THE RESTORATION.
1814-1815.
SENTIMENTS WITH WHICH I COMMENCED PUBLIC LIFE.--TRUE CAUSE AND
CHARACTER OF THE RESTORATION.--CAPITAL ERROR OF THE IMPERIAL
SENATE.--THE CHARTER SUFFERS FROM IT.--VARIOUS OBJECTIONS TO THE
CHARTER.--WHY THEY WERE FUTILE.--CABINET OF KING LOUIS
XVIII.--UNFITNESS OF THE PRINCIPAL MINISTERS FOR CONSTITUTIONAL
GOVERNMENT.--M. DE TALLEYRAND.--THE ABBE DE MONTESQUIOU.--M. DE
BLACAS.--LOUIS XVIII.--PRINCIPAL AFFAIRS IN WHICH I WAS CONCERNED
AT THAT EPOCH.--ACCOUNT OF THE STATE OF THE KINGDOM LAID BEFORE THE
CHAMBERS.--BILL RESPECTING THE PRESS.--DECREE FOR THE REFORM OF
PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.--STATE OF THE GOVERNMENT AND THE
COUNTRY.--THEIR COMMON INEXPERIENCE.--EFFECTS OF THE LIBERAL
SYSTEM.--ESTIMATE OF PUBLIC DISCONTENT AND CONSPIRACIES.--SAYING OF
NAPOLEON ON THE FACILITY OF HIS RETURN.
Under these auspices, I entered, without hesitation, on public life. I
had no previous tie, no personal motive to connect me with the
Restoration; I sprang from those who had been raised up by the impulse
of 1789, and were little disposed to fall back again. But if I was not
bound to the former system by any specific interest, I felt no
bitterness towards the old Government of France. Born a citizen and a
Protestant, I have ever been unswervingly devoted to liberty of
conscience, equality in the eye of the law, and all the acquired
privileges of social order. My confidence in these acquisitions is
ample and confirmed; but, in support of their cause, I do not feel
myself called upon to consider the House of Bourbon, the aristocracy of
France, and the Catholic clergy, in the light of enemies. At present,
none but madmen exclaim, "Down with the nobility! Down with the
priests!" Nevertheless, many well-meaning and sensible persons, who are
sincerely desirous that revolutions should cease, still cherish in their
hearts some relics of the sentiments to which these cries respond. Let
them beware of such feelings. They are essentially revolutionary and
antisocial; order can never be thoroughly re-established as long as
honourable minds encourage them with secret complaisance. I mean, that
real and enduring order which every extended society requires for its
prosperity and permanence. The interests and acquired rights of the
present day have taken rank in France, and constitute henceforward the
strength and vitality of the country; but because our social system is
filled with new elements, it is not therefore new in itself; it can no
more deny what it has been, than it can renounce what it has become; it
would establish perpetual confusion and decline within itself, if it
remained hostile to its true history. History is the nation, the
country, viewed through ages. For myself, I have always maintained an
affectionate respect for the great names and actions which have held
such a conspicuous place in our destinies; and being as I am, a man of
yesterday, when the King, Louis XVIII., presented himself with the
Charter in his hand, I neither felt angry nor humiliated that I was
compelled to enjoy or defend our liberties under the ancient dynasty of
the Sovereigns of France, and in common with all Frenchmen, whether
noble or plebeian, even though their old rivalries might sometimes prove
a source of mistrust and agitation.
It was the remembrance of foreign intervention that constituted the
wound and nightmare of France under the Government of the Restoration.
The feeling was legitimate in itself. The jealous passion of national
independence and glory doubles the strength of a people in prosperity,
and saves their pride under reverses. If it had pleased Heaven to throw
me into the ranks of Napoleon's soldiers, in all probability that single
passion would also have governed my soul. But, placed as I was, in civil
life, other ideas and instincts have taught me to look elsewhere than to
predominance in war for the greatness and security of my country. I have
ever prized, above all other considerations, just policy, and liberty
restrained by law. I despaired of both under the Empire; I hoped for
them from the Restoration. I have been sometimes reproached with not
sufficiently associating myself with general impressions. Whenever I
meet them sincerely and strongly manifested, I respect and hold them in
account, but I cannot feel that I am called upon to abdicate my reason
for their adoption, or to desert the real and permanent interest of the
country for the sake of according with them. It is truly an absurd
injustice to charge the Restoration with the presence of those
foreigners which the mad ambition of Napoleon alone brought upon our
soil, and which the Bourbons only could remove by a prompt and certain
peace. The enemies of the Restoration, in their haste to condemn it
from the very first hour, have plunged into strange contradictions. If
we are to put faith in their assertions, at one time they tell us that
it was imposed on France by foreign bayonets; at another, that in 1814,
no one, either in France or Europe, bestowed a thought upon the subject;
and again, that a few old adherences, a few sudden defections, and a few
egotistical intrigues alone enabled it to prevail. Puerile blindness of
party spirit! The more it is attempted to prove that no general desire,
no prevailing force, from within or without, either suggested or
produced the Restoration, the more its inherent strength will be brought
to light, and the controlling necessity which determined the event. I
have ever been surprised that free and superior minds should thus fetter
themselves within the subtleties and credulities of prejudice, and not
feel the necessity of looking facts in the face, and of viewing them as
they really exist. In the formidable crisis of 1814, the restoration of
the House of Bourbon was the only natural and solid solution that
presented itself; the only measure that could be reconciled to
principles not dependent on the influence of force and the caprices of
human will. Some alarm might thence be excited for the new interests of
French society; but with the aid of institutions mutually accepted, the
two benefits of which France stood most in need, and of which for
twenty-five years she had been utterly deprived, peace and liberty,
might also be confidently looked for. Under the influence of this double
hope, the Restoration was accomplished, not only without effort, but in
despite of revolutionary remembrances, and was received throughout
France with alacrity and cheerfulness. And France did wisely in this
adoption, for the Restoration, in fact, came accompanied by peace and
liberty.
