François de Chateaubriand
Mémoires d’outre-tombe
Book XXXI
Translated by A. S. Kline © 2005 All Rights Reserved.
This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.
Contents
Book XXXI: Chapter 2: Polignac’s Ministry – My dismay – I return to Paris
Book XXXI: Chapter 3: Interview with Monsieur Polignac – I resign from the Rome Embassy
Book XXXI: Chapter 4: Journalistic sycophancy
Book XXXI: Chapter 5: Monsieur de Polignac’s first Cabinet
Book XXXI: Chapter 6: The Expedition to Algiers
Book XXXI: Chapter 7: The opening of the Session of 1830 – The speech – The Chamber is dissolved
Paris, August and September 1830, Rue d’Enfer
I took great pleasure in seeing my friends once
more; I dreamt only of the pleasure of carrying them off with me, and ending my
days in
I went to pay my court
to the King at Saint-Cloud: he asked me
when I was returning to
I found the King in a
very bad mood with regard to his Ministry: he allowed it to be attacked by
certain royalist journalists, or rather, when the editors of their papers went
to ask him if he found them overly hostile, he said: ‘No, no, carry on.’ When
Monsieur de Martignac had spoken:
‘Well,’ said Charles X, ‘have you listened to our Pasta.’
Monsieur Hyde de Neuville’s liberal
opinions were antipathetic to him; he found a greater readiness to oblige in
Monsieur Portalis, the Federalist, who
revealed his greed in his face: it is to Monsieur Portalis that
Filled with thoughts of
the delights of
Not one of the Ministers
I found in place in
My likes and dislikes were
of little consequence. The Chamber committed an error in toppling a government
it should have preserved at all costs. That moderate ministry served as a rail
above the abyss; it was easy to overthrow it, since it stood for nothing and
the King was inimical towards it; all the more reason for not picking a quarrel
with those men, and for granting them a majority with the aid of which they
might have survived and given way one day, barring accident, to a stronger
government. In
Having taken leave of
the King, and hoping to rid him forever of my presence, I entered a calash, and
went first to the
My whole journey to the
At Auch, I admired the choir-stalls carved
according to designs made in
When the
The happier I was in
Cauterets, the more the melancholy of what was past charmed me. The narrow, constrained
valley is enlivened by a mountain stream; beyond the town and its mineral
springs, it divides into two defiles of which one, famous for its beauty spots,
ends in glaciers and the bridge into
‘I’ve seen the waters flee from Athens and Jerusalem,
Seen the shifting sands of Nile and of Ascalon,
Carthage abandoned, with its harbour whitening:
While the gentle breeze of evening filled my sail,
and Venus’ starlight pale
Moist pearl with sunset’s purest gold was mingling.
Seated by the mast of my vessel built for speed,
My eyes sought from afar the Pillars of Hercules,
Where two angry Neptunes brandish their tridents.
Reaching the edge of Hesperia’s ancient shores
Mystery opened wide the doors
Of palaces, of the noble Abencerage, enchanted.
Like a fledgling bee that within the rose has toiled,
My Muse returned again, with her wealth of spoils,
Gathering the finest memories from the flower:
In mountains that Roland cleft by his brilliance,
I set down to his lance
All my proud adventures, undergone for pleasure.
Let us flee those shores, when misfortunes attack,
Of an age abandoned, shores marked with our track,
That make us say of time, in measuring out our ways:
“I had a brother once, a mother, and a friend;
Delights that had to end!
How many of my blood remain to me, how many days?”’
I found it impossible to finish my ode: I had draped my drum with melancholy to beat the recall of the dreams of my vanished nights; but always among my memories were mingled present thoughts whose happy mien defeated the dismal air of their old colleagues.
While poetising I saw a young girl sitting on the bank of a mountain stream; she rose and came straight towards me: she knew, by a rumour at large in the hamlet, that I was in Cauterets. I found that the unknown girl was an Occitanian, who had written to me two years previously without my ever having met her; the mysterious unknown unveiled for me: patuit Dea: the Goddess revealed herself.
