"Sire,çoisRené M. de Villèle is a most enlightened President; Your Majesty must keep him for evermore at the head of your Councils."
M. de Villèle did not notice it: my mind might lean towards domination, but it was subject to my character; I found pleasure in my obedience, because it rid me of my will. My capital fault is weariness, distaste for everything, perpetual doubt. Had a sovereign been found who, understanding me, had kept me at work by force, he would perhaps have turned me to some account: but Heaven rarely causes to be born together the man who will and the man who can. When all is said and done, is there a thing to-day for which one would take the trouble to get out of bed? We fall asleep to the sound of the kingdoms which fall during the night and which are swept up each morning before our door.
Besides, since M. de Villèle parted from me, politics had become deranged: the ultraism against which the wisdom of the President of the Council still struggled had gone beyond him. The annoyance which he experienced at the hands of opinion at home and of the movement of opinion abroad rendered him irritable: hence the fettering of the press, the suppression of the National Guard of Paris, and so forth. Was I to allow the Monarchy to perish, in order to acquire the reputation of an hypocritical moderation on the look-out? I believed myself most sincerely to be fulfilling a duty in fighting at the head of the Opposition, paying too much attention to the peril which I beheld on one side, not enough struck with the contrary danger. When M. de Villèle was overthrown, I was consulted on the nomination of a new ministry. If they had, as I suggested, taken M. Casimir Périer, General Sébastiani and M. Royer-Collard, things might have held out. I would not accept the department of the Navy and I made them give it to my friend M. Hyde de Neuville; I also twice refused the Ministry of Public Instruction; never would I have entered the Council unless I were the master. I went to Rome to seek my other self among the ruins, for there are in my person two distinct beings, having no communication one with the other.
I will, however, make a loyal admission: my excessive resentment does not justify me according to the rule and the time-honoured word of virtue; but my whole life serves as my excuse.