GOVERNMENT OF THE CENTRE.
1816-1821.
COMPOSITION OF THE NEW CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES.--THE CABINET IN A
MAJORITY.--ELEMENTS OF THAT MAJORITY, THE CENTRE PROPERLY SO
CALLED, AND THE DOCTRINARIANS.--TRUE CHARACTER OF THE CENTRE.--TRUE
CHARACTER OF THE DOCTRINARIANS, AND REAL CAUSE OF THEIR
INFLUENCE.--M. DE LA BOURDONNAYE AND M. ROYER-COLLARD AT THE
OPENING OF THE SESSION.--ATTITUDE OF THE DOCTRINARIANS IN THE
DEBATE ON THE EXCEPTIONAL LAWS.--ELECTORAL LAW OF FEBRUARY 5TH,
1817.--THE PART I TOOK ON THAT OCCASION.--OF THE ACTUAL AND
POLITICAL POSITION OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES.--MARSHAL GOUVION ST. CYR,
AND HIS BILL FOR RECRUITING THE ARMY, OF THE 10TH OF MARCH,
1818.--BILL RESPECTING THE PRESS, OF 1819, AND M. DE
SERRE.--PREPARATORY DISCUSSION OF THESE BILLS IN THE STATE
COUNCIL.--GENERAL ADMINISTRATION OF THE COUNTRY.--MODIFICATION OF
THE CABINET FROM 1816 TO 1820.--IMPERFECTIONS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL
SYSTEM.--ERRORS OF INDIVIDUALS.--DISSENSIONS BETWEEN THE CABINET
AND THE DOCTRINARIANS.--THE DUKE DE RICHELIEU NEGOCIATES, AT
AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, THE ENTIRE RETREAT OF FOREIGN TROOPS FROM
FRANCE.--HIS SITUATION AND CHARACTER.--HE ATTACKS THE BILL ON
ELECTIONS.--HIS FALL.--CABINET OF M. DECAZES.--HIS POLITICAL
WEAKNESS, NOTWITHSTANDING HIS PARLIAMENTARY SUCCESS.--ELECTIONS OF
1819.--ELECTION AND NON-ADMISSION OF M. GREGOIRE.--ASSASSINATION OF
THE DUKE DE BERRY.--FALL OF M. DECAZES.--THE DUKE DE RICHELIEU
RESUMES OFFICE.--HIS ALLIANCE WITH THE RIGHT-HAND PARTY.--CHANGE IN
THE LAW OF ELECTIONS.--DISORGANIZATION OF THE CENTRE, AND PROGRESS
OF THE RIGHT-HAND PARTY.--SECOND FALL OF THE DUKE
DE RICHELIEU.--M. DE VILLELE AND THE RIGHT-HAND PARTY OBTAIN POWER.
A violent outcry was raised, as there ever has been and always will be,
against ministerial interference at the elections. This is the sour
consolation of the beaten, who feel the necessity of accounting for
their defeat. Elections, taken comprehensively, are almost always more
genuine than interested and narrow-minded suspicion is disposed to
allow. The desires and ability of the powers in office, exercise over
them only a secondary authority. The true essence of elections lies in
the way in which the wind blows, and in the impulse of passing events.
The decree of the 5th of September, 1816, had given confidence to the
moderate party, and a degree of hope to the persecuted of 1815. They all
rallied round the Cabinet, casting aside their quarrels, antipathies,
and private rancours, combining to support the power which promised
victory to the one and safety to the other.
The victory, in fact, remained with the Cabinet, but it was one of those
questionable triumphs which left the conquerors still engaged in a
fierce war. The new Chamber comprised, in the centre a ministerial
majority, on the right a strong and active opposition, and on the left a
very small section, in which M. d'Argenson and M. Lafitte were the only
names recognized by the public.
The ministerial majority was formed from two different although at that
time closely-united elements,--the centre, properly called the grand
army of power, and the very limited staff of that army, who soon
received the title of _doctrinarians_.
I shall say of the centre of our assemblies since 1814, what I have just
said of M. Cuvier; it has been misunderstood and calumniated, when
servility and a rabid desire for place have been named as its leading
characteristics. With it, as with others, personal interests have had
their weight, and have looked for their gratification; but one general
and just idea formed the spirit and bond of union of the party,--the
idea that, in the present day, after so many revolutions, society
required established government, and that to government all good
citizens were bound to render their support. Many excellent and
honourable sentiments,--family affection, a desire for regular
employment, respect for rank, laws, and traditions, anxieties for the
future, religious habits,--all clustered round this conviction, and had
often inspired its votaries with rare and trusting courage. I call these
persevering supporters of Government, citizen Tories; their defamers are
weak politicians and shallow philosophers, who neither understand the
moral instincts of the soul, nor the essential interests of society.
The _doctrinarians_ have been heavily attacked. I shall endeavour to
explain rather than defend them. When either men or parties have once
exercised an influence over events, or obtained a place in history, it
becomes important that they should be correctly known; this point
accomplished, they may rest in peace and submit to judgment.
It was neither intelligence, nor talent, nor moral dignity--qualities
which their acknowledged enemies have scarcely denied them--that
established the original character and political importance of the
_doctrinarians_.
