François de Chateaubriand
Mémoires d’outre-tombe
Book XXXIII
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Translated by A. S. Kline © 2006 All Rights Reserved.
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Contents
Book XXXIII: Chapter 2: Rambouillet
Book XXXIII: Chapter 4: The crowd departs for Rambouillet – The flight of the King - Reflections
Book XXXIII: Chapter 6: The Republican Party’s last gasp
Book XXXIII: Chapter 8: Charles X embarks at Cherbourg
Book XXXIII: Chapter 9: How the July Revolution will be viewed
Book XXXIII: Chapter 10: The end of my political career
You have just seen Royalty on the Place de Grève, powdered and breathing hard, marching in the midst of its arrogant supporters; now watch Royalty at Rheims withdrawing at a measured pace in the midst of its chaplains and guards, walking with the correctness prescribed by etiquette, hearing not one disrespectful word, and revered even by those who detest it. The soldier who considered it of little worth, was prepared to die for it; the white banner, draped over his coffin before being folded forever, said to the breeze: Salute me: I was at Ivry; I saw Turenne die; the English knew me at Fontenoy; I fought for freedom’s victory under Washington; I freed Greece, and I still wave above the walls of Algiers!
On the 31st, at
daybreak, at the very hour when the Duc d’Orléans, after arriving in
Meanwhile the heights of Sèvres and the terraces of Bellevue were crowned with representatives of the people: there were several exchanges of fire. The captain who commanded the vanguard at the Pont du Sèvres went over to the enemy: he led a party of soldiers and a piece of cannon to a group gathered on the Point du Jour road. Then the Parisians and the Guards agreed that there would be no hostilities until the evacuation of Saint-Cloud and Sèvres had been achieved. The withdrawal commenced; the Swiss were surrounded by the citizens of Sèvres, and threw down their arms, though they were relieved almost immediately by the Lancers, the Lieutenant-Colonel of whom was wounded. The troops passed through Versailles, where the National Guard had been positioned since the previous day along with La Rochejaquelin’s Grenadiers, the former under the tricolour cockade, the latter under the white. Madame la Dauphine arrived from Vichy and rejoined the Royal Family at Trianon, once Marie-Antoinette’s favourite place. At Trianon, Monsieur de Polignac parted from his master.
It has been said that
Madame la
It is astonishing that
there was no sign of the diplomatic corps during these events of July, they who
were consulted far too much by the Court, and were involved in all our affairs.
There is twice a reference to foreign ambassadors during the disturbances. A
man was arrested at the gates, and the package he was carrying was sent to the
Hotel de Ville: it was a despatch from Monsieur de Loevenhielm to the King of Sweden. Monsieur Baude had this despatch returned to the Swedish
legation without opening it. Lord Stuart’s
correspondence fell into the hands of the popular leaders, it was also returned
without being opened, which amazed
I had conceived a new way of conducting diplomacy: having nothing to hide, I spoke out loud; I would have shown my despatches to the first-comer, because I had no project for the glory of France that I was not determined to accomplish despite all opposition.
I told Sir Charles
Stuart a hundred times, with a smile, yet speaking seriously: ‘Don’t pick a
quarrel with me. If you throw down your glove, I shall pick it up.
Lord Stuart regarded our July disturbances therefore in a good-natured way while delighting in our misery; but the other members of the diplomatic corps, inimical to the popular cause, had more or less urged Charles X to issue the decrees, and yet, when they appeared, they did nothing to rescue the monarchy; so that if Monsieur Pozzo di Borgo showed anxiety about a Coup d’État it was not on behalf of the king or the people.
Two things are certain:
Firstly, the July
Revolution acted against the treaties of the Quadruple Alliance: Bourbon
Secondly, in a monarchy, foreign legations are not accredited to the government; but to the monarch. The strict duty of those legations was therefore to gather around Charles X, and follow him wherever he went on French soil.
Is it not strange that the only ambassador who took account of this idea represented Bernadotte, a king who did not belong to an ancient royal family? Monsieur de Loevenheilm converted Baron Werther to his opinion, while Monsieur Pozzo di Borgo opposed a step which would have taxed letters of credit and which demanded they be honoured.
If the diplomatic corps had gone to Saint-Cloud, Charles X’s position would have been different: the partisans of the Legitimacy would firstly have gained the power in the Elective Chamber which they lacked; the fear of possible war had alarmed the industrialists; the idea of keeping the peace while protecting Henri V had brought a considerable mass of people over to the Royal infant’s side.
Monsieur Pozzo do Borgo held back in order not to compromise his funds on the Bourse or with the banks, and especially not to expose his position. He had gambled at five per cent on the death of the Capetian legitimacy, a death which will communicate itself to other living kings. People will be sure, in this age of ours, to attempt, as usual, to pass off this irreparable crime of personal interest as a profound scheme.
Ambassadors who are left
at the same Court for too long take on the manners of the country they reside
in: charmed to be living in the midst of honours, failing to see things as they
are, they fear to let slip in their despatches any reality that might lead to
an alteration in their status. It is another thing, in effect, to be Messieurs Apponyi, Werther, and Pozzo in
I have thought for a long time that the diplomatic corps born in an age subject to another order of society is no longer in tune with the new order: public government, and swift communication means that nowadays cabinets are able to handle affairs directly or with no other intermediary than the consular agents, whose numbers should be increased and whose lot should be improved: since Europe is now industrialised. Titled spies, with exorbitant pretensions, who interfere in everything in order to acquire an importance they lack, only serve to trouble governments to which they are accredited, and nourish their masters’ illusions. Charles X was wrong, for his part, in not inviting the diplomatic corps to attend his Court; but what he saw resembled a dream to him; he stumbled from astonishment to astonishment. It is thus that he failed to order Monsieur le Duc d’Orléans to join him; since, believing only in dangers from the Republican side, the risk of usurpation never entered his head.
Charles X left in the evening for Rambouillet with the Princesses and Monsieur le Duc de Bordeaux. Monsieur le Duc d’Orléans’ new role gave birth in the King’s mind to the first thoughts of abdication. Monsieur le Dauphin, always in the rear-guard, but never mixing with the soldiers, had what remained of the food and wine distributed to them at Trianon.
