In this lecture I wish to treat of the restoration of the Bourbons, and
of the counter-revolution in France.
On the fall of Napoleon, the Prussian king and the Austrian emperor,
under the predominating influence of Metternich, in restoring the
Bourbons were averse to constitutional checks. They wanted nothing less
than absolute monarchy, such as existed before the Revolution. On the
other hand, the Czar Alexander, generous and inclined then to liberal
ideas, was willing to concede something to the Revolution; while the
government of England, mindful of the liberty which had made that
country so glorious and so prosperous, also favored a constitutional
government in the person of the legitimate heir of the French monarchy.
Such was also the wish of the French nation, so far as it could be
expressed; for the French people, under whatever form of government
they may have lived, have never forgotten or repudiated the ideas and
bequests of the greatest movement in modern times.
Prussia and Austria, therefore, were obliged to yield to Russia and
England, supported by the will of the French nation itself. Russia had
no jealousy of French ideas; and England certainly could not,
consistently with her struggles and her traditions, oppose what the
English nation resolutely clung to, and of which it was so proud.
Prussia and Austria, undisturbed by revolutions, wished simply the
restoration of the _status quo_, which with them meant absolute
monarchy; but which in France was not really the _status quo_, since the
Revolution had effected great and permanent changes even under the
régime of Bonaparte. Russia and England, in conceding something to
liberty, were yet as earnest and sincere advocates of legitimacy as
Prussia and Austria; for constitutional rights may exist under a
monarchy as well as under a republic. Moreover, it was felt by
enlightened statesmen of all parties that no government could be stable
and permanent in France which ignored the bequests of the Revolution,
which even Napoleon professed to respect.
Accordingly it was settled that Louis XVIII.,--the younger brother of
Louis XVI., who had fled from France in 1792,--should be recalled from
exile, and restored to the throne of his ancestors, since he agreed to
accept checks to his authority, and swore to defend the new
constitution, although he insisted upon reigning "by the grace of
God,"--not as a monarch who received his crown from the people, or as a
gift from other monarchs, but by divine right. To this all parties
consented. He maintained the dignity of the royal prerogative at the
same time that he recognized the essential liberties of the nation. They
were not so full and complete as those in England; but the king
guaranteed to secure the rights both of public and private property, to
respect the freedom of the Press, to grant liberty of worship, to
maintain the national obligations, to make the judicial power
independent and irremovable, and to admit all Frenchmen to civil and
military employment, without restrictions in matters of religion. These
in substance constituted the charter which he granted on condition of
reigning,--an immense gain to France and the cause of civilization, if
honestly maintained.
Louis XVIII. was neither a great king nor a great man; but his long
exile of twenty years, his travels and residences in various countries
in Europe, his misfortunes and his studies, had liberalized his mind
without embittering his heart. He never lost his dignity or his hopes in
his sad reverses; and when he was thus recalled to France to mount the
throne of his murdered brother, he was a very respectable man, both
from natural intelligence and extensive attainments. He possessed great
social and conversational powers, was moderate in his views of
Catholicism, virtuous in his private character, affectionate with his
friends and the members of his family, prudent in the exercise of power,
and disposed to reign according to the constitution which he honestly
had accepted; but socially he restored the ancient order of things,
surrounded himself with a splendid court, lived in great pomp and
ceremony, and appointed the ancient nobles to the higher offices of
state. According to French writers, he was the equal in conversation of
any of the great men with whom he was brought in contact, without being
great himself, thereby resembling Louis XIV. He had handsome features, a
musical voice, pleasing manners, and singular urbanity, without being
condescending. He was infirm in his legs, which prevented him from
taking exercise, except in his long daily drives, drawn in his
magnificent carriage by eight horses, with outriders and guards.
The king delegated his powers to no single statesman, but held the reins
in his own hand. His ability as a ruler consisted in his tact and
moderation in managing the conflicting parties, and in his honest
abstention from encroaching on the liberties of the people in rare
emergencies; so that his reign was peaceable and tolerably successful.
It required no inconsiderable ability to preserve the throne to his
successor amid such a war of factions, and such a disposition for
encroachments on the part of the royal family. In contrast with the
splendid achievements and immense personality of Napoleon, Louis XVIII.
is not a great figure in history; but had there been no Revolution and
no Napoleon, he would have left the fame of a wise and benevolent
sovereign. His only striking weakness was in submitting to the influence
of either a favorite or a woman, like all the Bourbons from Henry IV.
downward,--except perhaps Louis XVI., who would have been more fortunate
had he yielded implicitly to the overpowering ascendency of such a woman
as Madame de Maintenon, or such a minister as Richelieu.
The reign of Louis XVIII. is not marked by great events or great
passions, except the unrelenting and bitter animosity of the Royalists
to everything which characterized the Revolution or the military
ascendency of Napoleon. By their incessant intrigues and unbounded
hatreds and intolerant bigotry, they kept the kingdom in constant
turmoils, even to the verge of revolution, gradually pushing the king
into impolitic measures, against his will and his better judgment, and
creating a reaction to all liberal movements. These turmoils, which are
uninteresting to us, formed no inconsiderable part of the history of the
times. The only great event of the reign was the war in Spain to
suppress revolutionary ideas in that miserable country, ground down by
priests and royal despotism, and a prey to every conceivable faction.