I went to pay a respectful visit to the naiad of the torrent. One evening when she was with me as I was about to retire, she wished to follow; I was obliged to carry her back home in my arms. I have never felt so ashamed; to inspire such an attachment at my age seemed to me truly derisory; the more I might have been flattered by this absurdity, the more I was humiliated, treating it rationally as a joke. I would willingly have hidden myself out of shame, among the bears, our neighbours. I was far from saying what Montaigne said of himself: ‘Love restores to me my alertness, my moderation, my grace, and my care for my appearance…’ My poor Michel, you say the most delightful things, but at our age, you know, love does not restore to us what you suggest here. We have only one concern; that is to set ourselves on one side. Instead then of applying myself to sane and wise studies by means of which I may render myself more loveable, I have allowed the fugitive impression of my Clémence Isaure to fade; the mountain breeze soon carried away the flowery caprice; the witty, resolute and delightful stranger of sixteen was grateful for having been dealt with fairly; she is married.
Rumours of ministerial changes had reached our pine-woods. Well-informed people went so far as to speak of the Prince de Polignac; but I was completely incredulous. Finally, the newspapers arrived: I opened them and my eyes fell on the official decree which confirmed the previous rumours. I had experienced a good many changes of fortune since I had entered the world, but I had never received so great a shock. My destiny had once more put paid to my dreams; this breath of fate not only extinguished my illusions, it swept away the monarchy. This blow made me dreadfully ill; I felt momentary despair, since my mind was instantly made up, I felt I must resign. The post brought a shoal of letters; all urged me to send in my resignation. Even people I barely knew thought themselves obliged to suggest my retirement.
I was shocked by this officious interest in
my reputation. Thank heaven, I have never needed advice concerning matters of
honour; my life has been a series of sacrifices which have never been dictated
by anyone else; regarding questions of duty I act spontaneously. A fall from
office spells ruin for me, since I own nothing but debts, debts which I
contract in places where I do not live long enough to repay them; so that every
time I retire from public life, I am reduced to working for a bookseller for
hire. Some of those, proud, obliging people, who preached honour and liberty to
me via the post, and who preached them still more loudly to me when I arrived
in Paris, resigned from the Council of State; but some were rich, and the rest
took care not to resign the lesser offices they held, which guaranteed them the
means of existence. They were like the Protestants, who reject various parts of
the Catholic dogma and retain others which are just as difficult to believe in.
There was nothing total about these sacrifices; nothing of real sincerity: they
surrendered an income of ten or fifteen thousand livres it is true, but they returned home rich in patrimonies, or
at least provided with the daily bread they had prudently retained. In my case,
there was no quibbling; they were full of self-abnegation on my behalf, they
could not strip themselves sufficiently, on my behalf, of all I possessed:
‘Come now, Georges Dandin, pluck up
your courage; confound it, son-in-law, don’t let us down; off with your coat!
Throw two hundred thousand livres a
year out the window, a position you find agreeable, an exalted and dignified
post, the empire of the Arts in
And, strange to relate, in their generous eagerness to push me out, the men who signified their desire to me were neither my true friends nor the co-supporters of my political opinions. I was to destroy myself on the spot for Liberalism, for a doctrine which had constantly attacked me; I was to run the risk of rocking the legitimate throne, in order to win the praises of a few cowardly enemies, who had not enough courage to go hungry.
I was to find myself swamped by my long embassy; the dinners I had given had ruined me, I had not covered the expenses of my initial establishment. But what broke my heart was the loss, for the rest of my days, of that happiness I had promised myself.
I was not obliged to reproach myself in any
way with having taken that advice of a Cato, which impoverishes those who accept
it not those who give it: quite convinced that such advice is useless anyway to
the man who lacks depth of feeling. From
the first moment, I say, my decision was made; it cost me little to make, but
it was miserable to execute. When at Lourdes,
instead of turning south and heading for
The Prince de Polignac feared my resignation.