Peace had never been more talked of in France than during the last
quarter of a century. The Constituent Assembly had proclaimed, "No more
conquests;" the National Convention had celebrated the union of nations;
the Emperor Napoleon had concluded, in fifteen years, more pacific
negotiations than any preceding monarch. Never had war so frequently
ended and recommenced; never had peace proved such a transient illusion;
a treaty was nothing but a truce, during which preparations were making
for fresh combats.
It was the same with liberty as with peace. Celebrated and promised, at
first, with enthusiasm, it had quickly disappeared under civil discord,
even before the celebration and the promise had ceased; thus, to
extinguish discord, liberty had also been abolished. At one moment
people became maddened with the word, without caring for the reality of
the fact; at another, to escape a fatal intoxication, the fact and the
word were equally proscribed and forgotten.
True peace and liberty returned with the Restoration. War was not with
the Bourbons a necessity or a passion; they could reign without having
recourse every day to some new development of force, some fresh shock to
the fixed principles of nations. Treating with them, foreign Governments
could and did believe in a sincere and lasting peace. Neither was the
liberty which France recovered in 1814, the triumph of any particular
school in philosophy or party in politics. Turbulent propensities,
obstinate theories and imaginations, at the same time ardent and idle,
were unable to find in it the gratification of their irregular and
unbounded appetites. It was, in truth, social liberty, the practical and
legalized enjoyment of rights, equally essential to the active life of
the citizens and to the moral dignity of the nation.
What were to be the guarantees of liberty, and consequently of all the
interests which liberty itself was intended to guarantee? By what
institutions could the control and influence of the nation in its
government be exercised? In these questions lay the great problem which
the Imperial Senate attempted to solve by its project of a Constitution
in April, 1814, and which, on the 4th of June following, the King, Louis
XVIII., effectually decided by the Charter.
The Senators of 1814 have been much and justly reproached for the
selfishness with which, on overthrowing the Empire, they preserved for
themselves, not only the integrity, but the perpetuity of the material
advantages with which the Empire had endowed them;--a cynical error, and
one of those which most depreciate existing authorities in the
estimation of the people, for they are offensive, at the same time, to
honest feelings and envious passions. The Senate committed another
mistake less palpable, and more consistent with the prejudices of the
country, but in my judgment more weighty, both as a political blunder,
and as to the consequences involved. At the same moment when it
proclaimed the return of the ancient Royal House, it blazoned forth the
pretension of electing the King, disavowing the monarchical right, the
supremacy of which it accepted, and thus exercising the privilege of
republicanism in re-establishing the monarchy:--a glaring contradiction
between principles and acts, a childish bravado against the great fact
to which it was rendering homage, and a lamentable confounding of rights
and ideas. It was from necessity, and not by choice, on account of his
hereditary title, and not as the chosen candidate of the day, that Louis
XVIII. was called to the throne of France. There was neither truth,
dignity, nor prudence, but in one line of conduct,--to recognize openly
the royal claim in the House of Bourbon, and to demand as openly in
return the national privileges which the state of the country and the
spirit of the time required. Such a candid avowal and mutual respect for
mutual rights, form the very essence of free government. It is by this
steady union that elsewhere monarchy and liberty have developed and
strengthened themselves together; and by frank co-operation, kings and
nations have extinguished those internal wars which are denominated
revolutions. Instead of adopting this course, the Senate, at once
obstinate and timid, while wishing to place the restored monarchy under
the standard of republican election, succeeded only in evoking the
despotic in face of the revolutionary principle, and in raising up as a
rival to the absolute right of the people, the uncontrolled authority of
the King.
The Charter bore the impress of this impolitic conduct; timid and
obstinate in its turn, and seeking to cover the retreat of royalty, as
the Revolution had sought to protect its own, it replied to the
pretensions of the revolutionary system by the pretensions of the
ancient form, and presented itself as purely a royal concession, instead
of proclaiming its true character, such as it really was, a treaty of
peace after a protracted war, a series of new articles added by common
accord to the old compact of union between the nation and the King.
In this point lay the complaint of the Liberals of the Revolution
against the Charter, as soon as it appeared. Their adversaries, the
supporters of the old rule, assailed it with other reproaches. The most
fiery, such as the disciples of M. de Maistre, could scarcely tolerate
its existence. According to them, absolute power, legitimate in itself
alone, was the only form of government that suited France. The
moderates, amongst whom were M. de Villele in the reply he published at
Toulouse to the declaration of Saint-Ouen, accused this plan for a
constitution, which became the Charter, of being an importation from
England, foreign to the history, the ideas, and the manners of France;
and which, they said, "would cost more to establish than the ancient
organization would require for repairs."
