Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 68, No. 417, July, 1850

"Louis Philippe, his Government, the whole of that impossible and contradictory combination, will perish in a time more or less retarded by fortuitous events, by complications of interests interior and exterior, by the apathy or corruption of individuals, by the levity of disposition, the indifference and want of nerve in characters. But be its duration long or short, the present dynasty will not exist long enough for the House of Orleans to strike its roots in the soil of France." – Vol. ix. 333.6

It is not in public documents and actions that the real opinions of the actors on the stage of public events are to be discerned. It is their private conversation or correspondence that reveals their real sentiments; it is there that the mental struggles which preceded the most decisive steps, and the secret views by which they were actuated in adopting or rejecting them, are in truth disclosed. In this view, the following conversation between Chateaubriand and the Duchess of Orleans, immediately after the triumph of the Barricades, is peculiarly interesting —

"M. Arago spoke to me in the warmest terms of the intellectual superiority of Madame Adelaide; and the Count Analde de Montesquieu, having met me one morning at Madame Recamier's, informed me that the Duke and Duchess of Orleans would be charmed to see me. I went, accordingly, to the Palais Royal with the Chevalier d'Honneur of the future queen. I found the Duchess of Orleans and Madame Adelaide in their private boudoirs. I had previously had the honour of being presented to the duchess. She made me sit down near her, and immediately said —

"'Ah! M. de Chateaubriand, we are very unfortunate. If all parties would unite we might perhaps be saved, what think you of that?'

"'Madame,' I replied, 'nothing is so easy. Charles X. and the Dauphin have both abdicated; Henry V. is now king; the Duke of Orleans is now Lieutenant-general of the kingdom; let him be Regent during the whole minority of Henry V., and all is accomplished.'

"'But, M. de Chateaubriand, the people are extremely agitated; we should fall into anarchy.'

"'Madame, may I venture to ask you what is the intention of the Duke of Orleans? will he accept the throne if it is offered to him?'

"The two princesses hesitated to answer. After a short pause the Duchess of Orleans replied, —

"'Consider, M. de Chateaubriand, the disasters which may ensue – you and all other men of honour require to unite to save us from a republic. At Rome, M. de Chateaubriand, you might render us essential service – or even here, if you did not wish to quit France.'

"'Madame is not ignorant of my devotion to the young king and to his mother.'

"'Ah! M. de Chateaubriand, how well they have rewarded your fidelity.'

"'Your Royal Highness would not wish me to give the lie to my whole life.'

"'M. de Chateaubriand, you do not know my niece; she is so inconsiderate, poor Caroline. I will send for the Duke of Orleans; I hope he may succeed in persuading you better than me.'

"The princess gave her orders, and in a quarter of an hour Louis Philippe arrived. He was dressed in disorder, and looked extremely fatigued. I rose as he entered, and the Lieutenant-general of the kingdom said, —

"'The duchess has doubtless informed you how unfortunate we are.' And upon that he began a speech on the felicity which he enjoyed in the country, and the life, in the midst of his children, which was entirely according to his taste. I seized the opportunity of a momentary pause to repeat what I had said to the princess.

"'Ah!' he exclaimed, 'that is just what I desire. How happy should I be to become the tutor and support of that infant! I think exactly as you do, M. de Chateaubriand: to take the Duke of Bordeaux would unquestionably be the wisest course that could be adopted. I only fear events are too strong for us.'

"'Stronger than us, my Lord Duke! Are you not invested with all powers? Let us hasten to join Henry V. Summon the Chambers and the army to meet you out of Paris. At the first intelligence of your departure all that effervescence will subside, and all the world will seek shelter under your enlightened and protecting government.'

"While I yet spoke, I kept my eyes fixed on Louis Philippe. I saw that my counsels gave him annoyance: I saw written on his forehead the desire to be king. 'M. de Chateaubriand,' said he, without looking me in the face, 'the thing is not so easy as you imagine: things do not go as you imagine. A furious mob may assail the Chambers, and we have, as yet, no military force on which we can rely for its defence.'