Other men of other parties have possessed the same qualities; and
between the relative pretensions of these rivals in understanding,
eloquence, and sincerity, public opinion will decide. The peculiar
characteristic of the doctrinarians, and the real source of their
importance in spite of their limited number, was that they maintained,
against revolutionary principles and ideas, ideas and principles
contrary to those of the old enemies of the Revolution, and with which
they opposed it, not to destroy but to reform and purify it in the name
of justice and truth. The great feature, dearly purchased, of the French
revolution was, that it was a work of the human mind, its conceptions
and pretensions, and at the same time a struggle between social
interests. Philosophy had boasted that it would regulate political
economy, and that institutions, laws, and public authorities should only
exist as the creatures and servants of instructed reason,--- an insane
pride, but a startling homage to all that is most elevated in man, to
his intellectual and moral attributes! Reverses and errors were not slow
in impressing on the Revolution their rough lessons; but even up to 1815
it had encountered, as commentators on its ill-fortune, none but
implacable enemies or undeceived accomplices,--the first thirsting for
vengeance, the last eager for rest, and neither capable of opposing to
revolutionary principles anything beyond a retrograde movement on the
one side, and the scepticism of weariness on the other. "There was
nothing in the Revolution but error and crime," said the first; "the
supporters of the old system were in the right."--"The Revolution erred
only in excess," exclaimed the second; "its principles were sound, but
carried too far; it has abused its rights." The doctrinarians denied
both these conclusions; they refused to acknowledge the maxims of the
old system, or, even in a mere speculative sense, to adhere to the
principles of the Revolution. While frankly adopting the new state of
French society, such as our entire history, and not alone the year 1789,
had made it, they undertook to establish a government on rational
foundations, but totally opposed to the theories in the name of which
the old system had been overthrown, or the incoherent principles which
some endeavoured to conjure up for its reconstruction. Alternately
called on to combat and defend the Revolution, they boldly assumed from
the outset, an intellectual position, opposing ideas to ideas, and
principles to principles, appealing at the same time to reason and
experience, affirming rights instead of maintaining interests, and
requiring France, not to confess that she had committed evil alone, or
to declare her impotence for good, but to emerge from the chaos into
which she had plunged herself, and to raise her head once more towards
heaven in search of light.
Let me readily admit that there was also much pride in this attempt; but
a pride commencing with an act of humility, which proclaims the mistakes
of yesterday with the desire and hope of not repeating them today. It
was rendering homage to human intelligence while warning it of the
limits of its power, respecting the past, without undervaluing the
present or abandoning the future. It was an endeavour to bestow on
politics sound philosophy, not as a sovereign mistress, but as an
adviser and support.
I shall state without hesitation, according to what experience has
taught me, the faults which progressively mingled with this noble
design, and impaired or checked its success. What I anxiously desire at
present is to indicate its true character. It was to this mixture of
philosophical sentiment and political moderation, to this rational
respect for opposing rights and facts, to these principles, equally new
and conservative, anti-revolutionary without being retrograde, and
modest in fact although sometimes haughty in expression, that the
doctrinarians owed their importance as well as their name.
Notwithstanding the numerous errors of philosophy and human reason, the
present age still cherishes reasoning and philosophical tastes; and the
most determined practical politicians sometimes assume the air of acting
upon general ideas, regarding them as sound methods of obtaining
justification or credit. The doctrinarians thus responded to a profound
and real necessity, although imperfectly acknowledged, of French minds:
they paid equal respect to intellect and social order; their notions
appeared well suited to regenerate, while terminating the Revolution.
Under this double title they found, with partisans and adversaries,
points of contact which drew them together, if not with active sympathy,
at least with solid esteem: the right-hand party looked upon them as
sincere royalists; and the left, while opposing them with acrimony,
could not avoid admitting that they were neither the advocates of the
old system, nor the defenders of absolute power.
Such was their position at the opening of the session of 1816: a little
obscure still, but recognized by the Cabinet as well as by the different
parties. The Duke de Richelieu, M. Laine, and M. Decazes, whether they
liked the doctrinarians or not, felt that they positively required their
co-operation, as well in the debates of the Chambers as to act upon
public opinion. The left-hand party, powerless in itself, accorded with
them from necessity, although their ideas and language sometimes
produced surprise rather than sympathy. The right, notwithstanding its
losses at the elections, was still very strong, and speedily assumed the
offensive. The King's speech on opening the session was mild and
somewhat indistinct, as if tending rather to palliate the decree of the
5th of September, than to parade it with an air of triumph: "Rely," said
he, in conclusion, "on my fixed determination to repress the outrages of
the ill-disposed, and to restrain the exuberance of overheated zeal."
"Is that all?" observed M. de Chateaubriand, on leaving the royal
presence; "if so, the victory is ours:" and on that same day he dined
with the Chancellor. M. de la Bourdonnaye was even more explicit. "The
King," said he, with a coarse expression, "once more hands his
ministers over to us!" During the session of the next day, meeting
M. Royer-Collard, with whom he was in the habit of extremely free
conversation, "Well," said he, "there you are, more rogues than last
year." "And you not so many," replied M. Royer-Collard. The right-hand
party, in their reviving hopes, well knew how to distinguish the
adversaries with whom they would have to contend.
As in the preceding session, the first debates arose on questions of
expediency. The Cabinet judged it necessary to demand from the Chambers
the prolongation, for another year, of the two provisional laws
respecting personal liberty and the daily press. M. Decazes presented a
detailed account of the manner in which, up to that period, the
Government had used the arbitrary power committed to its hands, and also
the new propositions which should restrain it within the limits
necessary to remove all apprehended danger. The right-hand party
vigorously rejected these propositions, upon the very natural ground
that they had no confidence in the Ministers, but without any other
reasoning than the usual commonplace arguments of liberalism. The
doctrinarians supported the bills, but with the addition of commentaries
which strongly marked their independence, and the direction they wished
to give to the power they defended. "Every day," said M. de Serre, "the
nature of our constitution will be better understood, its benefits more
appreciated by the nation; the laws with which you co-operate, will
place by degrees our institutions and habits in harmony with
representative monarchy; the government will approach its natural
perfection,--that unity of principle, design, and action which forms the
condition of its existence. In permitting and even in protecting legal
opposition, it will not allow that opposition to find resting-points
within itself. It is because it can be, and ought to be, watched over
and contradicted by independent men, that it should be punctually
obeyed, faithfully seconded and served by those who have become and wish
to remain its direct agents. Government will thus acquire a degree of
strength which can dispense with the employment of extraordinary means:
legal measures, restored to their proper energy, will be found
sufficient." "There is," said M. Royer-Collard, "a strong objection
against this bill; the Government may be asked, 'Before you demand
excessive powers, have you employed all those which the laws entrust to
you? have you exhausted their efficacy?' ... I shall not directly answer
this question, but I shall say to those who put it, 'Take care how you
expose your Government to too severe a trial, and one under which nearly
all Governments have broken down; do not require from it perfection;
consider its difficulties as well as its duties.' ... We wish to arrest
its steps in the course it pursues at present, and to impose daily
changes. We demand from it the complete development of institutions and
constitutional enactments; above all, we require that vigorous unity of
principles, system, and conduct without which it will never effectually
reach the end towards which it advances. But what it has already done,
is a pledge for what it will yet accomplish. We feel a just reliance
that the extraordinary powers with which we invest it will be exercised,
not by or for a party, but for the nation against all parties. Such is
our treaty; such are the stipulations which have been spoken of: they
are as public as our confidence, and we thank those who have occasioned
their repetition, for proving to France that we are faithful to her
cause, and neglect neither her interests nor our own duties."