At eight-fifteen in the
evening, the various corps began marching. There the loyalty of the 5th Light
Infantry expired. Instead of following the route, they returned to
The brigades were in
confusion, their sections intermingled; the cavalry overtook the infantry and
made a separate halt. At
On the next day, the 1st of August, he left for Rambouillet leaving the troops bivouacked at Trappes. They struck camp at eleven. Some soldiers, having gone to buy bread in the hamlets, were massacred.
Arriving at Rambouillet, the army was billeted around the Château.
During the night of the
1st, three regiments of heavy cavalry set out for their former garrisons. They
thought that General Bordesoulle,
commanding the Guards heavy cavalry, had surrendered at
The decrees had freed the nation of its oath; this retreat, on the field of battle, freed the grenadier of his flag.
With Charles X
withdrawing, and the Republicans falling back, nothing prevented the elected
monarchy from advancing. The provinces, ever like sheep, and the slaves of
For the opening of the Session, fixed for the 3rd of August, the Peers moved to the Chamber of Deputies: I went along, since everything was still provisional. There another act of the melodrama was played out: the throne was empty and the anti-King sat to one side. Someone had mentioned a Chancellor opening a session of the English Parliament by proxy, in the sovereign’s absence.
Philippe spoke of the dire necessity
of his accepting the Lieutenant-Generalship to protect us all, of the revision
of Article 14 of the Charter, of freedom which he, Philippe, bore in his heart
and which he would extend to us, and of peace in
‘Peers and Deputies, Gentlemen,
As soon as the two
Chambers have been constituted, I will bring forward for your attention the Act
of Abdication of His Majesty King Charles X. By this same act, Louis-Antoine de
France, Dauphin, also renounces his
rights. This act was placed in my hands yesterday, the 2nd of August, at
By a miserable ruse, and
with cowardly reticence, the Duc d’Orléans here suppressed the name of Henri V, in whose favour the two kings
had abdicated. If every citizen of
Louis-Philippe’s real crime was not in accepting the crown (an act of ambition of which there are thousand of examples, and which merely attacked the political institutions); his true offence was in being a faithless master, in despoiling the infant and the orphan, an offence against which the Scripture cannot rail enough: now, moral justice (which is called fatality or Providence, and which I call the inevitable consequence of evil) never fails to punish infractions of the moral law.
Philippe, his government, all that realm of impossible and contradictory things, perished, in a timescale more or less retarded by chance events, by internal and external complexities of interest, by the apathy and corruption of individuals, and by the superficiality, indifference and evasion of men of influence; but, whatever the actual duration of the regime, it will not be long enough for the Orléans branch to become deep-rooted.
Charles X, learning of the progress of the revolution, possessing nothing in his own character or experience capable of arresting that progress, thought to ward off the blow executed against his line by abdicating with his son, as Philippe announced to the Deputies. On the 1st of August he had written a note approving the opening of the session, and counting on his cousin the Duc d’Orléans’ sincere affection for him, he named him, for his part, Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom. He went further on the 2nd, asking no more than to embark on board ship, and asking for commissioners to escort him as far as Cherbourg. This suggestion was not well received initially by the military. Bonaparte had also had commissioners as guards, on the first occasion Russians, on the second Frenchmen; but he had not asked for them.
Here is Charles X’s letter:
‘Rambouillet, this 2nd of August 1830.
Dear cousin, I am far too deeply grieved by the ills which afflict or might threaten my nation not to seek means of preventing them. I have therefore resolved to abdicate the crown in favour of my grandson the Duc de Bordeaux.
The Dauphin, who shares my sentiments, also renounces his rights in favour of his nephew.
You will then, in your role as Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, proclaim the advent of Henri V to the crown. Moreover you will take all measures within your remit to organise the government during the new king’s minority. Here I limit myself to making these dispositions known; as a means of avoiding further ills.
You will communicate my intentions to the diplomatic corps, and let me know at the earliest moment of the proclamation by which my grandson is recognised as King under the name of Henri V…
I renew to you, dear cousin, my assurance of the sentiments with which I remain your affectionate cousin.
CHARLES.’
If Monsieur le Duc d’Orléans had been capable of emotion, or remorse, would not that phrase, your affectionate cousin, have stirred his heart? At Rambouillet they had so little faith in the efficacy of abdication, that they readied the young prince for the voyage: the tricolour cockade, his aegis, had already been prepared by the hands of those who had been most eager for the decrees. Suppose that Madame la Duchesse de Berry, leaving swiftly with her son, had been presented to the Chamber of Deputies at the moment when Monsieur le Duc d’Orléans was delivering the opening speech, then a chance would have remained; a slim chance, but at least, in the event of disaster, the child lost to Heaven would not have dragged out wretched days on a foreign soil!
My advice, my wishes, and my cries, were powerless; in vain I urged Marie-Caroline to act: Bayard’s mother, preparing to leave the paternal castle, ‘wept’ says the Loyal Servant. ‘The good gentlewoman left by the rear entrance to the tower and came to her son to whom she spoke these words: “Pierre, my dear, be gentle and courteous while subduing all pride; be humble and helpful to all people; be faithful in word and deed; aid the poor widow and orphan, and God will protect you…” Then the good lady took from her sleeve a small purse in which there were only six gold crowns and a piece of silver which she gave to her son.’
The Chevalier ‘sans peure et sans reproche’ left with his six gold crowns in a little purse to become the bravest and most renowned of knights. Henri, who may have lacked even the six gold crowns, had other struggles to contend with; he had to fight against misfortune, a difficult champion to unhorse. Let us glorify mothers who teach such fine and tender lessons to their sons! Be blessed then, my mother, from whom I derive whatever has brought honour and discipline to my life.
Forgive all these recollections; but perhaps my tyrant memory, by mingling past with present, robs the latter of some of its wretchedness.
The three Commissioners
deputed to escort Charles X were Messieurs de Schonen,
Odilon Barrot, and Marshal Maison. Recalled by military summons, they
took the road the
On the evening of the
2nd of August, in
At Rambouillet, on the 3rd of August, were three thousand five hundred men of the Foot Guards, and four regiments of Light Cavalry, in twenty squadrons, comprising two thousand men. The military headquarters, corps of Guards, etc, cavalry and infantry, amounted to thirteen hundred men; in total six thousand eight hundred men, and seven mounted batteries composed of forty-two pieces of cannon. At ten in the evening they sounded the signal to mount; the whole camp set out on the road to Maintenon, Charles X and his family travelling in the centre of the fatal procession dimly lit by the veiled moon.