He felt that in leaving the Chamber I would take Royalist votes with me, and
that I would question the existence of his Ministry. The thought was suggested
to him of sending a despatch rider to me in the
In
I always had to fast, watch and pray for the health of those who took great care to don the hair shirt with which they hastened to adorn me. I was the sacred donkey, the donkey burdened with the arid remains of liberty; remains which they adored with great devotion, so long as they were excused the trouble of bearing them.
The day after my return
to
‘
Prince,
I thought it more fitting as regards our previous friendship, more suited to the noble position with which I have been honoured, and above all more respectful to the King, to come and place my resignation at his feet myself, rather than sending it to you hastily via the post. I ask a last service of you, that of asking the King to be so good as to grant me an audience, and to listen to the reasons which oblige me to renounce the Rome Embassy. Consider, Prince, what it costs me, at the moment when you are attaining power, to abandon that diplomatic career which I had the pleasure of introducing to you.
Accept, I beg you, my assurance of the feelings which I have vowed to you, and the high regard with which I have the honour to be, Prince,
Your very humble and obedient servant,
CHATEAUBRIAND.’
In reply to my letter, this note was sent to me from the Foreign Office:
‘The Prince de Polignac has the honour to offer his compliments to Monsieur le Vicomte de Chateaubriand, and requests him to come to the Ministry tomorrow, Sunday, at nine precisely, if that is possible.
Saturday,
I replied immediately with this further note:
‘
Prince, I have received a letter from your office which invites me to visit the Ministry tomorrow, the 30th, at nine precisely, if that is possible. As this letter does not inform me of the audience with the King which I have begged you to ask of him, I will wait until you have something official to communicate to me regarding the resignation which I desire to lay at His Majesty’s feet.
A thousand warm compliments,
CHATEAUBRIAND.’
Monsieur de Polignac then wrote me these words in his own hand:
‘I have received your little note, my dear Vicomte; I will be delighted to see you tomorrow at ten, if that hour suits you.
I renew the assurance of my former sincere attachment.
LE PRINCE DE POLIGNAC.’
This note seemed to me
to augur badly; his diplomatic reserve led me to fear a refusal from the King.
I found the Prince de Polignac in the large office which I knew so well. He
hastened to me, grasped my hand with a heartfelt warmth which I would have
liked to believe was sincere, and then, putting an arm round my shoulders, we
began to walk slowly from one end of the office to the other. He told he would
not accept my resignation; that the King would not accept it; that I must
return to
I replied that it was not a foolishness; that I acted while in full possession of my reason; that his government would be very unpopular; that such prejudices might be unjust, but that they existed nevertheless; that all of France was convinced that he would attack public freedom, and that it was impossible for me, a defender of that freedom, to work with those who passed for being its enemy. I was somewhat embarrassed in my reply, since at heart I had no immediate objection to the new Ministers; I could only attack them over a future scenario whose likelihood they might properly reject. Monsieur de Polignac swore to me that he loved the Charter as much as I did; but he loved it in his own way, he loved it too nearly. Unfortunately the tenderness one shows a girl one has dishonoured served him little.
The conversation carried on in the same manner for almost an hour. Monsieur de Polignac ended by saying that, if I would consent to withdraw my resignation, the King would see me with pleasure and would listen to what I had to say against his Ministry; but that if I insisted on handing in my resignation, His Majesty thought it would be pointless to see me, and that a conversation between us could only be disagreeable.
I replied: ‘Consider my resignation as received then, Prince. I have never retracted anything in my life, and, since it does not suit the King to see his loyal subject, I no longer insist.’ After these words I withdrew. I begged the Prince to grant Monsieur le Duc de Laval the Rome Embassy, if he still desired it, and I recommended my legation staff to him. I then regained on foot, via the Boulevard des Invalides, the street containing my Infirmary, poor casualty that I was. Monsieur de Polignac seemed to me, as I left him, to possess that imperturbable confidence which made of him a mute eminently suited to strangling an Empire.
My resignation as
Ambassador to
‘Most Holy Father,
As Minister for Foreign
Affairs in
I am, with the greatest veneration and most profound respect, Your Holiness’ very humble and very obedient servant,
CHATEAUBRIAND.’