I do not here propose to enter upon any discussion of principles, with
the apostles of absolute power; as applied to France and our own time,
experience, and a very overwhelming experience, has supplied an answer.
Absolute power, amongst us, can only belong to the Revolution and its
representatives, for they alone can (I do not say for how long) retain
the masses in their interest, by withholding from them the securities of
liberty.
For the House of Bourbon and its supporters, absolute power is
impossible; under them France must be free; it only accepts their
government by supplying it with the eye and the hand.
The objections of the moderate party were more specious. It must be
admitted that the government established by the Charter had, in its
forms at least, something of a foreign aspect. Perhaps too there was
reason for saying that it assumed the existence of a stronger
aristocratic element in France, and of a more trained and disciplined
spirit of policy, than could, in reality, be found there. Another
difficulty, less palpable but substantial, awaited it; the Charter was
not alone the triumph of 1789 over the old institutions, but it was the
victory of one of the Liberal sections of 1789 over its rivals as well
as its enemies, a victory of the partisans of the English Constitution
over the framers of the Constitution of 1791, and over the republicans
as well as the supporters of the ancient monarchy,--a source teeming
with offences to the self-love of many, and a somewhat narrow basis for
the re-settlement of an old and extensive country.
But these objections had little weight in 1814. The position of affairs
was urgent and imperative; it was necessary that the old monarchy should
be reformed when restored. Of all the measures of improvement proposed
or attempted since 1789, the Charter comprised that which was the most
generally recognized and admitted by the public at large, as well as by
professed politicians. At such moments controversy subsides; the
resolutions adopted by men of action, present an epitome of the ideas
common to men of thought. A republic would be to revive the Revolution;
the Constitution of 1791 would be government without power; the old
French Constitution, if the name were applicable, had been found
ineffective in 1789, equally incapable of self-maintenance or
amelioration. All that it had once possessed of greatness or utility,
the Parliaments, the different Orders, the various local institutions,
were so evidently beyond the possibility of re-establishment, that no
one thought seriously of such a proposition. The Charter was already
written in the experience and reflection of the country. It emanated as
naturally from the mind of Louis XVIII., returning from England, as from
the deliberations of the Senate, intent on renouncing the yoke of the
Empire. It was the produce of the necessities and convictions of the
hour. Judged by itself, notwithstanding its inherent defects and the
objections of opponents, the Charter was a very practicable political
implement. Power and liberty found ample scope there for exercise and
defence; the workmen were much less adapted to the machine than the
machine to the work.
Thoroughly distinguished from each other in ideas and character, and
extremely unequal in mind and merit, the three leading Ministers of
Louis XVIII. at that epoch, M. de Talleyrand, the Abbe de Montesquiou,
and M. de Blacas, were all specially unsuited to the government they
were called on to found.
I say only what I truly think; yet I do not feel myself compelled, in
speaking of those with whom I have come in contact, to say all that I
think. I owe nothing to M. de Talleyrand; in my public career he
thwarted rather than assisted me; but when we have been much associated
with an eminent man, and have long reciprocated amicable intercourse,
self-respect renders it imperative to speak of him with a certain degree
of reserve. At the crisis of the Restoration, M. de Talleyrand
displayed, in a very superior manner, the qualities of sagacity, cool
determination, and preponderating influence. Not long after, at Vienna,
he manifested the same endowments, and others even more rare and
apposite, when representing the House of Bourbon and the European
interests of France. But except in a crisis or a congress, he was
neither able nor powerful. A courtier and a politician, no advocate upon
conviction, for any particular form of government, and less for
representative government than for any other, he excelled in negotiating
with insulated individuals, by the power of conversation, by the charm
and skilful employment of social relations; but in authority of
character, in fertility of mental resources, in promptitude of
resolution, in command of language, in the sympathetic association of
general ideas with public passions,--in all these great sources of
influence upon collected assemblies, he was absolutely deficient.
Besides which, he had neither the inclination nor habit of sustained,
systematic labour, another important condition of internal government.
He was at once ambitious and indolent, a flatterer and a scoffer, a
consummate courtier in the art of pleasing and of serving without the
appearance of servility; ready for everything, and capable of any
pliability that might assist his fortune, preserving always the mien,
and recurring at need to the attractions of independence; a diplomatist
without scruples, indifferent as to means, and almost equally careless
as to the end, provided only that the end advanced his personal
interest. More bold than profound in his views, calmly courageous in
danger, well suited to the great enterprises of absolute government, but
insensible to the true atmosphere and light of liberty, in which he felt
himself lost and incapable of action. He was too glad to escape from the
Chambers and from France, to find once more at Vienna a congenial sphere
and associations.
