I have treated it [the revolution of 1830] as a power which might have
whims one should be in a position to resist. All or nearly all my
friends have taken office. I have still one or two who are hanging from
the greased pole. I am pleased to believe that they are caught by the
coat-tails, in spite of their efforts to come down. I might therefore
have had a share in the distribution of offices. Unluckily I have no
love for sinecures, and all compulsory labor has grown intolerable to
me, except perhaps that of a copying clerk. Slanderers have pretended
that I acted from virtue. Pshaw! I acted from laziness. That defect has
served me in place of merits; wherefore I recommend it to many of our
honest men. It exposes one, however, to curious reproaches. It is to
that placid indolence that severe critics have laid the distance I have
kept myself from those of my honorable friends who have attained power.
Giving too much honor to what they choose to call my fine intellect, and
forgetting too much how far it is from simple good sense to the science
of great affairs, these critics maintain that my counsels might have
enlightened more than one minister. If one believes them, I, crouching
behind our statesmen's velvet chairs, would have conjured down the
winds, dispelled the storms, and enabled France to swim in an ocean of
delights. We should all have had liberty to sell, or rather to give
away, but we are still rather ignorant of the price. Ah! my two or three
friends who take a song-writer for a magician, have you never heard,
then, that power is a bell which prevents those who set it ringing from
hearing anything else? Doubtless ministers sometimes consult those at
hand: consultation is a means of talking about one's self which is
rarely neglected. But it will not be enough even to consult in good
faith those who will advise in the same way. One must still act: that is
the duty of the position. The purest intentions, the most enlightened
patriotism, do not always confer it. Who has not seen high officials
leave a counselor with brave intentions, and an instant after return to
him, from I know not what fascination, with a perplexity that gave the
lie to the wisest resolutions? "Oh!" they say, "we will not be caught
there again! what drudgery!" The more shamefaced add, "I'd like to see
you in my place!" When a minister says that, be sure he has no longer a
head. There is indeed one of them, but only one, who, without having
lost his head, has often used this phrase with the utmost sincerity; he
has therefore never used it to a friend.