PART 3

My Ministry: June 3–October 29, 1849

This section begun at Versailles on September 16, 1851, during the adjournment of the National Assembly.

Proceeding directly to this part of my recollections, I have decided to omit the period from the end of the June Days of 1848 to June 3, 1849. If I have time, I will return to this period later. It seemed more important, while my memories were still fresh, to recount the five months I spent in government.

CHAPTER 1

Return to France.—Formation of the cabinet.

While I was busy watching another act of the great European revolutionary drama unfold on the German stage, unexpected and alarming news abruptly drew my attention back to France. I learned of our army’s almost incredible defeat before the walls of Rome, of the abusive debates that ensued in the Constituent Assembly, of the agitation in the country owing to both these causes, and, finally, of the general election results, which, contrary to the expectations of both parties, brought more than 150 Montagnards into the new Assembly. Nevertheless, the demagogic wind that suddenly swept parts of France spared La Manche. Indeed, all the members of the former delegation who had split from the conservative party in the Assembly were defeated at the polls. Of the thirteen deputies in the delegation, only four survived. I garnered more votes than any of the others even though I was absent and silent and even though I had openly voted for Cavaignac the previous December. Everyone nevertheless supported me, owing not so much to my political opinions as to the great personal respect I enjoyed outside politics, no doubt an honorable position but one that would be difficult to maintain in the midst of maneuvering parties—and that would become quite precarious if the parties turned to violence and therefore became exclusive.

I left for home at once on receiving the news. In Bonn, Mme de T[ocqueville] was suddenly taken ill and had to stop. She herself urged me to leave her and continue on my way, which I did, albeit with regret, because I was leaving her alone in a country still agitated by civil war, and in any case her courage and good sense had always helped to sustain me in trying and perilous times.

I reached Paris, if I’m not mistaken, on May 25, 1849, four days before the opening of the Legislative Assembly and during the final convulsions of the Constituent.

A few weeks had sufficed to make the political scene entirely unrecognizable. It was not so much external circumstances that had changed. Rather, a prodigious change in thinking had occurred in just a few days’ time.

The party that had held power when I left the country held it still, and I felt that the outcome of the election would only strengthen its grip. That party, comprising a variety of factions that all wanted to either halt or reverse the revolution, had obtained an enormous majority in the colleges. It would make up more than two-thirds of the new Assembly. Yet I found it in the grip of a terror so profound that I can only compare it to the terror that followed the revolution of February, for in politics as in war one must never forget that the effect of an event depends not on what it is in itself but on the impression it makes.

The conservatives, who had won all the by-elections over the previous six months and who filled and dominated nearly all the local councils, had placed almost unlimited confidence in the system of universal suffrage, which they had initially greeted with boundless suspicion. In the just-completed general election, they had expected not only to win but to demolish their adversaries, and they seemed as dejected at having failed to achieve the triumph they had dreamed of as if they had actually been defeated. Meanwhile, the Montagnards, who had thought they were lost, were as intoxicated with joy and mad audacity as if the elections had assured them of a majority in the new Assembly. Why had the event deceived the hopes as well as the fears of both parties? It is difficult to say with certainty, because the great masses of men are moved by causes almost as unknown to humanity as those that govern the movements of the sea. In both cases, the causes of the phenomenon are in a sense hidden and swallowed up by its immensity.

There is nevertheless reason to believe that the failure of the conservatives was due primarily to their own errors. Their intolerance, when they were sure of winning, of those who, without sharing all their ideas, had helped them fight the Montagnards; the repressive violence ordered by M. Faucher, the new minister of the interior; and, more than anything else, the failure of the Roman expedition had turned against them a portion of the population that had been prepared to follow them, casting this group abruptly into the arms of the agitators.

As mentioned earlier, 150 Montagnards had just been elected. A good many peasants and a majority of soldiers had voted for them. These were the two sheet anchors that threatened to break in the storm. The terror was universal. It reacquainted the various monarchical parties with tolerance and modesty, virtues they had cultivated after February but completely forgotten over the previous six months. All sides recognized that for the moment there could be no question of ending the Republic and that the contest was now between moderate republicans and Montagnards.

People now accused the same ministers they had previously promoted and spurred, and loudly called for changes in the cabinet. The cabinet acknowledged its own shortcomings and called for replacements. As I was preparing to depart, the Comité de la rue de Poitiers²⁸ had removed M. Dufaure from its lists. Now all eyes were on M. Dufaure and his friends, whom people begged in the most abject way to take power and save the country.

On the evening of my arrival, I learned that some of my friends were dining together at a small restaurant on the Champs-Élysées. I hastened there and found Dufaure, Lanjuinais, Beaumont, Corcelle, Vivien, Lamoricière, Bedeau, and one or two others whose names are less well known. They quickly filled me in on the situation. Barrot, having been invited by the president to form a new cabinet, had worn himself out in several days of vain efforts. M. Thiers, M. Molé, and their chief allies had refused to take charge of the government. They nevertheless had every intention of remaining masters of the situation, as we will see, but not of becoming ministers. The uncertain future, general instability, and difficulties and perhaps dangers of the moment kept them from moving ahead. Having been rebuffed in that quarter, Barrot had turned to us. But practical difficulties had arisen, and initially these seemed insurmountable. Barrot had already gone back several times to the natural leaders of the majority only to return to us after being rebuffed by them.

Time was running out as these futile efforts continued. The danger and difficulties were increasing as the news from Italy grew every day more alarming, and the Assembly, though dying, was in a rage and might decide at any moment to impeach the government.

I returned home, as one might imagine quite preoccupied by what I had just heard.

I was convinced that it was up to me and my friends to decide whether we would become ministers. We were obvious choices and obviously needed. I knew the leaders of the majority well enough to be sure that they would never commit themselves to take charge under a government they believed to be ephemeral; even if they had been selfless enough to do so, they lacked the courage. Their pride and their timidity sufficed to explain their abstention. Therefore, if we simply stood our ground, the government would be obliged to seek us out. But should I want to be a minister? I asked myself this quite seriously. I think I can justly say that I had not the slightest illusion concerning the real difficulties of the undertaking, and I saw the future with a clarity usually achieved only when looking at the past.

Most people expected fighting in the streets. I myself thought it was imminent. The election result had encouraged a boldness bordering on rashness in the Montagnard party, and the Rome business had given it an opportunity that I thought made street fighting inevitable. I had little fear about the outcome, however. I was convinced that although a majority of soldiers had voted for the Mountain, the army would not hesitate to confront it. The soldier who votes as an individual is not the same man as the soldier who fights with his unit. The thoughts of the one do not govern the actions of the other. The Paris garrison was very large, well led, and highly experienced in street combat, and memories of the passions and engagements of the June Days were still fresh. I was therefore certain of victory but very concerned about what would follow. The apparent end of our difficulties seemed to me only the beginning. In my judgment, those difficulties were almost insurmountable, and I think I was right.

No matter which way I turned, I saw no solid or durable base of support for our side amid the general malaise afflicting the nation. Everyone wanted to get rid of the constitution, some by way of socialism, others by monarchy.

Public opinion cried out to us, but it would have been highly imprudent to count on it. Fear drove the country toward us, but its memories, interests, instincts, and passions could hardly fail to call it back once the fear subsided. Our goal was to establish the Republic if possible, or at any rate to sustain it for a time by governing in a steady, moderate, conservative, and wholly constitutional manner, which would not sustain our popularity for very long, since everyone wanted to be done with the constitution. The Montagnard party wanted something more, while the monarchical parties wanted much less.

In the Assembly it was even worse. The vanity and self-interest of the party leaders magnified the effects of these general causes in countless new incidents. The leaders of the various parties might well allow us to take over the government, but it would have been imprudent to expect them to allow us actually to govern. Once the crisis was over, they would no doubt lay all sorts of traps for us.

As for the president, I did not yet know him, but it was clear that the only support we could count on in his councils would come from the jealousies and hatreds our common adversaries might inspire in him. His sympathies would always lie elsewhere, because our aims were not only different but inherently contrary. We wanted to breathe life into the Republic; he hoped to become its heir. We merely provided him with ministers, when what he needed was accomplices.

These difficulties, which were inherent in the situation and therefore permanent, were compounded by others that were no easier to overcome for being temporary: the revival of revolutionary agitation in parts of the country; the attitudes and habits of exclusion and violence already widespread and deeply rooted in the public administration; the Rome expedition, so ill conceived and ill led that it was now as difficult to exit as to push forward to a conclusion; and finally the legacy of errors committed by all our predecessors.

There were thus many reasons to hesitate, but inwardly I did not hesitate at all.

The idea of taking a post that frightened many others away and of rescuing society from the bad pass into which others had led it flattered both my honor and my pride. I knew that my tenure in office would be brief, but I hoped to stay long enough to do signal service for my country and enhance my own stature while doing so. That was sufficient reason to move ahead.

I immediately made three resolutions:

The first was not to refuse a ministry if a good opportunity arose.

The second was not to join the government unless my principal allies were in control of the most important ministries and in a position to maintain control of the cabinet.

My third and last resolution was to behave as minister each day as though I would be out of office the next; in other words, I resolved never to place the need to remain in office above the need to remain true to myself.

The next five or six days were entirely consumed by futile efforts to form a government. These attempts were so numerous, overlapping, and filled with minor incidents—great events one day only to be forgotten the next—that I have difficulty remembering exactly what took place, even though I myself figured centrally in some of the events. The problem was indeed quite difficult to resolve given the conditions under which we had to operate. The president sought to change the appearance of his government without sacrificing his principal allies. Although the leaders of the monarchical parties refused to take charge themselves, they did not wish to see the government placed entirely in the hands of men over whom they had no hold. If we were allowed in, it was to be in small numbers only and in lesser posts. We were seen as a necessary but disagreeable remedy to be administered only in very small doses.

The first offer was for Dufaure to join the government alone and settle for Public Works. He refused and asked for Interior and two other ministries for his friends. Interior was granted only with much difficulty, and the rest was denied. I have reason to believe that Dufaure was on the verge of accepting this offer, once again leaving me in the lurch as he had done six months earlier. Not that he was a dissembler or indifferent to what happened to his friends, but having such an important ministry almost in hand, and offered to him in a way he could honorably accept, had a strange effect on him. It did not exactly cause him to betray his friends, but it distracted him and made it easy for him to forget about us. On this occasion he stood firm, however, and since they could not have him alone, they offered to take me as well. I was the most logical choice, since the new Legislative Assembly had elected me one of its vice presidents on June 1, 1849 (by 336 votes out of 597 ballots cast). But where to put me? I considered myself qualified only to head the Ministry of Education. Unfortunately, that ministry was already in the hands of M. de Falloux, a key figure whom neither the legitimists, of whom he was one of the leaders, nor the religious party, which saw him as its protector, nor the president, whose friend he had become, wished to let go. I was offered Agriculture. I refused. In desperation, Barrot finally came in person and offered me the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I had tried hard to persuade M. de Rémusat to take that post, and what happened between us on this occasion is too typical to go unreported. I was very keen to have M. de Rémusat join us in the government. He was both a friend of M. Thiers and a man of honor—a rather rare combination. He alone could assure us, if not of that statesman’s support, then at least of his neutrality, without infecting us with the Thiers spirit. Finally, one night Rémusat succumbed to pleas from us and Barrot and agreed to join us. The next morning, however, he reneged. I knew for certain that in the meantime he had seen M. Thiers, and he himself confessed to me that M. Thiers, who at the time was openly proclaiming that we must join the government, had dissuaded him from going with us. “I realized,” he said, “that becoming your colleague will not win his cooperation but only force me to go to war with him myself before too long.” These were the kinds of men we would soon be dealing with.

I had never given a thought to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and my first reaction was to reject the offer. I felt I was unfit to take on a task for which nothing had prepared me. In my papers I find a record of my hesitation in the form of a conversation I had at dinner with some of my friends at that time.

In the end, I decided to accept Foreign Affairs on the condition that Lanjuinais also join the council.²⁹ I had several important reasons for this request. First, I thought we needed three ministries in order to have the influence in the cabinet that we would need to succeed. Furthermore, I thought that Lanjuinais would be very useful to me in holding Dufaure to the line I wished to follow, since I did not believe I had enough influence of my own on Dufaure. Above all, I wanted at my side a friend with whom I could openly discuss anything that came up; this is an advantage at any time but particularly in a time of suspicion and volatility and a mission as risky as the one I was about to undertake.

In all these respects Lanjuinais suited me perfectly, although our natures were very different. He was as calm and tranquil as I was anxious and worried. Methodical, slow, lazy, cautious, and even meticulous, he was very reluctant to undertake anything new. Once engaged, however, he never gave ground and would persist to the end as stubbornly as a Breton peasant. When it came to expressing an opinion, he was very reserved, but when he finally did come out with it, he was very explicit, not to say blunt to the point of rudeness. In friendship one could not expect him to show any sign of enthusiasm, warmth, or passion, but by the same token there was no reason to fear faintness of heart, betrayal, or ulterior motives. In short, he was a very reliable partner and, all things considered, the most honorable man I ever encountered in public life and the least apt to allow his love of the public good to be distorted by private or self-interested considerations.