The ministry which the king appointed on his accession was composed of
able, moderate, and honest men, but without any ascendant genius, except
Talleyrand; who selected his colleagues, and retained for himself the
portfolio of foreign affairs and the presidency of the Council, giving
to Fouché the management of internal affairs. Loth was the king to
accept the services of either,--the one a regicide, and the other a
traitor. The whole royal family set up a howl of indignation at the
appointment of Fouché; but it was deemed necessary to secure his
services in order to maintain law and order, and the king remained firm
against the earnest expostulations of his brother the Comte d'Artois,
his niece the Duchesse d'Angoulême, and all the Royalists who had
influence with him. But he despised and hated in his soul Fouché,--that
minion of Napoleon, that product of blood and treason,--and waited only
for a convenient time to banish him from the councils and the realm. Nor
did he like Talleyrand (at that time the greatest man in France), but
made use of his magnificent talents only until he could do without him.
When the king felt established on his throne, he sent Talleyrand away;
indeed, there was great pressure brought to bear for the dismissal by
those who found the minister too moderate in his views. The king did not
punish him, but kept him in a subordinate office, leaving him to enjoy
his dignities and the immense fortune he had accumulated.
Talleyrand was born in 1754, and belonged to one of the most illustrious
families in France. He was destined to the Church against his will,
being from the start worldly, ambitious, and scandalously immoral; but
he accepted his destiny, and soon distinguished himself at the Sorbonne
for his literary attainments, for his wit and his social qualities. At
twenty, as the young Abbé de Périgord, he was received into the highest
society of Paris; his noble birth, his aristocratic and courtly manners,
his convivial qualities, and his irrepressible wit made him a favorite
in the gay circles which marked the early part of the reign of Louis
XVI., while his extraordinary abilities and consummate tact naturally
secured early promotion. In 1780 he was appointed to the office of
general agent for the clergy of France, which brought him before the
public. Eight years after, at the early age of thirty-four, he was made
Bishop of Autun. In May, 1789, he became a member of the States-General,
and with his fascinating eloquence tried to induce the clergy to
surrender their tithes and church lands to the nation,--a result which
was brought about soon after, _nolens volens_, by the genius of
Mirabeau. Talleyrand hated the Church and despised the people, but, like
Mirabeau, was in favor of a constitution like that of England, In all
his changes he remained an aristocrat from his tastes, his education,
and his rank, but veiled his views, whatever they were, with profound
dissimulation, of which he was a consummate master. The laxity of his
morals, the secret hatred of his order, and his infidel sentiments led
to his excommunication, which troubled him but little. Out of the pale
of the Church, he turned his thoughts to diplomacy, and was sent to
London as an ambassador,--without, however, the official title and
insignia of that high office,--where he fascinated the highest circles
by the splendor of his conversation and the causticity of his wit. On
his return to Paris he was distrusted by the Jacobins, and with
difficulty made his escape to England; but the English government also
distrusted a man of such boundless intrigue, and ordered him to quit the
country within twenty-four hours. He fled to America at the age of
forty, with straitened means, but after the close of the Reign of Terror
returned to Paris, and six months later was made foreign minister under
the Directory. This office he did not long retain, failing to secure the
confidence of the government. The austere Carnot said of him:--
"That man brings with him all the vices of the old régime, without
being able to acquire a single virtue of the new one. He possesses no
fixed principles, but changes them as he does his linen, adopting them
according to the fashion of the day. He was a philosopher when
philosophy was in vogue; a republican now, because it is necessary at
present to be so in order to become anything; to-morrow he would
proclaim and uphold tyranny, if he could thereby serve his own
interests. I will not have him at any price; and so long as I am at the
helm of State he shall be nothing."
When Bonaparte returned from Egypt, Citizen Talleyrand had been six
months out of office, and he saw that it would be for his interest to
put himself in intimate connection with the most powerful man in France.
Besides, as a diplomatist, he saw that only in a monarchical government
could he have employment. Napoleon, who seldom made a mistake in his
estimate of character, perceived that Talleyrand was just the man for
his purpose,--talented, dexterous, unscrupulous, and sagacious,--and
made him his minister of foreign affairs, utterly indifferent as to his
private character. Nor could he politically have made a wiser choice;
for it was Talleyrand who made the Concordat with the Pope, the Treaty
of Luneville, and the Peace of Amiens. Napoleon wanted a practical man
in the diplomatic post,--neither a pedant nor an idealist; and that was
just what Talleyrand was,--a man to meet emergencies, a man to build up
a throne. But even Napoleon got tired of him at last, and Talleyrand
retired with the dignity of vice-grand elector of the empire, grand
chamberlain, and Prince of Benevento, together with a fortune, it is
said, of thirty million francs.
"How did you acquire your riches?" blandly asked the Emperor one day.
"In the simplest way in the world," replied the ex-minister. "I bought
stock the day before the 18th Brumaire [when Napoleon overthrew the
Directory], and sold it again the day after."