I spent several days in
my Utica tearing out my entrails; I wrote
letters demolishing the edifice I had so lovingly constructed. As, when a man
dies, it is the little details, the familiar domestic actions that move us, so
in the death of a dream the small realities that destroy it are the most
poignant. Eternal exile among the ruins of
When the swallows near the time for their departure, there is one that is first to take flight and announce the imminent journey to the others: I was the first winged messenger to anticipate the last flight of the Legitimacy. Did the praises with which the newspapers showered me delight me? Not in the least. Some of my friends thought to console me by assuring me that I was on the verge of becoming First Minister; that a round of the game freely played would decide my future: they assumed an ambition in me of which I had not a trace. I doubt that any man who lived with me for even a week would be unable to see my total lack of that passion, otherwise perfectly legitimate, which allows one to pursue a political career to the end. I was always anticipating the moment of my resignation: if I was passionate about the Rome Embassy, it is precisely because it could lead nowhere, and was a retreat into a cul-de-sac.
Finally, I had in the depths of my conscience a certain fear of already having pushed my opposition too far; I would inevitably become its location, centre, and focal point: I was afraid of it, and that fear increased my regrets for the tranquil retreat I had lost.
Be that as it may, one
is obliged to burn incense before the wooden idol descended from its altar. Monsieur
de Lamartine, a new and brilliant
representative of
‘Monsieur de La Noue, who has just spent a few minutes
with me, told me that he left you occupying your noble leisure with raising a
monument to
This noble letter by the author of Poetic Meditations was followed by that of Monsieur de Lacretelle. He wrote to me in his turn:
‘What a moment they chose to insult you, a man of sacrifice, you whose fine actions cost you no less than do your fine works! Your resignation and the formation of a new government seem to me two events linked to each other in advance. You have acquainted us with acts of devotion, as Bonaparte acquainted us with victory; but he had many companions, and you have few imitators.’
Two highly literate men, writers of great merit, Monsieur Abel Rémusat, and Monsieur Saint-Martin, alone had the temerity to set themselves up against me; they were associates of Monsieur le Baron de Damas. I understand why they might have been somewhat annoyed with these people who scorn public office: there is a kind of insolence in it that they cannot abide.
Monsieur Guizot himself deigned to visit me at home; he thought he might bridge the immense distance that nature had placed between us; in approaching me he said these words full of everything that was proper: ‘Monsieur, it is all different these days!’ In that year of 1829, Monsieur Guizot needed me to aid his election prospects; I wrote to the electors of Lisieux; he was nominated; Monsieur de Broglie thanked me in this note:
‘Permit me to thank you, dear Sir, for the letter you have been good enough to address to me. I have made use of it as I ought, and am convinced that, like all which flows from you, it will bear fruit and beneficial fruit. For my part, I have also taken note of what concerns myself, since there is no event with which I am more closely identified and which inspires in me a more lively interest.’
The advent of July finding Monsieur Guizot a deputy, it transpired that I was partly the reason for his political rise; the prayer of the humble is sometimes heard in Heaven!
Monsieur de Polignac’s first colleagues were Messieurs de Bourmont, de La Bourdonnaye, de Chabrol, Courvoisier and Montbel.
On the 17th of June 1815, being in Ghent and staying in the Royal residence, I met a man at the foot of the stairs, in a frock coat with muddy boots, going up to see his Majesty. I recognised in that spiritual face, that slender nose and those fine mild serpent-like eyes, General Bourmont; he had deserted Bonaparte’s army on the 14th. Comte de Bourmont is a worthy officer, used to navigating difficult actions; but one of those men who, when placed in the front line, see obstacles and cannot overcome them, formed as they are to be led and not to lead: fortunate in his sons, Algiers will ensure his name survives.
The Comte de Bourdonnaye, once my friend, is quite the most awkward customer ever: he lets fly at you if you approach him; he attacks the speakers in the Chamber, as he does his neighbours in the countryside; he quibbles over a word, as he does over a lawsuit concerning a ditch. On the very day I was named Foreign Minister, he came to tell me he was breaking with me: I was a Minister. I smiled and let my male shrew go, who smiling himself, looked like a thwarted bat.