No one objected to Lanjuinais, but the problem was to find a portfolio for him. I asked for Agriculture and Commerce, which had been held since December 10 [sic] by Buffet, a friend of Falloux’s, not to say his fawning factotum on the council. Falloux refused to let his colleague go. I dug in my heels. For twenty-four hours it seemed that the new cabinet, not quite fully formed, had already dissolved. To overcome my insistence, Falloux tried a direct approach. He came to my house, where I lay ill in bed, and begged me to give up Lanjuinais and leave his friend Buffet at Agriculture. I had made up my mind and remained deaf to his entreaties. Vexed but always in control of himself, Falloux finally got up to leave. I thought all was lost, but in fact all was won. “You want him,” he said, extending his hand with that fine aristocratic grace he so deftly used to cover up even his bitterest emotions. “You want him, so I must yield. Let no one say that in such a difficult and critical moment, a consideration of a private order caused me to pass up a bargain as essential as this one. I will remain alone among you, but I hope you won’t forget that I am not only your colleague but also your prisoner.” An hour later the cabinet was formed, and Dufaure, who brought me the news, urged me to take immediate possession of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The date was June 2, 1849.

Thus came to be, after a slow and painful birth, a government that would prove to be short-lived. Throughout its lengthy gestation, the most harried man in France was surely Barrot. Sincere concern for the public good made him eager for a change of cabinet. Ambition, which was more closely and intimately intertwined with his honor than one might think, made him fervent to remain as head of the new cabinet. He therefore raced from one group to another, urging and scolding with much pathos and often much eloquence as well, addressing sometimes the leaders of the majority, sometimes us, and sometimes even the precocious republicans, whom he judged more moderate than the others—and he was prepared to take people from all camps because in politics he was as incapable of hatred as he was of friendship. Seeing him running every which way trying to put together a cabinet, I could not help thinking of a hen cackling and flapping after her brood but not terribly concerned whether it was a brood of chicks or of ducklings.

CHAPTER 2

Composition of the cabinet.—Its first actions until after the attempted insurrection of June 13.

The government was composed as follows: Barrot, minister of justice and president of the council; Passy, in charge of finance; Rulhière, war; Tracy, navy; Lacrosse, public works; Falloux, public instruction; Dufaure, interior; Lanjuinais, agriculture; and me, foreign affairs. Dufaure, Lanjuinais, and I were the only new ministers. All the others had belonged to the previous cabinet.

Passy was a man of genuine merit but not much appeal. He was rigid, clumsy, vexatious, belittling, and more ingenious than just. Yet he was more judicious when real action was needed than when talk alone would do, because, though fond of paradox in conversation, he was reluctant to act on it. I have never known a greater talker or a man who, when things went badly, was so quick to console himself with explication of the causes of the difficulty and the consequences that were bound to follow. When he had finished painting the current state of affairs in the darkest possible terms, he would smile calmly and say, “So, you see, there is virtually no hope of saving the situation, and we should expect a total disruption of society.” He was also a knowledgeable and experienced minister, in all circumstances honest and courageous and as incapable of surrender as of betrayal. His ideas, his feelings, his long-standing connection with Dufaure, and above all his inexpugnable antipathy to M. Thiers gave us confidence in him.

Odilon Barrot, by Honoré Daumier, 1849

Rulhière would have been an ultraconservative monarchist if he had belonged to any party at all, and especially if Changarnier had never been born. As a soldier himself, however, his only thought was to remain minister of war. As we quickly realized, he was extremely envious of Changarnier for being the army commander in Paris and keenly aware of the general’s connections with the leaders of the majority and influence on the president, so that he was forced to rely on us, and this inevitably gave us a hold over him.

Tracy was a man of weak character who initially relied on the very systematic and absolute theories he had derived from the ideological education his father had given him, which limited his thinking. Over time, however, everyday experience and the shock of revolution eroded this rigid carapace, leaving only a vacillating intelligence and a heart that, though less than stout, was always honest and benevolent.

Alexis de Tocqueville, by Honoré Daumier, 1849

Lacrosse was a poor devil whose fortune was in disarray and whose mores were rather dissolute. He had been deeply involved in the old dynastic opposition, but the hazards of revolution had pushed him into the leadership, and the pleasure of occupying a ministry had not lost its luster. He was happy to rely on us, but at the same time he sought to ingratiate himself with the president of the Republic by bowing and scraping and doing various small favors. It would of course have been difficult for him to advance himself in any other way, because he was a singularly worthless individual who understood precisely nothing about anything. We were criticized for joining a government with ministers as incompetent as Tracy and Lacrosse, and our critics were right. This error was a major reason for our failure, not only because these men were poor administrators but also because their notorious inadequacy meant that their positions were in a sense always open, thus creating a sort of permanent ministerial crisis.

Comte de Falloux, by Honoré Daumier, 1849

Barrot’s ideas and feelings naturally inclined him to side with us. His longstanding liberal attitudes, republican tastes, and memories of his time in the parliamentary opposition made him our ally. With other associates he might have become our adversary, though not without regret, but once he joined us, we were confident of his loyalty.

Thus the only member of the government who was not familiar to us by dint of background, commitments, and inclinations was Falloux. He alone represented the leaders of the majority, or rather was thought to represent them, because in reality, as will emerge in due course, he represented only the Church—and not just in the government but elsewhere as well. His isolation, along with his unspoken policy goals, led him to seek support not from us but in the Assembly and from the president, but he did so discreetly and shrewdly, as he did everything else.

Thus constituted, the cabinet had one major weakness. It needed the support of a coalition majority to govern, but it was not itself a coalition government.

On the other hand, it derived great strength from having ministers who had similar backgrounds and identical interests and were bound together by longstanding ties of friendship, mutual confidence, and a common goal.

The reader will of course want to know what that goal was, where we were headed, and what we wanted. We live in such uncertain and upsetting times that it would be rash of me to answer for my colleagues, but I will gladly answer for myself. I did not think then, any more than I do now, that a republican government was the one best suited to France’s needs. Strictly speaking, what I mean by republican government is a government with an elected executive. In a nation whose habits, traditions, and mores have ensured that the sphere of executive power will be vast, instability of that power in troubled times will always be a cause of revolution, and in calm times a source of great malaise. I have always believed, moreover, that the republican form of government is one without checks and balances, which always promises more but delivers less freedom than a constitutional monarchy. Yet I sincerely hoped to preserve the Republic, and although there were in a sense no republicans in France, I felt that it would not be entirely impossible to do so.

I wanted to preserve the Republic because I saw nothing else at once suitable and available to replace it. A majority of the country felt deep antipathy toward the former dynasty. Fatigue with revolutions and their empty promises had quenched all political passions but one: hatred of the Ancien Régime and distrust of the old privileged classes who represented it in the eyes of the people. This feeling had survived all our revolutions undiminished and unchanged, like the water from those miraculous springs that the ancients believed could mix with seawater yet remain unadulterated and fresh. Experience with the Orléans dynasty had left little desire to return to it any time soon. It would inevitably arouse hostility in the upper classes and clergy while divorcing itself, as it had already done, from the people, thus leaving all responsibility for and profit from government to the middle classes, who had so incompetently governed the country for the past eighteen years. Nothing, in any case, indicated its imminent triumph.

Only Louis-Napoléon was prepared to take the place of the Republic, because power was already in his hands. But what could he make of his success other than a bastard monarchy, despised by the educated classes, hostile to liberty, and governed by intriguers, adventurers, and lackeys? None of these outcomes justified a new revolution.

To be sure, maintaining the Republic was a very difficult challenge because those who loved it were for the most part incapable or unworthy of leading it, while those who were in a position to establish and govern it hated it. But it would also be rather difficult to bring down. The hatred people felt toward it was an irresolute passion, as were all the passions that existed in the country at that time. In any case, people resented the republican government without loving any other. Three irreconcilable parties, more hostile to one another than to the Republic, vied for the succession. There was no majority in favor of anything.

I therefore thought that the Republic, sustained by the fact of its existence and opposed only by minorities incapable of forming a coalition, might survive thanks to the inertia of the masses, provided it was governed wisely and moderately. I therefore made up my mind to defend it and to steer clear of any attempt to bring it down. Nearly all the members of the government felt the same way. Dufaure believed more firmly than I did in the excellence of republican institutions and in their future. Barrot was less inclined than I was to respect those institutions in all situations. But at that moment we all steadfastly wished to preserve them. This common resolve was our bond and our banner.

Once the government was formed, the president of the Republic presided over a meeting of the Council of Ministers. It was the first time I had met him, having previously seen him only from a distance in the Constituent Assembly. He received us politely. It was the most we could expect, because Dufaure had vigorously opposed his candidacy and attacked him almost insultingly, while Lanjuinais and I had openly voted for his opponent.

Louis-Napoléon plays such an important role in the remainder of this story that I feel he merits a portrait of his own alongside the numerous contemporaries whom I have chosen merely to sketch. Of all his ministers, and possibly of all the men who refused to join his conspiracy against the Republic, I believe I was the one who had advanced farthest in his good graces, had studied him most closely, and was in the best position to judge him.

He was much better than one would have been warranted to believe on the basis of his previous life and insane schemes. This was my first impression on getting to know him. In this respect he disappointed his enemies and perhaps even more his friends, if one can apply that term to the politicians who backed his candidacy. Indeed, most of the latter chose him not for his worth but for his presumed mediocrity. They thought they had found an instrument they could use at will and break whenever they chose. In this they were quite mistaken.

As a private individual, Louis-Napoléon had some appealing qualities: a kindly, easy-going temperament, a humane outlook, a gentle and even rather affectionate though not at all delicate character, an excellent ability to judge people, a perfect simplicity, a certain modesty about himself mixed with immense pride in his ancestry, and a readiness to feel gratitude rather than resentment. He was capable of feeling affection and of inspiring it in those who got to know him. His conversation was sparse and sterile. He lacked the art of making others talk and establishing intimate relations with them. Although he had no facility in expressing himself, he scribbled incessantly and had something of an author’s pride. His gift for concealment—which was immense, as one would expect of a man who had spent his life in conspiracies—was powerfully assisted by the immobility of his features and the inexpressiveness of his eyes, which were dim and opaque, like the thick glass of a porthole that admits light but blocks sight. Oblivious of danger, he demonstrated admirably cool courage in moments of crisis but, as is often the case, vacillated in his designs. He changed course frequently, first advancing, then hesitating, then pulling back, to his great detriment, for the nation had chosen him to take every risk and expected audacity, not prudence. People say he had always been much given to pleasure and not very discriminating in his choices. His passion for vulgar gratifications and his taste for creature comforts only grew with the opportunities afforded by power. He squandered his energy this way daily and blunted and constricted his ambition. His mind was inconsistent and confused, filled with large but ill-assorted ideas, which he borrowed now from Napoleon, now from socialist theories, and occasionally from memories of England, where he had lived—very different and often contradictory sources. He had painstakingly collected these ideas in solitary meditation, far from contact with men and events, for he was by nature a fantastic dreamer. But when forced to exit the vast, vague world of dreams and concentrate on a specific issue, he was capable of gauging a situation accurately, at times with subtlety and breadth, but never reliably, because he was always prepared to set a bizarre idea next to a good one. It was hard to be close to him for long without discovering that his common sense was riven by a thin vein of insanity, which inevitably called to mind his youthful escapades and served to explain them.

Furthermore, he owed his success more to folly than to reason, the theater of the world being the very strange place it is: on its peculiar stage the worst plays sometimes enjoy the greatest success. Had Louis-Napoléon been a wise man or a genius, he would never have become president of the Republic.

He trusted in his own star. He firmly believed that he was an instrument of fate, the man of the hour. I am certain that he was truly convinced of his right to govern and doubt that even Charles X had greater faith in his own legitimacy. Nor was he any more capable than that monarch of explaining his faith, for although he worshiped the people in the abstract, he set little store by liberty. He hated and despised parliaments—this was the basic tenet of his political thinking. He had even less patience with constitutional monarchy than with a republican regime. Despite his limitless pride in his name, he was more than willing to bow before the nation but refused to submit to the influence of a parliament.

Like every mediocre prince, he was fond of flatterers, a taste he had had ample time to develop before coming to power thanks to twenty years of conspiring with low-life adventurers, bankrupts, crackpots, and dissipated youth—the only people who in all that time were willing to serve as his henchmen and accomplices. Despite his good manners, traces of the adventurer and gambler remained. He continued to enjoy the company of such inferiors even though he was no longer obliged to share it. I think his difficulty in expressing his thoughts other than in writing drew him to people who were long familiar with his ideas and dreams, while his inferiority in discussion made it painful for him to endure the company of intelligent men. What he desired above all was devotion to himself and his cause (as if either could inspire such devotion). Talent annoyed him if it was in any degree independent. He needed people who believed in his destiny and were willing to prostrate themselves before his future success. Hence it was impossible to get near him without passing through a group of trusted servants and friends, whom I recall General Changarnier describing to me at the time with two words: crooks and scoundrels. Nothing was worse than his familiars, unless it was his family, made up mostly of good-for-nothings and painted women.

Such was the man whom the need for a leader and the power of a memory had made the head of France, and with whom we were going to have to govern.