When Napoleon meditated the conquest of Spain, Talleyrand, like
Metternich, saw that it would be a blunder, and frankly told the Emperor
his opinion,--a thing greatly to his credit. But his advice enraged
Napoleon, who could brook no opposition or dissent, and he was turned
out of his office as chamberlain. Talleyrand avenged himself by plotting
against his sovereign, foreseeing his fall, and by betraying him to the
Bourbons. He gave his support to Louis XVIII., because he saw that the
only government then possible for France was one combining legitimacy
with constitutional checks; for Talleyrand, with all his changes and
treasons, liked neither an unfettered despotism nor democratic rule. As
one of those who acted with the revolutionists, he was liberal in his
ideas; but as the servant of royalty he wished to see a firmly
established government, which to his mind was impossible with the reign
of demagogues. When the Congress of Vienna assembled, he was sent to it
as the French plenipotentiary. And he did good work at the Congress for
his sovereign, whose representative he was, and for his country by
contriving with his adroit manipulations to alienate the northern from
the southern States of Germany, making the latter allies of France and
the former allies of Russia,--in other words, practically dividing
Germany, which it was the work of Bismarck afterward to unite. A united
Germany Talleyrand regarded as threatening to the interests of France;
and he contrived to bring France back again into political importance,--
to restore her rank among the great Powers. He did not bargain for
spoils, like the other plenipotentiaries; he only strove to preserve the
nationality of France, and to secure her ancient limits, which Prussia
in her greed and hatred would have destroyed or impaired but for the
magnanimity of the Czar Alexander and the firmness of Lord Castlereagh.
On his return from the Congress of Vienna, the reign of Talleyrand as
prime minister was short; and as his power was comparatively small under
both Louis XVIII. and his successor Charles X., and as he was not the
representative of reactionary ideas or movements, but only of
a firm government, I do not give to him the leadership of the
counter-revolution. He was unquestionably the greatest statesman at that
time in France, though indolent, careless, and without power as
an orator.
Who was then the great exponent of reaction, and of antagonism to
liberal and progressive opinions, during the reigns of the restored
Bourbons? It was not the king himself, Louis XVIII.; for he did all he
could to repress the fanatical zeal of his family and of the royalist
party. He despised the feeble mind of his brother, the Comte d'Artois,
his narrow intolerance, and his court of priests and bigots, and was in
perpetual conflict with him as a politician, while at the same time he
clung to him with the ties of natural affection.
Was it the Duc de Richelieu, grand-nephew of the great cardinal, whom
the king selected for his prime minister on the retirement of
Talleyrand? He hardly represents the return to absolutism, since he was
moderate, conciliatory, and disposed to unite all parties under a
constitutional government. No man in France was more respected than
he,--adored by his family, modest, virtuous, disinterested, and
patriotic. As an administrator in the service of Russia during the
ascendency of Napoleon, he had greatly distinguished himself. He was a
favorite of Alexander, and through his influence with the Czar France
was in no slight degree indebted for the favorable terms which she
received on the restoration of the monarchy, when Prussia exacted a
cruel indemnity. He wished to unite all parties in loyal submission to
the constitution, rather than secure the ascendency of any. While able
and highly respected, Richelieu was not pre-eminently great. Nor was
Villèle, who succeeded him as prime minister, and who retained his power
for six or eight years, nearly to the close of the reign of Charles X.,
a great historical figure.
The man under the restored monarchy who represented with the most
ability reactionary movements of all kinds, and devotion to the cause of
absolute monarchy, I think was Francois Auguste, Vicomte de
Chateaubriand. Certainly he was the most illustrious character of that
period. Poet, orator, diplomatist, minister, he was a man of genius, who
stands out as a great figure in history; not so great as Talleyrand in
the single department of diplomacy, but an infinitely more respectable
and many-sided man. He had an immense _éclat_ in the early part of this
century as writer and poet, although his literary fame has now greatly
declined. Lamartine, in his sentimental and rhetorical exaggeration,
speaks of him as "the Ossian of France,--an aeolian harp, producing
sounds which ravish the ear and agitate the heart, but which the mind
cannot define; the poet of instincts rather than of ideas, who gained an
immortal empire, not over the reason but over the imagination of
the age."
Chateaubriand was born in Brittany, of a noble but not illustrious
family, in 1769, entered the army in 1786, and during the Reign of
Terror emigrated to America. He returned to France in 1799, after the
18th Brumaire, and became a contributor to the "Mercure de France." In
1802 he published the "Génie du Christianisme," which made him
enthusiastically admired as a literary man,--the only man of the time
who could compete with the fame of Madame de Staël. This book astonished
a country that had been led astray by an infidel philosophy, and
converted it back to Christianity, not by force of arguments, but by an
appeal to the heart and the imagination. The clergy, the aristocracy,
women, and youth were alike enchanted. The author was sent to Rome by
Napoleon as secretary of his embassy; but on the murder of the Due
d'Enghien (1804), Chateaubriand left the imperial service, and lived in
retirement, travelling to the Holy Land and throughout the Orient and
Southern Europe, and writing his books of travels. He took no interest
in political affairs until the time of the Restoration, when he again
appeared. A brilliant and effective pamphlet, "De Bonaparte et des
Bourbons," published by him in 1814, was said by Louis XVIII. to be
worth an army of a hundred thousand men to the cause of the Bourbons;
and upon their re-establishment Chateaubriand was immediately in high
favor, and was made a member of the Chamber of Peers.
The Chamber of Peers was substituted for the Senate of Napoleon, and was
elected by the king. It had cognizance of the crime of high treason, and
of all attempts against the safety of the State. It was composed of the
most distinguished nobles, the bishops, and marshals of France, presided
over by the chancellor. To this chamber the ministers were admitted, as
well as to the Chamber of Deputies, the members of which were elected by
about one hundred thousand voters out of thirty millions of people. They
were all men of property, and as aristocratic as the peers themselves.