As completely a courtier as M. de Talleyrand, and more thoroughly
belonging to the old system, the Abbe de Montesquiou was better suited
to hold his ground under a constitutional government, and occupied a
more favourable position for such a purpose, at this period of
uncertainty. He stood high in the estimation of the King and the
Royalists, having ever remained immovably faithful to his cause, his
order, his friends, and his sovereign. He was in no danger of being
taxed as a revolutionist, or of having his name associated with
unpleasant reminiscences. Through a rare disinterestedness, and the
consistent simplicity of his life, he had won the confidence of all
honest men. His character was open, his disposition frank, his mind
richly cultivated, and his conversation unreserved, without being
exceptious as to those with whom he might be conversing. He could render
himself acceptable to the middle classes, although indications of pride
and aristocratic haughtiness might be occasionally detected in his words
and manner. These symptoms were only perceptible to delicate
investigators; by the great majority he was considered affable and
unassuming. In the Chambers he spoke with ease and animation, if not
with eloquence, and often indulged in an attractive play of fancy. He
could have rendered good service to the constitutional government, had
he either loved or trusted it; but he joined it without faith or
preference, as a measure of necessity, to be evaded or restrained even
during the term of endurance. Through habit, and deference for his
party, or rather for his immediate coterie, he was perpetually recurring
to the traditions and tendencies of the old system, and endeavouring to
carry his listeners with him by shallow subtleties and weak arguments,
which were sometimes retorted upon himself. One day, partly in jest, and
partly in earnest, he proposed to M. Royer-Collard to obtain for him
from the King the title of Count. "Count?" replied M. Royer-Collard, in
the same tone, "make yourself a Count?" The Abbe de Montesquieu smiled,
with a slight expression of disappointment, at this freak of citizen
pride. He believed the old aristocracy to be beaten down, but he wished
to revive and strengthen it by an infusion with the new orders. He
miscalculated in supposing that none amongst the latter class would,
from certain instinctive tendencies, think lightly of a title which
flattered their interests, or that they could be won over by
conciliation without sympathy. He was a thoroughly honourable man, with
a heart more liberal than his ideas, of an enlightened and accomplished
mind, naturally elegant, but volatile, inconsiderate, and absent; little
suited for long and bitter contentions, formed to please rather than to
control, and incapable of leading his party or himself in the course in
which reason suggested that they should follow.
In the character of M. de Blacas there were no such apparent
inconsistencies. Not that he was either an ardent, or a decided and
stirring partisan of the contra-revolutionary reaction; he was moderate
through coldness of temperament, and a fear of compromising the King, to
whom he was sincerely devoted, rather than from clear penetration. But
neither his moderation nor his loyalty gave him any insight into the
true state of the country, or any desire to occupy himself with the
subject. He remained at the Tuileries what he had been at Hartwell, a
country gentleman, an emigrant, a courtier, and a steady and courageous
favourite, not deficient in personal dignity or domestic tact, but with
no political genius, no ambition, no statesmanlike activity, and almost
as entirely a stranger to France as before his return. He impeded the
Government more than he pretended to govern, taking a larger share in
the quarrels and intrigues of the palace, than in the deliberations of
the Council, and doing much more injury to public affairs by utter
neglect, than by direct interference.
I do not think it would have been impossible for an active, determined
monarch to employ these three ministers profitably, and at the same
time, however much they differed from one another. Neither of them
aspired to the helm, and each, in his proper sphere, could have rendered
good service. M. de Talleyrand desired nothing better than to negotiate
with Europe; the Abbe de Montesquiou had no desire to rule at court, and
M. de Blacas, calm, prudent, and faithful, might have been found a
valuable confidant in opposition to the pretensions and secret intrigues
of courtiers and princes. But Louis XVIII. was not in the least capable
of governing his ministers. As a King he possessed great negative or
promissory qualities, but few that were active and immediate. Outwardly
imposing, judicious, acute, and circumspect, he could reconcile,
restrain, and defeat; but he could neither inspire, direct, nor give the
impulse while he held the reins. He had few ideas, and no passion.
Persevering application to business was as little suited to him, as
active movement. He sufficiently maintained his rank, his rights, and
his power, and seldom committed a glaring mistake; but when once his
dignity and prudence were vindicated, he allowed things to take their
own course; with too little energy of mind and body to control men, and
force them to act in concert for the accomplishment of his wishes.
From my inexperience, and the nature of my secondary post in a special
department, I was far from perceiving the full mischief of this
absence of unity and supreme direction in the Government. The
Abbe de Montesquiou sometimes mentioned it to me with impatience and
regret. He was amongst the few who had sufficient sense and honesty not
to deceive themselves as to their own defects. He reposed great
confidence in me, although even within his most intimate circle of
associates, efforts had been made to check this disposition. With
generous irony, he replied to those who objected to me as a Protestant,
"Do you think I intend to make him Pope?" With his habitual unrestraint,
he communicated to me his vexations at the Court, his differences with
M. de Blacas, his impotence to do what he thought good, or to prevent
what he considered evil. He went far beyond this freedom of
conversation, by consigning to me, in his department, many matters
beyond the duties of my specific office, and would have allowed me to
assume a considerable portion of his power.[4] Thus I became associated,
during his administration, with three important circumstances, the only
ones I shall dwell on, for I am not writing the history of the time; I
merely relate what I did, saw, and thought myself, in the general course
of events.