Monsieur de Montbel, initially Minister for Public Education, replaced Monsieur de la Bordonnaye at the Interior Ministry when the latter retired and Monsieur Guernon-Ranville took over from him at Education.
The two sides prepared for war: the government party issued ironic pamphlets against the Representative grouping; the opposition organised its affairs and spoke of refusing to pay taxes if the Charter was violated. A public association was formed to resist those in power, called the Breton Association: my compatriots had often taken the initiative in previous revolutions; Breton minds own to something of the storm-winds that torment the shores of our peninsula.
A newspaper, produced with the avowed aim of overthrowing the existing dynasty, inflamed opinion. The fine young bookseller Sautelet, driven to suicide by madness, had often wished to assist his party by dying in some startling manner; he was filled with the Republican paper’s ideas; Messieurs Thiers, Mignet and Carrel were its editors. The National’s patron, Monsieur le Prince de Talleyrand, brought not a sou to the coffers: he merely soured the journal’s spirit by pouring his share of treason and corrosion into the common fund. I received the following note from Monsieur Thiers at the time:
‘Monsieur,
Uncertain whether delivery of our new journal will be made correctly, I am sending you the first edition of the National. All my collaborators agree with me in begging you to consider yourself in truth, not as a subscriber, but as our unpaid reader. If in this first issue, a matter of great concern to me, I have succeeded in expressing opinions of which you approve, I will be reassured and certain of being on the right track.
Accept, Sir, my homage,
A. THIERS.’
I will return to the editors of the National; I will tell you how I came to know them; but for the present I must single out Monsieur Carrel: superior to Messieurs Thiers and Mignet, he had the lack of pretension to consider himself, at the time when I associated with him, as a supporter of the writers he headed: he defended with his sword the opinions those men of the pen unsheathed.
While they were gearing
up for the fight, preparations for the expedition to Algiers were completed. General Bourmont, the Minister for War, named
himself as leader of the expedition: did he wish to escape responsibility for
the coup d’état he felt was coming? That is quite possible given his past
history and his subtlety; but it was a disaster for Charles X. If the general
had been in
Our Navy revived by the battle at Navarino left those French harbours so neglected formerly. The roads were covered with ships that saluted the land as they departed. Steamboats, new inventions of human genius, came and went carrying orders from one squadron to another, like Sirens or aides de camp of the Admiral. The Dauphin stood on the shore, to which the entire population of the town and surrounding hills had descended: he, who having snatched his relative the King of Spain from the hands of the revolutionaries, saw the day break in which Christianity might be delivered, could he have conceived that he was so near his own eclipse?
It was no longer that
age when Catherine de Médici
solicited the investiture of the Principality of Algiers for Henri III, not yet King of
Poland!
‘You will yield, or fall
to this attack,
Magnificent words, could you not delay the collapse of a throne? The nations march to their fates, like certain of Dante’s shades, it is impossible to stop them, even amidst their good fortune.
Those vessels, which
brought liberty to the shores of
Among that crowd on the
shore at Toulon who followed with their
eyes that fleet departing for
‘Barely two months since this same banner had been seen flying over five hundred vessels, in sight of these same shores. Sixty thousand men were then impatient to deploy on the African field of battle. Now a handful of invalids, a few wounded dragging themselves with difficulty round the bridge of our ship were its only followers…At the moment when the Guard presented arms in the customary salute to the flag, when it was raised or lowered, all conversation ceased on the bridge. I doffed my hat with the same respect I might have shown before the aged King himself. I knelt in profound tribute before the power of great misfortune at whose emblem I sadly gazed.’
The Session of 1830 opened on the 2nd of March. The Royal speech had the King say: ‘If reprehensible manoeuvres create obstacles for my government which I could not and chose not to foresee, I will find the means of overcoming them.’ Charles X pronounced these words in the tones of a man who, by habit gentle and timid, happens to find himself angered, stirred by the sound of his own voice; the stronger the words, the weaker the resolutions that followed them.
