Provisional Government" M.
Baude represented the "civil" side of this unknown government, took
resolutions and issued proclamations. And yet placards had been seen
which came from the Republican Party and which were the production of
a different government, consisting of Messieurs de La Fayette, Gérard
and de Choiseul. It is difficult to explain the association of the last
name with the two others; besides, M. de Choiseul protested. This old
Liberal, who, emigrating and shipwrecked at Calais, to save his life
mimicked the stiffness of death[241], found no paternal home, on his
return to France, save a box at the Opera.
At three o'clock in the afternoon came a new element of confusion.
An Order of the Day summoned the deputies in Paris to the Hôtel de
Ville, there to confer on the measures to be taken. The mayors were
to be restored to their mayoralties; they were also to send one of
their deputy-mayors to the Hôtel de Ville, in order to make up a
"consultative commission" there. This Order was signed, "J. Baude, for
the Provisional Government" and "Colonel Zimmer, by order of General
Dubourg." This audacity on the part of three persons speaking in the
name of a government that existed only in so far as it had placarded
itself at the street-corners proves the rare intelligence of the
French in revolution: such men as these are evidently leaders destined
to sway other nations. What a misfortune that, in delivering us from a
similar anarchy, Bonaparte should have snatched from us our liberty!
[Sidenote: Meeting at M. Laffitte's.]
The deputies had again met at M. Laffitte's[242]. M. de La Fayette,
going back to 1789, declared that he would also go back to the command
of the National Guard. This met with applause, and he proceeded to
the Hôtel de Ville. The deputies nominated a "Municipal Commission"
consisting of five members, Messieurs Casimir Périer, Laffitte, de
Lobau[243], de Schonen and Audry de Puyravault. M. Odilon Barrot
was elected secretary to the Commission, which installed itself at
the Hôtel de Ville, as M. de La Fayette had done. All these sat
promiscuously, beside the Provisional Government of M. Dubourg. M.
Mauguin[244], sent as an emissary to the "Commission," remained with
it. The friend of Washington ordered the black flag which had been
hoisted by the ingenuity of M. Dubourg to be removed.
At half-past eight in the evening, M. de Sémonville, M. d'Argout
and M. de Vitrolles arrived from Saint-Cloud. They had hastened to
Paris immediately after hearing, at Saint-Cloud, of the repeal of the
Ordinances, the dismissal of the old ministers and the appointment of
M. de Mortemart to the Presidency of the Council. They appeared before
the Municipal Commission in the quality of mandatories of the King. M.
Mauguin asked the Grand Refendary if he had written powers; the Grand
Refendary replied that "he had not thought of it." The negociations of
the official commissaries went no further.
M. Laffitte, informed at the meeting at his house of what had taken
place at Saint-Cloud, signed a permit for M. de Mortemart, adding
that the deputies assembled at his house would wait for him until one
o'clock in the morning. As the noble duke did not appear, the deputies
went home.
M. Laffitte, left alone with M. Thiers, occupied himself with the Duc
d'Orléans and the necessary proclamations. Fifty years of revolution
in France had given the men of practice the facility for reorganizing
governments and the men of theory the habit of refurbishing charters
and preparing the cranes and cradles by which governments are hoisted
up or let down.
On this same day, the 29th, the day after my return to Paris, I was not
idle. My plan was fixed: I wanted to act, but only on an order, written
in the King's own hand, which would give me the necessary powers to
speak with the authorities of the moment; to meddle with everything and
do nothing did not suit me. That I had argued rightly is proved by the
affront received by Messieurs d'Argout, de Sémonville and de Vitrolles.
I therefore wrote to Charles X. at Saint-Cloud. M. de Givré undertook
to carry my letter. I begged the King to instruct me as to his wishes.
M. de Givré returned empty-handed. He had given my letter to M. le Duc
de Duras, who had given it to the King, who sent me word that he had
appointed M. de Mortemart his Prime Minister and asked me to arrange
with him. Where to find the noble duke? I looked for him in vain on the
evening of the 29th.
Rejected by Charles X., I turned my thoughts to the Chamber of Peers,
which was able, as a sovereign court, to evoke a trial and adjust the
difference. If it was not safe in Paris, it was at liberty to transfer
itself to some distance, even to the King's side, and from there to
pronounce a grand award. It had chances of success; there are always
chances of success in courage. After all, had it succumbed, it would
have undergone a defeat which would have been useful to the question of
principle. But should I have found twenty men in that Chamber prepared
to devote themselves? Of those twenty men, were there four who would
have agreed with me on public liberty?
Aristocratic assemblies enjoy a glorious reign when they are sovereign
and alone invested, _de jure et de facto_, with power: they offer the
strongest guarantees; but, in mixed forms of government, they lose
their value and become pitiful in times of great crisis. Weak against
the king, they do not prevent despotism; weak against the people,
they do not stop anarchy. In any public commotion, they redeem their
existence only at the price of perjury or slavery. Did the House of
Lords save Charles I.? Did it save Richard Cromwell[245], to whom it
had taken the oath? Did it save James II.? Will it save the Hanoverian
Princes to-day? Will it save itself? Those self-styled aristocratic
counter-weights only disturb the balance and will sooner or later be
flung out of the scale. An ancient and wealthy aristocracy, having
the habit of business, has only one means of retaining power when the
latter is escaping from it: that is, to cross over from the Capitol to
the Forum and place itself at the head of the new movement, unless it
think itself still strong enough to risk civil war.
While awaiting M. de Givré's return, I was pretty busy in defending
my quarter. The suburbs, the quarrymen of Montrouge came crowding
through the Barrière de l'Enfer. The latter resembled those quarrymen
of Montmartre who caused such great alarm to Mademoiselle de Mornay
when she was fleeing from the massacres of St. Bartholomew. As they
passed before the community-house of the Missionaries, in my street,
they entered it: a score of priests were obliged to take to flight; the
haunt of those fanatics was philosophically pillaged, their beds and
their books burnt in the street. This trifle has not been mentioned.
Was there any need to trouble about what the priesthood might have
lost? I gave hospitality to seven or eight fugitives; they remained
for several days hidden under my roof. I obtained passports for them
through the intermediary of my neighbour, M. Arago, and they went
elsewhere to preach the Word of God: _utilis populis fuga sanctorum._
[Sidenote: The Municipal Commission.]