With a more gentle effusion of mind and heart, M. Camille Jordan held
the same language; the bills passed; the right-hand party felt as blows
directed against itself the advice suggested to the Cabinet, and the
Cabinet saw that in that quarter, as necessary supporters, they had also
haughty and exacting allies.
Their demands were not fruitless. The Cabinet, uninfluenced either by
despotic views or immoderate passions, had no desire to retain
unnecessarily the absolute power with which it had been entrusted. No
effort was requisite to deprive it of the provisional laws; they fell
successively of themselves,--the suspension of the securities for
personal liberty in 1817, the prevotal courts in 1818, the censorship of
the daily press in 1819; and four years after the tempest of the Hundred
Days, the country was in the full enjoyment of all its constitutional
privileges.
During this interval, other questions, more and less important, were
brought forward and decided. When the first overflowing of the reaction
of 1815 had a little calmed down, when France, less disturbed with the
present, began once more to think of the future, she was called upon to
enter on the greatest work that can fall to the lot of a nation. There
was more than a new government to establish; it was necessary that a
free government should be imbued with vigour. It was written, and it
must live,--a promise often made, but never accomplished. How often,
from 1789 to 1814, had liberties and political rights been inscribed on
our institutes and laws, to be buried under them, and held of no
account. The first amongst the Governments of our day, the Restoration,
took these words at their true meaning; whatever may have been its
traditions and propensities, what it said, it did; the liberties and
rights it acknowledged, were taken into real co-operation and action.
From 1814 to 1830, as from 1830 to 1848, the Charter was a truth. For
once forgetting it, Charles X. fell.
When this work of organization, or, to speak more correctly, when this
effectual call to political life commenced in 1816, the question of the
electoral system, already touched upon, but without result, in the
preceding session, was the first that came under notice. It was included
in the scope of the fortieth article of the Charter, which ran
thus:--"The electors who nominate the Deputies can have no right of
voting, unless they pay a direct contribution of 300 francs, and have
reached the age of thirty,"--an ambiguous arrangement, which attempted
more than it ventured to accomplish. It evidently contained a desire of
placing the right of political suffrage above the popular masses, and of
confining it within the more elevated classes of society. But the
constitutional legislator had neither gone openly to this point, nor
attained it with certainty; for if the Charter required from the
electors who were actually to name the Deputies, 300 francs of direct
contribution, and thirty years of age, it did not forbid that these
electors should be themselves chosen by preceding electoral assemblies;
or rather it did not exclude indirect election, nor, under that form,
what is understood by the term universal suffrage.
I took part in drawing up the bill of the 5th of February, 1817, which
comprised, at that time, the solution given to this important question.
I was present at the conferences in which it was prepared. When ready,
M. Laine, whose business it was, as Minister of the Interior, to present
it to the Chamber of Deputies, wrote to say that he wished to see me: "I
have adopted," he said, "all the principles of this bill, the
concentration of the right of suffrage, direct election, the equal
privilege of voters, their union in a single college for each
department; and I really believe these are the best that could be
desired: still, upon some of these points, I have mental doubts and
little time to solve them. Help me in preparing the exposition of our
objects." I responded, as I was bound, to this confiding sincerity, by
which I felt equally touched and honoured. The bill was brought in; and
while my friends supported it in the Chamber, from whence my age for the
present excluded me, I defended it, on behalf of the Government, in
several articles inserted in the 'Moniteur.' I was well informed as to
its intent and true spirit, and I speak of it without embarrassment in
presence of the universal suffrage, as now established. If the electoral
system of 1817 disappeared in the tempest of 1848, it conferred on
France thirty years of regular and free government, systematically
sustained and controlled; and amidst all the varying influences of
parties, and the shock of a revolution, this system sufficed to maintain
peace, to develop national prosperity, and to preserve respect for all
legal rights. In this age of ephemeral and futile experiments, it is the
only political enactment which has enjoyed a long and powerful life. At
least it was a work which may be acknowledged, and which deserves to be
correctly estimated, even after its overthrow.
A ruling idea inspired the bill of the 5th of February, 1817,--to fix a
term to the revolutionary system, and to give vigour to the
constitutional Government. At that epoch, universal suffrage had ever
been, in France, an instrument of destruction or deceit,--of
destruction, when it had really placed political power in the hands of
the multitude; of deceit, when it had assisted to annul political
rights for the advantage of absolute power, by maintaining, through the
vain intervention of the multitude, a false appearance of electoral
privilege. To escape, in fine, from that routine of alternate violence
and falsehood, to place political power in the region within which the
conservative interests of social order naturally predominate with
enlightened independence, and to secure to those interests, by the
direct election of deputies from the country, a free and strong action
upon its Government,--such were the objects, without reserve or
exaggeration, of the authors of the electoral system of 1817.