They began their sessions by granting prodigal compensations,
indemnities, and endowments to the crown and to the princes. They
appropriated thirty-three millions of francs annually for the
maintenance of the king, besides voting thirty millions more for the
payment of his debts; they passed a law restoring to the former
proprietors the lands alienated to the State, and still unsold. They
brought to punishment the generals who had deserted to Napoleon during
the one hundred days of his renewed reign; they manifested the most
intense hostility to the régime which he had established. Indeed, all
classes joined in the chorus against the fallen Emperor, and attributed
to him alone the misfortunes of France. Vengeance, not now directed
against Royalists but against Republicans, was the universal cry; the
people demanded the heads of those who had been their idols. Everything
like admiration for Napoleon seemed to have passed away forever. The
violence of the Royalists for speedy vengeance on their old foes
surpassed the cries of the revolutionists in the Reign of Terror. France
was again convulsed with passions, which especially raged in the bosoms
of the Royalists. They shot Marshal Ney, the bravest of the brave, and
Colonel Labedoyèn; they established courts-martial for political
offences; they passed a law against seditious cries and individual
liberty. There were massacres at Marseilles, and atrocities at Nismes;
the Catholics of the South persecuted the Protestants. The king himself
was almost the only man among his party that was inclined to moderation,
and he found a bitter opposition from the members of his own family.
Added to these discords, the finances were found to be in a most
disordered state, and the annual deficit was fifty or sixty millions.
All this was taking place while one hundred and fifty thousand foreign
soldiers were quartered in the towns and garrisons at the expense of the
government. The return of Napoleon had cost the lives of sixty thousand
Frenchmen and a thousand millions of francs, besides the indemnities,
which amounted to fifteen hundred millions more. No language of
denunciation could be stronger than that which went forth from the mouth
of the whole nation in view of Napoleon's selfishness and ambition. But
one voice was listened to, and that was the cry for vengeance; prudence,
moderation, and justice were alike disregarded. All attempts to stem the
tide of ultra-royalist violence were in vain. The king was obliged to
dismiss Talleyrand because he was not violent enough in his measures; at
the same time he was glad to get rid of his sagacious minister, being
jealous of his ascendency.
So the throne of Louis XVIII. was anything but a bed of roses, amid the
war of parties and the perils which surrounded it. All his tact was
required to steer the ship of state amidst the rocks and breakers. Most
of the troubles were centred in the mutual hostilities, jealousies, and
hatreds of the Royalists themselves, at the head of whom were the king's
brother the Comte d'Artois, and the Vicomte de Chateaubriand. So
vehement were the passions of the deputies, nearly all Royalists, that
the president of the Chamber, the excellent and talented Lainé, was
publicly insulted in his chair by a violent member of the extreme Right;
and even Chateaubriand the king was obliged to deprive of his office on
account of the violence of his opinions in behalf of absolutism,--a
greater royalist than the king himself! The terrible reaction was forced
by the nation upon the sovereign, who was more liberal and humane than
the people.
Of course, in the embittered quarrels between the Royalists themselves,
nothing was done during the reign of Louis XVIII. toward useful and
needed reforms. The orators in the chambers did not discuss great ideas
of any kind, and inaugurated no grand movements, not even internal
improvements. The only subjects which occupied the chambers were
proscriptions, confiscations, grants to the royal family, the
restoration of the clergy to their old possessions, salaries to high
officials, the trials of State prisoners, conspiracies and crimes
against the government,--all of no sort of interest to us, and of no
historical importance.
In the meantime there assembled at Verona a Congress composed of nearly
all the sovereigns of Europe, with their representatives,--as brilliant
an assemblage as that at Vienna a few years before. It met not to put
down a great conqueror, but to suppress revolutionary ideas and
movements, which were beginning to break out in various countries in
Europe, especially in Italy and Spain. To this Congress was sent, as one
of the representatives of France, Chateaubriand, who on its assembling
was ambassador at London. He was, however, weary of English life and
society; he did not like the climate with its interminable fogs; he was
not received by the higher aristocracy with the cordiality he expected,
and seemed to be intimate with no one but Canning, whose conversion to
liberal views had not then taken place.
In France, the ministry of the Duc de Richelieu had been succeeded by
that of Villèle as president of the Council, in which M. Matthieu de
Montmorency was minister of foreign affairs,--member of a most
illustrious house, and one of the finest characters that ever adorned an
exalted station. Between Montmorency and Chateaubriand there existed the
most intimate and affectionate friendship, and it was at the urgent
solicitation of the former that Chateaubriand was recalled from London
and sent with Montmorency to Verona, where he had a wider scope for
his ambition.
Chateaubriand was most graciously received by the Czar Alexander and by
Metternich, the latter at that time in the height of his power and
glory. Alexander flattered Chateaubriand as a hero of humanity and a
religious philosopher; while Metternich received him as the apostle of
conservatism.
The particular subject which occupied the attention of the Congress was,
whether the great Powers should intervene in the internal affairs of
Spain, then agitated by revolution. King Ferdinand, who was restored to
his throne after the forced abdication of Joseph Bonaparte, had broken
the Constitution of 1812, which he had sworn to defend, and outraged his
subjects by cruelties equalled only by those of that other Bourbon who
reigned at Naples. In consequence, his subjects had rebelled, and sought
to secure their liberties. This rebellion disturbed all Europe, and the
great Powers, with the exception of England,--ruled virtually by
Canning, the foreign minister,--resolved on an armed intervention to
suppress the popular revolution. Chateaubriand used all his influence in
favor of intervention; and so did Montmorency. They even exceeded the
instructions of the king and Villèle the prime minister, who wished to
avoid a war with Spain; they acted as the representatives of the Holy
Alliance rather than as ambassadors of France. The Congress committed
Russia, Austria, and Prussia to hostile interference, in case the king
of France should be driven into war,--a course which Wellington
disapproved, and which he urged Louis XVIII. to refrain from. In
consequence, the French king temporized, dreading either to resist or to
submit to the ascendency of Russia, and dissatisfied with the course
his negotiators had taken at the Congress, especially his minister of
foreign affairs, on whom the responsibility lay. Montmorency accordingly
resigned, and Chateaubriand took his place; in consequence of which a
coolness sprung up between the two friends, who at the Congress had
equally advocated the same policy.