Whom did they retreat
before: before a virtually unarmed crowd which arrived from
What! Amongst all those officers, was there not one resolute enough to seize command in the name of Henri V? For, after all, neither Charles X nor the Dauphin was now king!
If they did not wish to
fight, why did they not retreat to Chartres?
There they would have been well out of reach of the
Perhaps a time will
come, when a new social order will have replaced existing society, when war
will seem a monstrous absurdity, when principles will no longer be compromised;
but we are not there yet. Among armed struggles, there are philanthropists who
distinguish different kinds, and are ready to find civil war alone evil: ‘Compatriots
who kill each other, brothers, fathers, sons who face one another!’ Without
doubt, all that is very sad; yet a nation is often refreshed and reinvigorated
by internal discord. No country has vanished through civil war, often they have
vanished in wars with other countries. Look at
Civil war, despite its
calamities, has only one real danger: that is if the factions have recourse to
a foreign power, or the foreign power, profiting from national division,
attacks the nation; conquest may be the result of such a situation.
Charles X was wrong to
use bayonets to maintain the decrees; his ministers could not justify, whether
obeying orders or not, the shedding of the people’s and the soldiers’ blood,
without any hatred dividing them, just as Terrorists willingly recreated the
system of the Terror when there was no longer a Terror. But Charles X was also
wrong not to accept a fight when, after conceding on all points, the fight was
brought to him. He had no right, having set the crown on his grandson’s
forehead, to say to that new Joas: ‘I have
placed you on the throne to train you for exile, so that unfortunate, exiled,
you can bear the weight of my years, my proscription and my sceptre.’ He should not have at the same moment granted
Henri V a crown and robbed him of
Well, after this
blood-letting, I have recovered my senses, and in these things I merely see the
completion of human destiny. The Court,
triumphant by means of force, would have destroyed public freedom; it would
have been erased just the same one day; but it would have retarded the
development of society by many years; all that comprised the monarchy writ
large would have been opposed by the re-established congregation. In the final
result, events have followed the drift of civilisation. God made powerful men suit
his secret purposes: he gave them faults which destroyed them when they needed
to be destroyed, because he did not wish qualities badly applied by an erring
mind to oppose the decrees of
The Royal family, by leaving, reduced me to my own resources. I no longer thought of what I might be called upon to say in the Chamber of Peers. To write was impossible: if an attack had come from the enemies of the crown; if Charles X had been overthrown by a conspiracy from outside, I would have picked up my pen, and having been left my independence of thought, I would have worked hard to rally a large party to the remnants of the monarchy; but the attack came from the crown itself; the ministers had violated the twin principles of liberty, they had made royalty break its oath, not intentionally doubtless, but in fact; by that they had also stolen my power. What could I dare to say in favour of the decrees? How could I still boast of the sincerity, candour, and chivalry of the Legitimacy? How could I claim that they were the best guarantee of our interests, our laws, and our freedom? A champion of the ancient royalty, that royalty had robbed me of my weapons, and left me naked to my enemies.
So I was quite surprised when, reduced to this state of weakness, I found myself sought after by the new royalty. Charles X had disdained my services; Philippe made an effort to attach me to him. First of all Monsieur Arago spoke to me in an elevated and forceful manner on behalf of Madame Adélaïde; then Comte Anatole de Montesquiou came to Madame Récamier’s one morning and found me there. He told me that Madame la Duchesse d’Orléans and Monsieur le Duc d’Orleans would be charmed to see me, if I would go to the Palais-Royal. At that time they were occupied with the declaration which would transform the Lieutenant-Generalship of the Kingdom into a monarchy. Perhaps, before I could make any pronouncements, His Royal Highness may have judged it opportune to try and weaken my opposition. He may also have thought I might consider myself freed by the flight of the three kings.
Monsieur de Montesquiou’s overtures surprised me. Yet I did not reject them, since, without flattering myself regarding any chance of success, I thought I might be able to communicate some honest truth. I went to the Palais-Royal with the future queen’s Knight of Honour. Escorted to the entrance giving on the Rue de Valois, I found Madame la Duchesse d’Orléans and Madame Adélaïde in their little apartment. I had been honoured by being presented to them previously. Madame la Duchesse d’Orléans made me sit beside her, and immediately said; ‘Ah! Monsieur de Chateaubriand, we are most unfortunate. If all the parties would unite, perhaps they might yet save the situation! What do you think?
‘– Madame,’ I replied, ‘nothing is so straightforward: Charles X and Monsieur le Dauphin have abdicated: Henri is now King; Monseigneur le Duc d’Orléans is Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom: let him act as Regent during Henri V’s minority and all is settled.’
‘– But, Monsieur de Chateaubriand, the people are agitating; we will descend into anarchy.’
‘– Madame may I ask you what Monseigneur le Duc d’Orléans’ intentions are? Will he accept the crown if it is offered to him?’
The two Princesses were hesitant in replying. Madame la Duchesse d’Orléans replied after a moment’s silence:
‘– Think, Monsieur de
Chateaubriand of the evils that could arise. All honest people must work
together to save the Republic. In
‘– Madame do not forget my devotion to the young King and to his mother.’
‘– Oh, Monsieur de Chateaubriand, have they treated you so well!’
‘– Your Royal Highness would not have me deny my whole existence.’
‘– Monsieur de Chateaubriand, you do not know my niece: she is so thoughtless…poor Caroline! ...I am going to find Monsieur le Duc d’Orleans, he will be better at persuading you than I am.’
The Princess gave an order, and after a few minutes Louis-Philippe arrived. He was untidily dressed and looked extremely tired. I rose, and the Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom tackled me:
‘– Madame la Duchesse d’Orléans must have told you of the unfortunate position we are in.’
And suddenly he uttered idyllic words on the happiness which he found in the countryside, and on the tranquil life which his tastes led him to enjoy with his children. I seized the opportunity of a pause between two verses to add a respectful comment of my own, and to repeat virtually what I had said to the Princesses.
‘Ah,’ he cried, ‘that
would be my wish! How I would love to be the tutor and guardian of that child!
