December 29, 1848. Friday.
Yesterday, Thursday, I had two duties to attend to at one and the same
time, the Assembly and the Academy; the salt question on the one hand,
on the other the much smaller question of two vacant seats. Yet I gave
the preference to the latter. This is why: At the Palais Bourbon the
Cavaignac party had to be prevented from killing the new Cabinet; at the
Palais Mazarin the Academy had to be prevented from offending the memory
of Chateaubriand. There are cases in which the dead count for more than
the living; I went to the Academy.
The Academy last Thursday had suddenly decided, at the opening of the
session, at a time when nobody had yet put in an appearance, when there
were only four or five round the green table, that on January 11 (that
is to say, in three weeks) it would fill the two seats left vacant by
MM. de Chateaubriand and Vatout. This strange alliance, I do not say of
names, but of words,--“replace MM. de Chateaubriand and Vatout,”--did
not stop it for one minute. The Academy is thus made; its wit and that
wisdom which produces so many follies, are composed of extreme lightness
combined with extreme heaviness. Hence a good deal of foolishness and a
good many foolish acts.
Beneath this lightness, however, there was an intention. This giddiness
was fraught with deep meaning. The brave party that leads the Academy,
for there are parties everywhere, even at the Academy, hoped, public
attention being directed elsewhere, politics absorbing everything, to
juggle the seat of Chateaubriand pell-mell with the seat of M. Vatout;
two peas in the same goblet. In this way the astonished public
would turn round one fine morning and simply see M. de Noailles in
Chateaubriand’s seat: a small matter, a great lord in the place of a
great writer!
Then, after a roar of laughter, everybody would go about his business
again, distractions would speedily come, thanks to the veering of
politics, and, as to the Academy, oh! a duke and peer the more in it,
a little more ridicule upon it, what would that matter? It would go on
just the same!
Besides, M. de Noailles is a considerable personage. Bearing a great
name, being lofty of manner, enjoying an immense fortune, of certain
political weight under Louis Philippe, accepted by the Conservatives
although, or because, a Legitimist, reading speeches that were listened
to, he occupied an important place in the Chamber of Peers; which proves
that the Chamber of Peers occupied an unimportant place in the country.
Chateaubriand, who hated all that could replace him and smiled at
all that could make him regretted, had had the kindness to tell him
sometimes, by Mme. Récamier’s fireside, “that he hoped he would be his
successor;” which prompted M. de Noailles to dash off a big book in two
volumes about Mme. de Maintenon, at the commencement of which, on the
first page of the preface, I was stopped by a lordly breach of grammar.
This was the state of things when I concluded to go to the Academy.
The session which was announced to begin at two o’clock, as usual,
opened, as usual, at a quarter past three. And at half past three--
At half past three the candidacy of Monsieur the Duke do Noailles,
*replacing* Chateaubriand, was irresistibly acclaimed.
Decidedly, I ought to have gone to the Assembly.
March 26, 1850. Tuesday.