In the meantime, political changes were taking place. M. de Villèle (whom my friend Méry was to make so celebrated and who, in his turn, also returned the compliment) was sharing political power with M. de Chateaubriand; and for two years they presented the unusual spectacle of an alliance between a financier and a poet. It is easy to believe that such a connection was not likely to last long, and the two ministers quarrelled over two proposed laws. M. de Chateaubriand thought to cement the monarchy by the Act of septennial duration, M. de Villèle thought to enrich the State by an Act concerning the conversion of consols (_rentes_). The law concerning the conversion of consols was rejected by the Chamber of Peers by a majority of 128 votes against 94. It was noticed that M. de Chateaubriand, who seemed opposed to the Act, did not get up to defend it at the Tribune. It was even said that he voted against it. Such opposition as this, directed against the president of the Council, was punished with the callous bluntness of feeling peculiar to men of money. When M. de Chateaubriand went to mass on Whitsunday, he received information that a very urgent despatch awaited him at the ministry. He immediately went there, and found a letter from the president of the Council in the following terms:-- "M. LE VICOMTE,--I am obeying the King's command in handing you the enclosed mandate." The mandate enclosed was a dismissal. Ten minutes later, M. de Villèle, in his turn, had received M. de Chateaubriand's reply. The letter of the Minister for Foreign Affairs was just as laconic as the letter received from the Minister of Finance:-- "M. LE COMTE,--I have left the Foreign Office; the department is at your disposal." There were exactly fifteen words in each letter: it was the fault of the words themselves, and not of M. de Chateaubriand, that the answer[1] contained four letters more. This dismissal was a very bitter pill for the author of _le Génie du Christianisme_, and it was in connection with this event that he gave utterance to the words which we believe we have already quoted:-- "I hadn't even stolen a watch from the king's mantelpiece!" he had said on leaving the Foreign Office. The order had been drawn up by M. de Renneville,--to whom we shall refer in due course,--the secretary described by Méry and de Barthélemy as being _sewed to M. de Villèle's coat-tails._ "M. de Renneville," says Chateaubriand in his _Mémoires_, "is still so good as to appear embarrassed in my presence! And, good God, who is this M. de Renneville, that I should ever think of him? I meet him often enough, ... does he happen to know that I am aware that the order striking my name off the list of ministers was in his handwriting?"