It would have been difficult to come to office at a more critical time. Before ending its turbulent existence, the Constituent Assembly had decided (on May 7, 1849) to order the government not to attack Rome. The first thing I learned on joining the cabinet was that an order to attack Rome had been transmitted to the army three days earlier. This flagrant disobedience of the will of a sovereign Assembly—this war launched against a nation in revolution, on account of its revolution, and despite the constitution’s insistence on respect for foreign nationalities—made the conflict we feared imminent and inevitable. How would this new confrontation end? We saw letters from prefects and police reports that alarmed us greatly. In the last days of the Cavaignac government I had seen how the self-serving flattery of subordinates could foster false hopes in the leadership. Now I saw firsthand how subordinates could contrive to instill terror in their superiors. These contrary effects stemmed from the same cause: each subordinate, judging that we were worried, sought to stand out by uncovering some new plot and providing us with some new sign of the conspiracy that threatened us. The more they believed in our success, the more willing they were to tell us of the perils we faced. Such information typically becomes rarer and less explicit as the danger increases—just when it is needed most. Subordinates who doubt that the government that bribes them is going to survive and who are already worried about what comes next will either say little or stop talking altogether. But now they were quite loquacious. Listening to them, it was impossible not to believe that we were on the brink of an abyss. I did not believe a word of what they were saying, however. I was very convinced at the time and have remained convinced ever since that official correspondence and police reports may be useful for uncovering conspiracies but give only exaggerated or incomplete and always inaccurate notions when it comes to judging or anticipating important political developments. In such matters, you have to go by the general aspect of the country and knowledge of its needs, passions, and ideas, and information of such a general character you must acquire for yourself; the best placed and most trustworthy agents can never provide it for you.

My general sense at that time was that there was no need to fear an armed revolution, but there might be fighting, and civil war is always a terrible thing to anticipate, especially when combined with fear of an epidemic. Paris was in fact ravaged by cholera at the time. Death struck people of all ranks. A substantial number of deputies of the Constituent Assembly had already succumbed, and Bugeaud, who had survived Africa, lay dying.

Had I been in the slightest doubt that a crisis was imminent, the sight of the new Assembly would have convinced me. Within the Chamber the atmosphere was already that of civil war. Speeches were brief, gestures violent, words overheated, and insults outrageous and direct. Our temporary meeting place was the old Chamber of Deputies, a room built for 460 members and scarcely able to accommodate 750. Though our flesh touched our neighbor’s, we hated each other. Despite our mutual loathing, we were crushed together; our discomfort only increased our wrath. It was like fighting a duel in a barrel. What would hold the Montagnards back? There were enough of them in the nation and the army to foster a sense of strength yet too few in parliament to give them hope of dominating or even influencing the outcome. The temptation to resort to force was therefore strong. Europe, still in turmoil, might once again be thrust into revolution by a strong blow struck in Paris. For men of such savage temperament, this was more than enough.

It was easy to see that the crisis would erupt when people learned that the order to attack Rome had been given and the attack had taken place. And this turned out to be the case.

The order remained secret, but on June 10 the first news of fighting spread.

On the eleventh, the Mountain erupted in a furious burst of rhetoric. From the podium Ledru-Rollin called for civil war on the grounds that the constitution had been violated, adding that he and his friends were prepared to defend it by all available means, including force of arms. He also called for prosecution of the president of the Republic and the previous government.

On the twelfth, the Assembly committee charged with examining the question raised the previous day rejected the call for prosecution and called on the Assembly to vote immediately on the fate of the president and the ministers. The Mountain opposed this and called for evidence to be produced. What was its goal in delaying debate? It is difficult to say. Did it hope to arouse anger on the question, or did it secretly hope to calm things down over time? There is no doubt that despite the intemperance of their language, the party’s principal leaders, who were more accustomed to talking than to fighting and more impassioned than resolute, demonstrated a hesitancy in their approach that day that had not been evident the day before. Having partially drawn their sword, they seemed ready to sheathe it again, but it was too late: their friends outside the Chamber had seen the signal, and from that point on they ceased to lead and became followers instead.

During those two days I found myself in a very cruel situation. As noted, I entirely disapproved of the way the Rome expedition had been decided and conducted. Before joining the government, I solemnly told Barrot that I intended to take responsibility for the future only and that it would be up to him to defend what had been done in Italy previously. Only on that condition did I accept the ministry. I therefore said nothing during the debate on the eleventh and left it to Barrot to defend the war effort by himself. But on the twelfth, when I saw my colleagues threatened with prosecution, I could abstain no longer. The demand for fresh evidence gave me an opportunity to intervene without having to express my opinion about the substance of the matter. My speech was brief but vigorous.

When I read what I said in the Moniteur, I find my words rather insignificant and quite badly chosen. I was nevertheless much applauded by the majority, because in a moment of crisis, with civil war at hand, what counts is robustness of expression and tone of voice rather than choice of words. I went straight after Ledru-Rollin, whom I angrily accused of asking for trouble and spreading lies to create it. Strong emotion had driven me to speak, and my tone was determined and aggressive, so even though I spoke very badly, because I was still uncomfortable with my new role, my words were greatly appreciated.

Ledru responded by saying that the majority was supporting the Cossacks. In reply he was told that he belonged to the party of looters and arsonists. Thiers was inspired to say that there was an intimate tie between the man who had just spoken and the insurgents of June. By a large majority the Assembly rejected the demand for prosecution and adjourned.

Although the Montagnard leadership continued to insult us, they did not seem very determined, so we were able to persuade ourselves that the decisive moment of the struggle had not yet arrived. We were wrong. According to reports we received that night, preparations for armed combat were under way.

Indeed, the next day, the language of the demagogic newspapers revealed that their editors were counting on revolution, rather than the courts, to absolve them. All called either directly or indirectly for civil war. The National Guard, students, the people—all were urged to gather without arms in certain designated places in preparation for a mass march on the National Assembly. The idea was to begin with a May 15 and end with a June 23.³⁰ Seven thousand to eight thousand people assembled at the Château-d’Eau at around 11 o’clock. On our side, the cabinet met with the president of the Republic, who was already in uniform and prepared to mount his horse the moment he heard the battle had begun. Nothing had changed but his dress. In other respects he was the same man as the day before, with the same somewhat gloomy aspect, the same slow and embarrassed speech, and the same dullness in his eyes. There was no sign of the nervousness or giddiness that sometimes signals the approach of danger, but such signs may of course be no more than indications of an agitated mind.

We summoned Changarnier, who explained how he had deployed his troops and assured us that victory was at hand. Dufaure recounted the reports he had received, all of which warned of a significant uprising. He then returned to his headquarters at the Ministry of the Interior. At around noon I went to the Assembly.

The adjournment had proved to be quite lengthy, because the president, in setting the agenda the day before, had declared that there would be no meeting the following day. This was a strange oversight, which in anyone else might have been taken as a sign of treason. Messengers were sent to summon the deputies from their homes, while I joined the president of the Assembly in his office, where most of the leaders of the majority were already gathered. Their faces reflected considerable agitation and anxiety. They simultaneously feared and longed for battle, and some began to criticize the government for wavering in its resolve. Thiers, reclining in one armchair with his legs supported by another, rubbed his stomach (having experienced some symptoms of the prevailing malady) while loudly and irritably proclaiming in his shrillest falsetto that it was very odd indeed that no one had thought of declaring Paris to be in a state of siege. I calmly replied that we had thought of it but that because the Assembly was not yet in session, the moment had not yet arrived.

Deputies streamed in from every direction, drawn less by the message we had sent, which most had not received, than by rumors circulating throughout the city. At two o’clock the session began. The majority benches were full, while those of the Mountain were empty. The gloomy silence that enveloped the upper benches was more frightening than the usual catcalls from that quarter of the Chamber. It meant that the debate was over and the civil war had begun.

At three o’clock Dufaure asked that Paris be declared in a state of siege. Cavaignac backed him up with one of the short speeches he made from time to time, in which his normally mediocre and obscure intelligence rose to the height of his soul and approached the sublime. In such circumstances he briefly became the most truly eloquent speaker I have ever heard. He left all the mere speechifiers in the dust.

Addressing the Montagnard who was on his way down from the podium,³¹ he said:

You say that I fell from power. I did step down. The national will does not overthrow. It orders, and we obey. I will add this, that I hope the republican party will always be able to say with justice, “I stepped down, honoring my republican convictions by my conduct.” You said that we lived in terror: history was there; it will speak. But what I say is that you never inspired terror in me. You inspired deep pain. Do you want my final word? You were precocious republicans, while I did not seek a republic before it existed. To my regret, I did not suffer for it. But I have served it devotedly, and what is more, I have governed it. I will not serve anything else. Hear me well! Write what I say, stenographer! Write it! May it remain engraved in the record of our deliberations: I will not serve anything else. Between you and us, the question is, who will serve the Republic best?

Hear me! What pains me is that you have served it so badly. For my country’s sake, I hope that the Republic is not destined to perish, but if we are condemned to such a painful fate, remember this well: we will blame its failure on your exaggerations and your frenzy.

Shortly after the state of siege was proclaimed, we learned that the insurrection had been put down. Changarnier and the president, leading the cavalry, had cut off and dispersed the column headed toward the Assembly. A few barricades, just barely constructed, had been destroyed, almost without a shot being fired. The Montagnards, surrounded in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, where they had made their headquarters, had either been arrested or fled. We were in control of Paris.

Similar movements had occurred in several other large cities, and although the fighting was more intense, the insurgents were no more successful than in Paris. In Lyon the battle raged for five hours, and for a while the outcome was in doubt. In any case, having triumphed in Paris, we did not worry much about the provinces, because we knew that in France, Paris makes the law, whether for order or against it.

Thus ended the second June insurrection, very different from the first in terms of violence and duration but similar in the reasons for its failure. In the first, the people, impelled not so much by opinion as by appetite, had fought alone, unable to find deputies to lead them. This time, the deputies had been unable to persuade the people to fight alongside them. In June 1848 the army lacked generals; in June 1849 the generals lacked an army.

The Montagnards were a strange lot. Their quarrelsome nature and pride emerged most clearly where these traits were least appropriate. Among those who, personally and through their newspapers, had most vehemently insulted us and called for civil war was Considerant, Fourier’s disciple and successor and the author of so many socialist fantasies, which would have been merely ridiculous in another time but were dangerous in ours. Along with Ledru-Rollin, Considerant managed to escape from the Conservatoire and make his way to Belgium. I had previously had social relations with him, and he wrote me from Belgium:

My dear Tocqueville,

[Here he asked a favor of me, to which he added:]

Count on me if you should need any personal favor in the future. You may survive for another two or three months, and the pure Whites who come after you may hold out for another six months at most. Sooner or later, you will of course get what you have coming to you, and you will fully deserve it. But let us say no more about politics and respect the very legal, very fair, and very Odilon Barrotesque state of siege.

To which I answered:

My dear Considerant,

What you ask is done. I do not wish to boast of such a small service, but I am very pleased to note that those odious oppressors of liberty called ministers inspire such confidence in their adversaries that the latter, having declared us outlaws, do not hesitate to turn to us in full confidence of receiving fair treatment. This proves that there is still some good in us, no matter what people say. Are you quite sure that if our roles were reversed, I would be able to do the same and ask a favor, not of you, but of one or another of your political allies, whom I might name? I think not, and I solemnly declare that if ever they are in charge and leave me with my head, I will consider myself satisfied and ready to declare that their virtue has exceeded my hopes.

CHAPTER 3

Domestic government.—Intestine quarrels in the cabinet.—Its difficulties with the majority and the president.

We were victorious, but as I expected, our real difficulties were about to begin. My maxim has always been that the danger of disaster is usually greatest after a major success: as long as there is peril ahead, there are only adversaries to face, and they can be defeated, but once victory is in hand, you have to deal with your own side—with its weakness and pride and the incautious sense of security that victory brings—and this brings you down.

I was exempt from the last of these dangers because I was under no illusion that we had overcome the main obstacles we faced, which I knew were in the very men with whom we were going to have to govern. Far from protecting us from the ill will of our partners, the rapid and total defeat of the Mountain instantly made us vulnerable. We would have been far stronger had we been less successful.

At that point the majority was made up primarily of three parties (the president’s party was still too small and too little respected to carry much weight in parliament). At most, sixty to eighty deputies sincerely cooperated in our efforts to establish a moderate republic. This group constituted our only solid support in the entire Assembly. The rest of the majority included around 160 legitimists, together with former allies or supporters of the July Monarchy, mostly representatives of the middle classes, which had governed, not to say exploited, France for the past eighteen years. Of those two groups, I immediately felt that it would be easier for us to enlist the support of the legitimists, who had been excluded from power under the previous government and therefore had no lost posts or salaries to complain about. Mostly major landowners, they did not need public offices in the way the bourgeois did, or at any rate they had not become so accustomed to the emoluments of public service. Though less inclined on principle to accept the Republic, they were more willing than some to tolerate its survival because it had destroyed their enemy and given them access to power. It had served both their ambition and their revenge. Their opposition stemmed solely from fear, which, truth be told, was quite substantial. The former conservatives who made up the bulk of the majority were keener to be done with the Republic, but because their virulent hatred was kept in check by their fear of the dangers to which they would be exposed if it were abolished prematurely, and because they had long been in the habit of following wherever power led, it would be easy for us to control them if we could obtain the support or even the neutrality of their leaders, M. Thiers and M. Molé of course chief among them.

Having clearly grasped the situation, I understood that all our secondary goals would have to be subordinated to the primary one, which was to prevent the overthrow of the Republic and above all to stop Louis-Napoléon from establishing a bastard monarchy—for the time being, this was the most immediate danger.

My first thought was to protect myself from our friends’ mistakes, for I have always found a great deal of sense in the old Norman proverb “God preserve me from my friends, and I will take care of my enemies myself.”