In a country devoted for twenty-five years, on the subject of political
elections, whether truly or apparently, to the principle of the
supremacy of number, so absurdly called the sovereignty of the people,
the attempt was new, and might appear rash. At first, it confined
political power to the hands of 140,000 electors. From the public, and
even from what was already designated the liberal party, it encountered
but slight opposition; some objections springing from the past, some
apprehensions for the future, but no declared or active hostility. It
was from the bosom of the classes specially devoted to conservative
interests, and from their intestine discussions, that the attack and the
danger emanated.
During the session of 1815, the old royalist faction, in its moderated
views, and when it renounced systematic and retrograding aspirations,
had persuaded itself that, at least, the King's favour and the influence
of the majority would give it power in the departments as at the seat of
government. The decree of the 5th of September, 1816, abolished this
double expectation. The old Royalists called upon the new electoral
system to restore it, but at once perceived that the bill of the 5th of
February was not calculated to produce such an effect; and forthwith
commenced a violent attack, accusing the new plan of giving over all
electoral power, and consequently all political influence, to the middle
classes, to the exclusion of the great proprietors and the people.
At a later period, the popular party, who neither thought nor spoke on
the subject in 1817, adopted this argument in their turn, and charged,
on this same accusation of political monopoly for the benefit of the
middle classes, their chief complaint, not only against the electoral
law, but against the entire system of government of which that law was
the basis and guarantee.
I collect my reminiscences, and call back my impressions. From 1814 to
1848, under the government of the Restoration, and under that of July, I
loudly supported and more than once had the honour of carrying this flag
of the middle classes, which was naturally my own. What did we
understand by it? Have we ever conceived the design, or even admitted
the thought, that the citizens should become a newly privileged order,
and that the laws intended to regulate the exercise of suffrage should
serve to found the predominance of the middle classes by taking, whether
in right or fact, all political influence, on one side from the relics
of the old French aristocracy, and on the other from the people?
Such an attempt would have been strangely ignorant and insane. It is
neither by political theories nor articles in laws, that the privileges
and superiority of any particular class are established in a State.
These slow and pedantic methods are not available for such a purpose; it
requires the force of conquest or the power of faith. Society is
exclusively controlled by military or religious ascendency; never by the
influence of the citizens. The history of all ages and nations is at
hand to prove this to the most superficial observer.
In our day, the impossibility of such a predominance of the middle
classes is even more palpable. Two ideas constitute the great features
of modern civilization, and stamp it with its formidable activity; I sum
them up in these terms:--There are certain universal rights inherent in
man's nature, and which no system can legitimately withhold from any
one; there are individual rights which spring from personal merit alone,
without regard to the external circumstances of birth, fortune, or rank,
and which every one who has them in himself should be permitted to
exercise. From the two principles of legal respect for the general
rights of humanity, and the free development of natural gifts, ill or
well understood, have proceeded, for nearly a century, the advantages
and evils, the great actions and crimes, the advances and wanderings
which revolutions and Governments have alternately excited in the bosom
of every European community. Which of these two principles provokes or
even permits the exclusive supremacy of the middle classes? Assuredly
neither the one nor the other. One opens to individual endowments every
gate; the other demands for every human being his place and his portion:
no greatness is unattainable; no condition, however insignificant, is
counted as nothing. Such principles are irreconcilable with exclusive
superiority; that of the middle classes, as of every other, would be in
direct contradiction to the ruling tendencies of modern society.
The middle classes have never, amongst us, dreamed of becoming
privileged orders; and no rational mind has ever indulged in such dreams
for them. This idle accusation is but an engine of war, erected under
cover of a confusion of ideas, sometimes by the hypocritical dexterity,
and at others by the blind infatuation of party spirit. But this does
not prevent its having been, or becoming again, fatal to the peace of
our social system; for men are so constructed that chimerical dangers
are the most formidable they can encounter: we fight boldly with
tangible substances, but we lose our heads, either from fear or anger,
when in presence of phantoms.
It was with real dangers that we had to cope in 1817, when we discussed
the electoral system of France. We saw the most legitimate principles
and the most jealous interests of the new state of society indistinctly
menaced by a violent reaction. We felt the spirit of revolution spring
up and ferment around us, arming itself, according to old practice, with
noble incentives, to cover the march and prepare the triumph of the most
injurious passions. By instinct and position, the middle classes were
the best suited to struggle with the combined peril. Opposed to the
pretensions of the old aristocracy, they had acquired, under the Empire,
ideas and habits of government. Although they received the Restoration
with some mistrust, they were not hostile to it; for under the rule of
the Charter, they had nothing to ask from new revolutions. The Charter
was for them the Capitol and the harbour; they found in it the security
of their conquests, and the triumph of their hopes. To turn to the
advantage of the ancient monarchy, now become constitutional, this
anti-revolutionary state of the middle classes, to secure their
co-operation with that monarchy by giving them confidence in their own
position, was a line of policy clearly indicated by the state of facts
and opinions. Such was the bearing of the electoral bill of 1817. In
principle this bill cut short the revolutionary theories of the
supremacy of numbers, and of a specious and tyrannical equality; in
fact, it brought the new society under shelter from the threats of
counter-revolution. Assuredly, in proposing it, we had no intention of
establishing any antagonism between the great and small proprietors; but
when the question was so laid down, we evinced no hesitation; we
supported the bill firmly, by maintaining that the influence, not
exclusive but preponderating, of the middle classes was confirmed, on
one side by the spirit of free institutions, and on the other in
conformity with the interests of France as the Revolution had changed
her, and with the Restoration itself as the Charter had defined when
proclaiming it.
The election bill occupied the session of 1816. The bill for recruiting
was the great subject and work of the session of 1817. The right-hand
party opposed it with vehement hostility: it disputed their traditions
and disturbed their monarchical tendencies. But the party had to contest
with a minister as imperturbable in his convictions and will as in his
physiognomy. Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr had a powerful, original, and
straightforward mind, with no great combination of ideas, but
passionately wedded to those which emanated from himself. He had
resolved to give back to France what she no longer possessed--an army.
