"I have this moment received the enclosed letter. As I should probably not be able to see you as quickly as M. Berryer wishes, I have decided to send you his letter. His complaint appears to me to be justified: he will be innocent in Paris as at Nantes and at Nantes as in Paris; this is a thing which the authorities must admit and, by righting M. Berryer's complaint, they will avoid giving a retroactive effect to the law. I venture to hope all, monsieur le comte, from your impartiality. "I have the honour to be, etc., etc. "CHATEAUBRIAND." [Footnote 330: This book was written in Paris and Geneva, from October 1830 to June 1832.--T.] [Footnote 331: This and the following pages were written in March and April 1831.--B.] [Footnote 332: The _Études historiques._--B.] [Footnote 333: The trial of the ministers before the Court of Peers commenced on the 15th and ended on the 21st of December 1830. The verdict condemned the Prince de Polignac to perpetual imprisonment on the continental territory of the Kingdom, declared him to have forfeited his titles, rank and Orders, declared him besides to be civilly dead and subject to all the other effects of the penalty of transportation. Messieurs de Peyronnet, de Chantelauze and de Guernon-Ranville were condemned to imprisonment for life.--B.] [Footnote 334: The sack of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and the pillage of the Archbishop's Palace took place on the 14th and 15th of February 1831.--B. The Duc de Berry was murdered on the 13th of February 1820--T.] [Footnote 335: Félix Cadet de Gassicourt the Younger (1789-1861), chemist and druggist and Mayor of the 4th Ward of Paris.--B.] [Footnote 336: "Mayeux," the hunchbacked type of the political versatility of the French nation, was an invention of the caricaturists and the comic papers of the year 1831. According to them, Messidor Napoleon Louis Charles Philippe Mayeux, born on the 14th of July 1789, while his father was engaged in taking the Bastille, had taken various Christian names according to the different forms of government which he had in turn espoused or repudiated. He had not been much heard of before 1830, but the sun of July had at last brought him into the light of day. For twelve months, Paris saw, talked, thought, swore, above all, by none save Mayeux. He was in turns a Republican, a Bonapartist, a juste-milieu man: everything, in short, except a Carlist; for he was faithful to his resentment against a mounted Grenadier of the Royal Guard who had failed to see him behind a curb-post and had laughed at him when he said: "Take care, soldier; there's a man in front of you." Mayeux was a National Guard: that caused his death. One day he was struck off the roll for being guilty of making his brother _bisets_ laugh while under arms. He died of grief and shame a few weeks later: on the 23rd of December 1821, to be exact (_Cf._ the chapter on _Mayeux_ in BAZIN: _L'Époque sans nom_).--B.]