"Now, in 1824, M. de Chateaubriand is again dismissed, and it is Messieurs de Villèle and Corbière, since become ministers, who sacrifice him. Singular thing! In 1816, he was punished for speaking; in 1824, they punish him for holding his tongue: his crime is that he kept silence in the discussion on the law for reducing the rate of interest. Not every disgrace is a misfortune; public opinion, the supreme judge, will tell us in which class to place M. de Chateaubriand; it will tell us also to whom this day's decree shall have proved the more fatal, to the victor or the vanquished. "Who would have said, at the commencement of the session, that we should thus spoil the results of the Spanish Enterprise? What did we want this year? Nothing except the Septennial Act (but, the complete Act) and the Budget. The affairs of Spain, of the East, of the Americas, conducted as they were, prudently and silently, would have been cleared up; the fairest future lay before us; they wanted to gather green fruit; it did not fall, and they imagined that they could remedy precipitation by violence. "Anger and envy are evil counsellors; it is not by means of the passions and by proceeding with jerks and starts that States are governed. "_P.S._--The Septennial Act has been passed this evening in the Chamber of Deputies. One may say that M. de Chateaubriand's doctrines triumph after he has left the Ministry. This Act, which he had long ago conceived as the complement of our institutions, will, together with the Spanish War, for ever mark his passing in public life. It is very keenly regretted that M. de Corbière should, on Saturday, have snatched the opportunity of speaking from him who was then his illustrious colleague. The Chamber of Peers would at least have heard the swan's song. "As for ourselves, it is with the liveliest regret that we enter again upon a career of combats which we hoped that we had, thanks to the union of the Royalists, abandoned for ever; but honour, political loyalty, the good of France do not permit us to hesitate as to the course which we should take." The signal for the reaction was thus given. M. de Villèle was not too much alarmed by it at first; he did not know the strength of men's opinions. Many years were necessary to overthrow him, but he fell at last. [Sidenote: Comments in the _Débuts._] I received from the President of the Council a letter which settled everything and which proved, to my great simplicity, that I had taken nothing of that which makes a man respected and respectable: "PARIS, 16 _June_ 1824. "MONSIEUR LE VICOMTE,