“Many people,” continued my friend, “have been led by the political writers of the day into error, concerning the real causes of the revolution of July; they are eager to represent the courage and patriotism displayed by the liberal party on that occasion of sudden and spontaneous explosion of popular fury, as the effect of a deeply-laid plot, conceived for many months before; and they seek to impress the public with a false idea of the diplomacy of the _chefs de parti_ in the triumphs of the three days. Another idea which has become as general is, that the statesman who had played so conspicuous a part in all our revolutions, from that of 1789 to that of 1830, and had lent with such good grace to each successive government the aid of his splendid talents—whose word, indeed, seemed to decide upon their very existence—was no stranger to the struggles and intrigues which ended in the downfal of Charles X., and the banishment of his dynasty from the soil of France. Without pretending here either to condemn or justify the conduct pursued by Prince Talleyrand under other governments, and which history, freed by time from party spirit and from political passion, will alone be able to judge with equity, let us examine coolly the part he took in the revolution of July. _Facts_ may serve better than _opinions_, to enable the observer to judge with more correctness the character of this great man, so little known in reality, even at the present time. “It cannot be denied that, at the period to which I now refer (1830), the opinions of M. de Talleyrand were most unfavourable to the government of Charles X. Like every other man of sense and foresight throughout the kingdom, he beheld with dread the dissolution of the Martignac ministry, and the substitution of the Polignac administration; but such political inconsistencies could not astonish, coming from a man of the stamp of Charles X., whose whole life had been a tissue of inconsistencies, from the famous protest of the Count d’Artois, upon the occasion of the States-General in 1789, to the fatal appointment of the ministry which was to send him forth a second time to emigration, from which he had returned once before, according to Prince Talleyrand’s own expression long previous to the catastrophe, ‘_having learnt little and forgotten nothing_.’ M. de Talleyrand, nevertheless, did ample justice to the many good qualities which distinguished the king in private life, and the more he overwhelmed him with contempt as a _chef de parti_, the more he was pleased to acknowledge in him a feeling and generous nature, and a faithful and grateful friend. In point of real and sterling worth he placed him far above his brother Louis XVIII., whom he accused of ‘having no friends—only favourites,’ and who in his whole life never had the heart to grant a pardon to a single criminal. The one was a better king, the other a far better man.