I think as you do, Monsieur de Chateaubriand: to accept the Duc de Bordeaux would certainly be the best
thing to do. Only I fear that events may prove too powerful for us.’ – ‘Too
powerful for us, Monseigneur? Are you not invested with every power? Let us
rejoin Henri V; summon the Chambers and the army to you, outside
While I was speaking, I was watching Philippe. My advice caused him great uneasiness; I saw the desire to be king written on his brow. ‘Monsieur de Chateaubriand,’ he said without looking at me, ‘the matter is more complicated than you think; it is not like that. You do not understand the danger we are in. A furious attack could be mounted on the Chambers, with every excess of force, and we have nothing left to defend ourselves with.’
That sentence falling from Monsieur le Duc d’Orléans’ lips pleased me because it furnished me with the opportunity for a peremptory reply. ‘I understand the difficulty, Monseigneur; but there is a way of surmounting it. If you find yourself unable to rejoin Henri V as I have just proposed, you can take another route. The Session is about to open: whatever may be the first proposition put by the Deputies, declare that the present Chamber lacks the necessary powers (which is indeed true) to settle the form of government; say that France must be consulted, and a new assembly must be elected with ad hoc powers to settle so great a matter. Your Royal Highness in that way will be adopting the most popular position; the Republican Party, which is a risk to you today, will praise you to the skies. During the two months it will take to form a fresh legislature, you can re-organise the National Guard; all your friends and those of the young King will work alongside you in the provinces. Let the Deputies come then and plead the cause I am defending, publicly, at the rostrum. That cause, secretly supported by you, would obtain the largest majority of the votes. The moment of anarchy having passed, you will have nothing more to fear from Republican violence. I do not even think it very difficult for you to bring General Lafayette and Monsieur Lafitte over to your side. What a role for you Monseigneur! You will reign for fifteen years in your pupil’s name; in fifteen years, it will be time for us all to rest; you will have had the glory, unique in history, of being in a position to take the throne and of having left it to the legitimate heir; and at the same time you will have helped that child become one of the luminaries of the century, and will have rendered him capable of ruling France: one of your daughters might one day bear the sceptre with him.’
Philippe’s gaze wandered vaguely somewhere over my head: ‘Excuse me, Monsieur de Chateaubriand,’ he said, ‘I have left a deputation in order to speak to you, to whom I must return. Madame la Duchesse d’Orléans will have explained to you how happy I would be to do what you desire; but, be aware, that it is only I who hold back the threatening tide. If the Royalist party is not massacred, it will owe its survival to me alone.
‘– Monseigneur,’ I replied, to this statement which was so unexpected and so far from the subject of our conversation, ‘I have witnessed massacres: those who passed through the Revolution were hardened. Greybeards do not allow themselves to be frightened by things which make conscripts fear.’
His Royal Highness withdrew, and I went to find my friends:
‘– Well?’ they cried.
‘– Well, he wants to be King.’
‘– And Madame la Duchesse d’Orléans?
‘– She wants to be Queen.
‘– They told you so?
‘– The one spoke to me of sheep-pens, the other of the perils which threaten France and the thoughtlessness of poor Caroline; both wished me to understand that I could be useful to them, and neither would look me in the face.’
Madame la Duchesse
d’Orléans wished to see me again. Monsieur le Duc d’Orléans did not involve
himself in this conversation. Madame Adélaïde was there as before. Madame la
Duchesse d’Orléans explained clearly the favours with which Monseigneur le Duc
d’Orléans proposed to honour me. She had the goodness to mention what she
called my influence over public opinion, the sacrifices I had made, and the
aversion which Charles X and his family had always shown for me, despite my
services. She told me that if I would join the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, His
Royal Highness would have great delight in re-establishing me there; but that I
might perhaps prefer to return to
‘Madame,’ I replied immediately in a forceful manner: ‘I see that Monsieur le Duc d’Orleans’ mind is made up; I assume that he has weighed the consequences, and has seen the years of misery and danger which he will have to pass through; I have therefore nothing more to say. I have not come here to demonstrate any lack of respect for the Bourbon line; moreover I have only gratitude for Madame’s kindness. Leaving the major objections to one side, reasons deriving from principles and events, I beg Your Royal Highness to allow me to speak of what concerns myself.
You have chosen to speak
of what you call my influence over public opinion. Well, if that influence is
real, it is founded on public esteem; now, I would lose that esteem the moment
I changed flags. Monsieur le Duc d’Orléans might consider he had acquired a
supporter, but he would merely have a wretched phrase-maker in his service, an
oath-breaker whose voice would no longer be heard, a renegade whom anyone would
have the right to throw mud at, or spit in his face. To the wavering words he
might stammer in favour of Louis-Philippe, would be contrasted whole volumes he
has published in support of the line which has abdicated. Am I not the person,
Madame, who wrote the pamphlet Of
Bonaparte and the Bourbons, the articles on the arrival of Louis XVIII at Compiègne, the Report of the King’s Council at Ghent, and the History of the life and death of Monsieur le Duc de
I had remained standing and, bowing, I took my leave. Mademoiselle d’Orléans had said not a word. She rose, and as she departed, said to me: ‘I do not pity you, Monsieur de Chateaubriand, I do not pity you!’ I was astonished at those few words, and the accent with which they were pronounced.
That was my last political temptation; I could have considered myself an honourable man according to Saint Hilaire, since he affirms that men are exposed to devilish enterprises because of their holiness: Victoria ei est magis, exacta de santis: his victory is greater when won against the holy. My refusal was that of a fool; where is the public who would value it? Could I not have ranged myself with those men, virtuous sons of this earth, who serve their country before everything else? Unfortunately, I am not a creature of the present age, and never bow to fortune. There is nothing in common between me and Cicero; but his weakness is not an excuse: posterity cannot pardon a moment of weakness in one great man for the sake of another great man; what would have become of my poor life if it had lost its only virtue, its integrity, for the sake of Louis-Philippe d’Orléans?
On the evening of the
conversation above at the Palais-Royal, I met Monsieur de Saint-Aulaire at Madame Récamier’s. I took no pleasure in
asking about his affairs, but he asked about mine. He was fresh from the
country and still full of the events he had witnessed: ‘Ah!’ he cried, ‘How
pleased I am to see you! Here’s a fine thing! I hope we of the
As my decision was made, I was quite calm; my response to Monsieur de Saint-Aulaire’s ardour appeared cool. He left, spoke to his friends, and left me to take the rostrum alone: long live men of spirit with light hearts and frivolous minds!