The leader of our supporters in the National Assembly was General Lamoricière, whose idleness I dreaded even more than his petulance and his habit of speaking rashly. I knew him to be a man who would rather do good than ill but rather ill than nothing at all. I thought of offering him an important embassy in a distant land. Russia had spontaneously recognized the Republic. It was therefore appropriate to resume diplomatic relations between our two countries, relations that had been all but broken off under the previous government. For this extraordinary but remote mission I thought of Lamoricière. He was the ideal person for the post, in which it was scarcely possible for anyone but a general, indeed a celebrated general, to succeed. I had some difficulty persuading him to accept, but my greatest challenge was to persuade the president of the Republic, who at first resisted, to take him. With a sort of naiveté that revealed not so much his frankness as his difficulty in expressing himself (for his words seldom revealed his thinking but sometimes allowed one to guess at it), he told me that for the major capitals he wanted ambassadors of his own. That was not what I wanted, because it was my job to instruct those ambassadors, so I wanted them to serve France, not the president. I therefore insisted but despite my insistence would have failed had it not been for Falloux’s assistance, Falloux being the only minister the president trusted. Falloux persuaded him, I know not how, and Lamoricière set off for Russia. I will recount later what he did there.

His departure reassured me that we could count on our friends, so I turned next to retaining or winning over the allies we needed. The first order of business was to secure the allegiance of the other ministers, which was not easy, because the cabinet included some of the most honest men you can imagine but men so rigid and limited in their political vision that I sometimes regretted that I was not dealing instead with intelligent scoundrels.

As for the legitimists, my view was that our best course was to grant them considerable influence over the Ministry of Public Instruction. This was a major sacrifice, I admit, but it was the only thing that could satisfy them and win their support in restraining the president and preventing him from overturning the constitution. This plan was followed. Falloux was granted a free hand in running his department, and the cabinet allowed him to present to the Assembly his education bill, which became law on March 15, 1850. I also used all my influence to urge my colleagues to cultivate good relations with the leading legitimists. What is more, I followed my own advice and was soon on better terms with them than any other member of the cabinet. Ultimately I became the sole intermediary between them and us.

To be sure, my background and the society in which I was raised gave me considerable advantages in this regard, which the others did not possess. Although the French nobility has ceased to be a class, it has remained a sort of freemasonry whose members continue to recognize one another by who knows what invisible signs even when their individual views make them strangers or adversaries.

So, having clashed with Falloux more than anyone else before joining the government, I readily befriended him afterwards. What is more, he was a man worth cultivating. I am not sure I ever encountered a rarer specimen in my entire political career. He had the two qualities any party leader needs: ardent conviction, which made him steadfast in pursuit of his goals, undeterred by disappointment or danger, and a rather unscrupulous intelligence, at once subtle and unyielding, which employed a prodigious variety of means in furtherance of a single unwavering plan. He was honest in that, as he put it, he acted solely for the sake of his cause and never in his own personal interest, yet he was also uncommonly and effectively crafty, capable of thoroughly mixing up the true and the false in his own mind before serving the mixture up to others. This is the one secret a man needs to know if he wishes to lie without forfeiting the benefits of sincerity or to induce his associates and followers to err in a way he deems beneficial to the cause.

No matter how hard I tried, I was never able to establish tolerably decent, let alone warm, relations between Falloux and Dufaure. To be sure, their qualities and defects were precisely opposite. Dufaure, who in his heart remained a true bourgeois of western France, an enemy of nobles and priests, could never get used to Falloux’s principles or even his refined good manners, which of course delighted me. With great effort I did manage to persuade him that Falloux should be left to run his own department as he saw fit, but Dufaure absolutely refused to allow Falloux the slightest influence over the Ministry of the Interior even when such influence was legitimate and necessary. In his native Anjou, Falloux had to contend with a prefect about whom he believed he had grounds for complaint. He did not ask to have the man dismissed from his post or even denied promotion but merely wanted him moved to another place. He felt that his own position was compromised until this change was made, and what is more, a majority of the Maine-et-Loire delegation supported his request. Unfortunately, the prefect was an outspoken republican. That was enough to arouse Dufaure’s suspicions and persuade him that Falloux’s only purpose was to get him in trouble by using him to punish republicans no one had previously dared touch. So he refused. Falloux insisted. Dufaure dug in his heels. It was rather amusing to watch Falloux prance around Dufaure and deploy all his grace and skill without ever managing to change his mind.

Dufaure would let Falloux carry on, offering only a laconic reply, either avoiding the other man’s gaze or at most darting a veiled sideways glance in his direction: “I’d like to know why you didn’t take advantage of your friend Faucher’s term as minister of the interior to get rid of your prefect.” Falloux would restrain himself, although I believe Dufaure made him very angry. He would come to me with his complaints, and beneath his honeyed words I could detect the bitter taste of bile. So I intervened: I tried to make Dufaure see that this was the sort of request one could not refuse to a colleague without straining relations to the breaking point. I spent a month shuttling back and forth between the two men, expending more effort and diplomacy on this matter than on important European affairs during that entire time. The government was on the brink of collapse at several points in this wretched affair. Dufaure finally gave in, but with so little grace that no one felt grateful toward him. In the end, he sacrificed his prefect without winning over Falloux.

But the most difficult part of our role was to know how to behave toward the old conservatives, who, as mentioned earlier, made up the bulk of the majority.

The conservatives sought both to promote their general views and to satisfy any number of private passions. They favored a vigorous restoration of order. On this point we were with them: we too wanted to restore order and did so as vigorously as they could have wished and more effectively than they could have done themselves. We had placed Lyon and a number of adjacent départements in a state of siege, and we suspended publication of six revolutionary newspapers in Paris. We also disbanded three legions of the Paris National Guard that had failed to act decisively on June 13, and we arrested seven deputies for overt resistance and called for the impeachment of thirty others. Similar measures were taken throughout France. Circulars addressed to all officials made it clear that they were dealing with a government that would demand obedience and insist that everyone follow the law.

Whenever any of the Montagnards still in the Assembly attacked Dufaure for these measures, he would answer with the sharp, muscular, virile eloquence for which he was noted, speaking in the tone of a man who has burned all his vessels before going into battle.

The conservatives wanted us not just to govern vigorously but to take the opportunity afforded by our victory to impose repressive and preventive laws. We ourselves felt the need to take steps of this sort, but we did not want to go as far as they wanted us to. I, for one, felt that it was wise and necessary to make major concessions to the nation’s legitimate terror and resentment and that the only way to preserve liberty after such a violent revolution was to restrict it. My colleagues agreed. We therefore proposed a law to suspend clubs; a second law to punish press violations even more aggressively than under the monarchy; and a third to regularize the state of siege.

Voices of protest were raised: “You are instituting a military dictatorship!” To which Dufaure replied:

Yes, it is a dictatorship, but a parliamentary dictatorship. No individual right can take precedence over society’s imprescriptible right of self-preservation. Any government, whether monarchical or republican, faces certain imperious necessities. Where do those necessities come from? To whom do we owe the cruel experience of the past eighteen months of violent agitation, endless conspiracy, and armed insurrection? Yes, you are surely right to say that after so many revolutions in the name of liberty, it is deplorable that we must once again veil her statue and place terrible weapons in the hands of the authorities! But whose fault is that, if not yours? And who serves republican government best: those who foster insurrection or those who, like us, try to stamp it out?

These measures, these laws, and this language pleased the conservatives but did not satisfy them. In truth, nothing short of destruction of the Republic would have satisfied them. That was where their instincts incessantly drove them, although prudence and reason held them back.

But what they required above all was to oust their enemies from office and replace them as quickly as possible with their own supporters and friends. We thus had to contend with all the same passions that had brought down the July Monarchy, passions the revolution had not destroyed but merely starved. This was our great and permanent stumbling block. Once again I felt that there were concessions to be made. The vagaries of revolution had brought countless incapable and unsound republicans into office. My view was that we would do best to get rid of them at once, without waiting to be asked, so as to bolster confidence in our intentions and acquire the right to defend the honest and capable republicans who remained. On this point, however, I was never able to bring Dufaure around. “What did we undertake to do?” I often asked him.

Did we set out to save both the Republic and the republicans? No, because most of the people who call themselves republicans would certainly kill us along with it, and in the Assembly there are not a hundred deputies worthy of the name. We undertook to save the Republic in conjunction with parties that do not love it. Therefore, we cannot govern without concessions, although we must be careful not to concede any point of substance. In this area our actions must above all be measured. At this point the Republic’s best and perhaps only hope of survival depends on our remaining in power. We must therefore take every honorable step to ensure that we do.

To which he would respond that when one devoted all one’s energy, as he did, to fighting socialism and anarchy day in and day out, one was bound to satisfy the majority—as if people are ever satisfied when one attends to their opinions without taking their vanity and private interests into account. If only he had known how to refuse gracefully. But he did not: the way he refused was even more irritating than the fact of his refusal. I have never been able to understand how a man so fully in command of his rhetoric at the podium, so skilled at choosing the arguments and words most apt to please, and so clever at shading his meaning in such a way as to make it most acceptable to his audience could be so ill at ease, depressing, and clumsy in conversation. It was a product, I think, of his early upbringing.

He was a man of great intelligence—or rather talent, for he had little intelligence in the strict sense of the word—but no knowledge of the world. As a young man he had been hardworking and focused, almost antisocial. At forty he married and withdrew into family life, where he no longer lived in solitude but remained in retreat. In truth, not even politics drew him out. He remained aloof not only from intrigue but from all contact with the parties, hating the business of parliament, fearing the podium, though it was his only strength, yet ambitious in his own fashion; his was a measured and rather subaltern ambition that sought only to manage rather than to rule. As a minister, he sometimes treated people in very strange ways. One day General Castellane (a sad fool, to be sure, but one who enjoyed a good reputation) asked to see him. He was received and explained at some length what he wanted and what he thought he was due. Dufaure listened patiently and attentively, then got up, accompanied the general to the door with much bowing and scraping, and then left him standing there openmouthed without Dufaure’s having spoken a single word. When I reproached Dufaure for this behavior, he said, “I would have had to say unpleasant things to him. Wasn’t it kinder to say nothing at all?” Naturally one was unlikely to leave a meeting with such a man in anything but very bad humor.

Unfortunately, he was assisted by a chief of staff as uncouth as he was and very stupid to boot, so that when petitioners went from the minister’s office to his secretary’s seeking a little consolation, they encountered the same gruffness without the intelligence. It was like struggling through a dense hedgerow only to fall into a thicket of brambles. Despite these shortcomings, the conservatives tolerated Dufaure because he avenged them so well from the podium for the insults hurled by the Montagnards, but he never won over their leaders.

As I had anticipated, the conservative leadership did not want either to take charge of the government or to allow anyone else to govern independently. From June 13 until the final discussions about Rome—in other words, for nearly the entire duration of the government—I do not think a day went by when they did not lay some ambush for us. True, they never fought us openly, but they constantly and secretly aroused the majority against us, attacked our decisions, criticized our measures, interpreted our statements in an unfavorable light, and without seeking directly to overthrow us contrived to undermine our support so that they could bring us down easily when the opportunity arose. In the end, Dufaure’s suspicions were not totally unfounded. The leaders of the majority sought to use us to implement harsh measures and repressive laws that would facilitate the task of succeeding governments. Our republican views made us a more suitable instrument for taking such steps at that juncture; later they intended to get rid of us and put their own pawns in our place. They not only sought to prevent us from consolidating our support in the Assembly but also worked tirelessly to prevent us from gaining influence over the president. They were still operating under the illusion that Louis-Napoléon would gladly submit to their control. They therefore besieged him. From our agents we learned that most of them, but especially M. Thiers and M. Molé, saw him constantly in private and did everything in their power to persuade him to overthrow the Republic in concert with them, promising to share both the costs and the benefits. After June 13 I lived in a constant state of alarm, afraid that they would take advantage of our victory to push Louis-Napoléon into usurping power by force: one fine morning, as I said to Barrot, we would wake up to find him astride the empire. I later learned that my fears had been well founded, even more so than I believed at the time. After leaving the ministry, I heard from a trustworthy source that in July 1849 there had been a plot to change the constitution by force through the combined efforts of the president and the Assembly. The leaders of the majority and Louis-Napoléon had agreed to this plan, and the coup failed only because Berryer refused to commit himself or his party, because he either feared a double cross or, when the time came to act, was seized by panic, as he often was. Instead of giving up the idea, however, the conspirators merely postponed it. When I think that as I write these lines, just two years after the period I am describing here, most of these same men are indignant at the thought of the people violating the constitution to do for Louis-Napoléon precisely what they themselves proposed to do at that time, I find it difficult to imagine a better example of human fickleness or of the vanity of fine words such as patriotism and justice, with which men cloak their petty passions.

Clearly, we were no more certain of the president’s support than of the majority’s. Indeed, Louis-Napoléon was the greatest and most enduring danger for us as well as for the Republic.

I was convinced of this, yet when I was able to study him closely, I clung to the hope that we might obtain some significant influence over him, at least for a while. Indeed, I soon discovered that although he received the leaders of the majority frequently and listened to their advice, sometimes accepting it and even plotting with them when the need arose, he was nevertheless quite impatient under their yoke. It humiliated him to be seen as their pawn, and he secretly longed to escape their tutelage. This gave us an opening and a certain influence over him because we too were determined to outmaneuver them and prevent their gaining control of the executive branch.