The discussions which ensued in the chambers whether or not France
should embark in a war with Spain,--in other words, whether she should
interfere with the domestic affairs of a foreign and independent
nation,--were the occasion of the first serious split among the
statesmen of France at this time. There was a party for war and a party
against it; at the head of the latter were men who afterward became
distinguished. There were bitter denunciations of the ministers; but the
war party headed by Chateaubriand prevailed, and the French ambassador
was recalled from Madrid, although war was not yet formally declared. In
the Chamber of Peers Talleyrand used his influence against the invasion
of Spain, foretelling the evils which would ultimately result, even as
he had cautioned Napoleon against the same thing. He told the chamber
that although the proposed invasion would be probably successful, it
would be a great mistake.
M. Molé, afterward so eminent as an orator, took the side of Talleyrand.
"Where are we going?" said he. "We are going to Madrid. Alas, we have
been there already! Will a revolution cease when the independence of
the people who are suffering from it is threatened? Have we not the
example of the French Revolution, which was invincible when its cause
became identical with that of our independence?" "This man," exclaimed
the king, "confirms me in the system of M. de Villèle,--to temporize,
and avoid the war if it be possible."
Chateaubriand replied in an elaborate speech in favor of the war. From
his standpoint, his speech was masterly and unanswerable. It was a grand
consecutive argument, solid logic without sentimentalism. While he
admitted that, according to the principles laid down by the great
writers on international war, intervention could not generally be
defended, he yet maintained that there were exceptions to the rule, and
this was one of them; that the national safety was jeopardized by the
Spanish revolution; that England herself had intervened in the French
Revolution; that all the interests of France were compromised by the
successes of the Spanish revolutionists; that a moral contagion was
spreading even among the troops themselves; in fact, that there was no
security for the throne, or for the cause of religion and of public
order, unless the armies of France should restore Ferdinand, then a
virtual prisoner in his own palace, to the government he had inherited.
The war was decided upon, and the Duke of Angoulême, nephew of the king,
was sent across the Pyrenees with one hundred thousand troops to put
down the innumerable factions, and reseat Ferdinand. The Duke was
assisted, of course, by all the royalists of Spain, by all the clergy,
and by all conservative parties; and the conquest of the kingdom was
comparatively easy. The republican chiefs were taken and hanged,
including Diego, the ablest of them all. Ferdinand, delivered by foreign
armies, remounted his throne, forgot all his pledges, and reigned on the
most despotic principles, committing the most atrocious cruelties. The
successful general returned to France with great _éclat_, while the
government was pushed every day by the triumphant Royalists into
increased severity,--into measures which logically led, under Charles
X., to his expulsion from the throne, and the final defeat of the
principle of legitimacy itself,--another great step toward republican
institutions, which were finally destined to triumph.
Among the extreme measures was the Septennial Bill, which passed both
houses against the protest of liberal members, some of whom afterward
became famous,--such as General Foy, General Sebastiani, Dupont (de
l'Eure), Casimir Périer, Lafitte, Lanjuinais. This law was a _coup
d'état_ against electoral opinions and representative government. It
gave the king and his government the advantage of fixing for seven
years longer the majority which was secured by the elections of 1822,
and of closing the Chamber against a modification of public opinions.
Villèle and Chateaubriand were the authors of this act.
Another bill was proposed by Villèle, not so objectionable, which was to
reduce the interest on the loans contracted by the State; in other
words, to borrow money at less interest and pay off the old debts,--a
salutary financial measure adopted in England, and later by the United
States after the Civil War. But this measure was bitterly opposed by the
clergy, who looked upon it as a reduction of their incomes. Here
Chateaubriand virtually abandoned the government, in his uniform support
of the temporalities of the Church; and the measure failed; which so
deeply exasperated both the king and the prime minister that
Chateaubriand was dismissed from his office as minister of
foreign affairs.
The fallen minister angrily resented his disgrace, and thenceforward
secretly took part against the government, embarrassing it by his
articles in the journals of the day. He did not renounce his
conservative opinions; but he became the personal enemy of Villèle.
Chateaubriand had no magnanimity. He retired to nurse his resentments in
the society of Madame Récamier, with whom he had formed a friendship
difficult to be distinguished from love. He had been always her devoted
admirer when she reigned a queen of society in the fashionable _salons_
of Paris, and continued his intimacy with her until his death. Daily did
he, when a broken old man, make his accustomed visit to her modest
apartments in the Convent of St. Joseph, and give vent to his melancholy
and morbid feelings. He regarded himself as the most injured man in
France. He became discontented with the Crown, and even with the
aristocracy. On the day of his retirement from the ministry the
intelligence of the Royalist party followed him in opposition to the
government, whose faults he had encouraged and shared. The "Journal des
Débats," the most influential newspaper in France, deserted Villèle; and
from this defection may be dated, says Lamartine, "all those enmities
against the government of the Restoration which collected in one work of
aggression the most contradictory ideas, which alienated public opinion,
which exasperated the government and pushed it on from excesses to
insanity, irritated the tribune, blindfolded the elections, and finished
by changing, five years afterward, the opposition of nineteen votes
hostile to the Bourbons into a heterogeneous but formidable majority, in
presence of which the monarchy had only the choice left between a
humiliating resignation and a mortal _coup d'état_."