The Republican Party was
still struggling under the feet of the friends who had betrayed it. On the 6th
of August, a deputation of twenty members designated by the central committee
of the twelve districts of
All this was quite reasonable, but the Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom aspired to the throne, and fear and ambition had hastened to grant it to him. The people of today wanted a revolution but had no idea how to go about it; the Jacobins, whom they modelled themselves on, threw the men of the Palais-Royal and the cowards from the two Chambers into the river. Monsieur de Lafayette was reduced to impotent expressions of his wishes: delighted to have revived the National Guard, he allowed Philippe, whose nurse he had thought to be, to toy with him like a new-born babe; he was dazed with happiness. The old General represented freedom anaesthetised, while the Republic of 1793 was nothing but an empty skull.
The truth is that the Chamber truncated and without a mandate had no right to dispose of the crown: a Convention expressly gathered together, and formed from the House of Lords and a newly elected House of Commons settled the fate of James II’s throne. Moreover it is certain that the rump of the Chamber of Deputies, the 221, imbued with the traditions of hereditary monarchy under Charles X, showed no real aptitude for elective monarchy; they halted it at its inception, and forced it to revert to principles of quasi-legitimacy. Those who forged the new monarchy’s sword introduced a flaw into it which sooner or later would make it shatter.
The 7th of August was a memorable day for me; it was the day on which I had the pleasure of finishing my political career as I had begun; a pleasure rare enough these days that one should rejoice in it. The declaration of the Chamber of Deputies concerning the vacant monarchy was carried to the Chamber of Peers. I went to sit in my place on the highest rank of chairs, facing the President. The Peers seemed to me both preoccupied and weary. If some bore the pride of their impending disloyalty on their brow, others bore the shame of a remorse they had not the courage to express. Gazing at this assembly I said: ‘So! Those who received gifts from Charles X while he prospered will now desert him in his misfortune! Shall they whose special mission was to defend the hereditary monarchy, those courtiers who enjoyed their closeness to the King, betray him? They sat at his door at Saint-Cloud; they embraced him at Rambouillet; he pressed their hands in a last farewell; will they now raise those hands, still warm from the last clasp, against him? Will that Chamber, which resounded for fifty years with their protestations of devotion, now echo to their oath-breaking? Yet, it is because of them that Charles X has fallen; it is they who urged the decrees; they stamped their feet with delight when they appeared, when they thought themselves conquerors, in that silent moment that precedes the clap of thunder.’
These thoughts swam confusedly and mournfully through my mind. The peerage had become a triple receptacle of corruptions, those of the Old Monarchy, the Republic and the Empire. As for the Republicans of 1793, transformed into Senators, and the Bonapartist Generals, from them I expected familiar behaviour: they deposed an extraordinary man to whom they owed everything: they would depose a King whom they had confirmed in possession of the goods and honours which they had heaped on their first master. Let the wind change direction and they would depose the usurper to whom they prepared to throw the crown.
I mounted the rostrum. There was a profound silence; the faces showed embarrassment, everyone turned his chair away and gazed at the ground. Save for a few Peers resolved, as I was, to resign, no one dared raise their eyes to the level of the rostrum. I record my speech here because it sums up my life, and because it is my principal title to future esteem.
‘Gentlemen,
The declaration brought to this Chamber is much simpler for me than for those of you who profess a different opinion to mine. One fact, in this declaration, above all others, sprang to my eyes, or rather pained them. If we were in normal times, I would doubtless examine carefully the changes that are proposed in the operation of the Charter. Several of those changes were proposed by me. I am astonished only that anyone could speak to this House of a reactionary measure concerning the Peers created by Charles X. I am not known for my liking for such creation of Peers in batches, and you know I have opposed even the threat of it; but to act as judges of our colleagues, to strike from the table of Peers whomever one wishes, when one happens to be strongest, smacks of proscription. Do you wish to destroy the Peerage? So be it: better to lose one’s life than beg for it.
I reproach myself
already for uttering these few words concerning a detail which, important
though it may be, is lost in the grandeur of present events.
A preliminary question must be dealt with: if the throne is vacant, we are free to choose our form of government.
Before offering the crown to some individual or other, it is helpful to know what kind of political structure will constitute the social order. Shall we establish a republic or a new monarchy?
Will a republic or a new
monarchy offer
A republic would have
against it first of all the memory of the Republic itself. Those memories are
by no means erased. Those times are not forgotten when Death marched, between
Then, given the state of
our morals, and our relations with the governments surrounding us, a republic,
if I am not mistaken, does not seem to me to be viable at the moment. The first
problem would be to obtain a unanimous vote from the French people. What right
has the population of
I pass to the monarchy.
A king, named by the Chambers or elected by the people, will always be a novelty, however he acts. Now, I assume that we wish for freedom, above all freedom of the Press by means of which, and for which, the people have achieved a remarkable victory. Well! Any new monarchy will be forced, sooner or later, to gag that freedom. Did not Napoleon himself confess it? Daughter of our miseries and slave of our glory, the freedom of the Press will have no security except under a government that is already deep-rooted. A monarchy, bastard child of a blood-stained night, has it nothing to dread from freely expressed opinion? If these people may preach a republic, and those some other system, do you not fear that you will soon be obliged to have recourse to the laws of ‘exception’, despite the anathema against censure added to article 8 of the Charter?
Then, friends of order and freedom, what will you have gained from the changes you propose? You will fall perforce into a republic, or into legal servitude. The monarchy will be inundated and swept away by the torrent of democratic laws, or the monarch by the work of factions.
In the first intoxication of success, you think everything is easy; you hope to meet all exigencies, all moods, all interests; you flatter yourself that everyone will set aside their personal views and vanities; you believe that superiority of intellect and the wisdom of government will surmount numberless difficulties: but, after a few months, practice refutes theory.
I only present to you, gentlemen, some of the problems associated with a republic or a new monarchy. If both have their dangers, there is a third way, and that way is well-worth my spending a few words on.
Weak government has tarnished the crown, and its ministers have capped violation of the law with murder; they have toyed with oaths sworn to heaven, and laws sworn to earth.