The Charter being promulgated, and the Government settled, I suggested
to the Abbe de Montesquiou that it would be well for the King to place
before the Chambers a summary of the internal condition of France, as he
had found it, showing the results of the preceding system, and
explaining the spirit of that which he proposed to establish. The
Minister was pleased with the idea, the King adopted it, and I
immediately applied myself to the work. The Abbe de Montesquiou also
assisted; for he wrote well, and took personal pleasure in the task. On
the 12th of July, the statement was presented to the two Chambers, who
thanked the King by separate addresses. It contained, without
exaggeration or concealment, a true picture of the miseries which
unlimited and incessant war had inflicted on France, and the moral and
physical wounds which it had left to be healed,--a strange portrait,
when considered with reference to those which Napoleon, under the
Consulate and the dawning Empire, had also given to the world; and which
eulogized, with good reason at the time, the restoration of order, the
establishment of rule, the revival of prosperity, with all the excellent
effects of strong, able, and rational power. The descriptions were
equally true, although immeasurably different; and precisely in this
contrast lay the startling moral with which the history of the Imperial
despotism had just concluded. The Abbe de Montesquiou ought to have
placed the glorious edifices of the Consulate side by side with the
deserved ruins of the Empire. Instead of losing by this course, he would
have added to the impression he intended to produce; but men are seldom
disposed to praise their enemies, even though the effect should be to
injure them. By alluding only to the disasters of Napoleon, and their
fatal consequences, the exposition of the state of the kingdom in 1814
was undignified, and appeared to be unjust. The points in which it
reflected honour on the authority from whence it emanated, were the
moral tone, the liberal spirit, and the absence of all quackery, which
were its leading features. These recommendations had their weight with
right-minded, sensible people; but they passed for little with a public
accustomed to the dazzling noise and bustle of the power which had
recently been extinguished.
Another exposition, more special, but of greater urgency, was presented
a few days after, by the Minister of Finance, to the Chamber of
Deputies. This included the amount of debt bequeathed by the Empire to
the Restoration, with the Ministerial plan for meeting the arrear, as
well as providing for the exigencies of 1814 and 1815. Amongst all the
Government officials of my time, I have never been acquainted with any
one more completely a public servant, or more passionately devoted to
the public interest, than the Baron Louis. Ever resolved to cast aside
all other considerations, he cared neither for personal risk nor labour,
in promoting the success of what that interest demanded. It was not only
the carrying out of his financial measures that he so ardently desired;
he made these subservient to the general policy of which they were a
portion. In 1830, in the midst of the disturbances occasioned by the
Revolution of July, I one day, as Minister of the Interior, demanded
from the Council, in which the Baron Louis also had a seat as Minister
of Finance, the allocation of a large sum. Objections were made by
several of our colleagues, on account of the embarrassed state of the
treasury. "Govern well," said the Baron Louis to me, "and you will never
spend as much money as I shall be able to supply." A judicious speech,
worthy of a frank, uncompromising disposition, controlled by a firm and
consistent judgment. The Baron Louis's financial scheme was founded on a
double basis,--constitutional order in the State, and probity in the
Government. With these two conditions, he reckoned confidently on public
prosperity and credit, without being dismayed by debts to be paid, or
expenses incurred. His assertions as to the closing state of the
finances under the Empire, drew from the Count Mollien, the last
Minister of the Imperial treasury, a man as able as he was honest, some
well-founded remonstrances, and his measures were in consequence
severely opposed in the Chambers. He had to contend with dishonest
traditions, the passions of the old system, and the narrow views of
little minds. The Baron Louis maintained the struggle with equal
enthusiasm and perseverance. It was fortunate for him that
M. de Talleyrand and the Abbe de Montesquiou had been his associates in
the Church in early youth, and had always maintained a close intimacy
with him. Both having enlightened views on political economy, they
supported him strongly in the Council and in the Chambers. The
Prince de Talleyrand even undertook to present his bill to the Chamber
of Peers, adopting boldly the responsibility and the principles. This
sound policy was well carried through by the whole cabinet, and justly
met with complete success, in spite of prejudiced or ignorant
opposition.
It was not exactly the same with another measure in which I took a more
active part,--the bill relating to the press, presented to the Chamber
of Deputies on the 5th of July by the Abbe de Montesquiou, and which
passed into law on the 21st of the following October, after having
undergone, in both assemblies, animated debates and important
amendments.
In its first conception, this bill was reasonable and sincere. The
object was to consecrate by legislative enactment the liberty of the
press, both as a public right and as a general and permanent institution
of the country; and at the same time, on the morrow of a great
revolution and a long despotism, and on the advent of a free government,
to impose some temporary and limited restrictions. The two persons who
had taken the most active part in framing this bill, M. Royer-Collard
and myself, were actuated simply and solely by this double end. I may
refer the reader to a short work which I published at the time,[5] a
little before the introduction of the bill, and in which its spirit and
intention are stated without reserve.
It must be evident that the King and the two Chambers had the right of
prescribing in concert, temporarily, and from the pressure of
circumstances, certain limitations to one of the privileges recognized
by the Charter. This cannot be denied without repudiating constitutional
government itself, and its habitual practice in those countries in which
it is developed with the greatest vigour. Provisional enactments have
frequently modified or suspended, in England, the leading constitutional
privileges; and with regard to the liberty of the press in particular,
it was not until five years after the Revolution of 1688 that, under the
reign of William III. in 1693, it was relieved from the censorship.
