XXIV.

1830.

CHAP. you imagine that all is easy-that you can satisfy all exigencies, all humours-that every one will put aside his separate interests for the general good-that the superiority of intelligence, and the wisdom of government, will surmount all difficulties; but before a few months have elapsed, experience will demonstrate the futility of such expectations.

35.

"A republic is still more impracticable. In the existContinued. ing state of our morals, and in our relations with the adjoining states, such a government is out of the question. The first difficulty would be to bring the French to any unanimous opinion on the subject. What right has the people of Paris to impose a government by its vote on the people of Marseilles? What right have they to constrain any other town to receive the rulers whom they have chosen, or the form of government which they have adopted? Shall we have one republic or twenty republics?—a federal union, or a commonwealth, one and indivisible? Do you really suppose that, with your manners and ideas, any president, let him be as grave or authoritative as can be figured, will be able, for any length of time, to maintain his authority, except by force? Must he not soon be reduced to the necessity of making himself a despot or resigning? He will neither inspire the confidence which is necessary to the security and the prosperity of commerce, nor possess the power requisite for the maintenance of domestic tranquillity, nor the dignity essential in intercourse with foreign states. If he has recourse to coercive measures, the republic will become odious at home; if he gives it full license abroad, it will become the object of terror, and bring Europe to our gates. A representative republic may perhaps be the destined future of the world, but its time has not yet arrived.

36.

"Iniquitous ministers have sullied the Crown: they Continued. have supported the violation of the law by murder; they have made a laughing-stock of oaths, and of all that is

XXIV.

1830.

sacred upon earth. Strangers! you who have twice CHAP. entered Paris, learn the secret of your success. You presented yourselves in the name of legal power. If you now hastened to the support of illegal usurpation, do you suppose that the gates of the capital of the civilised world would so speedily be opened to you The French nation has grown major since the departure of your armies, under the reign of constitutional laws: our children of fourteen are giants to what they were; our conscripts of Algiers, our scholars of Paris, have revealed to us the sons of the conquerors of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena, but the sons fortified by all that liberty adds to glory. Never was cause more sacred than that of the people of Paris. They have risen, not against the law, but for the law. So long as their rights were respected, they remained quiet; neither insults, provocations, menaces, nor bribes, have been able to shake their loyalty. But when, after having kept up the system of deceit to the last moment, the signal of slavery was suddenly sounded, they became prodigal of their blood. When a terror of the palaces, organised by eunuchs, pretended to replace the terror of the Republic founded in blood, or the terror of the Empire radiant with glory, then the people stood forth armed with their intelligence and their courage; then they showed that the shopkeepers were not afraid of the smell of powder, and that it required more than a corporal and a few soldiers to subdue them. A great crime has been committed; it has produced a mighty explosion: but what we have now to consider is, whether we are constrained by this crime. and its moral expiation to violate the established order of things.

37.

Charles X. and his son are dethroned, or have abdicated, as you have heard; but the throne is not thereby Continued. vacant. After them a child is called to the succession,

and who will venture to condemn his innocence? What blood cries for justice?

No one ventures to say his

XXIV.

1830.

CHAP. father has shed it. Alas! it was shed by an assassin, in the name, though against the wishes, of the people. The orphan he has left, educated in the schools of the country, in the ideas of the constitution, and abreast of his age, might become a king with all the requirements of the future. It is to the guardian of his youth that you may commit the oath by which he is to reign: arrived at majority, he will renew that oath in his own person. That combination removes every obstacle, reconciles every advantage, and perhaps may save France from the convulsions which attend too frequently violent changes in the state. I know that in removing that child it is said you establish the principle of the sovereignty of the people the new sovereign or president can hold only of the people. Vain illusion, the offspring of the old school, which proves that in the march of intellect our old democrats have not made greater advances than the partisans of royalty. Absolute government is nowhere to be found: liberty does not flow from political right, as was supposed in the eighteenth century; it flows from natural right, which is the same under all forms of government. It were easy to show that men may be as free, and freer, under a monarchy than a republic, were this the time or the place to deliver a lecture on political philosophy.

38.