The Municipal Commission, established at the Hôtel de Ville, appointed
the Baron Louis Provisional Commissary of Finance, M. Baude Minister
of the Interior, M. Mérilhou Minister of Justice, gave M. Chardel[246]
the Post Office, M. Marchal[247] the Telegraphs, M. Bavoux[248]
the Police, M. de Laborde the Prefecture of the Seine. Thus the
"voluntary" Provisional Government found itself destroyed in reality
by the promotion of M. Baude, who had created himself a member of that
government. The shops were opened again; the public services resumed
their course.
At the meeting at M. Laffitte's, it had been decided that the deputies
should assemble, at noon, at the palace of the Chamber: some thirty
or thirty-five met there, under the presidency of M. Laffitte.
M. Bérard[249] announced that he had met Messieurs d'Argout, de
Forbin-Janson[250] and de Mortemart on their way to M. Laffitte's,
thinking that they would find the deputies there; that he had invited
those gentlemen to follow him to the Chamber, but that M. le Duc
de Mortemart, overwhelmed with fatigue, had gone away to see M. de
Sémonville. M. de Mortemart, according to M. Bérard, said that he had a
signature in blank and that the King consented to everything.
In fact, M. de Mortemart brought five Ordinances: instead of
communicating them at once to the deputies, he was obliged by his
lassitude to go back to the Luxembourg. At mid-day he sent the
Ordinances to M. Sauvo[251]; the latter replied that he could not
publish them in the _Moniteur_ without the authorization of the Chamber
of Deputies or the Municipal Commission.
M. Bérard having told his story, as I have said, in the Chamber,
a discussion followed to decide whether they should receive M. de
Mortemart or not General Sébastiani insisted on the affirmative; M.
Mauguin declared that, if M. de Mortemart were present, he would ask
that he should be heard, but that events were urgent and that they
could not wait on M. de Mortemart's good pleasure.
Five commissaries were appointed, charged to go to confer with the
peers: these five commissaries were Messieurs Augustin Périer[252],
Sébastiani, Guizot, Benjamin Delessert[253], and Hyde de Neuville. But
soon the Comte de Sussy[254] was introduced into the Elective Chamber.
M. de Mortemart had charged him to present the Ordinances to the
deputies. Addressing the assembly, he said:
"In the Chancellor's absence, a few peers met at my house. M. le Duc de
Mortemart handed us this letter, addressed to M. le Général Gérard or
M. Casimir Périer. I beg leave to communicate its contents to you."
Here is the letter:
"MONSIEUR,
"After leaving Saint-Cloud during the night, I have in vain tried
to meet you. Please tell me where I can see you. I beg you to
give notice of the Ordinances which I have been carrying since
yesterday."
[Sidenote: The Duc de Montemart.]
M. le Duc de Mortemart had left Saint-Cloud during the night; he had
had the Ordinances in his pocket for twelve or fifteen hours, "since
yesterday," to use his own expression; he had been unable to find
General Gérard or M. Casimir Périer: M. de Mortemart was very unlucky!
M. Bérard made the following observation on the letter that had been
read aloud:
"I cannot," he said, "refrain from calling attention here to a lack of
frankness: M. de Mortemart, who was proceeding to M. Laffitte's this
morning when I met him, formally told me that he would come here."
The five Ordinances were read. The first recalled the Ordinances of the
25th of July, the second summoned the Chambers for the 3rd of August,
the third appointed M. de Mortemart Foreign Minister and President of
the Council, the fourth called General Gérard to the War Office, the
fifth M. Casimir Périer to the Ministry of Finance. When I at last met
M. de Mortemart at the Grand Referendary's, he told me that he had
been obliged to stay at M. de Sémonville's, because, having returned
on foot from Saint-Cloud, he had had to go out of his way and enter
the Bois de Boulogne by a gap: his boot or his shoe had taken the skin
off his heel. It is to be regretted that, before producing the acts of
the Throne, M. de Mortemart did not try to see the influential men and
bring them round to the King's side. These acts falling suddenly in the
midst of the unforewarned deputies, no one dared to declare himself.
They drew down upon themselves this terrible reply from Benjamin
Constant:
"We know beforehand what the Chamber of Peers will say to us: it will
purely and simply accept the repeal of the Ordinances. As for myself, I
do not pronounce positively on the dynastic question; I will only say
that it would be too easy for a king to have his people shot down and
to avoid the consequences by saying afterwards, 'Everything is as it
was.'"
Would Benjamin Constant, who "did not pronounce positively on the
dynastic question," have ended his phrase in the same way if words
had been addressed to him earlier suited to his talents and his just
ambition? I sincerely pity a man of courage and honour like M. de
Mortemart, when I come to think that the Legitimate Monarchy was
perhaps overthrown because the minister charged with the royal powers
was unable to find two deputies in Paris and because, tired with doing
three leagues on foot, he barked his heel. The Ordinance nominating
M. de Mortemart to the St. Petersburg Embassy has taken the place
for him of the Ordinances of his old master. Ah, how could I refuse
Louis-Philippe's request that I should be his Minister of Foreign
Affairs or resume my beloved embassy in Rome? But alas, what should I
have done with my "beloved" on the bank of the Tiber? I should always
have believed that she blushed as she looked at me.
On the morning of the 30th, I received a note from the Grand
Referendary summoning me to the meeting of the Peers, at the
Luxembourg. I wanted first to learn some news. I went down the Rue
d'Enfer, the Place Saint-Michel and the Rue Dauphine. There was still a
little excitement around the broken barricades. I compared what I saw
with the great revolutionary movement of 1789, and the present struck
me as orderly and silent: the change of manners was visible.
At the Pont-Neuf, the statue of Henry IV., like an ensign of the
League, held a tricolour flag in its hand. Men of the people said, as
they looked at the bronze King:
"You would never have been such a fool, old man."
Groups had assembled on the Quai de l'École: I saw, in the distance, a
general accompanied by two aides-de-camp, all on horse-back. I went in
their direction. As I elbowed my way through the crowd, my eyes were on
the general: a tricolour sash across his coat, his hat cocked over the
back of his head, with one comer in front. He caught sight of me in his
turn, and cried:
"See! The viscount!"
[Sidenote: General Dubourg.]
And I, surprised, recognised Colonel or Captain Dubourg, my companion
at Ghent, who was going, during our return to Paris, to take the open
towns in the name of Louis XVIII., and who brought us, as I have
related, half a sheep for dinner in a dirty lodging at Arnouville[255].
This is the officer whom the newspapers had represented as an austere
soldier of the Republic, with grey mustachios, who had refused to serve
under the imperial tyranny and who was so poor that they had been
obliged to buy him a uniform of the days of Larevellière-Lepeaux[256]
at the rag-fair. Then I exclaimed:
"Why, it's you! What..."
