I varied these serious pursuits with the study of diplomacy or the laws
of intercourse between governments, which had always attracted me from
my early youth. Chance directed me to the fountain-head. At the time
that I applied myself to political economy I had written a pamphlet of
about a hundred pages, on a subject which at that period attracted a
great share of public attention. The title of the pamphlet was: "What
place can the nobility occupy in France under a constitutional
government?" I treated this question, which was a most delicate one at
the time, with the instinctive good sense that Nature had allotted to
me, and with the impartiality of a youthful mind, soaring without
effort above the vanities from on high, the envy from below, and the
prejudices of his day. I spoke with love of the people, with
intelligence of our institutions, and with respect of that historic
nobility whose names were long the name of France herself, on her
battlefields, in her magistracy, and in foreign lands. I was for the
suppression of all privileges of nobility, save the memory of nations,
which cannot be suppressed, and proposed an elective peerage, showing
that in a free country there could be no other nobility than that of
election, which is a perpetual stimulus to public duty, and a temporary
reward of the merit or virtues of its citizens.
Julie, to whom I had lent the manuscript in order to initiate her in
the labors of my life, had shown it to Monsieur M----, a clever man of
her intimate acquaintance, for whose judgment she entertained the
greatest deference. M. M---- was the worthy son of an illustrious
member of the Constituent Assembly, had been the Emperor's private
secretary, and was now a constitutional royalist. He was one of those
whose minds are never youthful, who enter mature into the world, and
die young, leaving a void in their epoch. M. M----, after reading my
work, asked Julie who was the political man who had written those
pages. She smiled, and confessed that they were the production of a
very young man, who had neither name nor experience, and was quite
unknown in the political world. M. M---- required to see me to believe.
I was introduced to him, and he received me with kindness which
afterwards ripened into a friendship, that remained unchanged until his
death. My work was never printed; but M. M----, in his turn, introduced
me to his friend, M. de Reyneval, a man of luminous understanding,
open-hearted, and of an attractive and cheerful though grave and
laborious mind, who was at that time the life of our foreign policy. He
died, not long ago, while ambassador at Madrid. M. de Reyneval, who had
read my work, received me with that encouraging grace and cordial smile
which seems to overleap distance, and always wins at first sight the
heart of a young man. He was one of those men from whom it is pleasant
to learn, because they seem, so to speak, to diffuse themselves in
teaching, and to give rather than prescribe. One learned more of Europe
in a few mornings by conversing with this most agreeable man, than in a
whole diplomatic library. He possessed tact, the innate genius of
negotiations. I owe to him my taste for those high political affairs
which he handled with full consciousness of their importance, but
without seeming to feel their weight. His strength made everything
easy, and his ready condescension seemed to infuse grace and heart into
business. He encouraged my desire to enter on the diplomatic career,
presented me himself to the Director of the Archives, M. d'Hauterive,
and authorized him to allow me access to the collection of our treaties
and negotiations. M. d'Hauterive, who had grown old over despatches,
might be said to be the unalterable tradition and the living dogma of
our diplomacy. With his commanding figure, hollow voice, his thick and
powdered hair, his long, bushy eyebrows overshading a deep-set and dim
eye, he seemed a living, speaking century. He received me like a
father, and appeared happy to transmit to me the inheritance of all his
hoarded knowledge; he made me read, and take notes under his own eye,
and twice a week I used to study for a few hours under his direction. I
love the memory of his green old age, which so prodigally bestowed its
experience on a young man whose name he scarcely knew. M. d'Hauterive
died during the battle of July, 1830, amid the roar of the cannon which
annihilated the policy of the Bourbons and the treaties of 1815.