A Memoir Biographical and Autobiographical (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1867 edition. Excerpt: ...ambitious for their country, or more exacting in their own opinions, expressed aloud their objections to the cabinet of which the Due de Richelieu was head, and were, by means of M. de Serre, then Keeper of the Seals, removed from the Privy Council; then M. de Barante, less strong in the opposition than they, but as faithful to his individual friends as he was to his general opinions, was, with M. Royer-Collard, M. Camille Jordan, and myself, included in that measure, which was as sad for those who carried it as for those who submitted to it, but inevitable to both. The Due de Richelieu's cabinet, and his political creed, were not 1820. Divisions in the Royalist ranks sufficient, we believed, to found the government which we all had it in our hearts to establish; and nevertheless, neither the present position of the Crown, nor that of the parties in either Chamber, made it advisable to summon any other cabinet in opposition to the Due de Richelieu and his policy. M. de Barante, accordingly, refused the post of Minister at Copenhagen, which was offered him as a sort of compensation; not wishing, in a common disgrace, to be treated otherwise than his friends. Thus began, for him as for me, a new epoch of influential activity; and I think, for both of us, one of the most busy and happy periods of our lives. We were out of all political office and responsibility;--not that politics were become indifferent to us; nay, they held a large place in our thoughts, and we sometimes threw ourselves into them with an honest and hearty opposition, which, however, was neither hostile nor factious; but this opposition absorbed wholly neither our time nor our minds. Free and pure intellectual activity--literature, philosophy, home and foreign...