On the other hand, my former adversaries were drawing closer to me. I tried to connect the partisans of independence with the Legitimate Royalty, with more success than when I rallied the servants of the throne and the altar to the Charter. My public had changed. I was obliged to warn the Government of the dangers of absolutism, after having cautioned it against popular enthusiasm. Accustomed as I was to respect my readers, I did not give them a line which I had not written with all the care of which I was capable: many of those opuscules of a day have cost me more pains, in proportion, than the longest works that have come from my pen. My life was incredibly full. Honour and my country recalled me to the battle-field. I had reached an age at which men have need of rest; but, if I had judged my years by the ever-increasing hatred with which oppression and meanness inspired me, I might have believed myself restored to youth. I collected a society of writers around me to give uniformity to my combats. Among them were peers, deputies, magistrates, young authors commencing their career. To my house came Messieurs de Montalivet[263], Salvandy[264], Duvergier de Hauranne[265], many others who were my pupils and who retail to-day, as new things under the Representative Monarchy, things which I taught them and which occur on every page of my writings. M. de Montalivet has become Minister of the Interior and a favourite of Philip's; men who care to follow the variations of a destiny will find this note rather curious: "MONSIEUR LE VICOMTE, "I have the honour to send you the statement of the mistakes which I found in the table of judgments of the Royal Court that has been communicated to you. I have verified them again, and I think I may answer for the correctness of the list enclosed. "Pray, monsieur le vicomte, accept the homage of the profound respect with which I have the honour to be, "Your very devoted colleague and sincere admirer, "MONTALIVET." This did not prevent my "respectful colleague and sincere admirer," M. le Comte de Montalivet, in his day so great a partisan of the liberty of the press, from making me, as an abettor of that liberty, enter M. Gisquet's[266] prison. An abstract of my new war of polemics, which lasted five years but ended by triumphing, will prove the strength of ideas against facts even when supported by the power. I was thrown on the 6th of June 1824; on the 21st, I had descended into the arena; I remained there till the 18th of December 1826[267]: I entered alone, stripped and bare, and I emerged victorious. I am making history here in making an extract from the arguments which I employed. [Sidenote: My polemical warfare.]