I recognize no greater danger to free institutions than that blind
tyranny which the habitual fanaticism of partisanship, whether of a
faction or a small segment, pretends to exercise in the name of liberal
ideas. Are you a staunch advocate for constitutional government and
political guarantees? Do you wish to live and act in co-operation with
the party which hoists this standard? Renounce at once your judgment and
your independence. In that party you will find upon all questions and
under all circumstances, opinions ready formed, and resolutions settled
beforehand, which assume the right of your entire control. Self-evident
facts are in open contradiction to these opinions--you are forbidden to
see them. Powerful obstacles oppose these resolutions--you are
not allowed to think of them. Equity and prudence suggest
circumspection--you must cast it aside. You are in presence of a
superstitious _Credo_, and a popular passion. Do not argue--you would no
longer be a Liberal. Do not oppose--you would be looked upon as a
mutineer. Obey, advance--no matter at what pace you are urged, or on
what road. If you cease to be a slave, you instantly become a deserter!
My clear judgment and a little natural pride revolted invincibly against
this yoke. I never imagined that even the best system of institutions
could be at once imposed on a country without some remembrance of recent
events and actual facts, both as regarded the dispositions of a
considerable portion of the country itself and of its necessary rulers.
I saw not only the King, his family, and a great number of the old
Royalists, but even in new France, a crowd of well-meaning citizens and
enlightened minds--perhaps a majority of the middle and substantial
classes--extremely uneasy at the idea of the unrestricted liberty of the
press, and at the dangers to which it might expose public peace, as well
as moral and political order. Without participating to the same extent
in their apprehensions, I was myself struck by the excesses in which the
press had already begun to indulge; by the deluge of recriminations,
accusations, surmises, predictions, animated invectives, or frivolous
sarcasms, which threatened to rouse into hostility all parties, with all
their respective errors, falsehoods, fears, and antipathies. With these
feelings and facts before me, I should have considered myself a madman
to have treated them lightly, and therefore I decided at once that a
temporary limitation of liberty, in respect to journals and pamphlets
alone, was not too great a sacrifice for the removal of such perils and
fears, or at least to give the country time to overcome by becoming
accustomed to them.
But to ensure the success of a sound measure, open honesty is
indispensable. Whether in the proposition or the debate, Government
itself was called upon to proclaim the general right, as well as the
limits and reasons for the partial restriction which it was about to
introduce. It ought not to have evaded the principle of the liberty or
the character of the restraining law. This course was not adopted.
Neither the King nor his advisers had formed any fixed design against
the freedom of the press; but they were more disposed to control it in
fact than to acknowledge it in right, and wished rather that the new
law, instead of giving additional sanction to the principle recorded in
the Charter, should leave it in rather a vague state of doubt and
hesitation. When the bill was introduced, its true intent and bearing
were not clearly indicated. Weak himself, and yielding still more to the
weaknesses of others, the Abbe de Montesquiou endeavoured to give the
debate a moral and literary, rather than a political turn. According to
his view, the question before them was the protection of literature and
science, of good taste and manners, and not the exercise and guarantee
of an acknowledged public right. An amendment in the Chamber of Peers
was necessary to invest the measure with the political and temporary
character which it ought to have borne from the beginning, and which
alone confined it to its real objects and within its legitimate limits.
The Government accepted the amendment without hesitation, but its
position had become embarrassed. Mistrust, the most credulous of all
passions, spread rapidly amongst the Liberals. Those who were not
enemies to the Restoration had, like it, their foibles. The love of
popularity had seized them, but they had not yet acquired foresight.
They gladly embraced this opportunity of making themselves, with some
display, the champions of a Constitutional principle which in fact was
in no danger, but which power had assumed the air of eluding or
disavowing. Three of the five honourable members who had been the first
to restrain the Imperial despotism--Messrs. Raynouard, Gallois, and
Flaugergues--were the declared adversaries of the bill; and in
consequence of not having been boldly presented, from the opening, under
its real and legitimate aspect, the measure entailed more discredit on
the Government than it afforded them security.
The liberty of the press, that stormy guarantee of modern civilization,
has already been, is, and will continue to be the roughest trial of free
governments, and consequently of free people, who are greatly
compromised in the struggles of their rulers; for in the event of
defeat, they have no alternative but anarchy or tyranny. Free nations
and governments have but one honourable and effective method of dealing
with the liberty of the press,--to adopt it frankly, without undue
complaisance. Let them not make it a martyr or an idol, but leave it in
its proper place, without elevating it beyond its natural rank. The
liberty of the press is neither a power in the State, nor the
representative of the public mind, nor the supreme judge of the
executive authorities; it is simply the right of all citizens to give
their opinions upon public affairs and the conduct of Government,--a
powerful and respectable privilege, but one naturally overbearing, and
which, to be made salutary, requires that the constituted authorities
should never humiliate themselves before it, and that they should impose
on it that serious and constant responsibility which ought to weigh upon
all rights, to prevent them from becoming at first seditious, and
afterwards tyrannical.