Furthermore, I did not think it impossible that we might partially enter into Louis-Napoléon’s designs without abandoning our own. When I reflected on that extraordinary man’s situation (extraordinary not for his genius but for the way circumstances had elevated his mediocrity to such heights), what struck me was the need to ease his mind by feeding him grounds for hope. I seriously doubted that such a man could be banished to private life after governing France for four years, and I thought it quite fantastic to think he would agree to depart of his own free will. Indeed, I thought it would be difficult to prevent him from embarking on some dangerous adventure during his term in office unless one could find an appealing way to divert or at least restrain his ambition. That, in any case, was what I tried to do from the outset. As I told him:

I will never help you overthrow the Republic but will gladly work with you to assure you an important place within it, and I think my friends will all eventually agree to do the same. The Constitution can be revised. Article 45, which prohibits the reelection of the president, can be changed. That is a goal we will gladly help you to achieve.

Moreover, since the prospect of revision was dubious, I went further and suggested to him that in the future, if he governed France tranquilly, wisely, and modestly and limited himself to becoming the nation’s chief executive rather than its master or corrupter, he might at the end of his term be reelected by virtually unanimous consent in spite of Article 45, since the monarchist parties might not see his continuation in power for a limited time as incompatible with their hopes, while the republican party might see a government like his as the best way of familiarizing the country with republican rule and even fostering a taste for it. I told him this in sincere tones, because I was sincere when I said it. Then as now, my advice seemed to me in the best interests of the country and perhaps in his best interests as well. As was his wont, he listened to me carefully without giving any hint of the impression my words made on him. Words addressed to him were like stones tossed into a well: one could hear the sound they made, but one never knew what became of them. In any case, his approval of me seemed to increase over time. Of course I tried hard to please him insofar as was compatible with the public good. Whenever he recommended an honest and capable individual for a diplomatic post, I was quick to find a place for him. Even when his protégé was not very capable, I usually acquiesced, as long as the post was unimportant. But the president generally reserved his recommendations for scoundrels who had supported his party in the past out of desperation, not knowing where else to turn, and he felt obligated to reward them. Or else he tried to place what he called his people—men who were for the most part intriguers and rogues—in important embassies. In such cases I would go see him and explain the regulations that stood in the way of his wishes or the moral and political considerations that prevented me from complying. Sometimes I even hinted that I would resign rather than give in. When he saw that my refusal involved no personal grudge against him or systematic wish to resist his whims, he either gave in without lasting rancor or put the decision off until later.

I did not get off so easily with his friends. They were like dogs ripping apart their prey. They assailed me constantly with their demands, so importunately and rudely that I often felt like throwing them out the window. I nevertheless sought to restrain myself. Once, though, one of them, an authentic refugee from the gallows, arrogantly asserted how odd he found it that the prince lacked the power to reward those who had suffered for his cause. “Sir,” I replied, “what would be best for the president of the Republic would be to forget that he was ever a pretender and remember that he is here to take care of France’s business, not yours.” What finally put me in the president’s good graces was, as I will describe later, my firm support for the Rome expedition, at least until he went too far and his policy became unreasonable. At one point he made my standing with him quite clear. Beaumont, during his brief stint as ambassador to London at the end of 1848, had said some very insulting things about Louis-Napoléon, who was at that point a candidate for the presidency, and this had caused quite a bit of irritation when Beaumont’s remarks were reported back to him. After becoming a minister, I tried on several occasions to raise the president’s opinion of Beaumont, but I would never have dared propose him for a post, as capable as he was and as eager as I was to have him. The post of ambassador to Vienna came open in September 1849. It was at that juncture one of the most important diplomatic posts we had because of our discussions with Italy and Hungary. The president himself said to me: “I propose to give the Vienna embassy to M. de Beaumont. I have had every reason to disapprove of him, but I know he is your best friend, and that is enough to persuade me to have him.” I was delighted. No one was better suited for the post than Beaumont, and nothing could please me more than to offer it to him.

My colleagues were not all as assiduous as I was in seeking to win the president’s favor without betraying my convictions or my duties.

Against all expectation, however, Dufaure always behaved toward the president precisely as he should have done. I believe he was half won over by the simplicity of the president’s manners. Passy seemed to take pleasure in annoying him, however. I think he felt he had debased himself by becoming the minister of a man he regarded as an adventurer and often sought to assert his superiority through impertinence. He unnecessarily opposed the president on frequent occasions, rejecting all his candidates, browbeating his friends, and rejecting his advice with ill-concealed disdain. The president therefore sincerely despised him.

The minister in whom the president had the greatest confidence was Falloux. I always believed that Falloux had won him over by giving him something more substantial than any of the rest of us could or would offer him.

Falloux, who was a legitimist by birth, upbringing, social connections, and taste, ultimately belonged exclusively to the Church, as mentioned earlier. He served legitimism but did not expect the legitimists to win; through all our revolutions he sought nothing other than a path by which the Catholic religion could be restored to power. He remained in government only to look out for the interests of the Church, and as he admitted to me with cunning candor on our first day in office, he did so on the advice of his confessor. I am convinced that Falloux saw from the beginning how Louis-Napoléon might serve his designs. He quickly realized that the president would become the Republic’s heir and France’s master, and from then on his only thought was how to use that inevitable outcome in the clergy’s interest. He had committed his party to the government, but not his person.

From the time we joined the cabinet until the Assembly was adjourned on August 13, we made steady progress with the majority, despite the recalcitrance of its leaders. The deputies of the majority saw us daily doing battle with their adversaries, whose constant attacks on us eventually worked in our favor. In all that time we made no headway with the president, however; he tolerated our presence in his councils but never embraced us.

Six weeks later precisely the opposite occurred: deputies returned from the provinces bitter at the reports of their friends that we had been unwilling to hand over control of local government, while the president moved closer to us for reasons I will explain later. We had advanced on one side to the exact extent that we had retreated on the other.

The government was thus held up by two shaky and ill-matched supports, leaning now on one, now on the other, and constantly in danger of falling between the two. It was the Roman business that precipitated our downfall.

This was how things stood when parliament resumed its labors on October 1, 1849, and for the second and last time took up the Roman affair.

CHAPTER 4

Foreign affairs

I did not want to interrupt the account of our domestic woes to discuss the problems we encountered abroad, of which I bore the brunt. I will now backtrack a bit to take up that part of the story.

Once installed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and briefed on how things stood, I was terrified by the number of problems we faced as well as by their magnitude. What worried me most, however, was myself.

By nature I distrust myself. My nine miserable years in the Assemblies of the waning monarchy had greatly aggravated this natural infirmity, and although the way I had just dealt with the trial of the February revolution might have somewhat enhanced my standing in my own eyes, I was most reluctant to accept so heavy a charge in such difficult times. I therefore began my tenure in a great deal of trepidation.

I soon noticed several things that allayed my fears but did not entirely dispel them. First, I found that contrary to what one might assume, the most important issues are not always the most difficult to deal with. Indeed, the opposite tends to be true. The complexity of an issue does not necessarily increase with its importance. Matters often look simpler to the extent that their ramifications are extensive and consequential. Furthermore, a man whose decisions may affect the fate of an entire nation will always have more people he can call on to educate and assist him and attend to details, and who will be apt to encourage and defend him, than one who is occupied with minor matters at a lower level of responsibility. In addition, the very importance of the work stimulates all one’s powers, so that even if the task is somewhat more difficult, the workman is that much more equal to it.

I had felt puzzled, anxious, and discouraged when faced with lesser responsibilities. I felt notably more tranquil and calm as my responsibilities increased. I have never been able to feign passion. My sense of the importance of the issues I was working on immediately raised the level of my engagement. The idea of failure had previously been unbearable to me. The prospect of a spectacular disaster on the world stage did not trouble me at all, and this made me see that there was more pride than timidity in my makeup. Furthermore, I soon noticed that in politics as in many other things, and perhaps all, the vividness of our impressions depends not on the importance of what happens but on how frequently a thing recurs. A person who is worried and anxious in dealing with a small matter—the only one for which he is responsible—will gain in confidence when confronted day after day with more important issues. Frequent recurrence makes each difficulty easier to bear. Earlier I mentioned that I had made many enemies by avoiding people of no particular talent, who often mistook my boredom for arrogance. I greatly feared that because of this flaw in my character, the great voyage I was about to undertake would soon run aground. But I soon discovered that while some people become more insolent as their careers advance, the opposite was true of me. It was far easier for me to be friendly and even cordial when I stood out than when I was part of a crowd. As minister, I did not need to seek people out or fear a chilly reception, because others feel impelled to cultivate people in positions like mine and are simple enough to attach great importance to every word we utter. In addition, as minister I dealt not only with the ideas of such fools but also with their interests, which always provide a ready topic of conversation.

I thus realized that I was less unfit than I had feared for the role I had agreed to play, and that experience emboldened me not only for that moment but for the rest of my life. If you were to ask me what I gained from my ministry—which was so troubled, so thwarted at every turn, and so brief that I could only begin to deal with the issues I faced and not bring any of them to a conclusion—I would answer that I gained something very valuable, perhaps the most valuable thing in the world, namely, confidence in myself.

In foreign as in domestic affairs, our greatest difficulties arose not from the nature of the issues themselves as from the people we had to work with. I saw this immediately. Most of our diplomats were creatures of the monarchy who in their heart of hearts deeply detested the government they served. On behalf of democratic and republican France they advocated the restoration of ancient aristocracies and worked secretly for the restoration of all of Europe’s absolute monarchies. Others, rescued by the revolution of February from an obscurity to which they should have been consigned forever, surreptitiously supported the demagogic parties the French government was fighting against. Their most common vice was timidity. Most of our envoys were afraid of supporting any policy in the countries in which they represented us and were even reluctant to reveal to their own governments opinions for which they might later be reprimanded. They therefore took care to conceal their views, camouflaging them well in a host of petty details, with which they filled their correspondence (for diplomats must always write, even when they know or would prefer to say nothing). They carefully refrained from disclosing what they thought about the events they recounted, much less what we ought to think.

Thus most of our envoys were by their own choice quite useless, although to tell the truth, in most cases their uselessness was merely an artificial perfection of their true nature. As soon as I realized this, I decided to employ new men in the most important posts.

I would have liked to get rid of the leaders of the majority, but that being impossible, I sought to coexist with them on good terms, and I even clung to the hope that I might please them while remaining independent of their influence. This was a difficult undertaking in which I nevertheless succeeded, for although I was more hostile to their policies than any other minister, I was also the only one to remain in their good graces. My secret, if it must be told, was to flatter their vanity while ignoring their advice.

In dealing with small matters I had noticed something that is also applicable to large ones, namely, that in a negotiation an appeal to the vanity of one’s partners is the best way to proceed because it often yields substantial benefits in return for minimal concessions. Of course, in order to appeal effectively to the vanity of others, one has to put one’s own vanity entirely aside and worry exclusively about the success of one’s designs. That is why this kind of bargaining is always difficult. Yet I was very successful at it under the circumstances and reaped great rewards. Three men in particular believed that by virtue of positions they had formerly occupied, they enjoyed a special right to direct our foreign policy. These were M. de Broglie, M. Molé, and M. Thiers. I overwhelmed all three with deference. I invited them to visit me often and sometimes called on them for consultations, modestly and repeatedly seeking their advice, which I hardly ever followed—yet these great men nevertheless seemed quite pleased. I pleased them more by asking for their advice without following it than I would have by following it without asking for it. This stratagem worked especially well with M. Thiers. Rémusat, who had no ambitions of his own and sincerely wanted the government to survive and whose twenty-five years of experience had thoroughly familiarized him with all of M. Thiers’s flaws, once said to me that “the world misunderstands M. Thiers: he is much more vain than ambitious, values respect more than obedience, and sets more store by the appearance of power than by power itself. Consult him often and then do as you please. He will attach more importance to your deference than to your actions.” I acted accordingly, and with great success. In the two major issues I had to deal with during my tenure in office, Piedmont and Turkey, I did precisely the opposite of what M. Thiers wanted, yet we remained reasonably good friends throughout.

As for the president, more than anything else, his handling of foreign affairs revealed how ill prepared he was for the great role that blind fortune had assigned him. I soon discovered that this man, whose pride aspired to control everything, had taken no steps to keep himself informed about anything. I was the one who proposed that he order a daily analysis of all dispatches and then review it. Before that, he had no idea what was happening in the world except by hearsay and knew only what the minister of foreign affairs wanted him to know. His mind therefore had to work without a solid underpinning of facts, and it was easy to see that it was furnished with pipe dreams.

At times I was alarmed when I saw how vast, fantastic, unscrupulous, and confused his designs were. Of course, when I explained the true state of affairs, it was easy for me to get him to acknowledge the difficulties that stood in our way, because debate was not his strong suit. He would fall silent but not give in. One of his fantasies was that he might forge an alliance with one of the two great German powers, on whose aid he counted to redraw the map of Europe and erase the boundaries that the treaties of 1815 had drawn around France. When he saw that I did not believe that either of those powers was prepared to enter into such an alliance or aid him in his designs, he decided to sound out their ambassadors to Paris himself. One of them came to me one day in quite a state to tell me that the president of the Republic had asked him if his government would agree to France’s taking possession of Savoy in exchange for some equivalent territory. Another time he conceived the idea of sending a private agent—one of his men, as he called them—to negotiate directly with the German princes. He chose Persigny and asked me to accredit him, which I did, knowing full well that nothing could come of such a negotiation. I believe that Persigny had a double mission: to facilitate the usurpation at home and expansion abroad. He went first to Berlin and then to Vienna. As I expected, he was received handsomely, celebrated, and dismissed.