He stretched out his arms to me, pressed my hand on Flanquine's neck; a
circle was formed around us:
"My dear fellow," said the military head of the Provisional Government,
pointing out the Louvre to me, "there were twelve hundred of them in
there: we gave them prunes in their hinder parts! And they ran, oh, how
they ran!"
M. Dubourg's aides-de-camp burst into loud roars of laughter; the
rabble laughed in unison, the general spurred his nag, which caracoled
like a broken-backed beast, followed by two other Rosinantes slipping
on the paving-stones as though ready to fall on their noses between
their riders' legs.
Thus, proudly borne away, did the Diomedes of the Hôtel de Ville, a
man, for the rest, of courage and wit, abandon me. I have seen men
who, taking all the scenes of 1830 for serious, blushed at this story,
because it somewhat counteracted their heroic credulity. I myself was
ashamed on seeing the comical side of the gravest revolutions and how
easy it is to trifle with the good faith of the people.
M. Louis Blanc, in the first volume of his excellent _Histoire de dix
ans_, published after what I have just written here, confirms my story:
"A man," he says, "of middle height, with an energetic countenance,
and wearing a general's uniform, was crossing the Marché des
Innocents, followed by a great number of armed men. M. Évariste
Dumoulin[257], editor of the _Constitutionnel_, had supplied
this man with his uniform, obtained at an old-clothes shop; and
the epaulets which he wore had been given him by Perlet[258], the
actor: they came from the property-room of the Opéra-Comique.
"'Who is that general?" was asked on every hand.
"And when they who surrounded him answered, 'It is General
Dubourg,' 'Long live General Dubourg!' cried the people, who had
never heard the name before[259]."
A few paces further, a different sight awaited me: a ditch had been dug
before the colonnade of the Louvre; a priest, in surplice and stole,
was praying beside the ditch: they were laying dead bodies in it. I
took off my hat and made the sign of the cross. The silent crowd stood
respectfully watching the ceremony, which would have been nothing if
religion had not appeared in it. So many memories and reflections
presented themselves to my mind that I remained quite motionless.
Suddenly I felt myself being crowded round; a cry arose:
"Long live the defender of the liberty of the press!"
I had been recognised by my hair. Forthwith some young men caught hold
of me and said:
"Which way are you going? We are going to carry you."
I did not know what to answer; I begged to be excused; I struggled;
I entreated them to let me go. The time fixed for the meeting in the
House of Peers had not yet come. The young men kept on shouting:
"Which way are you going? Which way are you going?"
I replied at random:
"Well, to the Palais-Royal!"
Forthwith I was escorted there, amid cries of "The Charter for ever!
The liberty of the press for ever! Chateaubriand for ever!" In the Cour
des Fontaines, M. Barba[260], the bookseller, left his house and came
to embrace me.
We arrived at the Palais-Royal; I was plumped down in a café under the
wooden arcade. I was dying with heat. With clasped hands I reiterated
my request for remission of my glory: not a bit of it; the whole of
that youth refused to leave hold of me. In the crowd was a man in
a waistcoat-jacket with the sleeves turned up, with black hands, a
sinister face and gleaming eyes, such as I had seen so often at the
commencement of the Revolution: he continually tried to approach me,
and the young men always thrust him back. I learnt neither his name nor
what he wanted with me.
I had to make up my mind at last to say that I was going to the House
of Peers. We left the café; the cheers began afresh. In the court-yard
of the Louvre, different kinds of shouts were raised: some cried, "To
the Tuileries! To the Tuileries!" others, "Long live the First Consul!"
and seemed to wish to make me the heir of Bonaparte the Republican.
Hyacinthe, who accompanied me, received his share of hand-shaking and
embraces. We crossed the Pont des Arts and took the Rue de Seine. The
people flocked on our passage; they crowded the windows. I suffered
under all these honours, for my arms were being torn from their
sockets. One of the young men who were pushing me from behind suddenly
slipped his head between my legs and lifted me on his shoulders. New
cheers; they shouted to the spectators in the street and at the windows:
"Hats off! Hurrah for the Charter!"
And I replied:
"Yes, gentlemen, hurrah for the Charter! But hurrah for the King!"
This cry was not taken up, but it provoked no anger. And that is how
the game was lost! All might still be arranged, but it was necessary
to present only popular men to the people: in revolutions, a name does
more than an army.
[Sidenote: I am carried to the Luxembourg.]
I besought my young friends to such good purpose that at last they put
me down. In the Rue de Seine, opposite M. Le Normant, my publisher, a
furniture-dealer offered an arm-chair to carry me in; I refused it and
arrived in the main court of the Luxembourg in the midst of my triumph.
My generous escort then left me, after shouting fresh cries of "The
Charter for ever! Chateaubriand for ever!"
I was touched by the sentiments of this noble youth: I had shouted,
"Long live the King!" in the midst of them all, quite as safely as
though I had been alone in my house; they knew my opinions; they
carried me themselves to the House of Peers, where they knew that I was
going to speak and remain loyal to my King: and yet it was the 30th of
July and we had just passed by the ditch where they were burying the
citizens killed by the bullets of the soldiers of Charles X.!
The noise which I left outside contrasted with the silence which
reigned in the entrance-hall of the Palace of the Luxembourg.
This silence increased in the gloomy gallery which precedes M. de
Sémonville's apartments. My presence embarrassed the twenty-five or
thirty peers who had gathered there: I hindered the sweet effusions of
fear, the tender consternation to which they were yielding. I there
at last saw M. de Mortemart. I told him that, in accordance with the
King's wishes, I was ready to act in agreement with him. He replied
that, as I have already stated, he had barked his heel on returning: he
disappeared again in the throng of the assembly. He apprized us of the
Ordinances which he had already communicated to the Deputies through
M. de Sussy. M. de Broglie declared that he had just been through
Paris; that we were living on a volcano; that the middle classes were
no longer able to restrain the workmen; that, if we merely pronounced
the name of Charles X., they would cut all our throats and demolish the
Luxembourg as they had demolished the Bastille:
"That's true, that's true!" muttered the prudent in a hollow voice,
shaking their heads[261].
M. de Caraman[262], who had been made a duke, apparently because he had
been M. de Metternich's lackey, maintained with great heat that it was
impossible to recognise the Ordinances:
"And why not, monsieur?" I asked.
This cold question iced his rapture.
[Sidenote: Meeting of the peers.]
The five commissaries from the Deputies arrived. M. le Général
Sébastiani led off with his customary phrase:
"Gentlemen, this is a serious business."