And an army in his estimate was a small nation springing from the large
one, strongly organized, formed of officers and soldiers closely united,
mutually knowing and respecting each other, all having defined rights
and duties, and all well trained by solid study or long practice to
serve their country effectually when called upon.
Upon this idea of an army, according to the conception of Marshal St.
Cyr, the principles of his bill were naturally framed. Every class in
the State was required to assist in the formation of this army. Those
who entered in the lowest rank were open to the highest, with a certain
advantage in the ascending movement of the middle classes. Those who
were ambitious of occupying at once a higher step, were compelled in the
first instance to pass certain examinations, and then to acquire by
close study the particular knowledge necessary to their post. The term
of service, active or in reserve, was long, and made military life in
reality a career. The obligations imposed, the privileges promised, and
the rights recognized for all, were guaranteed by the bill.
Besides these general principles, the bill had an immediate result which
St. Cyr ardently desired. It enrolled again in the new army, under the
head of veterans and reserve, the remains of the old discharged legions,
who had so heroically endured the penalty of the errors committed by
their crowned leader. It effaced also, in their minds, that reminiscence
of a distasteful past, while by a sort of special Charter it secured
their future.
No one can deny that this plan for the military organization of France,
embraced grand ideas and noble sentiments. Such a bill accorded with the
moral nature and political conduct of Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, who
possessed an upright soul, a proud temperament, monarchical opinions,
and republican manners; and who, since 1814, had given equal proofs of
loyalty and independence. When he advocated it in the tribune, when,
with the manly solemnity and disciplined feeling of an experienced
warrior, at once a sincere patriot and a royalist, he recapitulated the
services and sufferings of that nation of old soldiers which he was
anxious for a few years longer to unite with the new army of France, he
deeply moved the public and the Chambers; and his powerful language, no
less than the excellent propositions of his bill, consecrated it on the
instant in the affectionate esteem of the country.
Violently attacked in 1818, Marshal St. Cyr's recruiting bill has been
since that date several times criticised, revised, and modified. Its
leading principles have resisted assault, and have survived alteration.
It has done more than last, through soundness of principle; it has
given, by facts, an astounding denial to its adversaries. It was accused
of striking a blow at the monarchy; on the contrary, it has made the
army more devotedly monarchical than any that France had ever known,--an
army whose fidelity has never been shaken, either in 1830 or 1848, by
the influence of popular opinion, or the seduction of a revolutionary
crisis. Military sentiment, that spirit of obedience and respect, of
discipline and devotion, one of the chief glories of human nature, and
the necessary pledge of the honour as of the safety of nations, had been
powerfully fomented and developed in France by the great wars of the
Revolution and the Empire. It was a precious inheritance of those rough
times which have bequeathed to us so many burdens. There was danger of
its being lost or enfeebled in the bosom of peaceful inaction, and
during endless debates on liberty. It has been firmly maintained in the
army which the law of 1818 established and incessantly recruits. This
military sentiment is not only preserved; it has become purified and
regulated. By the honesty of its promises and the justice of its
arrangements in matters of privilege and promotion, the bill of Marshal
St. Cyr has imbued the army with a permanent conviction of its rights,
of its own legal and individual rights, and, through that feeling, with
an instinctive attachment to public order, the common guarantee of all
rights. We have witnessed the rare and imposing sight of an army capable
of devotion and restraint, ready for sacrifices, and modest in
pretension, ambitious of glory, without being athirst for war, proud of
its arms, and yet obedient to civil authority. Public habits, the
prevailing ideas of the time, and the general character of our
civilization have doubtless operated much upon this great result; but
the bill of Marshal St. Cyr has had its full part, and I rejoice in
recording this honourable distinction, which, amongst so many others,
belongs to my old and glorious friend.
The session of 1818, which opened in the midst of a ministerial crisis,
had to deal with another question not more important, but even more
intricate and dangerous. The Cabinet determined to leave the press no
longer under an exceptional and temporary law. M. de Serre, at that time
Chancellor, introduced three bills on the same day, which settled
definitively the penalty, the method of prosecution, and the
qualification for publishing, in respect to the daily papers, while at
the same time they liberated them from all censorship.
I am one of those who have been much assisted and fiercely attacked by
the press. Throughout my life, I have greatly employed this engine. By
placing my ideas publicly before the eyes of my country, I first
attracted her attention and esteem. During the progress of my career, I
have ever had the press for ally or opponent; and I have never hesitated
to employ its weapons, or feared to expose myself to its blows. It is a
power which I respect and recognize willingly, rather than compulsorily,
but without illusion or idolatry. Whatever may be the form of
government, political life is a constant struggle; and it would give me
no satisfaction--I will even say more--I should feel ashamed of finding
myself opposed to mute and fettered adversaries. The liberty of the
press is human nature displaying itself in broad daylight, sometimes
under the most attractive, and at others under the most repelling
aspect; it is the wholesome air that vivifies, and the tempest that
destroys, the expansion and impulsive power of steam in the intellectual
system. I have ever advocated a free press; I believe it to be, on the
whole, more useful than injurious to public morality; and I look upon it
as essential to the proper management of public affairs, and to the
security of private interests. But I have witnessed too often and too
closely its dangerous aberrations as regards political order, not to
feel convinced that this liberty requires the restraint of a strong
organization of effective laws and of controlling principles. In 1819,
my friends and I clearly foresaw the necessity of these conditions; but
we laid little stress upon them, we were unable to bring them all into
operation, and we thought, moreover, that the time had arrived when the
sincerity as well as the strength of the restored monarchy was to be
proved by removing from the press its previous shackles, and in risking
the consequences of its enfranchisement.
The greater part of the laws passed with reference to the press, in
France or elsewhere, have either been acts of repression, legitimate or
illegitimate, against liberty, or triumphs over certain special
guarantees of liberty successively won from power, according to the
necessity or opportunity of gaining them. The legislative history of the
press in England supplies a long series of alternations and arrangements
of this class.
