The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England. volume 3 (of 6): Mémoires d'outre-tombe volume 3Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de
History
The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England. volume 3 (of 6): Mémoires d'outre-tombe volume 3
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de, 1768-1848
"Wherever an open tribune exists," I said, in this chapter,
"no one liable to be exposed to reproaches of a certain
kind can be placed at the head of the government There are
certain speeches, certain phrases, which would oblige such a
minister to resign on leaving the Chamber. This impossibility
resulting from the free principle of representative
government was not felt at a time when all illusions united
to place a famous man in office, notwithstanding the too
well-founded repugnance of the Crown. The rise of that man
was bound to produce one of these two things: either the
abolition of the Charter or the fall of the ministry at the
opening of the session. Can one picture the minister to
whom I refer listening in the Chamber of Deputies to the
discussion concerning the 21st of January, liable every
moment to be apostrophized by some deputy from Lyons, and
always threatened with the terrible _Tu es ille vir!_ Men
of that kind cannot be employed ostensibly, except with
the mutes of the seraglio of Bajazet or the mutes of the
Legislative Body of Bonaparte. What will become of the
minister if a deputy, ascending the tribune with a _Moniteur_
in his hand, reads the report of the Convention of the 9th
of August 1795; if he demands the expulsion of Fouché,
as unworthy by virtue of that report which 'ejected him,
Fouché'--I am quoting literally--'as a thief and a terrorist,
whose atrocious and criminal conduct conferred dishonour and
opprobrium upon any assembly whatever of which he became a
member[347]?'"
Those are the things which have been forgotten!
After all, supposing they had had the misfortune to think that a man
of that kind could ever be useful: they ought to have kept him behind
the scenes, consulted his deplorable experience; but to do violence to
the Crown and to public opinion, in a barefaced manner to summon such a
minister as that to affairs, a man whom Bonaparte, at that very moment,
treated as infamous: was that not to declare that they disclaimed
liberty and virtue? Is a crown worth so great a sacrifice? It left them
powerless to remove anybody: whom could they exclude, after accepting
Fouché?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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