Next he sang the praises of M. le Duc de Mortemart's remarkable
moderation; he spoke of the dangers of Paris, pronounced a few words in
eulogy of H.R.H. Monseigneur le Duc d'Orléans and concluded with the
impossibility of considering the Ordinances. I and M. Hyde de Neuville
were the only two who held the opposite opinion. I obtained leave to
speak:
"M. le Duc de Broglie has told us, gentlemen, that he has walked about
the streets and seen hostile dispositions on every hand. I, too, have
just been through Paris: three thousand young men escorted me to the
court-yard of this palace; you may have heard their cheers: are these
thirsting for your blood, who have thus greeted one of your colleagues?
They shouted:
"The Charter for ever!'
"I replied:
"'The King for ever!'
"They showed no anger, and came and brought me safe and sound into
your midst. Are those such threatening symptoms of public opinion?
Personally, I maintain that nothing is lost, that we can accept the
Ordinances. It is not a question of considering whether there be danger
or not, but of keeping the oaths which we have taken to the King, to
whom we owe our dignities, and many of us our fortune. His Majesty,
by withdrawing the Ordinances and changing his ministry, has done all
that he should; let us, in our turn, do our duty. What! In the whole
course of our lives there comes one single day in which we are obliged
to enter the lists, and shall we decline the combat? Let us give France
the example of honour and loyalty; let us save her from falling a prey
to anarchical combinations in which her peace, her true interests and
her liberties would be lost: danger vanishes when one dares to look it
in the face."
They made no reply; they hastened to close the meeting. There was
an impatience for perjury in that assembly, which was driven by an
intrepid fear; each one wished to save his rag of life, as though Time
were not waiting, on the morrow, to strip us of our old skins, for
which no sensible Jew would have given a groat.
[Footnote 162: This book was written in Paris in August and September
1830.--T.]
[Footnote 163: Lamartine was elected a member of the French Academy on
the 5th of November 1829, receiving nineteen votes against fourteen
given to General Philippe de Ségur.--B.]
[Footnote 164: Charles Jean Dominique de Lacretelle (1766-1855), member
of the French Academy, and author of the _Histoire de France pendant le
XVIIIe. siècle._--T.]
[Footnote 165: Jean Pierre Abel Rémusat (1788-1832), the distinguished
orientalist. He devoted the last years of his life to politics,
speaking and writing as an ardent adherent of the Legitimacy.--T.]
[Footnote 166: Antoine Jean Saint-Martin (1791-1832), also an eminent
orientalist and fervent Monarchist. He founded, in 1829, the absolutist
organ, the _Universel._--T.]
[Footnote 167: January 1829.--B.]
[Footnote 168: Achille Charles Léonce Victor Duc de Broglie
(1785-1870), married in 1816 to Albertine, daughter of Madame de Staël.
He became a leading Orleanist statesman, was Minister of the Interior
and of Public Worship and Instruction (1830) and Minister of Foreign
Affairs (1832-1834 and 1834-1836), a peer of France, and a member of
the French Academy.--T.]
[Footnote 169: Louis Auguste Victor de Ghaisne, Comte de Bourmont
(1773-1846), had commanded the Chouans in the Vendée from 1794 to 1799,
and, in 1800, was imprisoned for complicity in the conspiracy resulting
in the Infernal Machine. He made his escape from Besançon and fled to
Lisbon, where he joined the French during their reverses and was taken
into favour by Napoleon in 1808. He served under Bonaparte in all his
subsequent campaigns. After the return from Elba he accepted a command
from the Emperor, but reverted to the King a few days before the
Battle of Waterloo. He was created a peer of France in 1823 and became
Minister for War in 1829. In 1830, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief
of the Algerian Expedition. After the Revolution of July, true to his
latent royalist sympathies, he fought for the Duchesse de Berry in the
Vendée and subsequently for Dom Miguel in Portugal, but always without
success. Eventually he abandoned politics and returned to France, where
he died at the Château de Bourmont in 1846.--T.]
[Footnote 170: Jean Joseph Antoine de Courvoisier (1775-1835).
He had emigrated and served in Condé's Army, and since 1818 was
Attorney-General to the Lyons Courts.--B.]
[Footnote 171: Guillaume Isidore Baron, Comte de Montbel (1787-1861),
escaped after the Revolution of July and fled to Austria. He was
sentenced by contumacy to perpetual imprisonment, and was not amnestied
until 1836, when he returned to France, keeping out of politics.
Montbel died at Frohsdorff while on a visit to the Comte de Chambord, 3
February 1861.--B.]
[Footnote 172: When M. de Polignac became President of the Council, on
the 17th of November 1829, M. de La Bourdonnaye sent in his resignation
as Minister of the Interior. One of his friends asked him the reason of
his resignation:
"They wanted to make me stake my head," was his reply. "I wanted to
hold the cards." (Villèle's Political Papers).--B.]
[Footnote 173: Martial Côme Annibal Perpétue Magloire Comte de
Guernon-Ranville (1787-1866), a distinguished lawyer. After the
Revolution of July, he was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment and
confined at Ham, where he remained until the amnesty of 1836. He then
withdrew to the Château de Ranville, in Calvados, where he died in
November 1866.--B.]
[Footnote 174: The _National_, the first number of which was published
on the 3rd of January 1830. It was founded by Messieurs Thiers, Mignet
and Armand Carrel, each of whom was to have the management of the paper
for one year, commencing with M. Thiers.--B.]
[Footnote 175: Sautelet (_d._ 1830), the publisher, did in fact commit
suicide a few months after the founding of the _National._--B.]
[Footnote 176: Louis Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877) occupied Cabinet
positions from 1832 to 1836, and was Prime Minister from May to October
1840. His _Histoire du consulat et de l'empire_ was published from 1845
to 1862. He was a conspicuous member of the Constituent and Legislative
Assemblies from 1848 to 1851, and was arrested by Louis Napoleon at the
time of the _coup d'État._ In 1863, he was elected to the Legislative
Body, and led the opposition against the Imperial Government. On the
31st of August 1871, he was declared President of the French Republic
for a term of three years, but resigned on the 24th of May 1873. Thiers
had been a member of the French Academy since 1834.--T.]
[Footnote 177: Franços Auguste Marie Mignet (1796-1884), author of
the _Histoire de la révolution française de_ 1789 _à_ 1814 (1824) and
a number of other notable historical works. He was received into the
French Academy in 1836.--T.]
[Footnote 178: Nicolas Armand Carrel (1800-1836), an historian and
journalist, killed in a political duel on the 22nd of July 1836.--T.]
[Footnote 179: On the 5th of May 1830, the Duc d'Angoulême held a
review at Toulon of the fleet which was about to set sail for Algiers.