But I have said enough about individuals. Let me turn now to policies.

When I took office, Europe was still ablaze, although the flames had already been extinguished in certain countries.

Sicily had been conquered and subdued. The Neapolitans had been reduced to obedience, not to say servitude. The battle of Novara had been fought and lost. The victorious Austrians negotiated with the son of Charles Albert, who had become the king of Piedmont after his father’s abdication. Their armies moved beyond the boundaries of Lombardy to occupy parts of the Papal States, Parma, Piacenza, and even Tuscany, which they had entered uninvited and even though the grand duke had been restored by his own subjects, who would subsequently pay a heavy price for their loyalty and zeal. Venice continued to hold out, however, and Rome, after repelling our first attack, called on the support of all the demagogues in Italy and stirred up all of Europe. Since February, Germany had never been more divided or agitated. Although the fantasy of German unity had evaporated, the older structure of German states had not yet been restored. The national assembly that had tried to create that unity had lost most of its members and fled Frankfurt, leaving it to make a show of its impotence and ridiculous outrage in one place after another. Its downfall did not restore order, however. On the contrary, it cleared the way for anarchy.

The moderate—one might say innocent—revolutionaries, who had prided themselves on their ability to lead the peoples and princes of Germany peacefully, through reasoning and decrees, to submit to a united government, had failed and withdrawn from the arena in discouragement, leaving the field to the violent revolutionaries, who had always been certain that the only way to achieve unity in Germany was to completely destroy all the existing governments and abolish the old social order. Thus parliamentary debate gave way everywhere to riots. Political rivalry turned into class warfare. The natural hatred and jealousy the poor felt toward the rich were transformed in many places into socialist theory, but this was especially common in the small states of central Germany and the Rhine valley. Württemberg was agitated. Saxony had just experienced a terrifying insurrection, which had been put down only with the aid of Prussia. Insurrections had also occurred in Westphalia and the Palatinate, and the people of Baden had recently toppled their grand duke and appointed a provisional government. Yet the ultimate victory of the princes, which I had anticipated during my travels in Germany the previous month, was no longer in doubt. The violence actually precipitated it. The great monarchies had recaptured their capitals and regained control of their armies. Their leaders still had hurdles to overcome, but the hour of mortal danger was past. Having regained control of their own states, or on the verge of doing so, they would soon gain control of the lesser states as well. The violent disruption of public order had given them the desire, the opportunity, and the right to intervene.

Prussia had already begun to do so. The Prussians suppressed the Saxon insurrection by force. They entered the Palatinate of the Rhine, offered to intervene in Württemberg, and were about to invade the Grand Duchy of Baden, thus occupying nearly all of Germany with their soldiers or their influence.

Austria had emerged from the terrible crisis that had threatened its existence, but it was still in turmoil. Its armies had been victorious in Italy but were defeated in Hungary.

Having given up hope of subduing his subjects on his own, the Austrian emperor had called on the czar of Russia for help, and on May 18 the czar issued a manifesto announcing that he would march on Hungary.

The power of Czar Nicholas had previously remained unchallenged. He had watched the turmoil in other countries from afar, in security but not indifference. He alone now represented the old society of Europe and the ancient traditional principle of authority. He was not only the representative but also, in his own mind, the champion of that society. His political theories, religious beliefs, ambition, and conscience all drove him to assume that role. He had therefore made the cause of authority in the world his second empire, even vaster than his first, and with his letters and honors he encouraged everyone anywhere in Europe who scored a victory over anarchy or even over liberty as if they were his subjects, contributors to shoring up his power. For instance, he had sent a decoration to Filangieri, the conqueror of Sicily, on the southern edge of Europe, and in his own hand had written a letter expressing his satisfaction with the general’s success. From the height of his power the czar quietly contemplated the struggle gripping Europe. Freely, and not without a certain quiet disdain, he judged not only the follies of the revolutionaries he detested but also the vices and errors of the parties and princes to which he lent his support. He expressed himself simply, as the occasion arose, without seeking either to develop his thoughts or to hide them.

In a secret dispatch dated August 11, 1849, Lamoricière wrote me as follows:

This morning the czar said this to me: “You think, General, that your dynastic parties would be capable of joining forces with the radicals to overthrow a dynasty they disliked in the hope of putting their preferred dynasty in its place, and I’m sure you’re right. Indeed, your legitimist party would not pass up the opportunity. I have long thought that the legitimists are the ones who stand in the way of the elder branch of the Bourbons. That is one of the reasons why I recognized the Republic. I also see in your country a certain common sense that the Germans lack.” Later he added: “The king of Prussia, my brother-in-law and once my close friend, has paid no attention to my advice. Our political relations have therefore become noticeably chilly, and this has even affected our family relations.”

“Look how he has behaved. He has presumed to lead the madmen who dream of unifying Germany! Now that he has broken with the parliament of Frankfurt, what has he done but commit himself to fighting troops raised under his own patronage from the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein? Can one imagine anything more shameful? And who knows where he is headed now with his proposals for a constitution?” And then he added: “Do not think that because I am intervening in Hungary, I intend to justify Austria’s actions there. Austria had made mistake after mistake and committed folly after folly, but all the same it allowed subversive doctrines to invade the country. The government had fallen into the hands of agents of disorder. That could not be tolerated.” On the subject of Italy he said: “We Greeks have no use for ecclesiastics in Rome performing temporal functions, but it makes no difference what arrangement the holy men work out among themselves provided they come up with something viable and you establish a government there capable of sustaining itself.”

Lamoricière, offended by the czar’s offhand and rather autocratic tone, which hinted at a rivalry between one pope and another, felt obliged to defend the institutions of Catholicism. “All right, all right,” the czar replied, “France may be as Catholic as she chooses as long as she avoids the wild theories and insane passions of the innovators.”

Austere and harsh in the exercise of power, the czar was simple and almost bourgeois in his manners, retaining only the substance of sovereign power, while rejecting the pomp and circumstance. “The czar has been here since the twelfth,” the French agent in Saint Petersburg wrote me from Warsaw on July 17. “He arrived unexpectedly and without any escort in a postal carriage (his own coach having broken down sixty leagues from here) to attend the czarina’s saint’s day, which was celebrated just a few days ago. He made the journey in two and a half days, extraordinarily quickly, and will return home tomorrow. People here are struck by the contrast between simplicity and power when they see this sovereign, who, after sending 120,000 men into battle, travels the roads like a courier so as not to miss his wife’s saint’s day. Nothing better exemplifies the Slavic spirit, which takes the family to be the cornerstone of civilization.”

It would of course be a great mistake to think that the czar’s immense power rested on force alone. Its true foundation was the will and ardent sympathy of the Russian people. Indeed, popular sovereignty is the basis of all government, and despite what people say, popular sovereignty lies concealed beneath even the least free of institutions. The Russian nobility had adopted the principles and, even more, the vices of Europe, but the people had no contact with the West or the new spirit that animated it. They saw the czar not only as their legitimate ruler but as God’s representative, indeed almost as God himself.

France’s situation in the Europe I have just described was difficult and weak. Revolution had not succeeded in establishing lawful and stable liberal government anywhere. Amid the ruins revolution had left behind, the old powers were reviving everywhere, not exactly as they had been before but quite similar. We could not help those powers strengthen their positions or consolidate their victories, because the regimes they were restoring were antipathetic not only to the institutions created by the February revolution but also to the very essence of our ideas and to what was most permanent and invincible in our new mores. What is more, they distrusted us, with reason. The great role of restoring general order in Europe therefore eluded us. In any case, that role was already claimed by another country: it rightfully belonged to Russia, and only a supporting role would have been left to us. As for leading the innovators, this too was impossible for France, for two reasons: first, we could not advise them or pretend to lead them owing to their extravagance and dreadful incompetence; and second, we could not support them abroad without making ourselves vulnerable to their blows at home. Contact with their passions and doctrines would soon have set France ablaze, with thoughts of revolution dominating all other ideas. Thus we could not ally ourselves either with countries that accused us of having fomented revolution only to betray them or with princes who accused us of having endangered their thrones. We were left with nothing but the sterile goodwill of the English. We were as isolated as we had been before February, except that the Continent was now more hostile to us, and the English more lukewarm.

We therefore had to curtail our ambitions and adopt a day-to-day approach, as in the past, but even that was difficult. The French nation, which had once loomed large in the world and in some respects still did, recognized the necessity but still resisted it. It remained proud though no longer preponderant. Though afraid to act, it still wished to speak with a loud voice and also wanted its government to be proud without assuming the risks of such a role.

To be the foreign minister of such a country at such a time was to play a sad part.

The very easy and complete victory we won on June 13 in Paris had extraordinary effects throughout Europe. People generally anticipated a new insurrection in France. The revolutionaries, though partially eradicated, were counting on such an event to stage a comeback and redoubled their efforts to be in a position to take advantage of it. Governments, though partially victorious, but afraid of what might come, refrained from striking their final blows. June 13 was met with cries of pain and joy from one end of the continent to the other. It tipped the balance in favor of the princes.

The Prussian army, already in control of the Palatinate of the Rhine, immediately invaded the Grand Duchy of Baden, dispersed the insurgents, and occupied the entire country with the exception of Rastadt, which held out for several weeks.

The revolutionaries from the Grand Duchy of Baden took refuge in Switzerland. Other refugees streamed in from Italy, France, and indeed every corner of Europe, for all of Europe except Russia had recently experienced revolution or was still in the throes of it. There were soon ten to twelve thousand of them—an army ready to attack neighboring states. This alarmed governments everywhere.

Austria and even more Prussia, which had previous grounds to complain about the Swiss Confederation, and even Russia, which was not really concerned, spoke of invading Swiss territory to restore order there on behalf of the threatened governments. This we could not tolerate.

I first tried to reason with the Swiss and persuade them not to wait until they were threatened but to honor their obligation under international law to expel the principal revolutionary leaders, who openly threatened the tranquility of their neighbors. “If you anticipate the just demands that may be made of you,” I repeatedly told the Confederation’s representative in Paris, “you can count on France to defend you against the unjust or excessive demands of foreign princes. We would rather risk war than allow them to pressure or humiliate you. But if you fail to do what is right, you will have to defend yourselves against all of Europe on your own.” This language had little effect, for nothing can rival the pride or presumption of the Swiss. Those peasants are all firmly convinced that their country is capable of standing up to every prince and every nation on earth. I then tried a different tack, which proved more successful. This was to advise foreign governments, who were quite willing to take my advice, not to grant amnesty for the time being to any of their subjects who had fled to Switzerland nor to allow them to return home, no matter what their degree of culpability. For our part, we closed our borders to all who, after seeking refuge in Switzerland, now wished to travel through France to England or America, including not only leaders but also harmless refugees. With all exits thus closed, Switzerland was left to deal with ten or twelve thousand adventurers, among whom were some of the biggest, most undisciplined troublemakers in Europe. The Swiss have had to feed them, house them, and even pay to prevent them from plundering the country. They thus quickly came to recognize the drawbacks inherent in the right of asylum. They could easily have managed to harbor a few illustrious leaders for an indefinite period of time despite the danger these men posed to their neighbors, but accommodating a revolutionary army proved most inconvenient. The most radical cantons were therefore the first to call for their troublesome and costly guests to leave as quickly as possible. And since it was impossible to get foreign governments to open their borders to the host of inoffensive refugees who were ready and willing to leave Switzerland without first expelling the leaders, who had every reason to stay, the latter too were ultimately expelled. Having come close to a confrontation with all the European powers for refusing to expel these refugees from its territory, the Swiss in the end chose to drive them all out in order to avoid a brief embarrassment and modest expense. There is no better example of the true nature of democracies, whose ideas about foreign affairs are often either confused or erroneous and whose foreign policies are often shaped exclusively by domestic factors.

While all this was happening in Switzerland, the overall picture changed in Germany. After popular rebellion against governments, princes began quarreling among themselves. I followed this new phase of the revolution very closely but with considerable perplexity.

Unlike in the rest of Europe, the revolution in Germany had no simple cause. It was a product of both the general spirit of the age and ideas of unity peculiar to the Germans. Demagogy had now been vanquished, but the thought of German unity persisted. The needs, memories, and passions from which it derived survived. The king of Prussia sought to appropriate it for his own purposes. That prince, a man of great wit but little sense, had for a year been wavering between fear of the revolution and the desire to take advantage of it. He fought as hard as he could or dared against the liberal democratic spirit of the age but promoted German unification, a risky venture in which he might have lost his crown and his life if he had dared indulge his desires to the full, for in order to overcome the resistance that the establishment of a central government would inevitably arouse on the part of existing institutions and rulers, Friedrich Wilhelm would have needed to enlist the revolutionary passions of the people, and this he could not do without quickly destroying himself.

