London, April to September 1822
IT GAVE me great satisfaction to see M. de Malesherbes again and talk with him about my former projects. I mentioned my plans for a second voyage which would last nine years. I had nothing to do before this but take a short trip to Germany: I would rush to the Army of Princes, rush back to slay the Revolution, and it would all be over in two or three months. I would hoist my sail and return to the New World with one revolution the less and one marriage the more.
Even then, my zeal outstripped my faith. I felt that the emigration was a nonsensical folly: “Pummeled on every side,” as Montaigne says, “a Guelph to the Ghibellines and a Ghibelline to the Guelphs.”[16] My distaste for absolute monarchy left me no illusions about the side I was taking: I would maintain my scruples, and although I had resolved to sacrifice myself for the sake of honor, I would take M. de Malesherbes’s opinion of emigration to heart. I found him quite animated on the subject. The crimes that he witnessed with his own eyes had dissolved the political tolerance of this friend of Rousseau. Between the cause of the victims and the cause of the executioners, M. de Malesherbes did not hesitate. He believed that anything would be better than the extant order of things, and, in my particular case, he thought that a man of the sword had a duty to join the brothers of a King who had been oppressed and betrayed to his enemies. He was also very much in favor of me returning to America, and he urged my brother to go with me.
I raised some of the usual objections regarding alliances with foreigners: the interests of the homeland, etc., etc. M. de Malesherbes responded to these objections at length. Passing from general arguments to specifics, he cited me a few rather awkward examples. He put before me the case of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines lending aid to the Armies of the Pope; in England, the barons rising up against John Lackland. Finally, speaking of our own days, he cited the Republic of the United States of America asking the assistance of France.
“Thus we see,” said M. de Malesherbes, “that the men most devoted to liberty and to philosophy, which is to say Republicans and Protestants, saw nothing shameful in borrowing the strength that should make them victorious. Without our gold, our ships, and our soldiers, would the New World be free today? I, Malesherbes, I who am speaking to you now—did I not, in 1776, go to greet Franklin when he came to resume the negotiations begun by Silas Deane? And was Franklin a traitor? Was American liberty less honorably won because Lafayette and the French grenadiers helped win it? A government ceases to exist when, instead of guaranteeing the fundamental laws of society, it transgresses the laws of equality and the rules of justice. It is then licit to defend oneself however one can, by whatever means best serve to overthrow tyranny and reestablish the rights of each and all.”
The principles of natural rights, first put forth by the greatest polemicists, developed so eloquently by such a man as M. de Malesherbes, and supported by so many historical examples, were striking; but I remained unconvinced. In truth, I merely yielded to the impulse of my era, on a point of honor.
—Today I can add a few more recent examples to those given by M. de Malesherbes. During the Spanish War of 1823, French Republicans went to serve under the flag of Cortes without any scruples about bearing arms against their countrymen. In 1830 and 1831, the Poles and the Italian Constitutional Party asked for French support. And the Portuguese who supported the Constitutional Charter invaded their own country with the help of foreign money and soldiers. We have always two weights and two measures: we approve of an idea for one system, one interest, or one man which we condemn for another system, another interest, or another man.