It consisted of 675 men-of-war and merchant-ships, including no less
than 11 battle-ships, 24 frigates and 70 war-ships of lesser strength.
This day represented Fortune's last smile upon the House of Bourbon,
which found France exhausted, impoverished, crushed beneath the weight
of unutterable disasters and was about to leave her free, prosperous
and powerful, with admirable finances and a superb fleet; which found
her vanquished, humiliated, trodden under foot by four hundred thousand
invaders and was about to bequeath to her the surest and fairest of
all conquests, accomplished under the eyes and despite the threats of
trembling England.--B.]
[Footnote 180: Charles V. lost a fleet and an army at Algiers in
1545.--T.]
[Footnote 181: Bossuet's funeral oration on the Empress Maria
Theresa.--T.]
[Footnote 182: Charles Lenormant (1802-1859), the French archæologist
and numismatist.--T.]
[Footnote 183: Jean Jacques Champollion Figeac (1778-1867), the noted
archæologist.--T.]
[Footnote 184: Auguste Théodore Hilaire Baron Barchou de Penhoen
(1801-1855), was a staff-captain in the Algerian Expedition, resigned
his commission in order not to serve the government of Louis-Philippe,
and devoted himself to literature and philosophy.--B.]
[Footnote 185: BARON BARCHOU DE PENHOEN: _Mémoires d'un officier
d'état-major_, p. 427.--_Authors Note._]
[Footnote 186: In his Speech from the Throne, Charles X. announced the
Algerian Expedition, declaring that the insult shown to the French
flag by a barbarous Power would not long remain unpunished, and that
a brilliant reparation was about to satisfy the honour of France. The
same evening, some friends, among whom was M. Villemain, had gathered
in Chateaubriand's drawing-room:
"This," said Chateaubriand, "is one of the things that belong to
the old French tradition, to the inheritance of St. Louis and
Louis XIV.; this is what the Legitimate Royalty does. In the
present crisis, with its wretched instruments, despite its fears,
exaggerated, I grant you, it conceives a generous and Christian
enterprise, one which I advised in 1816, one which it would have
undertaken with me, if it had had the sense to keep me. Yes, this
same Algiers which Bossuet shows us destroyed by our bomb-ketches,
and which saved its harbour only by handing over its Christian
slaves to us, may fall into our hands this summer. We shall do
better than Lord Exmouth. Nothing will surprise me of French
valour. Only, this delights me without reassuring me. Who knows the
unfathomable depths of Providence? It is able with the same blow to
lay low the conquered and the conqueror, to enlarge a kingdom and
overthrow a dynasty."
(VILLEMAIN: _M. de Chateaubriand, sa vie, ses écrits, son influence
littéraire et politique sur son temps_).--B.]
[Footnote 187: Charles Guillaume Étienne (1778-1845), a dramatist and
publicist, appointed Censor in 1810, and a member of the French Academy
in 1811. The Bourbons excluded him from his public employment and even
from his seat in the Academy, to which he was not re-admitted until
1820, in which year he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. In 1830
he was one of the signatories to the Address of the 221. Some years
later (1839), Louis-Philippe raised him to the peerage.--T.]
[Footnote 188: The Comte de Lorgeril (1778-1843) was elected in 1828 to
the seat vacated by M. de Corbière, who had been raised to the peerage.
Lorgeril lost his seat in 1830.--B.]
[Footnote 189: The Chamber of Deputies was dissolved on the 16th of
May. The departments which had only one electoral college were summoned
to vote on the 23rd of June; in the other departments, the district
colleges were to meet on the 3rd of July and the departmental colleges
on the 20th of July. The opening of the new Chamber was fixed for the
3rd of August.--B.]
[Footnote 190: The _Tribune des départements_, founded by Auguste and
Victornin Fabre. After 1830, this sheet became the most violent organ
of the Republican Opposition.--B.]
[Footnote 191: Hilaire Étienne Octave Rouillé, Comte, later (on the
death of his father in 1840) Marquis de Boissy (1798-1866). He was
created a peer of France in 1839, and for ten years was the _enfant
terrible_ of the Upper Chamber, harassing the Chancelier Pasquier
with his continual interruptions and irreverent sallies. In 1853, he
was made a senator, having meantime, in 1851, married the Contessa
Guiccioli, who was then herself nearly fifty and had been Byron's
"widow" for more than a quarter of a century.--B.]
[Footnote 192: For the full text of the Royal Ordinances of July, see
the Appendix at the end of this volume, p. 421.--T.]
[Footnote 193: The Report to the King had been drawn up by M. de
Chantelauze.--B.]
[Footnote 194: Article XIV. of the Charter ran thus:
"The King is the Supreme Head of the State, commands the forces on
sea and land, declares war, makes treaties of peace, alliance and
commerce, appoints to all the offices of the public administration,
and makes the rules and _ordinances necessary for the execution of
the laws and the safety of the State._"--B.]
[Footnote 195: Chateaubriand was then living at 84, Rue d'Enfer.--B.]
[Footnote 196: Étienne Maurice Maréchal Comte Gérard (1773-1853) had
distinguished himself as a general in the Napoleonic campaigns. He
was Minister for War for a few months in 1830, and again in 1834. He
was made a marshal of France in 1830 and, in 1831 and 1832, directed
the Siege of Antwerp, valorously defended by General Chassé. Gérard
became Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour in 1836. He lost all
his offices in 1848; but, in 1853, a few months before his death, was
appointed a Senator by Napoleon III.--T.]
[Footnote 197: Claude Antoine Gabriel Duc de Choiseul-Stainville
(1760-1838), created a peer of France in 1814 and Governor of the
Louvre in 1820. Later, he became an aide-de-camp to Louis-Philippe.--B.]
[Footnote 198: Jean Henri Claude Mangin (1786-1835), a noted lawyer and
writer on jurisprudence, had been Prefect of Police since 1829.--T.]
[Footnote 199: The Comte de Chabrol-Volvic, brother of the Comte de
Chabrol-Croussol, who had been Minister of Finance in the Polignac
Cabinet until May 1830.--B.]
[Footnote 200: The Vicomte de Champagny.--B.]
[Footnote 201: Felix Barthe (1795-1863), in December 1830, succeeded
Mérilhou as Minister of Public Instruction in the Laffitte Cabinet. In
1831, he became Minister of Justice under Casimir Périer and continued
to hold the Seals until the fall of the Broglie Administration in 1834.
He was then created a peer of France and President of the _Cour des
Comptes._ Under the Second Empire, Barthe became a senator.--B.]