Chateaubriand now disappears from the field of history as one of its
great figures. He lived henceforth in retirement, but bitter in his
opposition to the government of which he had been the virtual head,
contributing largely to the "Journal des Débats," of which he was the
life, and by which he was supported. In the next reign he refused the
office of Minister of Public Instruction as derogatory to his dignity,
but accepted the post of ambassador to Rome,--a sort of honorable exile.
But he was an unhappy and disappointed man; he had taken the wrong side
in politics, and probably saw his errors. His genius, if it had been
directed to secure constitutional liberty, would have made him a
national idol, for he lived to see the dethronement of Louis Philippe in
1848; but like Castlereagh in England, he threw his superb talents in
with the sinking cause of absolutism, and was after all a political
failure. He lives only as a literary man,--one of the most eloquent
poets of his day, one of the lights of that splendid constellation of
literary geniuses that arose on the fall of Napoleon.
Soon after the retirement of Chateaubriand, Louis XVIII. himself died,
at an advanced age, having contrived to preserve his throne by
moderation and honesty. In his latter days he was exceedingly infirm in
body, but preserved his intellectual faculties to the last. He was a
lonely old man, even while surrounded by a splendid court. He wanted
somebody to love, at least to cheer him in his isolation; for he had no
peace in his family, deeply as he was attached to its members. He
himself had discovered the virtues and disinterestedness of his minister
Décazes, and when his family and ministers drove away this favorite, the
king was devoted to him even in disgrace, and made him his companion.
Still later he found a substitute in Madame du Caylus,--one of those
interesting and accomplished women peculiar to France. She was not
ambitious of ruling the king, as her aunt, Madame de Maintenon, was of
governing Louis XIV., and her virtue was unimpeachable. She wrote to the
king letters twice a day, but visited him only once a week. She was the
tool of a cabal, rather than the leader of a court; but her influence
was healthy, ennobling, and religious. Louis XVIII. was not what would
be called a religious man; he performed his religious duties regularly,
but in a perfunctory manner. He was not, however, a hypocrite or a
pharisee, but was simply indifferent to religious dogmas, and secretly
averse to the society of priests. When he was dying, it was with great
difficulty that he could be made to receive extreme unction. He died
without pain, recommending to his brother, who was to succeed him, to
observe the charter of French liberties, yet fearing that his blind
bigotry would be the ruin of the family and the throne, as events
proved. The last things to which the dying king clung were pomps and
ceremonies, concealing even from courtiers his failing strength, and
going through the mockery of dress and court etiquette to almost the
very day of his death, in 1824.
The Comte d'Artois, now Charles X., ascended the throne, with the usual
promises to respect the liberties of the nation, which his brother had
conscientiously maintained. Unfortunately Charles's intellect was weak
and his conscience perverted; he was a narrow-minded, bigoted sovereign,
ruled by priests and ultra-royalists, who magnified his prerogatives,
appealed to his prejudices, and flattered his vanity. He was not cruel
and blood-thirsty,--he was even kind and amiable; but he was a fool, who
could not comprehend the conditions by which only he could reign in
safety; who could not understand the spirit of the times, or appreciate
the difficulties with which he had to contend.
What was to be expected of such a monarch but continual blunders,
encroachments, and follies verging upon crimes? The nation cared nothing
for his hunting-parties, his pleasures, and his attachment to mediaeval
ceremonies; but it did care for its own rights and liberties, purchased
so dearly and guarded so zealously; and when these were gradually
attacked by a man who felt himself to be delegated from God with
unlimited powers to rule, not according to laws but according to his
caprices and royal will, then the ferment began,--first in the
legislative assemblies, then extending to journalists, who controlled
public opinion, and finally to the discontented, enraged, and
disappointed people. The throne was undermined, and there was no power
in France to prevent the inevitable catastrophe. In Russia, Prussia, and
Austria an overwhelming army, bound together by the mechanism which
absolutism for centuries had perfected, could repress disorder; but in a
country where the army was comparatively small, enlightened by the ideas
of the Revolution and fraternizing with the people, this was not
possible. A Napoleon, with devoted and disciplined troops, might have
crushed his foes and reigned supreme; but a weak and foolish monarch,
with a disaffected and scattered army, with ministers who provoked all
the hatreds and violent passions of legislators, editors, and people
alike, was powerless to resist or overcome.
The short reign of Charles X. was not marked by a single event of
historical importance, except the conquest of Algiers; and that was
undertaken by the government to gain military _éclat_,--in other words,
popularity,--and this at the very time it was imposing restrictions on
the Press. There were during this reign no reforms, no public
improvements, no measures of relief for the poor, no stimulus to new
industries, no public encouragement of art or literature, no triumphs of
architectural skill; nothing to record but the strife of political
parties, and a systematic encroachment by the government on electoral
rights, on legislative freedom, on the liberty of the Press. There was a
senseless return to mediaeval superstitions and cruelties, all to please
the most narrow and intolerant class of men who ever traded on the
exploded traditions of the past. The Jesuits returned to promulgate
their sophistries and to impose their despotic yoke; the halls of
justice were presided over by the tools of arbitrary power; great
offices were given to the most obsequious slaves of royalty, without
regard to abilities or fitness. There was not indeed the tyranny of
Spain or Naples or Austria; but everything indicated a movement toward
it. Those six years which comprised the reign of Charles X. were a
period of reaction,--a return to the Middle Ages in both State and
Church, a withering blast on all noble aspirations. Even the prime
minister Villèle, a legitimatist and an ultra-royalist, was too liberal
for the king; and he was dismissed to make room for Martignac, and he
again for Polignac, who had neither foresight nor prudence nor ability.