"The last expression gave me pleasure, because it enabled me to bring forward a decisive reply. 'I feel the difficulty you mention, my Lord Duke; but there is a sure mode of obviating it. If you cannot rejoin Henry V., as I have just proposed, you may embrace another course. The session is about to open: on the first proposition made by the deputies, declare that the Chamber of Deputies has not the power to determine the form of government for France; that the whole nation must be consulted. Your Royal Highness will thus place yourself at the head of the popular party: the Republicans, who now constitute your danger, will laud you to the skies. In the two months which must elapse before the new legislature can assemble, you can organise a national guard; all your friends, and the friends of the young king, will exert themselves in the provinces. Let the deputies assemble, and let the cause I espouse be publicly pleaded before them. That cause, favoured in heart by you, supported by the great majority of the country electors, will be certain of success. The moment of anarchy being past, you will have nothing to fear from the violence of the Republicans. I even think you might win over, by such a course, General Lafayette and M. Lafitte to your side. What a part for you to play, my Lord Duke! You will reign fifteen years in the name of your young pupil; at the expiration of that time, repose will be a blessing to us all. You will earn the glory, unique in history, of having had the power to ascend the throne, and of having left it to the lawful heir. At the same time, you will have enjoyed the means of educating that heir abreast of the ideas of his age: you will have rendered him capable of reigning over France. One of your daughters may aid him to bear the weight of the crown.'

"Louis Philippe looked around with a wandering eye and an absent air. 'I beg your pardon, M. de Chateaubriand,' said he; 'I left a deputation to converse with you, and I must return to it.' With these words, he bowed and withdrew."

The advice thus given at the decisive moment by Chateaubriand was that of honour and loyalty; it dictated by the spirit of the chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. But it was not that of immediate or apparent interest; and therefore it was not adopted. The event has now proved, however, that in this, as in so many other instances in this world, the path of honour and duty would have been that of expedience. What Chateaubriand recommended to Louis Philippe was substantially what Louis Napoleon did; and the result proved that the great majority of the nation, differing widely from the revolutionary rabble of Paris, was not only Conservative, but Royalist in its dispositions. Had Louis Philippe followed this course, and taken only the regency till the majority of the Duke of Bordeaux, the two branches of the house of Bourbon would have been cordially united: no discord or jealousies would have weakened the Royalist party; the national will would have been decidedly pronounced for the monarchy before it had been rendered an object of contempt; the Revolution of 1848, with all its disastrous consequences, would probably have been prevented; and as the Duke de Bordeaux has no family, the Orleans dynasty, as the next heirs, would have ascended the throne in the natural order of succession – and not only without the bar sinister of treason on their escutcheon, but with a deed of unexampled magnanimity and honour to illustrate their accession!

Louis Philippe, bent on the immediate possession of the throne, made another attempt to gain M. de Chateaubriand; and for this purpose the Duchess of Orleans and Madame Adelaide again sent for him.

"Madame Adelaide was present as on the former occasion; and the duchess now described more specifically the favours with which the Duke of Orleans proposed to honour me. She dwelt on what she called my sway over public opinion; the sacrifices I had made, and the aversion which Charles X. and his family had always shown to me in spite of my services. She said to me, that if I would accept the portfolio of foreign affairs, his Royal Highness would be too happy to replace me in that situation; but that possibly I would prefer returning to Rome, and that she would greatly rejoice at that appointment, for the interests of our holy religion.

"'Madam,' I answered with some degree of vivacity, 'I see that his Royal Highness has taken his line; that he has weighed the consequences; that he is prepared to meet the years of misery and perils he will have to traverse. I have therefore nothing to say on that head – I come not here to fail in respect to the blood of the Bourbons; I owe besides nothing but gratitude and respect to Madame. Leaving apart, then, those great objections, founded on reason and principle, I pray her Royal Highness to allow me to explain what personally concerns myself.

"'She has had the condescension to speak of what she calls my power over general opinion. Well, if that power is well founded, on what is it founded? Is it on anything else but the public esteem: and should I not lose it the moment I changed my colours? The Duke of Orleans supposes he would in me acquire a support: instead of that he would gain only a miserable maker of phrases, whose voice would no longer be listened to – a renegade, on whom every one would have a right to throw dust and to spit in his face. To the hesitating words which he could pronounce in favour of Louis Philippe, they would oppose the entire volumes he had written in favour of the fallen family. Is it not I, Madam, who have written the pamphlet of Buonaparte and the Bourbons; the articles on the arrival of Louis XVIII. at Compiègne; the relation of the Royal Council at Ghent, and the History of the Life and Death of the Duke de Berri? I know not that I have written a single page where the name of our ancient kings is not either mentioned or alluded to, and where they are not environed by the protestations of my love and fidelity – a thing which marks strength of principle the more strongly, asMadame knows that, as an individual, I put no faith in princes. At the thought even of desertion, the colour mounts to my cheeks. The day after my treachery, I should go to throw myself into the Seine. I implore Madame to forgive the vehemence of my language: I am penetrated with her goodness: I shall ever preserve a profound and grateful remembrance of it; but she would not wish me to be dishonoured. Pity me, madam, pity me.'"