The bills of 1819 had a totally different character. They comprised a
complete legislation, conceived together and beforehand, conformable
with certain general principles, defining in every degree liabilities
and penalties, regulating all the conditions as well as the forms of
publication, and intended to establish and secure the liberty of the
press, while protecting order and power from its licentiousness;--an
undertaking very difficult in its nature, as all legislative enactments
must be which spring from precaution more than necessity, and in which
the legislator is inspired and governed by ideas rather than commanded
and directed by facts. Another danger, a moral and concealed danger,
also presented itself. Enactments thus prepared and maintained become
works of a philosopher and artist, the author of which is tempted to
identify himself with them through an impulse of self-love, which
sometimes leads him to lose sight of the external circumstances and
practical application he ought to have considered. Politics require a
certain mixture of indifference and passion, of freedom of thought and
restrained will, which is not easily reconciled with a strong adhesion
to general ideas, and a sincere intent to hold a just balance between
the many principles and interests of society.
I should be unwilling to assert that in the measures proposed and passed
in 1819, on the liberty of the press, we had completely avoided these
rocks, or that they were in perfect harmony with the state of men's
minds, and the exigencies of order at that precise epoch. Nevertheless,
after an interval of nearly forty years, and on reconsidering these
measures now with my matured judgment, I do not hesitate to look on them
as grand and noble efforts of legislation, in which the true points of
the subject were skilfully embraced and applied, and which, in spite of
the mutilation they were speedily doomed to undergo, established an
advance in the liberty of the press, properly understood, which sooner
or later cannot fail to extend itself.
The debate on these bills was worthy of their conception. M. de Serre
was gifted with eloquence singularly exalted and practical. He supported
their general principles in the tone of a magistrate who applies, and
not as a philosopher who explains them. His speech was profound without
abstraction, highly coloured but not figurative; his reasoning resolved
itself into action. He expounded, examined, discussed, attacked, or
replied without literary or even oratorical preparation, carrying up the
strength of his arguments to the full level of the questions, fertile
without exuberance, precise without dryness, impassioned without a
shadow of declamation, always ready with a sound answer to his
opponents, as powerful on the impulse of the moment as in prepared
reflection, and, when once he had surmounted a slight hesitation and
slowness at the first onset, pressing on directly to his end with a firm
and rapid step, and with the air of a man deeply interested, but
careless of personal success, and only anxious to win his cause by
communicating to his listeners his own sentiments and convictions.
Different adversaries presented themselves during the debate, from those
who had opposed the bills for elections and recruiting the army. The
right-hand party attacked the two latter propositions; the left assailed
the measures regarding the press. MM. Benjamin Constant, Manuel,
Chauvelin, and Bignon, with more parliamentary malice than political
judgment, overwhelmed them with objections and amendments slightly
mingled with very qualified compliments. Recent elections had lately
readmitted into the assembly these leaders of the Liberals in the
Chamber of the Hundred Days. They seemed to think of nothing but how to
bring once more upon the scene their party, for three years beaten down,
and to re-establish their own position as popular orators. Some of the
most prominent ideas in the drawing up of these three bills, were but
little in conformity with the philosophic and legislative traditions
which since 1791 had become current on the subject. They evidently
comprised a sincere wish to guarantee liberty, and a strong desire not
to disarm power. It was a novel exhibition to see Ministers frankly
recognizing the liberty of the press, without offering up incense on its
shrine, and assuming that they understood its rights and interests
better than its old worshippers. In the opposition of the left-hand
party at this period, there was much of routine, a great deal of
complaisance for the prejudices and passions of the press attached to
their party, and a little angry jealousy of a cabinet which permitted
liberal innovation. The public, unacquainted with political factions,
were astonished to see bills so vehemently opposed which diminished the
penalties in force against the press, referred to a jury all offences of
that class, and liberated the journals from the censorship,--measures
which in their eyes appeared too confident. The right-hand party held
dexterously aloof, rejoicing to see the Ministers at issue with reviving
opponents who were likely soon to become their most formidable enemies.
It was during this debate that I ascended the tribune for the first
time. M. Cuvier and I had been appointed, as Royal Commissioners, to
support the proposed measures,--a false and weak position, which
demonstrates the infancy of representative government. We do not argue
politics as we plead a cause or maintain a thesis. To act effectively in
a deliberative assembly, we must ourselves be deliberators; that is to
say, we must be members, and hold our share with others in free
thought, power, and responsibility. I believe that I acquitted myself
with propriety, but coldly, of the mission I had undertaken. I
sustained, against M. Benjamin Constant, the general responsibility for
the correctness of the accounts given of the proceedings of the
Chambers, and, against M. Daunou, the guarantees required by the bill
for the establishment of newspapers. The Chamber appeared to appreciate
my arguments, and listened to me with attention. But I kept on the
reserve, and seldom joined in the debate; I have no turn for incomplete
positions and prescribed parts. When we enter into an arena in which the
affairs of a free country are discussed, it is not to make a display of
fine thoughts and words; we are bound to engage in the struggle as true
and earnest actors.
As the recruiting bill had established a personal and political
reputation for Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, so the bills on the press
effected the same for M. de Serre. Thus, at the issue of a violent
crisis of revolution and war, in presence of armed Europe, and within
the short space of three sessions, the three most important questions of
a free system--the construction of elective power, the formation of a
national army, and the interference of individual opinions in public
affairs through the channel of the press--were freely proposed, argued,
and resolved; and their solution, whatever might be the opinion of
parties, was certainly in harmony with the habits and wishes of that
honest and peaceably disposed majority of France who had sincerely
received the King and the Charter, and had adopted their government on
mature consideration.