The address in reply was written by Messieurs Étienne and Guizot. It read: ‘Sire, the Charter consecrates as a right the nation’s intervention in deliberations regarding the public interest. That intervention makes a permanent reconciliation of the views of your government with the desires of the people the indispensable condition for the harmonious progress of public affairs. Sire, our loyalty, our devotion forces us to tell you that this RECONCILIATION DOES NOT EXIST.’
The address was endorsed
by a majority of two hundred and twenty-one to one hundred and eighty-one. An
amendment by Monsieur de Lorgeril tried
to remove the phrase regarding the denial
of reconciliation. This amendment only obtained twenty-eight votes. If the
two hundred and twenty-one had been able to foresee the result of their vote,
the address would have been rejected by an immense majority. Why does
The King, replying to
the address, declared that his resolution was immutable, that is to say that he
would not dismiss Monsieur de Polignac.
The dissolution of the Chamber was determined: Messieurs de Peyronnet and de Chantelauze replaced Messieurs de Chabrol and Courvoisier who retired; Monsieur Capelle was named as Minister for
Commerce. There were twenty men in the offing capable of being Ministers; they
could have recalled Monsieur de Villèle;
they could have taken Monsieur Casimir Périer
and General Sébastiani. I had already
proposed the latter to the King, when after the fall of Monsieur Villèle, the
Abbé Frayssinous was charged with
offering me the Ministry of Education. But no; they had a horror of able men.
In the ardour they felt for nobodies, they found, as if to humiliate
The decree of
dissolution summoned the district colleges for
The parties went to extremes, in their excitement: the Ultra-Royalists spoke of making the Crown a dictatorship; the Republicans dreamed of a Republic with a Directory or under a Convention. The Tribune, a paper affiliated to that party, appeared, and outshone the National. The great majority of the country still desired the Legitimacy, but with concessions and freedom from Court influence; ambition was rife, and everyone hoped to become a Minister; storms hatch out insects.
Those who wished to force Charles X to become a constitutional monarch thought they were in the right. They believed the Legitimacy was deep-rooted; they had forgotten the weakness of the man; Royalty could be pressurised, the King could not: the individual failed us, not the institution.
The new Chamber’s
deputies arrived in
I left for Dieppe on the 26th of July, at four in the
morning, on the very day the decrees appeared. I was quite joyful, delighted to
be seeing the sea once more, and I was followed, at some hours distance, by a
frightful storm. I dined and slept at Rouen
without suspecting anything, regretting that I was unable to visit Saint-Ouen, and kneel before the lovely
Madonna in the museum, in memory of Raphael
and
I brought the Moniteur with me. As soon as it was
daylight, on the 28th, I read, re-read, and commented on the decrees. The
report to the King serving as a prolegomenon struck me from two perspectives:
the observations on the disadvantages of the Press were just; but at the same
time the author of those observations showed complete ignorance of the true
state of society. Doubtless the Ministries, since 1814, of whatever persuasion,
had been harassed by the papers; doubtless the Press tends to smother sovereignty,
and drives royalty and the Chambers to obey it; doubtless, during the final
days of the Restoration, the Press, blinded by passion, had, without regard to
French honour and interests, attacked the expedition to Algiers, elaborating on the reasons, means, and
preparations for it, and the chances of non-success; it had divulged confidential
details of the armaments, revealed the state of our forces to the enemy,
tallied our troops and ships, even indicated the point of embarkation. Would
Cardinal Richelieu and Bonaparte have brought
All that is true and
shameful; but what is the remedy? The Press is an element once unseen, a force
previously unknown, now active in the world; it is the word as lightening; it
is social electricity. Can you prevent it existing? The more you try to
suppress it, the more violent the explosion will be. You must resolve to live
with it, as you live with the steam-engine. You must teach it to serve you, by
robbing it of its dangers, either by weakening it little by little through familiar
everyday use, or by gradually adjusting your laws and manners to the principles
which will rule humanity from now on. A proof of the powerlessness of the Press
in certain situations emerges from the very reproach you made against it in
regard to the
But what is intolerable to read in the Ministers’ reports is that pretentious effrontery: that the KING HAS POWERS THAT PRE-DATE THE LAWS. What is the point of a constitution then? Why deceive the people with false guarantees, when the monarch can alter the established order of government at will? And yet the signatories of the report were so convinced of what they said, that they took pains to cite article 14, with the benefit of which, as I had declared long ago, they could appropriate the Charter; they mentioned it, but only for the record, and as a superfluous right which they did not need to employ.