As long as the Frankfurt parliament retained its prestige and power, the king of Prussia indulged it and sought to have it install him as the head of the new empire. When the Frankfurt parliament was discredited and lost its power, the king changed his attitude but not his design. He tried to make himself the heir of the parliament’s authority and to challenge the revolution by fulfilling the fantasy of German unity, of which the democrats had availed themselves to undermine the German princes. To that end, he invited those princes to join with him in forming a new confederation, more tightly knit than the confederation of 1815, of which he would become the ruler. In exchange, he promised to restore them to their thrones or strengthen their grip on power. The princes detested Prussia but trembled before the revolution and therefore for the most part accepted the usurious bargain they were offered. Austria, which would have lost its foothold in Germany if this scheme had succeeded, could do no more than protest for the time being. The two principal monarchies in the south, Bavaria and Württemberg, followed Austria’s lead, but all of northern and central Germany joined this ephemeral confederation, which came into being on May 26, 1849, as the Alliance of the Three Kings.

Prussia thus overnight became the dominant power in a vast country stretching from Meml to Basel, with some 26 or 27 million Germans marching under its orders. All this took place shortly after I took office.

I confess that as I witnessed this remarkable spectacle, some peculiar ideas passed through my mind. For a moment I was tempted to believe that the president’s foreign policy was not as mad as it had seemed at first. The alliance of the northern courts that had weighed on us for so long had been broken. Two of the great Continental monarchies, Prussia and Austria, were at odds and almost at war. Had not the moment come for us to enter into one of those close and fruitful alliances that had eluded us for sixty years, perhaps undoing some of the damage done in 1815? If France helped Friedrich Wilhelm succeed in his undertaking, which England did not oppose, we could divide Europe and initiate one of those great crises that lead to a redrawing of boundaries.

The times seemed so propitious to such ideas that they fired the imaginations of several of the German princes. The most powerful of them dreamed of nothing but redrawing boundaries and increasing their own power at the expense of their neighbors. The revolutionary disease that had afflicted the peoples of Europe seemed to have spread to their governments.

“No confederation is possible with thirty-eight states,” the prime minister of Bavaria, Herr von der Pfordten, said to our ambassador. “Many of them will have to be subject to an intermediate power. What hope is there, for instance, of restoring order in the Grand Duchy of Baden unless it is divided among sovereigns strong enough to command obedience? In which case,” he added, “the Neckar valley would of course be ours.”

I myself rejected all such thoughts as pure fantasies.

I soon realized that Prussia neither could nor would give us much in return for our good offices; that its power over the other German states was very precarious and would prove ephemeral; that we should not rely on its king, who at the first hurdle would fail not only us but himself; and above all, that such vast and ambitious plans were not appropriate to a society as unstable and times as troubled as ours, nor was it appropriate for me, in whose hands chance had placed such fleeting powers, to entertain such designs.

A more serious question that I asked myself was the following (I mention it here because it should be kept constantly in mind): Was it in France’s interest that the bonds among the states of the German confederation be tighter or looser? In other words, should we want Germany to become in certain respects a single nation, or should we rather see it remain an ill-assorted aggregation of disunited peoples and princes? It was an old tradition of our diplomacy that we should seek to keep Germany divided among a large number of independent powers. Indeed, this was obvious when beyond Germany there was only Poland and a still half-barbarous Russia. But is that still the case today? The answer to this question depends on the answer to another: To what extent does Russia currently imperil the independence of Europe? Since I believe that our West is threatened with sooner or later falling under the yoke or at least the direct and irresistible influence of the czars, I think that our primary interest is to encourage the union of all the Germanic races to oppose this. This state of the world is new. We must change our old precepts and be unafraid to strengthen our neighbors so that they might one day be prepared to join us in repelling the common master.

The Russian emperor clearly sees what an obstacle a unified Germany would be for him. In one of his private letters to me, Lamoricière wrote that the emperor, with his usual frankness and arrogance, once said to him that “if German unity, which you are doubtless no more keen to see than I am, were to come to pass, it would take a man capable of doing what Napoleon himself could not do to manage it, and if that man should arise and those armed masses should become a threat, then it will be your business and mine to deal with it.”

When I asked myself these questions, however, the time had not yet come to answer or even debate them, because Germany reverted on its own, inevitably, to its former constitution and former anarchy of government. The Frankfurt assembly’s attempt to unify the country had failed. The efforts of the king of Prussia would meet the same fate.

Only the fear of revolution had driven the German princes into Friedrich Wilhelm’s arms. As the fear of revolution subsided thanks to the efforts of the Prussians, Prussia’s allies—one might almost say her new subjects—aspired to regain their independence. The Prussian king’s enterprise was one of that unfortunate sort whose success stands in the way of ultimate triumph, and if one wants to compare great things to small, I would say that the king’s history was a little like ours, and like us he would fail when he had restored order, and because he did. The princes who had embraced what was called Prussian hegemony were not slow to seek an opportunity to renounce it. Austria would provide them with one as soon as its victory over Hungary allowed it to return to the German theater with its material forces as well as the power of the memories attached to its name. This is what happened in September 1849. When the king of Prussia once again found himself confronting this powerful rival, behind which he perceived Russia, his courage suddenly failed him, as I had foreseen, and he gradually resumed his former role. The German constitution of 1815 was reinstated, and the Diet resumed its sessions. Of the whole vast movement of 1848, soon only two visible traces remained: the small states were even more dependent on the large monarchies than before, and what was left of feudal institutions had suffered irreparable damage. Their ruin, consummated by the people, was ratified by the princes. From one end of Germany to the other, perpetual rents, seigneurial tithes, compulsory labor, and rights of transfer, hunting, and justice, which constituted much of the wealth of the nobility, remained abolished. The kings were restored, but the aristocracy would never again rise.

Having convinced myself early on that we had no role to play in Germany’s domestic crisis, I strove simply to remain on good terms with the various contending parties. Above all, I maintained friendly relations with Austria, whose cooperation in the matter of Rome was essential, as I will explain later. I first sought to conclude the long-pending negotiations between Austria and Piedmont. I worked especially hard on this because I was convinced that as long as no durable peace existed there, Europe would not be settled and could again be plunged into great peril at any moment.

Piedmont had been negotiating fruitlessly with Austria since the battle of Novara. Austria had initially attempted to impose unacceptable conditions. Piedmont, for its part, maintained claims that its fortunes could no longer justify. After several interruptions, negotiations had just resumed when I took office. We had a number of important reasons for wanting a treaty to be concluded without delay. Until then, nothing in Europe would be settled definitively. At any moment a wider war could be triggered from this small corner of the continent. Furthermore, Piedmont was too close to us to allow it to lose its independence from Austria or its newly acquired constitutional institutions, which gave it something in common with us. But both of these things would be at risk if there were a new recourse to arms.

I therefore intervened eagerly with both parties on behalf of France, speaking to each in the language I thought most likely to be convincing.

To Austria, I pointed out how urgent it was to secure a general European peace by concluding this particular treaty, and I sought to demonstrate what was excessive in its demands.

To Piedmont, I indicated the points on which I felt honor and interest allowed it to yield. I was particularly keen to let its government know in clear and precise terms what it could expect from us so that it would not entertain, or pretend to entertain, dangerous illusions. I will not go into detail about the conditions we discussed, which are of no interest today. I will simply say that in the end we seemed on the verge of agreement, and virtually the only difference remaining concerned a question of money. That was where things stood, and the Austrian ambassador in Paris assured us of his country’s conciliatory intentions. I believed that peace was at hand when I learned on July 19 that the Austrian minister had abruptly changed his attitude and language, issuing a strict ultimatum in the harshest of terms and with only four days to respond. At the end of that period the armistice would end and war would resume. Marshal Radetzky was already concentrating his forces in preparation for renewed fighting. This news, so at odds with the peaceful assurances we had received, surprised and angered me. Such excessive demands, presented in the most arrogant and vehement manner, suggested that peace was not Austria’s only goal: what it was really after was an end to Piedmont’s independence and perhaps also to its representative institutions, because as long as freedom existed anywhere in Italy, Austria would feel its position elsewhere in the country threatened.

My immediate thought was that there was no way we could allow such a close neighbor to be pressured this way, nor could we surrender to Austria’s army a territory that defended our own borders or allow the abolition of political freedom in the only country where it had shown itself moderate since 1848. I also felt that Austria’s behavior indicated that its intention had been either to deceive us or to test the extent of our tolerance—to probe us, as common parlance would have it.

I judged that this was one of those extreme cases I had envisioned in advance in which it would be appropriate to risk not only my portfolio, which of course did not amount to much, but also the fate of France. I explained the situation to the Council of Ministers. The president and all my colleagues unanimously agreed that action was essential. By telegraph we immediately dispatched orders to concentrate the Army of Lyon at the base of the Alps. I then returned home and wrote the following letter myself (since the flaccid diplomatic style was unsuited to the occasion):

If the Austrian government maintains the demands indicated in your telegram of yesterday, and if it abandons diplomatic talks, renounces the armistice, and attempts, as your telegram states, to dictate peace terms to Turin, Piedmont can rest assured that we will not abandon it. The situation would no longer be the same as that which preceded the battle of Novara, when Piedmont spontaneously, and against our advice, took up arms and resumed fighting. Now it would be Austria taking the initiative without provocation. The nature of Austria’s demands and the high-handedness of its manner would give us reason to believe that its actions were not concerned solely with making peace but were also intended to threaten the territorial integrity of Piedmont or at least the independence of the Sardinian government.

We will not allow such designs to be carried out at our doorstep. If Piedmont is attacked under such circumstances, we will defend it.

I also felt obliged to summon Austria’s representative, a petty diplomat who quite resembled a fox in both appearance and character. Having chosen the course we did, I thought that the prudent thing for me to do was to display my anger, so I availed myself of the fact that I could not yet be expected to have acquired the habit of diplomatic reserve to express our surprise and discontent in such a rude way that, as he told me later, he had never been so badly received in his life.

Before the dispatch excerpted above reached Turin, the two powers came to an agreement. The money question was settled on more or less the terms we had suggested. The Austrian government had simply attempted to use fear to hasten the negotiations along. In the event, it proved quite easy on the conditions.

Prince Schwarzenberg passed on to me all sorts of justifications and excuses, and the final treaty was signed on August 6. The terms were better than Piedmont could have hoped for after so many errors and misfortunes, since the treaty guaranteed more advantages than the Piedmontese had dared ask for at the outset.

This affair clearly revealed the habits of English diplomacy and in particular of Lord Palmerston, who was in charge at the time. This merits further discussion. From the beginning of the negotiation, the English government had earned Turin’s favors. It had shown consistent animosity toward Austria, while offering strong encouragement to the Piedmontese not to submit to the conditions Austria sought to impose on them. My first concern after making the decisions indicated above was to inform the English and seek their support. I therefore sent Drouyn de Lhuys, at that time our ambassador in London, the dispatch from which I quoted above and urged him to read it to Lord Palmerston and sound out his intentions. Drouyn de Lhuys replied as follows:

When I informed Lord Palmerston of your decisions and of the instructions you had transmitted to M. Boislecomte, he listened with signs of enthusiastic agreement, but when I said, “You see, my lord, how far we are willing to go. Can you tell me how far you yourself will go?” Lord Palmerston answered immediately: “The British government, whose interest in this matter is not as great as yours, will offer the government of Piedmont nothing more than diplomatic assistance and moral support.”

How typical.

England, protected from the revolutionary disease by the wisdom of its laws and the strength of its ancient mores and from the wrath of the princes by its power and island location, is eager to play the role of advocate of liberty and justice in the domestic affairs of the Continent. It likes to censure and even insult the strong, while justifying and encouraging the weak. But in doing so it seems merely to be striking the right pose and arguing for a proper theory. When England’s protégés need its help, it offers moral support.

For England, I must add before moving on, this policy worked out very well. The Piedmontese remained convinced that England alone had defended them, while we had all but abandoned them. England remained very popular in Turin, while France was highly suspect. Nations are like people: they prefer loud protestations on their behalf to actual services rendered.

No sooner did we escape this bad pass than we found ourselves in an even worse predicament. We had watched what was happening in Hungary with regret and apprehension. The country’s misfortunes aroused our sympathy. We could not possibly approve of the Russian intervention, which for a time made Austria subject to the czar and increased the czar’s influence in European affairs. All this took place beyond our reach, however, and we could do nothing.

In my instructions to Lamoricière (July 24, 1849) I wrote:

I hardly need tell you that we are following events in Hungary with keen but pained interest. Unfortunately, our role in this matter must for now remain passive. The letter and spirit of the treaties give us no ground to intervene, and in any case our distance from the theater of battle would impose a certain reserve, given the current state of our affairs and of Europe’s. Since we cannot speak or act effectively, our dignity demands that we refrain from showing any futile emotion or impotent goodwill in regard to this matter. Therefore, with respect to events in Hungary, we must limit ourselves to careful observation of what is going on now and anticipation of what will take place in the future.

Badly outnumbered, the Hungarians were of course defeated or surrendered, and their most important leaders, along with a number of Polish generals who had joined their cause, crossed the Danube toward the end of August and delivered themselves into the hands of the Turks at Widdin. From there, the two main leaders, Dembinski and Kossuth, wrote to our ambassador in Constantinople. Their letters revealed each man’s character and cast of mind. The soldier’s was short and simple, while that of the lawyer and orator was long and ornate. Among the sentences I remember was this: “As a good Christian, I chose the inexpressible pain of exile rather than the tranquility of death.” In the end both men asked for French protection.