During this time, many other measures of constitutional organization,
or general legislation, had been accomplished or proposed. In 1818, an
amendment of M. Royer-Collard settled the addition to the budget of an
annual law for the supervision of public accounts; and in the course of
the following year, two ministers of finance, the Baron Louis and
M. Roy, brought into operation that security for the honest
appropriation of the revenue. By the institution of smaller
"Great-books" of the national debt, the state of public credit became
known in the departments. Other bills, although laid before the
Chambers, produced no result; three, amongst the rest, may be named: on
the responsibility of Ministers, on the organization of the Chamber of
Peers into a court of justice, and on the alteration of the financial
year to avoid the provisional vote of the duty. Others again, especially
applicable to the reform of departmental and parochial administrations,
and to public instruction, were left in a state of inquiry and
preliminary discussion. Far from eluding or allowing important questions
to linger, the Government laboriously investigated them, and forestalled
the wishes of the public, determined to submit them to the Chambers as
soon as they had collected facts and arranged their own plans.
I still preserve a deep remembrance of the State Council in which these
various bills were first discussed. This Council had not then any
defined official existence or prescribed action in the constitution of
the country; politics nevertheless were more prominently argued there,
and with greater freedom and effect, than at any other time; every
shade, I ought rather to say every variation, of the royalist party,
from the extreme right to the edge of the left, were there represented;
the politicians most in repute, the leaders of the majority in the two
Assemblies, were brought into contact with the heads of administration,
the old senators of the Empire, and with younger men not yet admissible
to the Chambers, but introduced by the Charter into public life.
MM. Royer-Collard, de Serre, and Camille Jordan sat there by the side of
MM. Simeon, Portalis, Mole, Berenger, Cuvier, and Allent; and
MM. de Barante, Mounier, and myself deliberated in common with
MM. de Ballainvilliers, Laporte-Lalanne, and de Blaire, unswerving
representatives of the old system. When important bills were examined by
the Council, the Ministers never failed to attend. The Duke de Richelieu
often presided at the general sittings. The discussion was perfectly
free, without oratorical display or pretension, but serious, profound,
varied, detailed, earnest, erudite, and at the same time practical. I
have heard Count Berenger, a man of disputatious and independent temper,
and a quasi-republican under the Empire, maintain there, with ingenious
and imposing subtlety, universal suffrage, and distinctions of
qualification for voting, against direct election and the concentrated
right of suffrage. MM. Cuvier, Simeon, and Allent were the constant
defenders of traditional and administrative influence. My friends and I
argued strongly for the principles and hopes of liberty strongly based,
which appeared to us the natural consequences of the Charter and the
necessary conditions for the prosperity of the Restoration. Reforms in
criminal legislation, the application of trial by jury to offences of
the press, the introduction of the elective principle into the
municipal system, were argued in the Council of State before they were
laid before the Chambers. The Government looked to the Council, not only
for a study of all questions, but for a preparatory and amicable
experience of the ideas, desires, and objections it was destined to
encounter at a later period, in a rougher contest, and a more tumultuous
theatre.
The Cabinet, composed as it was at the time when the decree of the 5th
of September, 1816, appeared, was not equal to that line of policy,
continually increasing in moderation, sometimes resolutely, liberal,
and, if not always provident, at least perpetually active. But the same
progress which accompanied events, affected individuals. During the
course of the year 1817, M. Pasquier, Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, and
M. Mole replaced M. Dambray, the Duke of Feltri, and M. Dubouchage in
the departments of justice, war, and the marine. From that time the
Ministers were not deficient either in internal unity, or in
parliamentary and administrative talent. They endeavoured to infuse the
same qualities into all the different branches and gradations of
government, and succeeded tolerably in the heart of the State. Without
reaction or any exclusive spirit, they surrounded themselves with men
sincerely attached to a constitutional policy, and who by their
character and ability had already won public esteem. They were less firm
and effective in local administration; although introducing more changes
than are generally believed, they were unable to reconcile them with
their general policy. In many places, acts of violence, capricious
temper, haughty inexperience, offensive pretension and frivolous alarm,
with all the great and little party passions which had possessed the
Government of 1815, continued to weigh upon the country. These
proceedings kept up amongst the tranquil population a strong sentiment
of uneasiness, and sometimes excited active malcontents to attempts at
conspiracy and insurrection, amplified at first with interested or
absurd credulity, repressed with unmitigated rigour, and subsequently
discussed, denied, extenuated, and reduced almost to nothing by
never-ending explanations and counter-charges. From thence arose the
mistakes, prejudices, and false calculations of the local authorities;
while the supreme powers assumed alternately airs of levity or weakness,
which made them lose, in the eyes of the multitude, the credit of that
sound general policy from which they, the masses, experienced little
advantage. The occurrences at Lyons in June 1817, and the long debates
of which they became the subject after the mission of redress of the
Duke of Ragusa, furnish a lamentable example of the evils which France
at this period had still to endure, although at the head of government
the original cause had disappeared.
Things are more easily managed than men. These same Ministers, who were
not always able to compel the prefects and mayors to adopt their policy,
and who hesitated to displace them when they were found to be obstinate
or incapable, were ever prompt and effective when general administration
was involved, and measures not personal were necessary for the public
interest. On this point, reflection tells me that justice has not been
rendered to the Government of the day; religious establishments, public
instruction, hospital and prison discipline, financial and military
administration, the connection of power with industry and commerce, all
the great public questions, received from 1816 to 1820 much salutary
reform and made important advances. The Duke de Richelieu advocated an
enlightened policy and the public good; he took pride in contributing to
both. M. Laine devoted himself with serious and scrupulous anxiety to
the superintendence of the many establishments included in his
department, and laboured to rectify existing abuses or to introduce
salutary limitations. The Baron Louis was an able and indefatigable
minister, who knew to a point how regularity could be established in the
finances of the State, and who employed for that object all the
resources of his mind and the unfettered energy of his will. Marshal
Gouvion St. Cyr had, on every branch of military organization, on the
formation and internal system of the different bodies, on the scientific
schools as well as on the material supplies, ideas at once systematic
and practical, derived either from his general conception of the army or
from long experience; and these he carried into effect in a series of
regulations remarkable for the unity of their views and the profound
knowledge of their details. M. Decazes was endowed with a singularly
inquiring and inventive mind in seeking to satisfy doubts, to attempt
improvements, to stimulate emulation and concord for the advantage of
all social interests, of all classes of citizens, in connection with the
Government; and these combined objects he invariably promoted with
intelligent, amiable, and eager activity. In a political point of view,
the Administration left much to regret and to desire; but in its proper
sphere it was liberal, energetic, impartial, economical from probity and
regularity, friendly to progress at the same time that it was careful of
order, and sincerely impressed with the desire of giving universal
prevalence to justice and the public interest.[14]
Here was undoubtedly a sensible and sound Government, in very difficult
and lamentable circumstances; and under such rule the country had no
occasion to lament the present or despair of the future. Nevertheless
this Government gained no strength by permanence; its enemies felt no
discouragement, while its friends perceived no addition to their power
or security. The Restoration had given peace to France, and laboured
honestly and successfully to restore her independence and rank in
Europe. Under this flag of stability and order, prosperity and liberty
sprang up again together. Still the Restoration was always a disputed
question.