The first decree established the suppression of Press freedom in its various forms; it was the quintessence of all that had been elaborated in the cubby-holes of the police department over fifteen years.
The second decree
reworked the electoral laws. Thus the two primary freedoms, the freedom of the
Press and electoral freedom, were radically harmed: this emanated not from an
iniquitous though legal action of a corrupt legislative authority, but by decree, as in the days of royal whim. And
five men not lacking in common sense hurled themselves, their master, the
monarchy,
If the members of the
diplomatic corps did not directly influence the decrees, they favoured them
with their votes;
The nominations of the Councillors of State which followed the July ordinances threw some light on the people who, in the antechambers, by their advice or their writings, had been prepared to support the decrees. The men most opposed to representative government were signalled out. Were those fatal documents penned in the very office of the King, under the monarch’s own eyes? Were they written in Monsieur de Polignac’s office? Were they agreed in a meeting solely of Ministers or were they assisted by a few loyal anti-constitutional minds? Was it under the Leads, in some secret session of the Ten, that those decisions of July were made, in virtue of which the Legitimacy was condemned to strangulation on the Bridge of Sighs? Were the decrees Monsieur de Polignac’s own idea? Perhaps that is something history will never reveal.
Arriving in Gisors, I learnt of the uprising in Paris, and
heard various alarming proposals; they proved how seriously the Charter had
been taken by the population of France. At Pontoise, there was more recent news
still, but confusing and contradictory. At Herblay,
there were no post-horses. I waited almost an hour. I was advised to avoid
My carriage descended
the slope. I crossed the Pont d’Iéna, and ascended the paved avenue along the
Champs de Mars. All was deserted. I found a cavalry picket posted before the
railings of the
In my street, my neighbours were delighted at my arrival: I seemed to offer a protection to the whole quarter. Madame de Chateaubriand was at once comforted and alarmed by my return.
On the morning of Thursday the 29th of July, I wrote this letter, lengthened by its postscript, to Madame Récamier, at Dieppe:
‘Thursday
morning,
I write to you without knowing if my letter will arrive, since the couriers are no longer leaving.
I entered
The National Guard, the École Polytechnique, all are involved. I have seen nobody as yet. You may judge in what state I found Madame de Chateaubriand. Anyone, who, like her, witnessed the 10th of August and the 2nd of September, retains a permanent memory of the Terror. One regiment, the 5th of the Line, has already gone over to the side of the Charter. Certainly Monsieur de Polignac is greatly to blame; his lack of ability is a poor excuse; an ambition for which one has not the talent is a crime. They say the Court is at Saint-Cloud and ready to flee.
I will not speak of myself; my position is tiresome but straightforward. I will betray neither the King nor the Charter, neither the Legitimacy nor freedom. I have nothing more to say or do than wait and weep for my country. God only knows what will happen in the provinces; they already speak of an insurrection at Rouen. On another front, the Congregation will arm the Chouans and the Vendée. What Empires depend on! A decree and six Ministers without talent or virtue are enough to turn the most tranquil and flourishing country into one of the most troubled and unfortunate.’
‘Mid-day.
The firing has recommenced. It seems they are attacking the Louvre where the Kings troops are entrenched. The suburb I live in is beginning to revolt. They talk of a provisional government whose leaders would be General Gérard, the Duc de Choiseul and Monsieur de Lafayette.
This letter will
probably not leave
‘Friday.
This letter was written yesterday; there was no way of sending it. All is over: the popular victory is complete; the King has yielded on all points; but I fear they will now go way beyond the concessions made by the Crown. I wrote to His Majesty this morning. Meanwhile, I have a total scheme of future sacrifice which appeals to me. We will speak of it when you arrive.
I am going to put this
letter in the post myself, and reconnoitre
End of Book XXXI