Before changing my subject, I beg leave to retrace my steps and relieve myself of a burden. I did not enter without suffering into the details of my long difference with M. de Villèle. I have been accused of contributing to the fall of the Legitimist Monarchy; it is right that I should examine that reproach. The events which happened under the ministry of which I formed part have an importance which binds it to the common fortune of France: there is no Frenchman but his lot has been affected by the good which I may have done, the ill which I have undergone. Through whimsical and inexplicable affinities, through secret relations which sometimes entwine lofty and vulgar destinies, the Bourbons prospered so long as they deigned to listen to me, although I am far from believing, with the poet, that "my eloquence gave alms to the Royalty[333]." So soon as it was thought right to break the reed that grew at the foot of the throne, the crown leant over, soon to fall: often, by plucking a blade of grass, one causes a great ruin to crumble into dust. These incontestable facts you may explain as you will; if they give to my political career a relative value which it does not possess of itself, I shall get no vainer, I feel no evil joy at the chance which connects my short-lived name with the events of the centuries. Whatever the variety of the accidents of my adventurous course, wherever names and facts may have led me, the last horizon of the picture is always threatening and sad. Juga cœpta moveri Silvarum, visæque canes ululare per umbram[334]. But, if the scene has changed in a deplorable manner, I must, they say, accuse only myself: to avenge what appeared to me an injury, I divided everything, and this division in the last result produced the overthrow of the Throne. Let us see. [Sidenote: The Comte de Villèle.] M. de Villèle has declared that it was impossible to govern either with me or without me. With me, there he was wrong; without me, at the time when M. de Villèle said that, he was saying the truth, for the most varied opinions made up a majority for me.