The third measure of importance in which I was concerned at this epoch,
the reform of the general system of public instruction, by a Royal
ordinance of the 17th of February, 1815, created much less sensation
than the Law of the Press, and produced even less effect than noise; for
its execution was entirely suspended by the catastrophe of the 20th of
March, and not resumed after the Hundred Days. There were more important
matters then under consideration. This measure was what is now called
the de-centralization of the University.[6] Seventeen separate
Universities, established in the principal cities of the kingdom, were
to be substituted for the one general University of the Empire. Each of
these local colleges was to have a complete and separate organization,
both as regarded the different degrees of instruction and the various
scholastic establishments within its jurisdiction. Over the seventeen
Universities a Royal Council and a great Normal School were appointed,
one to superintend the general course of public teaching, and the other
to train up for professors the chosen scholars who had prepared
themselves for that career, and who were to be supplied from the local
Universities. There were two motives for this reform. The first was a
desire to establish, in the departments, and quite independent of Paris,
leading centres of learning and intellectual activity; the second, a
wish to abolish the absolute power which, in the Imperial University,
held sole control over the establishments and the masters, and to bring
the former under a closer and more immediate authority, by giving the
latter more permanence, dignity, and independence in their respective
positions. These were sound ideas, to carry out which the decree of the
17th of February, 1815, was but a timid rather than an extended and
powerful application. The local Universities were too numerous. France
does not supply seventeen natural centres of high learning. Four or five
would have sufficed, and more could not have been rendered successful or
productive. The forgotten reform which I am here recalling had yet
another fault. It was introduced too soon, and was the result, at once
systematic and incomplete, of the meditations of certain men long
impressed with the deficiencies of the University system, and not really
the fruit of public impulse and opinion. Another influence also appeared
in it, that of the clergy, who silently commenced at that time their
struggle with the University, and adroitly looked for the extension of
their personal power in the progress of general liberty. The decree of
the 17th of February, 1815, opened this arena, which has since been so
fiercely agitated. The Abbe de Montesquiou hastened to bestow on the
clergy an early gratification, that of seeing one of their most justly
esteemed members, M. de Beausset, formerly Bishop of Alais, at the head
of the Royal Council. The Liberals of the University gladly seized this
occasion of increasing their action and independence; and the King,
Louis XVIII., voluntarily charged his civil list with an additional
million for the immediate abolition of the University tax, until a new
law, contained in the preamble of the decree, should come into operation
to complete the reform, and provide from the public funds for all the
requirements of the new system.
It becomes my duty here to express my regret for an error which I ought
to have endeavoured more urgently to prevent. In this reform, the
opinion and situation of M. de Fontanes were not sufficiently estimated.
As head of the Imperial University, he had rendered such eminent
services to public instruction, that the title of Grand Officer of the
Legion of Honour was far from being a sufficient compensation for the
retirement which the new system rendered, in his case, desirable and
almost necessary.
But neither reform in public education, nor any other reform, excited
much interest at that moment, when France was entirely given up to
different considerations. Having scarcely entered on the new system, a
sudden impression of alarm and mistrust began to rise and expand from
day to day. This system was liberty, with its uncertainties, its
contests, and its perils. No one was accustomed to liberty, and liberty
contented no one. From the Restoration, the men of old France promised
themselves the ascendency; from the Charter, new France expected
security. Both were dissatisfied. They found themselves drawn up in
presence of each other, with their opposing passions and pretensions. It
was a sad disappointment for the Royalists to find the King victorious
without their being included in the triumph; and it was a bitter
necessity which reduced the men of the Revolution to the defensive after
they had so long domineered. Both parties felt surprised and irritated
at their position, as equally an insult to their dignity and an attack
upon their rights. In their irritation, they gave themselves up, in
words and projects, to all the fantasies and transports of their wishes
and apprehensions. Amongst the rich and powerful of the old classes,
many indulged, towards the influential members of the new, in menaces
and insults. At the Court, in the drawing-rooms of Paris, and much more
in the provinces, by newspapers, pamphlets, and conversation, and in the
daily conduct of their private lives, the nobles and the citizens, the
clergy and the laity, the emigrants and the purchasers of national
property, allowed their animosities, their ill humour, their dreams of
hope and fear, to exhibit themselves without disguise. This was nothing
more than the natural and inevitable consequence of the extreme novelty
of the system which the Charter, seriously interpreted and exercised,
had suddenly introduced into France. During the Revolution there was
contest; under the Empire silence; but the Restoration introduced
liberty into the bosom of peace. In the general inexperience and
susceptibility, the excitement and stir of freedom amounted to civil war
on the eve of re-commencement.