Foreigners, you who
twice entered
No defence was more
legitimate or more heroic than that of the people of
But when having lied to
them to the end, suddenly the hour of slavery rang; when the conspiracy of
stupidity and hypocrisy promptly emerged; when a Palace Terror organised by
eunuchs thought to revive the Terror of the Republic and the iron yoke of
Empire, then the people armed themselves with intelligence and courage; shopkeepers proved able to breathe
powder-fumes as easily as others, and a
corporal and four soldiers were needed to overcome them. A century could
not have better nurtured the fate of a nation than the three suns which have
just shone on
Charles X and his descendants are deposed or have abdicated, as it pleases you to hear; but the throne is not vacant: after them there is a child; would you condemn his innocence?
What blood cries out
against him today? Would you dare to claim that it is his father’s? This
orphan, raised in a patriotic school, with a love of constitutional government
and imbued with the ideas of this century, would be a king who could relate to
the needs of the future. It is to the administrator of his guardianship that
the declaration on which you are about to vote should have been made; reaching
his majority, the young monarch would renew the oath. The present King, the
actual King would be Monsieur le Duc d’Orléans,
Regent of the Kingdom, a Prince who has lived among his people, and who knows
that monarchy today can only be a monarchy conducted with reason and consent.
This natural combination seems to me to be a means of major conciliation, and
would save
Is it truly reasonable to say that a child, separated from his masters, would not have time to forget even their names before reaching manhood; or to say that he would remain infatuated with certain dogmas attached to his birth, after a lengthy popular education?
It is not because of some sentimental devotion or nursemaid’s tenderness transmitted from cradle to cradle, from Henri IV to the young Henri, that I plead a cause where everyone would once more be against me, if it triumphed. I do not wish to partake of romance, or chivalry, or martyrdom; I do not believe in the divine right of kings, I believe in the power of revolutions and events. I do not even invoke the Charter; I raise my sights higher; I draw on the sphere of philosophy of the age in which my life will end: I propose the Duc de Bordeaux simply as a necessity, with a better cause that that which has been argued.
I know that in removing that child, they wish to establish the principle of the sovereignty of the people: a foolishness of the ancient school, which shows that, in relation to politics, our former democrats have made no more progress than the veteran royalists. There is no absolute sovereignty anywhere; freedom does not flow from political rights, as was thought in the eighteenth century; it derives from natural rights, which can be seen to exist under any form of government, and may exist and exist more extensively under a monarchy than a republic; but this is neither the time nor the place to indulge in a course of politics.
I will content myself with remarking that, when a nation has dispossessed itself of its monarch, it has often dispossessed itself of liberty too; I will merely observe that the principle of hereditary monarchy, absurd at first sight, has been found, by custom, preferable to the principle of an elected monarchy. The reasons are so evident that I do not need to develop them. You will choose a king today: who will stop you choosing another one tomorrow? The law, you say? What law? Indeed, it is one you yourselves frame!
There is a much simpler way of deciding the issue, which is to say: ‘We do not want the elder line of Bourbons. And why do we not want it? Because we are victorious, we have triumphed in a just and holy cause; we are claiming a double right of conquest.’
Fine: proclaim the sovereignty of force. Then guard yourselves carefully against that force; since if it escapes your control in a few months time, you will have no room to complain. Such is human nature! The clearest minds and the most just do not always rise above success. They are the first, those spirits, to invoke the law against violence; they support that law with all the superiority of their talents, and, at the very moment when the truth of what they are saying is demonstrated by the most abominable abuse of force and by the overthrow of that force, the conquerors seize the weapons they have broken! Dangerous tools which will wound their hands without being of service to them.
I have carried the battle onto my adversaries’ ground; I am not going to dwell in the past beneath the banner of the dead, a banner not without its glory, but which is draped around the staff which bears it, because it lacks a breath of wind to raise it. When I stirred the dust of thirty-five Capets, I was not employing an argument one would wish solely to rely on. The idolatry of names is abolished: monarchy is no longer a religion: it is a form of politics preferable at this instant to any other, because it can better maintain order and freedom.
A vain Cassandra, I have wearied the Crown and the Peerage with my fruitless warnings; it only remains for me to sit amongst the fragments of a shipwreck I have so many times predicted. I recognise all sorts of forces in misfortune, except the force that could release me from my oaths of loyalty. I must also preserve a lifetime’s consistency: after all I have done, said and written in support of the Bourbons, I would be the lowest of wretches if I disowned them at the moment when they make their way into exile for the third and final time.
I leave fear to those generous loyalists who have never sacrificed their position or a single farthing to their loyalty; to those champions of the altar and the throne, who formerly treated me as a renegade, apostate, and revolutionary. Pious libellists, the renegade calls to you! Come then and stammer a word, a single word beside him, in support of that unfortunate master who heaped his gifts on you and whom you have ruined! Provokers of many a coup d’État, asserters of constitutional power, where are you? You are hiding in the mud from whose depths you valiantly raise your head to calumniate the true servants of the King; your silence today matches your language of yesterday. Let all those valiant knights whose projected exploits have caused the descendants of Henri IV to be chased with pitchforks tremble now as they squat beneath the tricolour cockade; it is natural enough. The noble colours with which they are adorned protect the person, but fail to conceal his cowardice.
Furthermore, in expressing myself freely at this rostrum, I do not at all consider it an act of heroism. We are no longer in an age when their opinions cost men their lives; if we were, I would have spoken a hundred times more loudly. The best shield is a breast that does not fear to find itself open to the enemy. No, gentlemen, we should not fear either a nation whose sense matches its courage, nor generous Youth, which I admire, with which I sympathise with all the power of my spirit, to whom I wish, as I do my country, honour, glory, and liberty.
Furthest from my
thoughts above all is the idea of casting seeds of division throughout
Whatever fate awaits the Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, I will never be his enemy if he brings happiness to my country. I only ask to preserve my freedom of conscience and the right to go and die wherever I can find freedom and repose.
I vote against the proposals in the declaration.’
I had been calm enough when beginning my speech; but gradually emotion overcame me; when I arrived at the passage; A vain Cassandra, I have wearied the Crown and the Peerage with my fruitless warnings, words failed me, and I was forced to put my handkerchief to my eyes to wipe away tears of emotion and bitterness. Indignation gave me back my voice for the paragraph which followed: Pious libellists, the renegade calls to you! Come then and stammer a word, a single word beside him, in support of that unfortunate master who heaped his gifts on you and whom you have ruined! My gaze fell then on the ranks to which I addressed those words.
