"They showed no anger, and came and brought me safe and sound into your midst. Are those such threatening symptoms of public opinion? Personally, I maintain that nothing is lost, that we can accept the Ordinances. It is not a question of considering whether there be danger or not, but of keeping the oaths which we have taken to the King, to whom we owe our dignities, and many of us our fortune. His Majesty, by withdrawing the Ordinances and changing his ministry, has done all that he should; let us, in our turn, do our duty. What! In the whole course of our lives there comes one single day in which we are obliged to enter the lists, and shall we decline the combat? Let us give France the example of honour and loyalty; let us save her from falling a prey to anarchical combinations in which her peace, her true interests and her liberties would be lost: danger vanishes when one dares to look it in the face." They made no reply; they hastened to close the meeting. There was an impatience for perjury in that assembly, which was driven by an intrepid fear; each one wished to save his rag of life, as though Time were not waiting, on the morrow, to strip us of our old skins, for which no sensible Jew would have given a groat. [Footnote 162: This book was written in Paris in August and September 1830.--T.] [Footnote 163: Lamartine was elected a member of the French Academy on the 5th of November 1829, receiving nineteen votes against fourteen given to General Philippe de Ségur.--B.] [Footnote 164: Charles Jean Dominique de Lacretelle (1766-1855), member of the French Academy, and author of the _Histoire de France pendant le XVIIIe. siècle._--T.] [Footnote 165: Jean Pierre Abel Rémusat (1788-1832), the distinguished orientalist. He devoted the last years of his life to politics, speaking and writing as an ardent adherent of the Legitimacy.--T.] [Footnote 166: Antoine Jean Saint-Martin (1791-1832), also an eminent orientalist and fervent Monarchist. He founded, in 1829, the absolutist organ, the _Universel._--T.] [Footnote 167: January 1829.--B.] [Footnote 168: Achille Charles Léonce Victor Duc de Broglie (1785-1870), married in 1816 to Albertine, daughter of Madame de Staël. He became a leading Orleanist statesman, was Minister of the Interior and of Public Worship and Instruction (1830) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1832-1834 and 1834-1836), a peer of France, and a member of the French Academy.--T.]