In this way the Royalists owed to me the advantage of issuing from the state of nullity into which they had fallen with peoples and kings. I put the pen into the hands of France's greatest families. I decked out the Montmorencys and the Lévises as journalists; I called out the arriere-ban; I made feudality march to the aid of the liberty of the press. I had got together the most brilliant men of the Royalist party, Messieurs de Villèle, de Corbière, de Vitrolles[38], de Castelbajac[39], etc. I could not help blessing Providence every time that I spread the red robe of a prince of the Church over the _Conservateur_ by way of a cover, and that I had the pleasure to read an article signed in full: "The Cardinal de La Luzerne[40]." But it came to pass that, after I had led my knights on the constitutional crusade, so soon as they had conquered power by the deliverance of liberty, so soon as they had become Princes of Edessa, of Antioch, of Damascus, they locked themselves up in their new States with Eleanor of Aquitaine[41], and left me out in the cold at the foot of Jerusalem, where the infidels had recaptured the Holy Sepulchre. [Sidenote: The _Conservator._] My polemical warfare began in the _Conservateur_ and lasted from 1818 to 1820, that is to say, until the re-establishment of the censorship, for which the death of the Duc de Berry was the pretext. During this first period of my polemics, I upset the old Ministry and placed M. de Villèle in power. After 1824, when I again took up my pen in pamphlets and in the _Journal des Débats_, the positions were changed. And yet, what did those futile trifles matter to me, who had never believed in the time in which I lived, to me, who belonged to the past, to me, who had no faith in kings, no conviction with regard to the peoples, to me, who have never troubled about anything, except dreams, and then only on condition that they lasted but a night! The first article in the _Conservateur_[42] describes the position of things at the moment when I entered the lists. During the two years for which the paper lasted, I had successively to treat of accidents of the day and to examine interests of importance. I had occasion to criticize the dastardliness of that "private correspondence" which the Paris police was publishing in London. This "private correspondence" might calumniate, but could not dishonour: that which is base has not the power of debasing; honour alone is able to inflict dishonour. "Anonymous calumniators," I said, "have the courage to say who you are; a little shame is soon over; add your names to your articles: it will be only one contemptible word the more." I used sometimes to laugh at the ministers, and I gave vent to that ironical propensity which I have always reproved in myself.