Several Peers seemed stunned; they sank into their chairs to the point where I could no longer see them behind their colleagues sitting motionless in front of them. This speech had several repercussions: all the parties there were hurt, but all kept quiet, because I had placed a great sacrifice alongside great truth. I descended from the rostrum; I left the chamber; I went to the cloakroom, I took off my Peer’s costume, my sword, and my plumed hat; I detached the white cockade from it, kissed it, and put it in the little pocket on the left side of my black frock coat which I donned, and buttoned over my heart. My servant picked up the Peer’s clothes, and I abandoned, while shaking the dust from my feet, that Palace of treason, which I have never re-entered.
On the 10th and 12th of August, I finished despoiling myself and sent in my various letters of resignation;
‘
‘Monsieur le Président de la Chambre des Pairs,
Unable to swear an oath of loyalty to Louis Philippe d’Orléans as King of the French, I find myself legally incapacitated such as to prevent me from attending the sessions of the hereditary Chamber. A solitary mark of King Louis XVIII’s generosity and of royal munificence remains to me: that is an income as a Peer of twelve thousand francs, which was granted to me to maintain, if not in style, but at least with the freedom to satisfy my primary needs, the high dignity to which I was called. It would not be right for me to retain a favour attached to the exercise of functions which I cannot fulfil. Consequently, I have the honour to resign into your hands my income as a Peer.’
‘
‘Monsieur le Ministre des Finances,
An income as a Peer remains to me, due to Louis XVIII’s generosity and the National munificence, of twelve thousand francs, arranged as a life annuity, inscribed in the grand ledger of public debts, and only transmissible to the first generation by direct title. Being unable to swear the oath of allegiance to Monseigneur le Duc d’Orléans as King of the French, it would not be right for me to continue to accept the income attached to functions I no longer exercise. Consequently, I am resigning it into your hands: it will have ceased to accrue to me on the day (10th of August) on which I wrote to Monsieur le Président de la Chambre des Pairs telling him that it was impossible for me to swear the required oath.
I have the honour to be, with the highest esteem, etc.’
‘
Monsieur le Grand Référendaire
I have the honour to send you a copy of two letters which I have addressed, one to Monsieur le Président de la Chambre des Pairs, the other to Monsieur le Ministre des Finances. You will see that I renounce my income as a Peer, and that in consequence my authorised representative will only draw on that income due up to the 10th of August when I announced that I could not take the oath.
I have the honour to be, with the highest esteem, etc.’
‘
Monsieur le Ministre de la Justice,
I have the honour to send you my resignation as Minister of State.
I am, with the highest esteem,
Monsieur le Ministre de la Justice,
Your very humble and obedient servant.’
I was as naked as a lesser St John the Baptist; but for a long time I had been accustomed to live on wild honey, and I had no fear that Herodias’ daughter would covet my grey head.
My gilded embroidery, straps, fringes, braiding and epaulettes, sold to a goldsmith, and melted down by him, brought me in seven hundred francs, the end product of all my grandeur.
Now, where was Charles X? He was travelling towards
exile, accompanied by his Bodyguards, escorted by three Commissioners, crossing
Heaven was pleased at
this moment to insult the victors and the vanquished. While it was still being
claimed that the whole of
The Bey of Tittery, for his part, sent to the dethroned
monarch, who was travelling towards
‘In the name of God, etc, I recognize as absolute sovereign Charles X, the great and victorious; I will pay him tribute, etc.’ One could not have toyed more ironically with the fortunes of each. Today revolutions are engineered mechanically; they are manufactured so swiftly that a monarch, still king at the borders of his State, is already no more than an exile in his own capital.
In the country’s indifference to Charles X, there was something more than weariness: one must recognise the progress of democratic ideas and the assimilation of rank. In a former epoch, the fall of a King of France would have been an enormous event; time has toppled monarchy from the heights on which it was placed, kings have been brought close to us, the distance separating them from the popular classes has diminished. If one was hardly surprised to meet the descendant of Saint Louis on the highroad like the rest of the world, it was not through any spirit of hatred or design, it was quite simply through a feeling of social levelling, which had penetrated minds and acted on the masses without them being aware.
Curses, Cherbourg, on your ominous environs! It was near Cherbourg that the winds of anger deposited Edward III to ravage our country; it was not far from Cherbourg that the winds of an enemy victory shattered Tourville’s fleet; it was at Cherbourg that the winds of deceptive prosperity nudged Louis XVI towards the scaffold; it was to Cherbourg that a wind from who knows what shore carried our former Princes. The coast of Great-Britain, where William the Conqueror landed, witnessed the disembarkation of Charles the Tenth without lance or pennon; he went to find at Holyrood, the memories of his youth, hung on the walls of that palace of the Stuarts, like old engravings yellowed by time.
I have described the Three Days as they unfolded before me: a certain contemporary colouring, true at the moment when it occurs, false when the moment has gone, thus extends across the picture. There is no revolution so prodigious that, if described from minute to minute, is not reduced to smaller proportions. Events emerge from the womb of things, like men from their mothers’ wombs, accompanied by the failings of nature. Misery and grandeur are twin sisters, they are born together; but if the birth-pangs are vigorous, the pains die-away after a time, and only the grandeur remains. To judge the reality that remains impartially, one must adopt the point of view from which posterity will consider the completed event.
Detaching myself from
the meanness of character and action of which I had been the witness,
considering the July Days only in terms of what will remain, I spoke rightly in
my speech to the Chamber of Peers: ‘the people armed themselves with
intelligence and courage; shopkeepers proved able to breathe powder-fumes as
easily as others, and a corporal and four soldiers were needed to overcome
them. A century could not have better nurtured the fate of a nation than the
three suns which have just shone on
Indeed, the people, strictly speaking, had been brave and generous during the day of the 28th. The Guard had lost more than three hundred men, dead or wounded; it rendered full justice to the lower classes, who alone fought on that day, and among whom were included some tainted individuals, who nevertheless brought them no dishonour. The students from the École Polytechnique, emerging from their college too late to take part in events, were made leaders of the people on the 29th, with an admirable simplicity and naivety.