[Footnote 202: Joseph Mérilhou (1788-1856), Minister of Public
Instruction and Public Worship in 1830, and a peer of France in
1837.--B.]
[Footnote 203: The protest was drawn up by Thiers, Châtelain, and
Cauchois-Lemaire. Here are the names of the forty-four signatories:
Gauja, manager of the _National_; Thiers, Mignet, Chambolle, Peysse,
Albert Stapfer, Dubochet, Rolle, editors of the _National_; Châtelain,
Guyet, Moussette, Avenel, Alexis de Jussieu, J. F. Dupont, editors,
and V. de Lapelouse, manager of the _Courrier français_; Guizard,
Dejean, Charles de Rémusat, editors, and Pierre Leroux, manager of the
_Globe_; Anneé, Cauchois-Lemaire and Évariste Dumoulin, editors of the
_Constitutionnel_; Senty, Haussmann, Dussard, Chalas, A. Billard, J.
J. Baude, Busoni, Barboux, editors, and Coste, manager of the _Temps_;
Victor Bohain, Nestor Roqueplan, editors of the _Figaro_; Auguste
Fabre and Ader, editors of the _Tribune des départements_; Plagnol,
Levasseur and Fazy, editors of the _Révolution_; F. Larreguy, editor,
and Bert, manager of the _Journal du commerce_; Léon Pillet, manager of
the _Journal de Paris_; Vaillant, manager of the _Sylphe_; Sarrans the
Younger, manager of the _Courrier des électeurs._--B.]
[Footnote 204: There were fourteen of them: Messieurs Bavoux, Bérard,
Bernard, de Laborde, Chardel, Daunou, Jacques Lefebvre, Marchai,
Mauguin, Casimir Périer, Persil, de Schonen, Vassal and Villemain.--B.]
[Footnote 205: Madame de Courchamp was a sister of the Becquets.--B.]
[Footnote 206: Étienne Becquet (1800-1838), one of the editors of the
_Débats_, is the only one of the two brothers who has left a name.--B.]
[Footnote 207: Jacques Coste (1798-1859), after selling his paper,
the _Tablettes historiques_, remained the declared adversary of the
government of the Restoration. He founded the _Temps_ in 1829; it
lasted till 1842. The title was again taken by M. Xavier Durrieu in
1849, but this paper lasted only ten months, and lastly, in 1861, by M.
A. Nefftzer, who founded the _Temps_ which we know to-day.--B.]
[Footnote 208: The full title of this paper was _Tablettes historiques,
ou Répertoire de documents historiques, politiques, scientifiques et
littéraires, avec une Bibliographie raisonnée._ In 1824, after he had
been fined and sentenced to a year's imprisonment, M. Coste sold the
_Tablettes_ to M. Sosthène de La Rochefoucauld, who was at that time
pursuing his policy of buying up the Opposition papers with the funds
of the Civil List and sometimes with his own money. One of Coste's
collaborators, M. Rabbe, wrote a strong letter to M. Coste, which was
inserted in the _Courrier français_, and led to a duel between the two
writers.--B.]
[Footnote 209: Jean Jacques Baron Baude (_cf._ Vol. IV, p. 7, n. 2).
Baude was Prefect of Police from December 1830 to February 1831.--B.]
[Footnote 210: "Another commissary of police went to the _Temps_, where
he was encountered by M. Baude, attached to the journal. He summoned
the commissary to desist, declaring that he was committing an illegal
act; that the laws protected the journals and their presses, and that
no ordonnance could avail in contradiction to them. The commissary
of police, however staggered by the obstinacy of Baude, sent for a
locksmith to break open the door of the printing-office, and then break
the press. Apostrophized by Baude, and warned that they were committing
an illegal act, the smith refused to obey, till the special smith of
the police and the gaols arrived. Seven hours were spent in altercation
before the order of the commissary could be accomplished by a forcible
entrance, and rendering the presses incapable of being worked any
more." (EYRE CROWE: _History of the Reigns of Louis XVIII. and Charles
X._).--T.]
[Footnote 211: M. Billot.--B.]
[Footnote 212: Casimir Périer lived at 27, Rue Neuve-du-Luxembourg.--B.]
[Footnote 213: Pierre François Audry de Puyravault (1783-1852), an
important manufacturer of strong liberal opinions. He continued to
figure in the Opposition during the Orleanist reign.--T.]
[Footnote 214: Auguste Jean Marie Baron de Schonen (1782-1849). He
held high legal office under the Empire, the Restoration and the
Usurpation.--T.]
[Footnote 215: M. Cadet de Gassicourt the Younger (1789-1861) became
mayor of the 4th arrondissement, or ward, of Paris.--B.]
[Footnote 216: Changed soon after into Rue du 29 Juillet.--B.]
[Footnote 217: Alfred Nettement, in his _Histoire de la Restauration_,
gives a somewhat different version of this incident:
"It was then six o'clock in the evening. The Royal Guard came to
lend a necessary aid to the Gendarmerie and the Line, whose efforts
remained powerless. Musket-shots replied to the hail of stones
that fell upon the troop; they were fired by a detachment of the
5th Regiment of the Line which entered the Rue Saint-Honoré from
the Rue de Rivoli. This discharge cost the life of a young English
student called Folks, who had taken refuge in the Hôtel Royal, at
the corner of the Rue des Pyramides. He had had the imprudence
to go to the window to watch the progress of the insurrectionary
movement, and was struck by one of the first bullets."--B.]
[Footnote 218: The President of the Council occupied the building of
the Foreign Office, then situated at the comer of the Rue des Capucines
and the boulevards.--B.]
[Footnote 219: Alfred Armand Robert Comte de Saint-Chamans
(1781-1848).--B.]
[Footnote 220: Alexandre Sala, an officer in the 6th Infantry of the
Guard. He was with the Duchesse de Berry on the _Carlo-Alberto_ in
1832, was tried at Montbrison, and acquitted. In 1848, with Alfred
Nettement and Armand de Pontmartin, he founded the _Opinion publique_,
of which he was one of the chief editors until its suppression in
January 1852.--B.]
[Footnote 221: Joseph Marie Fieschi (1790-1836), a native of Corsica,
set up an infernal machine in a house on the Boulevard du Temple, and
discharged it as Louis-Philippe, accompanied by his staff, was passing
before the windows on the 28th of July 1835. Eighteen persons were
killed, including Marshal Mortier, Duc de Trévise, and 22 severely
wounded. Louis-Philippe escaped. Fieschi and his two accomplices, Pépin
and Morey, were executed on the 16th of February 1836.--T.]