If we are to believe its enemies, this evil was inherent and inevitable.
According to them the old system, the emigrants, the foreigners, the
hatreds and suspicions of the Revolution devoted the House of Bourbon to
their obstinately precarious situation. Without disputing the influence
of such a fatal past, I cannot admit that it exercised complete empire
over events, or that it suffices in itself to explain why the
Restoration, even in its best days, always was and appeared to be in a
tottering state. The mischief sprang from more immediate and more
personal causes. In the Government of that date there were organic and
accidental infirmities, vices of the political machine and errors of the
actors, which contributed much more than revolutionary remembrances to
prevent its firm consolidation.
A natural and important disagreement exists between the representative
government instituted by the Charter, and the administrative monarchy
founded by Louis XIV. and Napoleon. Where administration and policy are
equally free, when local affairs are discussed and decided by local
authorities or influences, and neither derive their impulse nor solution
from the central power, which never interferes except when the general
interest of the State absolutely requires it to do so,--as in England,
and in the United States of America, in Holland and Belgium, for
instances,--the representative system readily accords with an
administrative Government which never appeals to its co-operation except
on important and rare occasions. But when the supreme authority
undertakes at the same time to govern with freedom, and to administer by
centralization,--when it has to contend, at the seat of power, for the
great affairs of the State, and to regulate, under its own
responsibility, in all the departments, the minor business of every
district,--two weighty objections immediately present themselves: either
the central power, absorbed by the care of national questions, and
occupied with its own defence, neglects local affairs, and suffers them
to fall into disorder and inaction; or it connects them closely with
general questions, making them subservient to its own interests; and
thus the whole system of administration, from the hamlet to the palace,
degenerates into an implement of government in the hands of political
parties who are mutually contending for power.
I am certainly not called upon today to dwell on this evil; it has
become the hackneyed theme of the adversaries of representative
government, and of political liberty. It was felt long before it was
taken advantage of; but instead of employing it against free
institutions, an attempt was made to effect its cure. To achieve this
end, a double work was to be accomplished; it was necessary to infuse
liberty into the administration of local affairs, and to second the
development of the local forces capable of exercising authority within
their own circle. An aristocracy cannot be created by laws, either at
the extremities or at the fountain-head of the State; but the most
democratic society is not stripped of natural powers ready to display
themselves when called into action. Not only in the departments, but in
the divisions, in the townships and villages, landed property, industry,
employments, professions, and traditions have their local influences,
which, if adopted and organized with prudence, constitute effectual
authority. From 1816 to 1848, under each of the two constitutional
monarchies, whether voluntarily or by compulsion, the different cabinets
have acted under this conviction; they have studied to relieve the
central Government, by remitting a portion of its functions, sometimes
to the regular local agents, and at others to more independent
auxiliaries. But, as it too often happens, the remedy was not rapid
enough in operation; mistrust, timidity, inexperience, and routine
slackened its progress; neither the authorities nor the people knew how
to employ it with resolution, or to wait the results with patience. Thus
compelled to sustain the burden of political liberty with that of
administrative centralization, the newly-born constitutional monarchy
found itself compromised between difficulties and contradictory
responsibilities, exceeding the measure of ability and strength which
could be reasonably expected from any Government.
Another evil, the natural but not incurable result of these very
institutions, weighed also upon the Restoration. The representative
system is at the bottom, and on close analysis, a system of mutual
sacrifices and dealings between the various interests which coexist in
society. At the same time that it places them in antagonism, it imposes
on them the absolute necessity of arriving at an intermediate term, a
definite measure of reciprocal understanding and toleration which may
become the basis of laws and government. But also, at the same time, by
the publicity and heat of the struggle, it throws the opposing parties
into an unseemly exaggeration of vehemence and language, and compromises
the self-love and personal dignity of human nature. Thus, by an
inconsistency teeming with embarrassment, it daily renders more
difficult that agreement or submission which, in the end, it has also
made indispensable. Herein is comprised an important difficulty for this
system of government, which can only be surmounted by a great exercise
of tact and conciliation on the part of the political actors
themselves, and by a great preponderance of good sense on that of the
public, which in the end recalls parliamentary factions and their
leaders to that moderation after defeat, from which the inflated passion
of the characters they have assumed too often tends to estrange them.
This necessary regulator, always difficult to find or institute, was
essentially wanting to us under the Restoration; on entering the course,
we were launched, without curb, on this precipice of extreme
demonstrations and preconceived ideas, the natural vice of parties in
every representative government. How many opportunities presented
themselves from 1816 to 1830, when the different elements of the
monarchical party could, and in their struggle ought to have paused on
this brink, at the point where the danger of revolution commenced for
all! But none had the good sense or courage to exercise this provident
restraint; and the public, far from imposing it on them, excited them
still more urgently to the combat,--as at a play, in which people
delight to trace the dramatic reflection of their own passions.