Champions absent from the people’s struggle came to join its ranks on the 29th, when the greatest danger was past; others, equally victorious, did not participate in victory until the 30th and 31st.
On the troops side, almost the same thing happened, the soldiers and officers were barely engaged; the staff, who had previously deserted Bonaparte at Fontainebleau, stood on the heights of Saint-Cloud, looking to see which way the wind would blow the powder-fumes. They formed a queue at Charles X’s accession; at his abdication no one was to be found.
The moderation of the
common people matched their courage; order came swiftly out of confusion. One
must have seen the half-naked workers, on guard at the gates of the public
gardens, to prevent according to instructions other ragged workers from
entering, to gain an idea of that power of duty which gripped the servants
become masters. They could have taken the price of their blood, and let
themselves be tempted by their poverty. There was no sight, as on
The consequences of the July Revolution will be felt. That revolution has announced the end of all monarchies; kings cannot reign today except by strength of arms; a viable method for the moment, but who knows for how long: the age of repeated Jannissaries is over.
Thucydides and Tacitus are of little assistance to us with
regard to the Three Days; we need Bossuet
to explain events produced by
Do not seek too near to
us the source of a motion placed far off: the mediocrity of men, inexplicable
dissent, hatred, ambition, the presumption of some, the prejudices of others,
secret conspiracies, radical factions, well or badly taken measures, courage or
lack of courage; all these things are accidents, not causes of the event. When
they said they no longer wanted the Bourbons, who had become odious because
they were considered to have been imposed on
The July actions do not
belong properly to politics; they belong to the social revolution which acts
ceaselessly. Linked to the general revolution,
The workings of
Let us not think of the
work of July, then, as a superfluity of a day or two; let us not imagine that
the Legitimacy is immediately going to re-establish the succession, by right of
primogeniture: let us no longer persuade ourselves that July will suddenly die
a fine death. Without doubt the Orléans line will not take root; it will not be
for such an outcome that so much trouble, blood and genius has been expended
for half a century! But July, if it does not lead to the final destruction of
So, let us not confuse an improvised king with the revolution which chanced to give birth to him: the latter, such as we see it being enacted, is in contradiction to his principles; it does not seem viable since it is burdened with a throne; but let it only carry on for a few years, this revolution, and what will arise, what will have happened, will change the facts in ways yet to be known. Men have destroyed or no longer see things as they once saw them; adolescents are attaining the age of reason; fresh generations are replacing the corrupt generations; cloths drenched by a hospital’s wounds, washed by a great river, only soil the wave which passes beneath those corruptions: upstream and downstream the current maintains or regains its clarity.
July, free at its source, has produced only an enchained monarchy; but the time will come when, rid of the crown, it will undergo those transformations which are the law of beings; then, it will live in an atmosphere appropriate to its nature.
The Republican Party error, the Legitimist illusion are both deplorable, and exceed the limits of democracy and royalty: the first things that violence is the only route to success; the second thinks that the past is the only gate to salvation. Now, there is a moral law which controls society, a general legitimacy which rules the specific legitimacy. This great law and this great legitimacy are the exercise of man’s natural rights, ruled by duty; since it is duty which creates rights, and not rights which create duty; passions and vices relegate you to the class of slaves. The general legitimacy would have had no obstacles to overcome if it had protected, as deriving from the same principle, the specific legitimacy.
Moreover, an observation will suffice to help us understand the prodigious and majestic power of our ancient sovereigns: I have already said, and cannot too often repeat, that all monarchies will die with the French monarchy.
Indeed, the idea of monarchy is found wanting at the very moment when the monarch is found wanting; only the idea of democracy envelops him now. My young King will carry away in his arms the monarchy of the world. It is all done with.
While I was writing all
this, about what the revolution of 1830 might become in the future, I was hard
put to defend myself from a feeling that spoke to me in contradiction to
reason. I took that feeling to be my pang of displeasure at the troubles of
1830; was I defying my own inner self, and perhaps, in my over-faithful
impartiality, exaggerating the future consequences of the Three Days. Now, ten
years have passed since Charles X’s fall: was July solid? We are now at the beginning
of 1840, and what abasement
(Note: Paris, the 3rd of December 1840)
Here ends my political career. That career should also close my Memoirs, there being nothing left but to continue with the experiences of my life. Three disasters marked the three preceding sections of my life: Louis XVI was executed during my career as traveller and soldier; at the end of my literary career, Bonaparte vanished; Charles X, in falling, has ended my political career.
I fixed the age of revolution in literature, and likewise in politics I formulated the principles of representative government; my diplomatic correspondence, I think, was worthy of my literary compositions. It is possible that both of them may count for nothing, but it is certain that they are of equal value.
In
The great event of my
political career was the War in
If, after the Peninsular adventure, I had not been thrown away by blind men, the course of our destiny would have been altered; France would have taken back her frontiers, the equilibrium of Europe would have been re-established; the Restoration, in glory, might still have had long to run, and my diplomatic work would have also counted for something in our history. Between my two lives, there is only a difference in outcome. My literary career, completely achieved, has produced all that it should, because it depended only on myself. My political career was halted suddenly in the midst of success, because that depended on others.
Nevertheless, I
recognise that my form of politics was only applicable to the Restoration. If a
transformation takes place in principles, men and society what was good
yesterday seems obsolete and out-dated today. With regard to Spain, the
relationship between the royal families ceased with the abolition of Salic Law,
there is no longer any question of creating an impenetrable frontier beyond the
Pyrenees; we must accept the field of battle that Austria and England may one
day offer us there; things must be regarded from the position they have now
reached; and we must abandon, not without regret, a firm yet reasonable course,
whose benefits were certain, in the long run it is true. I am conscious of
having served the Legitimacy as it should be served. I saw the future as
clearly as I see it now; only I would have reached it by a less perilous route,
so that the Legitimacy, familiar with our constitutional teaching, would not
have stumbled into a dangerous path. Now, my projects are no longer realisable:
Heaven send that those industrial interests in which we hope to find a new form of prosperity do not deceive anyone, that they are fertile also, as civilising as those moral interests from which the old society emerged! The age will teach us whether they are an infertile dream of sterile minds that have not the ability to emerge from the material world.
Even though my role with
the Legitimacy has ended, all my wishes are for
End of Book XXXIII