To meet the difficulties of such a state of things, to preserve at the
same time liberty and peace, to cure the wounds without restraining the
blows, no Government could have been too strong or too able. Louis
XVIII. and his advisers were unequal to the task. With regard to a
liberal system, they were neither more experienced nor inured than
France herself. Their acts appeared to be regulated by no steady
conviction: they believed that the Charter would check the birth of
discontent; but when discontent manifested itself rather vehemently,
they hastened to calm it down by abandoning or modifying the measures
through which it had been excited. The celebrated rescript of Count
Beugnot,[7] on the observance of Sundays and religious festivals, ended
in an abortive law which never came into operation. The offensive
expressions of Count Ferrand, on introducing to the Chamber of Deputies
the bill for the restitution of unsold estates to their old
proprietors,[8] was loudly disavowed, not only in the speeches, but in
the resolutions and conduct of the Government in that matter. In
reality, the interests which imagined themselves threatened were in no
danger whatever; and in the midst of the alarms and remonstrances of
France, the King and his principal ministers were much more inclined to
yield than to contend. But having performed this act of constitutional
wisdom, they believed themselves emancipated from all care, and relapsed
back into their old tastes and habits, desirous also to live in peace
with their ancient and familiar friends. It was indeed but a modified
power, which attached importance to its oaths, and conceived no
formidable designs against the new rights and interests of the country;
but it was also an authority without leading vigour, isolated and a
stranger in its own kingdom, divided and embarrassed within itself, weak
with its enemies, weak with its friends, seeking only for personal
security in repose, and called upon hourly to deal with a stubborn and
restless people, who had suddenly passed from the rugged shocks of
revolution and war to the difficult exercise of liberty.
Under the prolonged influence of this liberty, such a Government,
without obstinate prejudices, and disposed to follow public opinion when
clearly expressed, might have corrected while strengthening itself, and
from day to day have become more competent to its task. But this
required time and the concurrence of the country. The country,
discontented and unsettled, neither knew how to wait nor assist. Of all
the knowledge necessary to a free people, the most essential point is to
learn how to bear what displeases them, that they may preserve the
advantages they possess, and acquire those they desire.
There has been much discussion as to what plots and conspirators
overthrew the Bourbons, and brought back Napoleon, on the 20th of March,
1815,--a question of inferior importance, and interesting only as an
historical curiosity. It is certain that from 1814 to 1815 there
existed in the army and with the remnants of the Revolution, amongst
generals and conventionalists, many plans and secret practices against
the Restoration, and in favour of a new Government,--either the Empire,
a regency, the Duke of Orleans, or a republic. Marshal Davoust promised
his support to the Imperial party, and Fouche offered his to all. But if
Napoleon had remained motionless at the island of Elba, these
revolutionary projects would, in all probability, have successively
failed, as did those of the Generals d'Erlon, Lallemand, and Lefevre
Desnouettes, even so late as the month of March. The fatuity of the
contrivers of conspiracy is incalculable; and when the event seems to
justify them, they attribute to themselves the result which has been
achieved by mightier and much more complicated causes than their
machinations. It was Napoleon alone who dethroned the Bourbons in 1815,
by calling up, in his own person, the fanatical devotion of the army,
and the revolutionary instincts of the popular masses.
However tottering might be the monarchy lately restored, it required
that great man and a combination of these great social powers to subvert
it. Stupefied and intimidated, France left events to their course,
without opposition or confidence. Napoleon adopted this opinion, with
his admirable penetration:--"They allowed me to arrive," he said to
Count Mollien, "as they permitted the others to depart."
Four times in less than half a century we have seen kings traverse their
realms as fugitives. Different enemies have described, with evident
pleasure, their helplessness and destitution in flight,--a mean and
senseless gratification, which no one, in the present day, has a right
to indulge. The retreats of Napoleon in 1814 and 1815 were neither more
brilliant nor less bitter than those of Louis XVIII. on the 20th of
March, 1815, of Charles X. in 1830, and of Louis Philippe in 1848. Each
state of greatness endured the same degradation; every party has the
same need of modesty and mutual respect. I myself, as much as any
participator, was impressed, on the 20th of March, 1815, with the
blindness, the hesitation, the imbecility, the misery of every
description, to which that terrible explosion gave birth. It would
afford me no pleasure, and would lead to no advantage, to repeat them.
People are too much inclined at present to conceal their own weaknesses
under a display of the deficiencies of royalty. I prefer recording that
neither royal nor national dignity were wanting at that epoch in noble
representatives. The Duchess d'Angouleme, at Bordeaux, evinced courage
equal to her misfortunes, and M. Laine, as president of the Chamber of
Deputies, protested fearlessly on the 28th of March, in the name of
justice and liberty, against the event at that time fully accomplished,
and which no longer encountered, through the wide extent of France, any
resistance beyond the solitary accents of his voice.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 4: Included in the "Historic Documents," are two letters
addressed to me by the Abbe de Montesquiou in 1815 and 1816, which
furnish an idea of my intimacy with him, and show the natural and
amiable turn of his mind. (Historic Documents, No. IV.)]
[Footnote 5: 'Thoughts upon the Liberty of the Press,' 52 pages, 8vo,
Paris, 1814. Amongst the "Historic Documents" at the end of this volume,
some passages from this pamphlet are inserted, which indicate clearly
its object and character. (Historic Documents, No. V.)]
[Footnote 6: Amongst the "Historic Documents" I include the text of this
decree, and the report to the King which explains its object and
bearing. (Historic Documents, No. VI.)]
[Footnote 7: June 7th, 1814.]
[Footnote 8: September 13th, 1814.]