[Footnote 222: This column was under the orders of General Talon, and
consisted of a battalion of the 3rd Regiment of the Guard, reinforced
by 150 Lancers, a Swiss battalion and two guns.--B.]
[Footnote 223: Jean Dominique Barron Larrey (1766-1842) was Napoleon's
famous surgeon in the Grand Army. But the surgeon who treated Colonel
de Pleine-Selve was his son, with whom Chateaubriand confuses
him, Félix Hyppolite Baron Larrey (_b._ 1808), who in 1830 was
assistant-surgeon at the hospital of the Royal Guards known as the
Hôpital du Gros-Caillou. He was appointed surgeon to Napoleon III. in
1853, and was Chief Surgeon to the Army of Italy in 1859 and to the
Army of the Rhine in 1870. Félix Baron Larrey sat in the Chamber of
Deputies from 1877 to 1881.--B.]
[Footnote 224: Jacques Laffitte (1767-1844), the banker. He was a
prominent member of the Opposition throughout the Restoration and the
Orleanist Usurpation. He was a capable financier and a generous and
charitable individual.--T.]
[Footnote 225: André Louis Augustin Marchais (1800-1857), a tried
and persistent conspirator. Under the Second Empire, in 1853, he was
arrested as a member of the secret society known as the Marianne, and
sentenced to three years' imprisonment. He was released long before
the expiration of this term, and left France for good. He died in
Constantinople.--B.]
[Footnote 226: Eusèbe Salverte (1771-1839), an ardent "patriot," and
author of some poems and a number of literary and political works.--T.]
[Footnote 227: At 40, Rue du Faubourg Poissonnière.--B.]
[Footnote 228: Dominique François Jean Arago (1786-1853), the famous
astronomer and Director of the Observatory. He was a deputy from 1831
to 1848, a member of the Provisional Government in 1848, and a member
of the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies from 1848 to 1849.--B.]
[Footnote 229: General Jacques Jean Marie François Boudin, Comte de
Tromelin (1771-1842), served in the Army of the Princes in 1792 and
took part in the Quiberon Expedition. Attached afterwards to the Royal
Army in Normandy, he was captured at Caen (1798), escaped, and went to
the East, where he took part, in the Turkish Army, in the Syrian and
Egyptian campaigns. He returned to France in 1802, was locked up in
the Abbaye at the time of the Pichegru and Cadoudal Affair, and came
out, at the end of six months, to enter the 112th Regiment of the Line
as a captain. He was made a brigadier-general after Leipzig and fought
valiantly at Waterloo. He obtained great successes in Spain, in 1823,
and was made a lieutenant-general. Tromelin played a courageous and
honourable part during the Days of July.--B.]
[Footnote 230: General Louis Alexandre Marie Valon de Boucheron, Comte
d'Ambrugeac (1771-1844), had been a colonel under the Empire, and
served, during the Hundred Days, in the Duc d'Angoulême's little army.
He was made a peer of France by Louis XVIII. in 1823, took the oath to
Louis Philippe in 1830, and remained a peer of France.--B.]
[Footnote 231: Jean Baptiste Adolphe Charras (1800-1865) had been
expelled from the Polytechnic School, three months before the
Days of July, for drinking the health of La Fayette and singing
the _Marseillaise_ at a students' banquet. In 1848, he became
Under-secretary for War. He was arrested at the _coup d'État_ in 1851
and taken to Brussels. He died at Basle in January 1865.--B.]
[Footnote 232: Isidore Maréchal Comte Exelmans (1775-1852), one of the
most brilliant cavalry generals of the First Empire, became a peer of
France under Louis-Philippe, Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour
in 1849, and a marshal under Napoleon III.--B.]
[Footnote 233: General Pierre Claude Comte Pajol (1772-1844) was
married to Élise Oudinot, the Maréchal Duc de Reggio's eldest daughter.
He too was a fine cavalry leader and had distinguished himself in
all the Napoleonic campaigns. Napoleon created him a baron in 1809,
Louis XVIII. a count in 1814, and, on the return from Elba, he took
his troops over to Napoleon and was created a peer of France on the
2nd of June 1815, a dignity which he enjoyed for a fortnight. He left
the service and France, returning to Paris on the 29th of July 1830,
after an absence of fourteen years, to take over the command of the
insurrection. In 1831, he was once more created a peer of France, by
Louis-Philippe.--T.]
[Footnote 234: Albert Anne Jules Bertier de Sauvigny, a lieutenant
in the 34th Foot. Two years later he was tried and acquitted for
persistently attempting to run down King Louis-Philippe in the street
while driving his gig.--B.]
[Footnote 235: Jean George Farcy (1800-1830), an old pupil of the
Polytechnic School. He had translated the recently-published third
volume of Dugald Stewart's _Elements of the Philosophy of the Human
Mind._ He was one of the first insurgents killed near the Louvre.--B.]
[Footnote 236: Jacques Leonard Clement Thomas (1809-1871)
remained an insurgent all his life. In May 1848, he was appointed
Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard, but was dismissed, a few
weeks later, for insulting the Legion of Honour in the Chamber. At
the time of the _coup d'État_, in 1851, he made vain efforts to bring
about a rising in the Gironde, for which he had been elected deputy in
1848, and was exiled in consequence. He refused to accept the amnesty
in 1859, and did not return till after the 4th of September 1870.
During the siege, he was given the command of the National Guards of
the Seine; he sent in his resignation to General Trochu on the 14th of
February 1871, and retired into private life. On the 18th of March,
at the beginning of the insurrection, he was recognised and arrested
by some National Guards on the Place Pigalle, taken to the central
committee-rooms at Montmartre, and promptly shot.--B.]
[Footnote 237: Jules Bastide (1800-1870) was the first to plant the
tricolour flag on the Tuileries. After the Revolution of February, he
was Foreign Minister from 28 February to 20 December 1848.--B.]
[Footnote 238: Joseph Augustin Guinard (1799-1874) plotted equally
against the Restoration and the Government of July. In 1849, he
plotted against the Second Republic, was arrested and sentenced to
transportation for life. He was liberated in 1854 and lived thenceforth
in retirement--B.]
[Footnote 239: Casimir Louis Victurnien de Rochechouart, Prince de
Tonnay-Charente, Duc de Mortemart (1787-1875). He served under the
Empire, became a peer of France under the First Restoration, and
Colonel of the Hundred Swiss. During the Hundred Days, he followed the
King to Ghent and, after the return, was appointed Major-General of
the National Guard of Paris. The Duc de Mortemart was Ambassador to
St. Petersburg from 1828 to 1830. He continued to sit in the House of
Peers after the Revolution of July and, under the Second Empire, in
1852, accepted a seat in the Senate, while holding aloof from the new
Court.--B.]