While the banished leaders implored France for support, the Austrian and Russian ambassadors appeared before the Divan and asked that they be handed over. Austria based its demand on the Treaty of Belgrade, which established no such right, while Russia relied on the Treaty of Kainardji (July 10, 1774), whose terms were at best highly obscure. Ultimately, however, they were appealing not to international law but to the better-known and more widely respected principle of might makes right. This was clear from their words and actions. Both ambassadors indicated at once that it was a question of war and peace. Refusing all discussion, they demanded an answer of yes or no, declaring that if the answer were negative, they would immediately break off all diplomatic relations with Turkey.

The Turkish ministers’ response to these imperious demands was mild: Turkey was a neutral country, international law prohibited them from surrendering refugees who had sought asylum in their country, and the Austrians and Russians had frequently invoked the same law in regard to Muslim rebels who had sought asylum in Hungary, Transylvania, and Bessarabia. They modestly suggested that what was permitted on the left bank of the Danube ought to be permitted on the right. Finally, they indicated that what they were being asked to do was contrary to their honor and religion, adding that they would readily agree to intern the refugees themselves in places where they could do no harm but would not consent to deliver them to the executioner.

“The young sultan,” our ambassador informed me, “yesterday told the Austrian envoy that although he deplored what the Hungarian rebels had done, he could no longer see them as anything other than unfortunate individuals seeking to escape death, whom he was forbidden to surrender on humanitarian grounds. Meanwhile, the grand vizier, Reshid Pasha, told me this: ‘If I lose power for this, I will be proud of it,’ and he added, in a highly emotional tone, that ‘in our religion any man who asks for mercy shall be granted it.’” They spoke like civilized men and Christians. The ambassadors, acting like true Turks, limited their response to saying that the fugitives must be handed over or there would be consequences, probably including war.

The Muslim population itself was moved. It approved and supported its government, and the mufti came to thank our ambassador for supporting the humanitarian cause and proper law.

From the inception of the dispute the Divan had turned to the French and British ambassadors. It had appealed to public opinion in the two great countries they represented, asked their advice, and called on their help in case the northern powers made good on their threats. The ambassadors had immediately responded that in their opinion Austria and Russia had overstepped the limits of the law, and they had encouraged the Turkish government to resist.

Meanwhile, an aide-de-camp of the czar arrived in Constantinople. He brought a letter written in the czar’s own hand demanding that the sultan extradite the Poles who had served in the Hungarian war or even earlier against the Russian army. This message, which lacked magnanimity and went far beyond what Russia was actually seeking to achieve, unless its true goal was war, will seem strange unless one takes the trouble to understand the particular reasons that prompted the czar’s actions on this occasion. The following excerpt from a letter I received from Lamoricière lays out those reasons with great sagacity and shows the degree to which public opinion is feared in that extremity of Europe, where it seems to have no organ and to exert no power:

As you know, the Hungarian war was waged in support of Austria, whose people are hated and whose government commands no respect, and it was therefore very unpopular. It yielded nothing and cost 84 million francs. In compensation for the sacrifices of the campaign, the Russians hoped to bring Bem, Dembinski, and the other Polish prisoners back to Poland. There is genuine outrage toward these men, especially in the army. The desire to assuage wounded national pride was somewhat out of control and had warmed the passions of Russia’s soldiers and people. Omnipotent though he is, the emperor is obliged to take great care with the feelings of the masses on whom he relies and who are the true source of his strength. In this case it is not simply a matter of his personal pride, however. What is at stake is the national pride of the country and army.

These were unquestionably the considerations that led the czar to send the presumptuous note I mentioned. Prince Radziwill presented his letter and got nothing. He departed at once, arrogantly refusing the offer of a second farewell audience. The Russian and Austrian ambassadors then officially declared that diplomatic relations between their countries and the Divan had ended.

At that critical moment the Divan acted firmly yet with an assured prudence that would have done honor to the most experienced governments in Europe. Even as the sultan refused to yield to the demands, or rather the orders, of the two emperors, he wrote to the czar to say that he did not wish to discuss the point of law, which would involve the interpretation of treaties; rather, he appealed to his friendship and honor, urging him to understand why the Turkish government refused to take a step that would have caused it to forfeit the world’s esteem. Once again he offered to see to it that the refugees could do no harm. Abdul Medjid chose one of the most capable and subtle men in his empire, Fuad Efendi, to carry his letter to Saint Petersburg. A similar letter was addressed to Vienna, but it was to be presented to the Austrian emperor by the resident Turkish ambassador, which was a subtle but obvious way of indicating the different values attached to the assent of the two rulers. This information reached me toward the end of September. My first concern was to pass it on to England. At the same time I wrote a private letter to our envoy in which I said the following:

The future conduct of England, which has greater interests at stake in this matter than we do and is less vulnerable than we are to what may come of it, will inevitably have a great influence on our own future conduct. The English government must say clearly and categorically how far it intends to go. I have not forgotten the Piedmont affair. If they want our help, let them dot all the i’s. If they do, it is possible that they will find us quite resolute; if not, not. It is also very important that you make sure of the attitudes that Tories of various stripes will take toward these events, because in a parliamentary government, where opinion is constantly shifting, the support of the dominant party is not always a sufficient guarantee.

Despite the gravity of the situation, the English ministers, dispersed at the time because of the parliamentary recess, took a rather long time to reconvene, because in England, the only country in the world still governed by its aristocracy, most of the ministers are also great landowners and usually great lords as well. They had retired to their estates for a break from the tiresome and irritating business of politics and were in no haste to return. Meanwhile, the entire English press, without distinction as to party, caught fire. It expressed outrage at the two emperors and stirred up public opinion in favor of Turkey. Feeling the heat, the English government quickly made up its mind. At stake, it declared, was not only the future of the sultan but England’s influence in the world. It therefore decided (1) to make representations to Russia and Austria and (2) to send the British Mediterranean fleet to the Dardanelles to bolster the sultan’s confidence and, if necessary, defend Constantinople. The English government urged us to do the same and to act in concert. The order to dispatch the English fleet was sent that same evening.

The news of these momentous decisions embarrassed me greatly. I did not hesitate to approve our ambassador’s generous attitude and offer our assistance to the sultan. I was not yet sure, however, that it was wise to take such a belligerent approach. The English invited us to follow their lead, but our position was not at all the same as theirs. By mounting an armed defense of Turkey, England was risking its fleet, but we would be risking our very existence. If worse came to worst, the English government could count on the support of Parliament and the nation, while we would almost certainly be abandoned by the Assembly and even the country in the event of war, because our domestic troubles and dangers overshadowed everything else. I was convinced, moreover, that in this case threats would not advance our plan but ruin it. If Russia—for in my view it was Russia alone that mattered, Austria playing no other role but that of satellite—was somehow seeking to open the issue of dividing up the East by invading Turkey, which I found it difficult to believe, sending our fleet would not forestall the crisis. And if the real goal was rather, as seemed likely, merely to take vengeance against the Poles, sending the fleet would make matters worse by making it difficult for the czar to retreat and by enlisting his vanity in support of his resentments.

It was in this frame of mind that I went to the cabinet meeting, where I saw immediately that the president had already made up his mind and even, as he told us, committed himself. His decision had been inspired by the English ambassador, Lord Normanby, a diplomat in the eighteenth-century mold, who had ingratiated himself with Louis-Napoléon by cultivating, and even having his wife cultivate, the company of Miss Howard, the president’s mistress, or more accurately, his favorite, since he always had several mistresses at once. Most of my colleagues agreed that we should immediately join forces with the English, as they had requested, and send our fleet in concert with theirs to the Dardanelles.

Unable to postpone a step I considered premature, I asked that before putting the plan into operation, we at least consult Falloux, who for reasons of health had been forced to leave Paris and retire to the country for a time. Lanjuinais went off to see him, explained what was happening, and returned to tell us that Falloux was unreservedly in favor of dispatching the fleet. The order was sent at once. Falloux had spoken, however, without consulting his allies, the leaders of the majority, and even without considering the consequences of his actions. He had yielded to an unthinking impulse, as he sometimes did, because he was by nature rash and thoughtless, whereas education had made him calculating to the point of duplicity. It is likely that after speaking to Lanjuinais, he received advice or on his own came to conclusions contrary to the opinion he had expressed. He therefore wrote me a very long and very confused letter in which he pretended to have misunderstood Lanjuinais (which was impossible, since Lanjuinais is the clearest and plainest of men in both word and deed), and in any case there was nothing ambiguous about the issue. He revised his opinion and sought to shirk responsibility. I immediately responded with this note:

Dear Colleague,

The government has made its decision, and there is nothing to be done now but wait and see what happens. In this matter, moreover, the government is jointly responsible. There is no individual responsibility. I did not support the measure, but the decision having been made, I am prepared to defend it to the hilt.

Although I was willing thus to teach Falloux a lesson, I was nevertheless quite worried and embarrassed by my own role. I was not particularly upset by what was going to happen in Vienna. But what would the czar do, having committed himself so rashly and apparently irrevocably vis-à-vis the sultan, now that his pride had been so rudely challenged by our threats? Fortunately, I had two able agents in Saint Petersburg and Vienna, to whom I could express my concerns openly. I wrote as follows:

Proceed very slowly in this matter. Refrain from challenging our adversaries’ pride. Avoid too great or too obvious intimacy with the English ambassadors, whose government is detested in the courts to which you are accredited, but remain on good terms with them. To succeed, adopt a friendly tone and do not seek to frighten. Show our situation as it is. We do not want war, we hate it, we fear it, but we cannot allow ourselves to be dishonored. We cannot advise the Porte,³² which is asking for our advice, to show cowardice, and when the courage it displayed, which we approved, puts it in danger, we cannot refuse its request for help. We must therefore be given a way out. Is Kossuth’s head worth all-out war? Is it in the interest of the powers to open the question of the Orient in this way now? Can we not find a course that saves everyone’s honor? What do they really want? Do they just want a few poor devils handed over to them? Surely that is not worth such a tremendous fuss. But if that is just a pretext, if the ultimate meaning of this affair is that they want to lay hands on the Ottoman Empire, then they definitely must want all-out war, for ultrapacific though we are, we would never allow Constantinople to fall without a fight.

Fortunately, by the time these instructions reached Saint Petersburg, the affair was over. Lamoricière had done what I asked without knowing it. In this situation he acted with a prudence and restraint that surprised people who did not know him but did not surprise me at all. I knew that he was a man of impetuous temperament, but he had been trained in the school of Arab diplomacy, the most elaborate of all, and was circumspect and subtle to the point of cunning.

As soon as Lamoricière heard the first rumors of trouble directly from Russian sources, he immediately made it quite plain, but in friendly terms, that he disapproved of what had just happened in Constantinople, but he refrained from making official representations and above all avoided threats. While consulting closely with the English ambassador, he carefully avoided any joint ventures, and when Fuad Efendi arrived with Abdul Medjid’s letter, he secretly let him know that he would not see him so as not to compromise the success of his negotiations but that Turkey could count on France.

He received excellent assistance from the envoy of His Sultanic Highness, whose Turkish exterior concealed a very quick and agile mind. Although the sultan had called on France and England for support, Fuad refrained from calling on the representatives of those two powers after reaching Saint Petersburg. He refused to see anyone before speaking to the czar, on whose will alone the success of his mission depended, or so he said.

The czar must have been greatly displeased to see how unsuccessful his threats had been and what an unexpected turn events had taken, but he managed to restrain himself. At bottom, he did not wish to broach the Eastern Question, although he had only recently let drop the remark that “the Ottoman Empire is dead. All that is left is to make the funeral arrangements.”

It would have been very difficult to go to war to force the sultan to deliver the refugees in violation of international law. The czar would have had the savage passions of his people on his side, but public opinion throughout the civilized world would have stood against him. He already knew how things stood in England and France. He decided to pull in his horns immediately, before anyone had time to threaten him. In other words, the great emperor gave way, much to the surprise of his own subjects and even of foreigners. He received Fuad and withdrew the ultimatum he had given the sultan. Austria quickly followed suit. By the time Lord Palmerston’s note reached Saint Petersburg, it was all over. It would have been best to leave it at that and say no more. But while we had sought nothing more in this matter than success, the English government also wanted credit for achieving it. It needed to have something to show its agitated constituents. The day after the emperor’s decision was announced, the English ambassador, Lord Bloomfield, therefore went to see Count Nesselrode, who received him rather coolly, and read him a note in which Lord Palmerston politely but peremptorily demanded that the sultan not be forced to surrender the refugees. The Russian replied that he failed to see the purpose or object of this meeting, that the matter Lord Bloomfield had apparently wished to discuss had been settled, and that in any case England had no business getting involved. Lord Bloomfield asked where things stood. Count Nesselrode arrogantly refused to give him any explanation, “because to do so would be to recognize England’s right to meddle in a matter that is none of its business.” When the English ambassador insisted on leaving at least a copy of the note with Count Nesselrode, the count, after initially refusing, ended by curtly accepting the missive and dismissing the ambassador with a nonchalant remark to the effect that he would respond eventually but that the note was terribly long and the task quite tedious. “France,” the chancellor added, “has already conveyed the same message, but much sooner and more skillfully.”

Thus we learned that the dangerous dispute was over, as we had just witnessed the happy endings of the two major foreign crises we had had to deal with, the wars in Piedmont and Hungary, on account of which world peace had hung in the balance; but at that moment the government itself was on the verge of collapse.

28. Thiers’s center-right coalition, a group called the Comité de la rue de Poitiers after its meeting place.

29. The conseil des ministres, or council of ministers, another name for the cabinet.

30. See the chronology.

31. Pierre Leroux.

32. The Ottoman government.