The generals of the republic and of the empire were removed from active
service. An indemnity of a thousand millions was given by an obsequious
legislature to the men who had emigrated during the Revolution,--a
generous thing to do, but a premium on cowardice and want of patriotism.
A base concession was made to the sacerdotal party, by making it a
capital offence to profane the sacred vessels of the churches or the
consecrated wafer; thus putting the power of life and death into the
hands of the clergy, not for crimes against society but for an insult to
the religion of the Middle Ages.
But the laws passed against the Press were the most irritating of all.
The Press had become a power which it was dangerous to trifle with,--the
one thing in modern times which affords the greatest protection to
liberty, which is most hated by despots and valued by enlightened minds.
A universal clamor was raised against this return to barbarism, this
extinction of light in favor of darkness, this discarding of the
national reason. Royalists and liberals alike denounced this culminating
act of high treason against the majesty of the human mind, this
death-blow to civilization. Chateaubriand, Royer-Collard, Dupont (de
l'Eure), even Labourdonnais, predicted its fatal consequences; and their
impassioned eloquence from the tribune became in a few days the public
opinion of the nation, and the king in his infatuation saw no remedy for
his increasing unpopularity but in dissolving the Chamber of Deputies
and ordering a new election,--the blindest thing he could possibly do.
It was now seen that he was determined to rule in utter defiance of the
charter he had sworn to defend, and on the principles of undisguised
absolutism. All parties now coalesced against the king and his
ministers. The king then began to tamper with the military in order to
establish by violence the old régime. It was found difficult to fill
ministerial appointments, as everybody felt that the ship of State was
drifting upon the rocks. The king even determined to dissolve the new
Chamber of Deputies before it met, the elections having pronounced
emphatically against his government.
At last the passions of the people became excited, and daily increased
in violence. Then came resistance to the officers of the law; then
riots, then barricades, then the occupation of the Tuileries, then
ineffectual attempts of the military to preserve order and restrain the
violence of the people. Marshal Marmont, with only twelve thousand
troops, was powerless against a great city in arms. The king thinking it
was only an _émeute,_ to be easily put down, withdrew to St. Cloud; and
there he spent his time in playing whist, as Nero fiddled over burning
Rome, until at last aroused by the vengeance of the whole nation, he
made his escape to England, to rust in the old palace of the kings of
Scotland, and to meditate over his kingly follies, as Napoleon meditated
over his mistakes in the island of St. Helena.
Thus closed the third act in the mighty drama which France played for
one hundred years: the first act revealing the passions of the
Revolution; the second, the abominations of military despotism; the
third, the reaction toward the absolutism of the old régime and its
final downfall. Two more acts are to be presented,--the perfidy and
selfishness of Louis Philippe, and the usurpation of Louis Napoleon; but
these must be deferred until in our course of lectures we have
considered the reaction of liberal sentiments in England during the
ministries of Castlereagh, Canning, and Lord Liverpool, when the Tories
resigned, as Metternich did in Vienna.
Yet the reign of the Bourbons, while undistinguished by great events,
was not fruitless in great men. On the fall of Napoleon, a crowd of
authors, editors, orators, and statesmen issued from their retreats, and
attracted notice by the brilliancy of their writings and speeches.
Crushed or banished by the iron despotism of Napoleon, who hated
literary genius, they now became a new power in France,--not to
propagate infidel sentiments and revolutionary theories, but to awaken
the nation to a sense of intellectual dignity and to maturer views of
government; to give a new impulse to literature, art, and science, and
to show how impossible it is to extinguish the fires of liberty when
once kindled in the breasts of patriots, or to put a stop to the
progress of the human mind among an excitable, intelligent, though
fickle people, craving with passionate earnestness both popular rights
and constitutional government in accordance with those laws of progress
which form the basis of true civilization.
There was Count Joseph de Maistre,--a royalist indeed, but who
propounded great truths mixed with great paradoxes; believing all he
said, seeking to restore the authority of divine revelation in a world
distracted by scepticism, grand and eloquent in style, and astonishing
the infidels as much as he charmed the religious.
Associated with him in friendship and in letters was the Abbé de
Lamennais, a young priest of Brittany, brought up amid its wilds in
silent reverence and awe, yet with the passions of a revolutionary
orator, logical as Bossuet, invoking young men, not to the worship of
mediaeval dogmas, but to the shrine of reason allied with faith.
Of another school was Cousin, the modern Plato, combating the
materialism of the eighteenth century with mystic eloquence, and drawing
around him, in his chair of philosophy at the Sorbonne, a crowd of
enthusiastic young men, which reminded one of Abélard among his pupils
in the infant university of Paris. Cousin elevated the soul while he
intoxicated the mind, and created a spirit of inquiry which was felt
wherever philosophy was recognized as one of the most ennobling studies
that can dignify the human intellect.