[Footnote 240: Apollinaire Antoine Maurice Comte d'Argout (1782-1858)
was created a peer of France in 1819, and, like M. de Sémonville,
belonged to the Moderate Right. He was several times a minister from
1830 to 1836, holding successively the portfolios of the Navy, Commerce
and Public Works, the Interior and Finance. During these six years,
his very long nose was the constant butt of the draughtsmen on the
Caricature and Charivari, and eventually they drove him to take refuge
in the less prominent post of Governor of the Bank of France. The Comte
d'Argout died a senator of the Second Empire.--B.]
[Footnote 241: The Duc de Choiseul-Stainville was shipwrecked at Calais
in November 1795, arrested by the authorities, acquitted by the Court
Martial before which he was brought, and nevertheless kept in prison by
the Directorate and finally condemned to death. The 18 Brumaire saved
him.--B.]
[Footnote 242: In the Rue d'Artois, soon to be renamed Rue
Laffitte.--B.]
[Footnote 243: Georges Mouton, Maréchal Comte de Lobau (1770-1838), had
distinguished himself in the wars of Napoleon, who gave him his title.
He was taken prisoner after the Capitulation of Dresden, in 1813, and
taken to England, where he remained till 1814. He fought at Waterloo,
was exiled under the Restoration and returned to France in 1818. In
1828, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. Lobau succeeded La
Fayette as Commandant of the National Guard in December 1830, and was
created a marshal in 1831.--T.]
[Footnote 244: François Mauguin (1785-1854), a famous advocate. He
became a member of the Municipal Commission, sat in the Dynastic Left
during the Usurpation and played a lesser part in public life in 1848
and the subsequent events.--T.]
[Footnote 245: Richard Cromwell (1626-1712), son of Oliver Cromwell,
succeeded his father as Lord Protector of England in September 1658 and
resigned in May 1659.--T.]
[Footnote 246: Casimir Marie Marcellin Pierre Célestin Chardel
(1777-1847) was a judge of the Seine Tribunal, in 1830, and a deputy
for Paris.--B.]
[Footnote 247: Pierre François Marchal (1785-1864) sat in opposition
throughout the duration of the Orleans Government.--B.]
[Footnote 248: Jacques François Nicolas Bavoux (1774-1848), a deputy
for Paris. He kept the Prefecture of Police for two days only and was
supplanted by M. Girod de l'Ain on the 1st of August.--B.]
[Footnote 249: Auguste Simon Louis Bérard (1783-1859), the Paris
banker.--B.]
[Footnote 250: Palamède de Forbin-Janson, brother-in-law to the Duc de
Mortemart.--B.]
[Footnote 251: François Sauvo (1772-1859), manager of the _Moniteur
universel_ from 1800 to 1840.--B.]
[Footnote 252: Augustin Charles Périer (1773-1833), brother of Casimir
Périer, had been a deputy since 1827. He was not re-elected in 1831,
and was created a peer of France in 1832.--B.]
[Footnote 253: Jules Paul Benjamin Baron Delessert (1773-1847), a
great manufacturer, was the first to make beetroot-sugar in France
and to introduce the idea of the savings-bank from England. Napoleon
made him a baron of the Empire. Delessert was a member of the Chamber
of Deputies from 1817 to 1824 and from 1827 to 1842, sitting with
the Constitutional Opposition during the Restoration and with the
Conservatives after 1830.--T.]
[Footnote 254: Jean Baptiste Henry Collin, Comte de Sussy (1776-1837),
had been a member of the House of Peers since 1827. He retained his
seat till his death, having sworn allegiance to the Government of
July.--B.]
[Footnote 255: _Cf._ Vol. III, p. 181.--T.]
[Footnote 256: Louis Marie La Revellière-Lepeaux (1753-1824), a
barrister-scientist, member of the Constituent Assembly and of
the Convention, and author of the _Propagande armée._ He resisted
the Terrorists in 1793, was, a very short while, a member of the
Directorate, but retired from politics for good and all in 1795.--T.]
[Footnote 257: Évariste Dumoulin (1776-1833), a well-known French
publicist, and one of the founders of the _Constitutionnel_ in
1815.--T.]
[Footnote 258: Adrien Perlet (1795-1850), an excellent comic actor.
Most of his successes were made at the Gymnase; he was not a member of
the Opéra-Comique.--T.]
[Footnote 259: On the 9th of January of this present year 1841, I
received a letter from M. Dubourg containing these "phrases:"
"How I have longed to see you since our meeting on the Quai du
Louvre! How often have I longed to pour out into your bosom
the sorrows that racked my soul! What an unhappy thing it is
passionately to love one's country, one's honour, one's glory, when
one lives at such a time!....
"Was I wrong, in 1830, to refuse to submit to what was being done?
I saw clearly the odious future which was being prepared for
France, I explained how nothing but evil could spring from such
fraudulent political arrangements; but no one understood me."
On the 5th of July of this same year 1841, M. Dubourg wrote to me again
to send me the rough draft of a note which he addressed, in 1828, to
Messieurs de Martignac and de Caux to engage them to admit me to the
Council. I have therefore put forward nothing concerning M. Dubourg
which is not most scrupulously true.--_Author's Note_ (Paris, 1841).]
[Footnote 260: Gustave Barba (_b. circa_ 1805), the
publisher-bookseller.--T.]
[Footnote 261: It is right that I should set the Duc du Broglie's
version against that of Chateaubriand:
"I really do not know," says the duke (_Souvenirs_, vol. III.),
"if I spoke four words in a desultory conversation, in which we
were animated by the same sentiments and preoccupied with the same
object: but I am perfectly certain of this, that I never said that
I had just been through Paris; that we were living on a volcano;
that the employers were no longer able to restrain their workmen;
that, if the King's name were thenceforth pronounced, they would
cut the throat of whoever pronounced it; that we should all be
massacred; that they would take the Luxembourg by assault as they
had taken the Bastille in 1789. And as for the speech with which M.
de Chateaubriand confounded that language, it is perhaps my fault,
but I regret to say that I did not hear one word of it."--B.]
[Footnote 262: Victor Louis Charles de Riquet de Caraman, Duc de
Caraman (1762-1839), of the Netherlands family of Riquet de Caraman,
was created a French baron in 1813, a marquis and peer of France
in 1815, a count and peer of France in 1827, Duc de Caraman, _ad
personam_, in 1828, and an hereditary French duke in June 1830.--T.]