"I was still standing; and bowing, I retired. Mademoiselle de Orleans, (the Princess Adelaide,) had not yet said anything. She rose up, and retiring said, 'I do not pity you, M. de Chateaubriand; I do not pity you.' I was forcibly struck with the mournful accent with which she pronounced these words." – Vol. ix. 361, 362.

"Pity not me," said the dying Chevalier Bayard to the traitor Constable de Bourbon; "pity those who fight against their king, their country, and their oath." The feelings of honour are the same in all ages.

We shall close this long line of honourable acts with an extract from Chateaubriand's noble speech in favour of Henry V., in the Chamber of Peers, on July 7, 1830.

"'Charles X. and his sons are dethroned or have abdicated; it signifies not which. The throne is not vacant– after them comes an infant; will you condemn the innocent?

"'What blood now cries out against him? Can you say it is that of his father? That orphan educated in the school of his country, in attachment to a constitutional throne, and in the ideas of his age, will become a king in harmony with the cravings of the future. It is to the guardian of his infancy that you would first tender the oath to be faithful to it. Arrived at mature years, he would himself renew it. The king at this moment, the real king for a time, would be the Duke of Orleans, the regent of the kingdom; a prince who has lived near the people, and who knows that the monarchy now can only be a monarchy of concession and reason. That combination, so natural, so obvious, appears a main element in reconciliation, and would save France from the convulsions which are the consequence of violent changes in a state.

"'To say that this infant, separated from his masters, would not have leisure to forget their precepts before becoming a man: to say that he would remain infatuated by certain dogmas of his birth, after a long popular education, after the terrible lesson which has discrowned two kings in two nights: is that reasonable?

"'It is neither from a sentimental devotion, nor the affection of a nurse for the cradle of Henry IV., that I plead a cause where all would turn against me if it triumphed. I am neither influenced by the ideas of romance nor of chivalry: I do not desire the crown of martyrdom. I do not believe in the divine right of kings: I am alive to the power of revolutions, and the evidence of facts. I do not even invoke the charter: I ascend to a higher source. I draw my principles from the philosophic ideas of the age in which my life expires: I propose the Duke of Bordeaux simply as a necessity preferable to the Duke of Orleans.

"'You proclaim the sovereignty of force. It is well. Look carefully after it: guard it well; for, if it escapes you, who will pity your lot? Such is human nature. The most enlightened minds are not always raised above the temptations of success. The esprits forts were the first to invoke the right of violence; they supported it by all the force of their talents; and at the moment when the truth of what they said is demonstrated by the abuse of that force, and its overthrow, the conquerors seize the weapon they have broken! Dangerous trophies, which may wound the hand which seized them.

"'A useless Cassandra, I have fatigued the throne and the country sufficiently with my disdained predictions: it remains for me only to seat myself on the remains of the wreck which I have so often predicted. I recognise in misfortune every power except that of absolving us from our oaths. I must render my life uniform: after all I have written, said, and done for the Bourbons, I should be the basest of the base if I deserted them when for the third time they bend their steps into exile.

"'Far from me be the thought of casting the seeds of division into France: thence it is that I have avoided in my discourse the language of the passions. If I had the firm conviction that an infant should be left in the obscure and tranquil ranks of life, to secure the repose of thirty-three millions of men, I should have regarded any opinion expressed against the declared wishes of the age as a crime. I have no such conviction. If I was entitled to dispose of the crown, I should willingly lay it at the feet of the Duke of Orleans. But I have no such right. I see no place vacant but a tomb at St Denis, and not a throne.

"'Whatever destinies may attend the lieutenant-general of the kingdom, I shall never be his enemy, if he acts for the good of his country. I only ask to be allowed to preserve the freedom of my conscience, and to go and leave my bones where I shall find independence and repose. I vote against the motion.'" – Vol. ix. 386-388.

Chateaubriand was as good as his word. He resigned all his appointments, even his pension of £600 a-year as Peer of France: he sold off all his effects, which scarcely paid his debts: he refused the offer of Charles X. to restore that pension out of the wreck of that Prince's own fortune: he set out again penniless on the pilgrimage of life: and till his death, in 1848, supported himself entirely by his literary talents.

Such was honour in the olden time. We do not say that it would not find imitators, on a similar crisis, on this side of the Channel: we believe it would find many. But this we do say, that it would find them only among those who are imbued with the ancient ideas, among whom, whether patrician or plebeian, the spirit of chivalry is not extinct. It will not be found among the worshippers of mammon, or the slaves of interest. Woe to the nation by whom such feelings are classed with the age of the mammoth and the mastodon! It has entered the gulf of destruction, for it deserves to be destroyed.