This long perseverance in the same sentiments perhaps merited some consideration. Sensitive to affront, I did not find it possible also to put on one side what I might be worth, to forget entirely that I was the restorer of religion, the author of the _Génie du Christianisme._ My agitation necessarily increased still further at the thought that a paltry quarrel made our country miss an opportunity of greatness which it would not find again. Had they said to me, "Your plans will be followed; what you have taken in hand will be carried out without you," I should have forgotten all for France. Unfortunately, I had the belief that my ideas would not be adopted; the event has proved it. I was, perhaps, in error, but I was persuaded that M. le Comte de Villèle did not understand the society which he ruled; I am convinced that the solid qualities of that able minister were inadequate at the hour of his ministry: he had come too early under the Restoration. Financial operations, commercial companies, the industrial movement, canals, steamboats, railways, high-roads, a material society which has no passion save that of peace, which dreams only of the comforts of life, which wants to make of the future only a perpetual to-day: in this order of things, M. de Villèle would have been king. M. de Villèle wanted a time which could not be his and, from honour, he will have nothing to do with a time which belongs to him. Under the Restoration, all the faculties of the mind were alive; all parties dreamt of realities or illusions; all, advancing or receding, came into tumultuous collision; none purposed to remain where he was; to no earnest mind did the Constitutional Legitimacy seem to be the last word of the Republic or the Monarchy. We felt stirring in the ground under our feet armies or revolutions which came to offer themselves for extraordinary destinies. M. de Villèle was quite alive to this movement; he saw the wings grow which, sprouting from the nation's shoulders, were about to restore it to its element, to the air, to space, immense and light as it is. M. de Villèle wished to keep this nation to the ground, to fasten it down, but he never had the strength for it. I, on the other hand, wished to occupy the French with glory, to fasten them up above, to endeavour to lead them to reality through dreams: that is what they love. It would be better to be more humble, more prostrate, more Christian. Unfortunately I am subject to err; I have not the evangelic perfection: if a man struck me on the cheek, I should not turn to him the other also.