In history, both Guizot and Thiers had already become distinguished
before they were engrossed in politics. Augustin Thierry described, with
romantic fascination, the exploits of the Normans; Michaud brought out
his Crusades, Barante his Chronicles, Sismondi his Italian Republics,
Michelet his lively conception of France in the Middle Ages, Capefigue
the Life of Louis XIV., and Lamartine his poetical paintings of the
Girondists. All these masterpieces gave a new interest to historical
studies, infusing into history life and originality,--not as a barren
collection of annals and names, in which pedantry passes for learning,
and uninteresting details for accuracy and scholarship. In that
inglorious period more first-class histories were produced in France
than have appeared in England during the long reign of Queen Victoria,
where only three or four historians have reached the level of any one of
those I have mentioned, in genius or eloquence.
Another set of men created journalism as the expression of public
opinion, and as a lever to overturn an obstinate despotism built up on
the superstitions and dogmas of the Middle Ages. A few young men, almost
unknown to fame, with remorseless logic and fiery eloquence overturned a
throne, and established the Press as a power that proved irresistible,
driving the priests of absolutism back into the shadows of eternal
night, and making reason the guide and glory of mankind. Among these
were the disappointed and embittered Chateaubriand, who almost redeemed
his devotion to the royal cause by those elegant essays which recalled
the eloquence of his early life. Villemain wrote for the "Moniteur,"
Royer--Collard and Guizot for the "Courier," with all the haughtiness
and disdain which marked the Doctrinaire or Constitutional school;
Etienne and Pagès for the "Constitutionel," ridiculing the excesses of
the ultra-royalists, the pretensions of the clergy, and the follies of
the court; De Genoude for the "Gazette de France," and Thiers for the
"National."
In the realm of science Arago explored the wonders of the heavens, and
Cuvier penetrated the secrets of the earth. In poetry only two names are
prominent,--Delille and Béranger; but the French are not a poetical
nation. Most of the great writers of France wrote in prose, and for
style they have never been surpassed. If the poets were few after the
Restoration, the novelists were many, with transcendent excellences and
transcendent faults, reaching the heart by their pathos, insulting the
reason by their exaggerations, captivating the imagination while
shocking the moral sense; painting manners and dissecting passions with
powerful, acute, and vivid touch. Such were Victor Hugo, Eugene Sue, and
Alexandre Dumas, whose creations interested all classes alike, not
merely in France, but throughout the world.
The dignity of intellect amid political degradation was never more
strikingly displayed than by those orators who arose during the reign of
the Bourbons. The intrepid Manuel uttering his protests against royal
encroachments, in a chamber of Royalists all heated by passions and
prejudices; Lainé and De Serres, pathetic and patriotic; Guizot, De
Broglie, and De St. Aulaire, learned and profound; Royer-Collard,
religious, disdainful, majestic; General Foy, disinterested and
incorruptible; Lafitte, the banker; Benjamin Constant, the philosopher;
Berryer, the lawyer; Chateaubriand, the poet, most eloquent of
all,--these and a host of others (some liberal, some conservative, all
able) showed that genius was not extinguished amid all the attempts of
absolutism to suppress it. It is true that none of these orators arose
to supreme power, and that they were not equal to Mirabeau and other
great lights in the Revolutionary period. They were comparatively
inexperienced in parliamentary business, and were watched and fettered
by a hostile government, and could not give full scope to their
indignant eloquence without personal peril. Nor did momentous questions
of reform come before them for debate, as was the case in England during
the agitation on the Reform Bill. They did little more than show the
spirit that was in them, which under more favorable circumstances would
arouse the nation.
There was one more power which should be mentioned in connection with
that period of torpor and reaction, and that was the influence of the
_salons_. To these all the bright intellects of Paris resorted, and gave
full vent to their opinions,--artists, scholars, statesmen, journalists,
men of science, and brilliant women, in short, whoever was distinguished
in any particular sphere; and these composed what is called society, a
tremendous lever in fashionable life. In the _salons_ of Madame de
Staël, of the Duchesse de Duras, of the Duchesse de Broglie, of Madame
de St. Aulaire, and of Madame de Montcalm, all parties were represented,
and all subjects were freely discussed. Here Sainte-Beuve discoursed
with those whom he was afterward to criticise; here Talleyrand uttered
his concise and emphatic sentences; here Lafayette won hearts by his
courteous manners and amiable disposition; here Guizot prepared himself
for the tribune and the Press; here Villemain, with proud indifference,
broached his careless scepticism; here Montlosier blended aristocratical
paradoxes with democratic theories. All these great men, and a host of
others,--Béranger, Constant, Etienne, Lamartine, Pasquier, Mounier,
Molé, De Neuville, Lainé, Barante, Cousin, Sismondi,--freely exchanged
opinions, and rested from their labors; a group of geniuses worth more
than armies in the great contests between Liberty and Absolutism.
And here it may be said that these kings and queens of society
represented not material interests,--not commerce, not manufactures, not
stocks, not capital, not railways, not trade, not industrial
exhibitions, not armies and navies, but ideas, those invisible agencies
which shake thrones and make revolutions, and lift the soul above that
which is transient to that which is permanent,--to religion, to
philosophy, to art, to poetry, to the glories of home, to the certitudes
of friendship, to the benedictions of heaven; which may exist in all
their benign beauty and power whatever be the form of government or the
inequality of condition, in cottage or palace, in plenty or in want,
among foes or friends,--creating that sublime rest where men may prepare
themselves for a future and imperishable existence.
Such was the other side of France during the reign of the Bourbons,--the
lights which burst through the gloomy shades of tyranny and
superstition, to alleviate sorrows and disappointed hopes,--the
resurrection of intellect from the grave of despair.