"All Europe has for ages recognised the superiority of Continued. a hereditary to an elective monarchy. The reason is obvious; it stands in need of no development. You choose a king to-day; who is to prevent you from choosing another to-morrow? The law will do so. You have made the law; you can unmake it. You have conquered and dethroned the Bourbons, and you will maintain what you have gained. It is. well. You proclaim the sovereignty of force: be sure you keep it well; for if in a few months it escapes you, you will have no title to complain of your own overthrow. At the moment when the abominable abuse of power has broken the sceptre in the hand of him who wielded it, are you prepared to seize the

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1830.

fragments and do the same with them? Dangerous frag- CHAP. ments! they will wound the arm which has seized them even before those against whom they are directed. The idolatry of a name is ended. Monarchy is no longer a worship; it is a simple form of government, preferable at this crisis to any other, because it can alone reconcile order with liberty.

39.

"A disregarded Cassandra, I have fatigued the throne and the peerage enough with my prophecies; it remains Concluded. for me only to seat myself on the ruins of a shipwreck which I have so often predicted. I recognise in misfortune every power except that of liberating us from our oaths of fidelity. I am bound to render my life consistent. After all I have said, done, and written for the Bourbons, I should be the basest of the human race if I denied them when, for the third and last time, they are directing their steps towards exile. I leave fear to those generous Royalists who have never sacrificed a penny or a place to their fidelity, who formerly reproached me with being a renegade, an apostate, a revolutionist. Instigators of the coup d'etat, where are you now? The noble colours which decorated your bosoms could not conceal their baseness. In speaking thus openly, I am not doing an act of heroism; these are not the times when an opinion costs a life; if it were so, I should speak a hundred times more openly. We have no reason to fear a people whose moderation is equal to their courage, or that generous youth whom I admire, and for whom, as for my country, I wish honour, liberty, and glory. Far be it from me to wish to sow divisions in my country; it is for that that I have stilled in my speech the voice of the passions. If I had the right to dispose of the crown, I would willingly place it at the feet of the Duke of Orléans; but I see vacant only a tomb at St Denis, and not a throne. Whatever may be the destinies of the Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, I shall never be his 240, 242. if he contributes to the happiness of the country;

enemy,

Moniteur,

Aug. 3,

1830; Ann.

Hist. 1830,

CHAP. for myself I ask only liberty of conscience, and the right to die where I shall find independence and repose."

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1830.

40.

Chateau

briand refuses the

portfolio

affairs.

This noble conduct was too elevated for the French peers of the nineteenth century, or perhaps for any but a few lofty minds in any age. A few peers adhered to M. of foreign de Chateaubriand, but the great majority went with the tide, and the Chamber, by a majority of 89 to 10, voted the address to the Duke of Orléans to accept the throne. All had not the magnanimity of that chivalrous relic of the olden time, and his disinterestedness will not be duly appreciated unless it is known what, at the very moment when he made this declaration, he had been refusing. The Duke of Orléans, who was extremely apprehensive of the effect likely to be produced by the indignant speech of the poetic orator, had recently before sent for him, and offered him the situation of minister of foreign affairs if he would send in his adhesion to his governThe request was supported by the tears of the Duchess of Orléans and the masculine eloquence of 1 Chateaub. Madame Adélaide-but in vain. Chateaubriand red'Outre sisted alike their offers and their solicitations: he preferred rather poverty, exile, and honour. He resigned Ann. Hist. all his situations under Government, sold off his whole 245; Louis effects, and withdrew from France with 700 francs (£28), the sole residue of all his fortune. * 66 mentis soror est paupertas." 1 At length this well-got-up dramatic scene, on the part

Mem.

Tombe, ix.

390, 393, 351, 355;

xiii. 243,

Blanc, i. 438.

ment.

Semper bona

* Chateaubriand has left, in his Mémoires d'Outre Tombe, an extremely interesting account of his conversation with the Duchess of Orléans, the Princess Adélaide, and Louis Philippe, on this decisive occasion: “Madame la Duchesse d'Orléans me fit asseoir auprès d'elle, et sur-le-champ elle me dit, -Ah! Monsieur de Chateaubriand, nous sommes bien malheureux. Si tous les partis voulaient se réunir, peut-être pourrait-on encore se sauver. Que pensez-vous de tout cela ?' Madame,' répondis-je, rien n'est si aisé. Charles X. et Monsieur le Dauphin ont abdiqué. Henri est maintenant roi. Monseigneur le Duc d'Orléans est Lieutenant-Général du royaume. Qu'il soit régent pendant la minorité de Henri V., et tout est fini.' 'Mais, M. de Chateaubriand, le peuple est très-agité; nous tomberons dans l'anarchie.' 'Madame, oserai-je vous demander quelle est l'intention de M. le Duc de Orléans? Acceptera-t-il la couronne si on la lui offre?' Les deux princesses hésitèrent à répondre; Madame la Duchesse d'Orléans répartit après un moment